KEEPING SECRETS
We used to have a little Papillion-Chihuahua mix named Cocoa. Every once in a while she would get a new toy or bone and want to hide it. When she found just the right spot and she was sure that nobody else was looking, she would nonchalantly place the bone there and walk away, convinced she had found the perfect hiding spot. Of course, most of the time it was in plain view, but as far as she was concerned it was her little secret.
The urge to hide things, to keep things secret is maybe a bit more common throughout the animal world than we would think. Squirrels and crows exhibit similar behavior. Is keeping secrets one of those markers of higher intelligence?
Of course, there are secrets and then there are secrets. Hiding a bone is one thing. Doing something terrible and then trying to keep it a secret is something altogether different. Both reside at opposite ends of the same continuum of secretive behavior, but the latter is surely something uniquely human.
In the end most secrets come out. We think we have safely hidden them behind the artifice of the narratives we construct to justify and explain our lives to ourselves and to others, but like Cocoa we are in fact hiding things in plain sight.
I bring all this up because the novel has taken a turn into the darker country of secrets. On the surface it is a political thriller of sorts but the emotional center of the story lies in a secret kept and then revealed, with massive consequences on both ends of the act. Hence the title of the book, "The Magpie’s Secret."
In writing a novel, I guess I'm revealing something about myself. Certainly I am not alone in being fascinated with other people's secrets, all the while jealously guarding my own. That's why writing is such a challenging task, because a novel expresses in a highly public manner the inner workings of an author's mind and heart.
But don't get too comfortable. We are all in this together. What I see inside me is what you see inside yourself. Writers put themselves out there for everyone to see and maybe say "Gee, I'm not the only one." That is the moment I am aiming for in my writing, that jolt of self-recognition, that moment of shared humanity.
December 12, 2009
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