Brenda Vicars - Dark and Powerful Multigenerational Saga

Brenda Vicars is mesmerized by the way long-forgotten ancestors influence our lives. She believes transgenerational trauma is a hidden river that runs through past generations and bubbles up into the present. This concept inspired her new novel, Echoes of Our Ancestors, published by Bloodhound Books, Cambridge, UK, July 2024. She started composing poems and stories as soon as she learned to read, but most of her career was spent helping others write. She taught levels from middle school through college, including college English to inmates inside a Texas prison. As our Author of the Day, she tells us all about her book, Echoes of Our Ancestors.Please give us a short introduction to what Echoes of Our Ancestors is about.The novel is about unremembered time.The main character, Philip, is a black-out drinker—not pass-out, but black-out. He never appears incapacitated or drunk, but while drinking he sometimes simply blacks out chunks of time. In a parallel way, his family “blacks out” shameful events. Rather than deal with the sexual abuse committed by Philip’s grandfather, the family moves on as if the shameful acts never happened. They choose not to remember.Things change when Philip discovers a crumbling manuscript about a Civil War ancestor’s violation of an enslaved woman. Facing the long-buried generational sins, Philip finally exposes and confronts his own shame in unremembering.Echoes of Our Ancestors is rooted in the concept of transgenerational trauma. What first sparked your interest in this theme, and how did it evolve into the story we read today?I took a counseling course from Dr. Cynthia De La Fuentes at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. She brilliantly illuminated how ancestral influence, even when we’re unaware of actual facts and events of the past, can shape our lives. The semester was an awakening for me and triggered years of my own research.The novel seamlessly blends historical fiction with contemporary literary fiction. Was it difficult to maintain balance between the two timelines?I wrote the contemporary and the historical stories simultaneously—working on one and then shifting to the other. After I had finished them both, I didn’t have a way to tie Philip’s story to the Civil War story. I struggled for a long time with how to connect the two stories. Finally, I had one of those magic moments when a section writes itself. The new character of Sabine woke me in the middle of the night. He’s a tortured, self-absorbed white man born after the Civil War ended. He dictated to me his own experience in first person. He tied the two stories together.This has been (so far) the only time in my life as a writer when a character emerged fully fleshed and ran with his own narrative. I hope this happens to me again!Philip is a deeply damaged and complex character. How did you approach writing him, especially considering his self-loathing and inherited guilt?Philip’s struggles stem not from things he himself did, but because he looked the other way when bad things happened. In the beginning, he does not know he has generational guilt. When he finally discovers his ancestor’s violations, then he can deal with his own guilt.Edith, the free-spirited poet, brings a sense of light to Philip’s darkness. What was her role in his arc, and did she ever surprise you while writing?Love is magic. When people find their soulmates, life gets better. Philip had always avoided close relationships, but Edith broke through his shell.I took a poetry writing course while working on Edith and spent time with several poets, probing their processes. I love the way poets compose from an ephemeral place of inspiration. Poets helped me shape Edith and her poetry. The e-book version of Echoes of Our Ancestors includes a chapbook of poetry Edith composed. Or, to be clear, that I composed as the character of Edith.The relationship between Russell and Fever adds a layered emotional and moral dimension. How did you approach writing their dynamic without falling into clichés or romanticizing trauma?The deluded-white-character, Sabine, narrates the story of Russell’s abuse of the enslaved woman. Of course, from Sabine’s perspective the relationship between the master and slave was romantic, not abusive.As with all history, different descendants have different interpretations. I believe it is up to the reader to see the truth.Several readers mentioned struggling to connect with Philip at times. Was that an intentional choice—to reflect the discomfort and fragmentation of trauma?No, it was not intentional.Philip is flawed. Until he’s thirty-five-years old, he runs away from his guilt and blacks out the moments he “looked the other way.” I wanted his struggles to be visceral. Maybe that’s hard to read.Clinamen—a term from quantum physics—makes a philosophical appearance in the novel. What drew you to this concept, and how do you see it mirroring Philip’s transformation?Philip had studied quantum physics, and he knew he was trapped in a pattern. He wanted to break free, so he occasionally reflected on what a clinamen could be for him. A great book that explores this kind of transformation is The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt.How do you hope readers will interpret the legacy of the manuscript within the story? Is it more of a healing tool or a catalyst for reckoning?This is a great question! My answer is both. There can never be true healing without reckoning.The book has clearly struck a chord with readers, with many describing it as a cathartic experience. Were you expecting this level of emotional response?I didn’t know what to expect, but I love that readers find it a cathartic experience. That’s exactly what I experienced when I learned about the influence of transgenerational trauma. I had always been aware of trauma handed down by victims of atrocities such as the Holocaust and enslavement of Africans. But I was ignorant of the trauma handed down by the perpetrators of the sins. Just as the suffering of victims gets passed down through generations, so does the guilt of the monsters who inflicted the pain. Both sets of descendants can benefit from healing.What are you working on next, and will it continue exploring themes of ancestry and identity?When Echoes of Our Ancestors was published, I thought I was finished with this story line. I was wrong.A few weeks after the publication, there were some postings about it on Facebook. In one posting a lady who’d read the book wrote something like this: “I’m just putting this out in the universe. I want to know what happened to the three children who ran away.”And immediately, my heart responded, “I want to know, too.”The next day I started a new book. I went back to Facebook to find the comment again and thank the lady for sending me on this new journey, but I’ve never been able to find her. Never! I hope the universe links us again, so she can know how powerful her message was.