I’m finishing up the first draft of Book Two in my Lord Julian series (links starting to populate for Book One–yikes!), and having great fun with my main character, Lord Julian Caldicott. In a mystery series, it’s often said that the main character doesn’t really change from book to book. The investigation of and solution to the puzzle are what rivet reader attention–but I’m not finding that to be exactly so.
Just as Lady Violet took eight books to sort through widowhood issues, re-evaluate her relationships with family, and end up with a re-marriage based on love and respect, so too is Lord Julian having to wade through some Stuff.
Wartime service has left him broken in body and spirit, and what wrecks him the most is that he has disappointed his family. In the eyes of society he’s a traitor (some memory problems make untangling that question complicated), but the greater wound is that he failed his brothers. Disappointed them with a bold, capital D. His brother Harry might have survived captivity, if only Julian had been smarter, faster, more determined… something.
Arthur, the Caldicott family duke, is too well mannered to call Julian a bungler, but Julian hears what isn’t said. As the series unfolds, Julian will have to get this business of disappointing his family squared away, and deal with the equally tricky turn of events when family disappoints him.
I disappointed my father with the books I publish. He was proud of me for other reasons–four academic degrees went a long way with that guy–but publishing romance? Without having read a single one of my books, he decided they were “disgusting.” (And oh, boy, did my mom ever let him have it when he let that one slip.) Dad’s narrow-mindedness hurt, but I wasn’t about to stop writing happily ever afters just because he didn’t respect them.
One of my riding instructors was so disappointed in me for not competing at horse shows, that he pretty much told me he didn’t want to be my trainer if I wasn’t going to show. I competed at a show to shut him up, but in hindsight I wish I’d flipped him the bird. I’d competed in any number of shows with previous instructors, and all showing did for me was take one part of my life that was supposed to be fun and turn it into work. More work, and expensive, public, exhausting work when I have never been the Energizer Bunny to begin with, and courtrooms and genre fiction are quite public enough, thank you very much.
My father’s disappointment earned a shrug–he wasn’t threatening to disown me, and by God, I’ve been disappointed in dear old Dad a time or two–my riding instructor’s shade got me to do something I didn’t want to do.
And that soured our relationship. I’ve never asked him why he pulled that power play–that’s how I see it–but I probably should. We’re both older and wiser now, and in many regards, friends.
Another friend recently sent me one of Luvvie Ajayi Jones’s newsletters, and therein Luvvie states: “Disappoint whoever you have to in order to honor yourself more and betray yourself less.”
Lord Julian must learn to be more nuanced in his handling of disappointments. If a relationship is so fragile that disappointment will destroy it, then how much of a relationship is it, really? If disappointment is expressed to manipulate us, how much of a relationship is it? Why did my relationship with Dad have the spaciousness and resilience to weather disappointments, but with my riding instructor–whom I’d worked with for years–no such luck?
I don’t know as it will take me eight books to noodle through these issues with his lordship, but two books in, and we’re still gnawing on the questions.
Has there been a time when you’ve persisted even when others expressed disappointment in you or your dreams? A time when you caved to their disapproval and in hindsight wished you hadn’t?