When Fairies Danced

Irvin Manning Shawn

Description

This hugely entertaining tale begins in the south of the USA in 1958. The novel is part memoir. Fact and fiction coalesce as the family embarks upon a life-changing journey. The dynamics of family life is what gives the narrative momentum. Names have been altered. The story line follows the adult memory of the author. It captures the idea of memory and the mythical self. The main character, Georgina Jane O'Shaughnessy, is a small, quiet child. How can such a person be mythical? Be legendary? As the story unfolds, the reader will discover how this can be. Stream of consciousness is used in several interludes, some of which hearken back to the mindset leading to the War Between the States in the 1860s. Parts are written in the omniscient third person. Throughout the novel, memory recovers sights, sounds, tastes and attitudes long gone. During the time in which the novel is set, America was on the brink of enormous social change, and at the end of the story, the girl sees a vision of new horizons and exciting potential. The landscape of America is described with awe. The child is impressed with the sights she sees and remains in a state of wonder throughout the story. She discovers the aurora borealis one cold night with her grandmother and siblings as they stand and shiver in the snow. She notices the Alaskan wildlife. Her voice encapsulates a bubble of time, a time long past. Memories are a repository of a wealth of information and become a springboard for ideas about the life of a little girl taking on flesh through the power of words and her child-like gaze.

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 mai 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528988285
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

W hen F airies D anced
Shawn Irvin Manning
Austin Macauley Publishers
2021-05-28
When Fairies Danced Dedication Copyright Information © Cast of Characters Prologue Chapter One: Leavin’ the South Behind Doodlebugs All Together The Baby, the Belly Button and the Dolls The Invasion of the Spanish Grandmother and Papa’s Plane Crash Diapers, Boxer Shorts and the Black and White Car The Twins Say Good-Bye and Georgina Gets Cookies Driving Lessons Leaving Juanita, Myrtle and Kentucky Sweet Chocolate People Sweepin’ With Myrtle Poor Nell Myrtle the Turtle Sambo’s Past Times The South Side of Town --> Chapter Two: Bags Full of Surprises Goodie Bags More History, School Days a Typhoon and a Turtle Fried Chicken Really, Really Gets to Ya The Next Leg of the Journey Up High in a Swing On the Road Again Granny’s Bloomers and Daddy Goes Missing Enchiladas Make It All Better --> Chapter Three: North to Alaska Mother and Granny All Georgina’s Fault Grandmother’s Little Angelitas and the Ginny Doll Never the Twain Shall Meet Dwyanne – the Bathtub! I’m Dwowning! From an Old ‘Knock, Knock’ Joke Westward Ho! California, Here I Come! Sweet Seattle, the Indians’ Old City Gotta Go Now The Ladies’ Luncheon --> Chapter Four: Deep Waters Turn to Soaring ‘Swiftly, Swiftly Flew the Ship’ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner S. T. Coleridge Gross and Disgusting Things Time Alone with Manga The Ugly Duckling and Her Mother Safe Harbour Imaginings Arriving at Last Flight Patterns Cold War and the Facts of Life Finding Her Way Around Mess Hall Turkey Alaskan Night Skies --> Chapter Five: Flight of Fairies: An Interlude Flight School Summer Fun Nature Quiz Book Aunt Adie Uncle Bubba Ethel May, Milk Toast and Myrtle the Turtle --> Chapter Six: Food for Thought Tasty Morsels Sneakin’ Out the Window Family Fun and Georgina Meets a Real Eskimo A Poor Dear and a Grizzly Bear Whale Blubber, Native Savages and Toilets Funny Feelings --> Chapter Seven: Native Realities Seeing with Open Eyes Double Trouble Ain’t Learnin’ Fun? Mother’s Little Girl Eskimos and Outgrown Shoes --> Chapter Eight: Green Biscuits Kid Stuff Bear Hunt Season’s Greetings Back to Baking Cold Feet and Life’s Lessons --> Chapter Nine: Under Cold Alaskan Skies Science, Parkas and Ski-Flying Life in Fort Wainwright Show Time Snow Time Wild as an Alaskan Rabbit --> Chapter Ten: In and Out of Hot Water A Bath, a Dog and Diapers in Her Hair Once a Catholic, Always a Catholic Mukluks and Fairies in the Snow --> Chapter Eleven: Saying Her Good-Byes Blue Lips, Black and White Photos and Chewing Like Cows Kid Stuff Frisky’s Farewell A Final Dance -->
Dedication
To the One who made the Alaskan skies,
to John Manning,
to my brother, Gregory Benedict Irvin, a native Alaskan,
and in memory of Helen Irwin LeVision (Levinson).
‘We live our lives as a tale that is told…’
Psalm 90:9b
Alias: Georgina Jane O’Shaughnessy
‘Who is she that looks forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?’
Song of Solomon 6:10
Copyright Information ©
Shawn Irvin Manning (2021)
The right of Shawn Irvin Manning to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528988261 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528988278 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781528988285 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2021)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Cast of Characters
Georgina Jane O’Shaughnessy (aged six to nine)
Eugene O’Shaughnessy (nicknamed, ‘Genio’, father to Georgina Jane) Claudia Jane O’Shaughnessy (mother to Georgina Jane)
Twin sisters: Katrina Josephina O’Shaughnessy and Gretchen Gabriella O’Shaughnessy
Three brothers: Roger Eugenio, Peter Martin and Roraigh Arthur O’Shaughnessy Myrtle, the black maid in Kentucky (also known as ‘Myrtle the turtle’)
Juanita Gomez (best friend to Georgina Jane O’Shaughnessy)
Mrs. Gomez, Carmelita, Hortenzia, Ninacita and their good old brother, Pepe Jose (family of Juanita Gomez)
Dwyann MacDermott; army buddy of Georgina Jane’s father, who crashes into the mountain on that foggy night
Parental Grandparents: Eugenio Sr and Mrs. Olivia Gonzalez O’Shaughnessy Maternal Grandmother, called ‘Manga’ (also known as Helen or by her nickname, (Nellie)
Ship’s captain
Ten-year-old boy, Henry, and his mother, Uncle Bufford (nicknamed Uncle ‘Bubba’)
Aunt Adie (wife of Uncle Bubba and sister to Claudia) Ethel May (mother of Uncle Bubba)
Bridgetta, Leah, Rachel, Suzanna and Carolina and their two nameless brothers (cousins of Georgina Jane)
Friends of Georgina Jane in Alaska: Afton, the Eskimo girl in Fairbanks and Claire, the white girl in Fort Wainwright, army guys in Fort Wainwright, Eskimos in Fairbanks.
Prologue
Families often scatter to the four winds and beyond, leaving behind the crumbs of memories. Memories of togetherness. Fragments of those memories remain in the mind. In the heart. In the soul. Untouched for years. Crumbs not swept away. Crumbs still lurking in the shadows. Swept under carpets of hearts. Laying there untouched. Lying there, like the ungathered, mislaid eggs of my chickens. Chickens that run wild. Run free. Chickens that sleep up in trees. Chickens that leave their eggs where no one can ever find them.
Eggs laid. Eggs, like memories, laying (no lie) in the tall grass of the fields within the mind fields of vision. Visions hitherto unexplained. Eggs laying where the chickens have been. Eggs, laying there unseen. Lying there unused. Lying there unknown. Laying like silently lying stones, not the living things they are. Feeding no one. Birthing nothing.
Chickens and eggs that play a children’s game of hide and seek. Hide and seek like my memories played. My memories that beckoned to me. Beckoned to me to find them. Find them and tell their story. Their story of childhood. A childhood long over and done with. But a childhood waiting to be remembered. Remembered as myth. Remembered as legend. Remembered as fantasy. Remembered as a journey. Remembered as a legacy. A legacy for, to and about family. A legacy told for my family and for families everywhere. And told for those, like me, lonely for their mislaid family. This telling is for them. This telling is for myself. My mislaid self.
This story, this scouting expedition, goes looking for something. Something big. Something real. Combining fact with fiction, past with present, people known, with figments of my imagination, remnants of truth with utter fantasy, the tale evolved. My idea was to regroup. To gather together parts of myself. Parts lost in the tall grass of chaos and abandonment. Parts that I couldn’t find. Wanted to find. Find like those eggs laying there. Lying there unknown even to my conscious self. By looking back at the journey of my life, maybe I’d understand better who I am. May be then, I could fill in the empty places time and experience had left behind. Maybe then, I would understand. Understand myself. Maybe I’d be whole again. Had I ever been whole? I had to remember in order to discover the answer.
So, almost accidentally, the journey began. A journey of words. A journey of times long past. A journey into the deep unknown of my subconscious heart; where feelings lay buried. No lie. Feelings too deep to realize without feeling back into those long-ago places of my mind. Happy places. Bleak places. Private places. Places hidden to my conscious stream of reality in the here. In the now.
Abrupt changes in geographic spaces can cause a new person to emerge in a way that being static cannot. Moving away from the familiar creates insecurity. Creates tension. This is not a value judgement on the often-moveable domicile of peoples. Would we all be better off to never move from place to place? Would life be more enriching without such changes? Would life seem safer that way? More secure? Perhaps, yes. Perhaps, no. Perhaps we’ll never know.
Way back when I was young, at the tender age of six and a half or so, my family left behind what was familiar. But then, I was (or should have been) used to that. It seemed we’d always been on the move. We were like a nomadic people. We were a tribe of vagabonds, traversing many parts of the globe. Parts of the globe which were unyearned for. Nether regions and parts not sought after. But places we resided in for brief intervals nevertheless. Like gypsies, we left behind used-up campsites. Military outposts scattered over the earth. Fortifications of power. Gatherings of personnel from every corner of the country, who became as one because of their association with the Armed Services. People who made life feel safe. Made children feel patriot and protected. Even if you moved away from one group, in one fort, others, whose lives were of a similar purpose, awaited you, ready to greet you, in new locations. Greet you in new faraway localities.
So, my journey began one balmy summer’s day, so long ago now. So many years in the past. The distant past of my life. Come now. Let us reason together. Let us journey together. Come now. We better go now. Let us leave together. Let us explore the vast unknowns of time and place. The place of family. The place of friends long gone, but never forgotten. Gaze with me upon the peaks of high mountaintops. Smell the fields of wildflowers. Where rambling girls traversed in search of new adventures and discoveries, in a time when the world, this aging planet,