Back to the Table of Contents Page

Back to the Weekly Home Page

Classifieds

Publication Date: Friday, March 07, 2003

'Air Burial' - a tale of life, death and love

Author Jean Shields' home off Stoneridge and Santa Rita is light and airy, with hardwood floors, leather couches and lots of windows. She writes on the second story, looking out at a huge tree with branches that ripple in the breeze.

"I have a three-page rule," she said, explaining her writing habits. "Two hours is the least I've ever done. Sometimes I can labor all day. It gives me an objective and, in a juvenile sort of way, it's satisfying to see the pages stack up."

Her hard work combined with serendipity to result in the publication of her first novel, "Air Burial," which is being featured Tuesday night at Towne Center Books. She was reading from the manuscript in New York a year ago January and afterward a woman from Carroll & Graf Publishers approached her, asking if the book was completed and saying she might be interested in it.

Shields was enjoying Mardi Gras in New Orleans - one year ago - when she received the call that her book was accepted for publication.

"Air Burial" begins at a funeral in Chicago. Two of the main characters - Caroline, a 29-year-old event planner, and her adventurous Uncle Virgil - take to the road for an odyssey to New Mexico. They end up making a detour to rescue Virgil's son David from a New Orleans jail, and to pay back the man who helped them locate David, Caroline must plan his no-holds-barred Texas ranch wedding. The novel packs a punch as the themes unfold around sex, drug addiction and terminal illness - as well as searching for ways to live and to love - with humor and humanity thrown in for good measure.

Shields said her mother's first question after reading the novel was where she learned so much about New Orleans jails, not to mention one particularly sordid sex scene. "Every so often I worried about it while I was writing," admitted Shields, with a laugh. "But she was surprisingly open-minded."

"I feel that when writing a sex scene it needs to further the story and reveal the characters, show their dimensions," she explained. The humiliating incident haunted Caroline, affecting the direction of her life.

Shields said that her characters are pure fabrication although she did spend some time in the high-tech field in Texas where she knew CEOs similar to the one for whom Caroline was planning the wedding. "But I tend not to work out of my own experiences," she said.

She loves hearing from readers and has also received good words from professional reviewers.

"Shields' debut is a tough, touching road story about three reluctant adventurers doomed to covet something or someone they can't have," writes Publishers Weekly. "The soulful yet unsentimental Shields writes about her drifters with wry sympathy, droll humor and a fine ear for dialogue."

Antonya Nelson, author of "Living to Tell," said Shields has created a "wonderfully paradoxical new genre: the realistic romance." "I never thought about myself in those terms," said Shields. "That was a happy accident. I really do like to flip something, so I don't feel an attraction to a happy ending."

Shields, 40, is not the first in her family to write. She is a descendent of both O. Henry and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and three of her four grandparents were newspaper journalists. She grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where her father was a mathematics professor.

Shields has been a magazine editor, teacher and software designer. She started out writing poetry but switched to fiction when earning her Masters of Fine Arts from the University of San Francisco. "I love the storytelling part of it," she said. "The fun is to take a topic and explore the facets."

She said she may read the part of David's story Tuesday night because "he has a lot of voice." She enjoys readings and hearing the audience respond. "It's fun to get up there, there's a lot of ham in me."

Shields moved to Pleasanton last May when she and her "mate" joined households, and she is enjoying it, especially the friendly people. "I love downtown and I love the pace of things," she said. "I love the hills and the trails, especially after New York where everything is so manmade."

Shields said writing is "auditory" for her. "I try to hear the characters speak in their voices," she explained. "I listen to it, it's like hearing a radio. I hear how they're talking. Once I capture the right vibe, I jot it down."

She said she often hears these voices during a symphony or an opera. "I have to start taking a notebook," she said. "There's something about music, it's just visual enough," she added, noting the wood of the instrument and the movement of the arms of the musicians.

She's working on a second novel with the working title "Nomad's Return." "It's completely different," she said. "Why do we entertain ourselves with violence? That's the theme of what I'm working on."

Meet the author