A Look Back at 13 Years Of Lamentation by Domenic Marinelli
Released at the end of August 2017, this book had been with me for quite some time. Interestingly enough, I had written the first draft on my old typewriter and had been planning on sending it out to a short story magazine, and for the longest time I wasn’t sure which one. I didn’t know where Regina Fowler and her oh-so-terrible tale would fit and fit nicely.
Yeah…the story was first a short story in my mind, and I thought it had a good chance of making it to the ‘accepted’ side of the desk of some editor in New York or Western Canada, but I had an office clerk job back then that kept me from being able to fully work on the piece effectively, and without an idea of where the story could find a home I decided to give the piece a break; so into the cabinet it went, and I got started on other fare as I worked one odd job and then another.
It wasn’t until a few years later that I got a chance to look at the story again and by this time I had graduated to using a more modern form of writing: A desktop computer! And yes, still essentially behind the times, but at least my operation had gone electronic.
And it was as I re-read the story that I had written all those years ago, that I got to expanding it, and the novel that came out of it was what it eventually became and perhaps what it was always meant to be: Expanded, deeper, and it gave a much more intricate look at Regina Fowler’s story…sensitive subject and all.
I have always loved coming-of-age stories…both the innocent ones and the not so innocent ones. Stories like The Body by Stephen King, made into Stand By Me in Hollywood; of course The Catcher in The Rye by J.D. Salinger, and perhaps especially The Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks, and so many other great ones…
*Image via Common Sense Media
But I was also equally enamored by Now And Then, the film released in 1995 starring Demi Moore, Christina Ricci, and so many other iconic actresses. It showed me, a young boy of 13 myself when I first watched it, that young women too had extremely sensitive matters to deal with, perhaps even more difficult than those boys had to deal with in some cases, which in today’s world sounds archaic as a thought process, but it was the mid-nineties and I was a child myself still, and no we didn’t have the broad spectrum the world has become with social media and all, where concepts that are far from the ideals we see every day are at one’s fingertips.
The small worlds we see before our eyes—our own—especially to a child, can often seem like the entire world to us, and a great piece of art can open one’s eyes to a whole different perspective, and for me, that film and the aforementioned books got me thinking and thinking in an entirely different way. These thoughts were the earliest seeds of what eventually would become Regina Fowler in my mind, that character in my book.
I mean, let’s take a second to look specifically at the character of Scott Wormer, played expertly by the incomparable Devon Sawa, in Now and Then. He didn’t understand the plight of a young woman at all…until he did. He didn’t find a young girl interesting in the slightest…until he did. And he at one point would never have imagined he could have been so completely immobilized by a girl, and I mean really emotionally immobilized by a girl…until he was.
For some of us boys, like Scott Wormer himself, there’s that one special girl that can open up an entirely different way of thinking for us, and for some of us, it’s an epic piece of art. I was blessed enough to have been influenced by both. Not every young boy or girl is that lucky.
“…Scott Wormer: Roberta?
Roberta: What?
Scott Wormer: Why do you think we fight all the time?
Roberta: Just something to do, I guess. Why?
Scott Wormer: 'Cause... 'cause I think you are a real nice girl.
Roberta: I always thought you hated me.
Scott Wormer: So did I...”
-Now and Then (Written by Ina Marlene King)
Believe it or not, art was and is capable of doing just that: Opening up your mind. That’s if you bother to pay attention, because there is a lot of great art being produced right now—film, music, books, etc—predominantly at the independent level, and these works have that mid-nineties classic feel to them, and with that the power to inspire. I likewise wanted to bring that kind of magic to Regina’s story as well.
Other films have showcased this, and I always wanted to show, or rather write my own coming-of-age story, but life being what it is, not necessarily a walk in a field of lilies, I wanted to showcase the darker side of the journey from childhood to adulthood, because let’s face it, getting older is hard, but aging from the realm of childhood to adulthood when the cards you’re dealt are a lot less than stellar, is harder still… So I wanted to write a story about a character like that.
Now I’ve written many coming-of-age stories, and they fall under different genres and categories, but I guess in the end I wanted to capture something profound, truly profound, and I guess I wanted to delve into the feminine side of things for this story, perhaps because of my fascination with the softer gender’s journey through an experience, or experiences, that can test the mettle of their respective souls, all the while enabling passage into adulthood. Not a seamless one, that passage.
And it was those aforementioned seeds planted when I was thirteen myself that helped me get there a lot quicker than was expected. And to get where, you ask? Well…to the truth, the real aspect of such a character. It would be hard to find that truth, but it came quicker than expected. Although I didn’t know it at the time.
So I wanted to explore further. I needed to. I mean I knew guys. After all, I am one, but to discover the honesty of this was harder than anticipated. I mean I was always sensitive to the female journey, as specified above (really, I’m sensitive to anyone’s plight), but now I needed to delve deeper. So I did what I always did when researching. I read, I watched, I listened—anything and everything—and I even started to look back at the material that planted those earlier seeds and thought processes.
And then, just like that, she appeared: Regina Fowler. So it was from my earlier fascination from films like the aforementioned Now and Then and even Susanna Kaysen’s book (and the subsequent film—both superb), Girl Interrupted, that did the trick for me. Watching the interpretation of those characters on film and reading their tales and digesting them was a gift…a gift I have never forsaken.
*Image via Pinterest
“The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence.”
-Sylvia Plath
And so, Regina Fowler’s story started to take shape, which was another gift, and an equally important one to me. And all because she was entrusting me with her secrets and her plight, and I guess she found a nonjudgmental individual who was curious and compassionate, and the more the story was fed to me from the ether, from this amazing character I found floating in it, the more I fell in love with Regina and kind of liked having her by my side, telling me her tale.
*
As mentioned, she sat by me and told me her story and as I cried and wrote and learned of the horrors she lived through, I learned a few things along the way, and I hope those of you that have read and will read this story also learn something.
My wife, always my first reader, I think was skeptical at first when I told her I’d be writing from the female perspective in this capacity—a 13-year-old’s in particular. She will never admit that to me, but I believe I am right on that one. I could see it in her face and in her eyes.
But when she did read it, I also saw in her face a shock…a shock that showed her that I had somehow captured the magic of a story like Girl Interrupted or even Now and Then, if I may be so bold (my wife would second these sentiments after reading the story). My story was on the darker side of things of course, but she felt I'd nailed it. She told me…with her words, but perhaps most importantly, with her eyes.
I was at a reading once, and a reader in attendance asked me how I found Regina Fowler, and I wasn’t trying to be smart or impressive, but the only answer my brain could conjure up was to say that it was Regina that found me….
It was when I went looking for that dark tale of hers that I instead found her presence and she let me know what I wanted to learn, but it is when peering into the abyss that we learn that what we find there isn’t always easy to process, and her story definitely wasn’t, but it is from these dark stories that we learn our most ultimate lessons perhaps.
And sometimes these stories have us looking into our own pasts, and that’s when the magic happens; I know it did for me…. To learn of what occurred to her and what she went through and how she dealt with it; in the end, Regina’s story was told in order to help one and all process those dark memories and awful occurrences that transpire somewhere back there in the floating dust of our pasts rendered murky by time.
I think of Regina often and always will. I hope I can introduce you to her, dear readers, if you haven’t already met. She’s an epic person; one whose story might give you nightmares, but one that can shed a light on others that perhaps have suffered at the hands of similar demons, and maybe even you yourself suffered from those hands yourself, dear readers.
Original Synopsis…
Join lost soul, Regina Fowler, as author Domenic Marinelli takes you on a seedy journey through life’s dark places in this controversial story about 13 long years on a road less traveled. Not for the faint of heart, but for anyone who wants a story of fiction that screams truth and compels the reader to read further and learn about a character that screams in pathos and angst all in one breath.
Take the ride and read the enigmatical tale about a young girl who just can’t rid her life of the demons that plague her, and witness what can happen on the path to forgiving one’s self. A novella filled with emotion, intrigue and a desperation that hasn’t been seen since the dawn of the beat generation. Domenic Marinelli writes with a courageous honesty … unrelenting, forceful and persistently there.
All Rights Reserved © Domenic Marinelli
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Domenic Marinelli is a writer, poet, playwright, blogger and journalist based out of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Some of his work has been published at Guilty Eats, Hot Cars, The Travel, CFL News Hub, Parc Extension News, Steel Notes Magazine, Slam Wrestling, Lombardi Ave, and at so many other print and online publications. He is the author of Weathered Tracks, Where It Lay Hidden, Generic V, 13 Years of Lamentation, Ancient Credos in Sanskrit Moderna, An Open Letter To Arthur Pond, Summer of the Great White Wolf, and so many others.
Check out his Linktree for his official website, socials, and other places where you can find his books: https://linktr.ee/AuthorDomenicMarinelli
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