LITERATURE - JULY 16, 2003

Transgressions of privileged summers Up North

By BILL CASTANIER

Like a Petoskey stone reveals itself when you lick it, Terry Gamble’s book, “The Water Dancer,” has something you don’t see below the surface until almost all the pages are turned.

Gamble has spent a part of every summer of her life at a cottage at Harbor Point near Harbor Springs. (Hence the Petoskey stone as one of the book’s images.) In her writing, she draws heavily on items others would take for granted: Native American quill boxes, stones, the waters of Lake Michigan, pow wows and fry bread. She uses all these vehicles and more to tell the story of a summer love affair between a wealthy privileged WWII veteran and a Native American maid, the resulting child and a 20-year path to reconciliation and closure.

Bill Castanier/City Pulse

Terry Gamble stopped at Schuler Books & Music (Eastwood Towne Centre) to read and sign copies of her book July 11.

“The Water Dancers,” her first book, follows the complex life of Rachel Winnapee as she goes from a 16-year-old single parent to a strong adult woman seeking answers in life for herself and her son. Several characters help wrap the package. Winnapee’s lover and father of the child, Woody March, is an addicted amputee who finds solace and redemption at the summer home. His mother is a vital protagonist who oversees her family and its life at the beach house in northern Michigan.

The 288 pages of “The Water Dancer” is a complex, layered look at both the differences in society and the similarities of families mostly through the eyes of two mothers who are from different sides of the tracks.

Gamble, who was in Lansing for a reading July 11 at Schuler Books in Eastwood Towne Centre, said she didn’t leave everything to her memory. She conducted numerous interviews with local Native Americans and two of her father’s housekeepers. The final product especially shows the details when she writes about the life of Native Americans and life near the water.

Although she fondly remembers her summers of privilege spent on the big lake at Harbor Point, she has grown to question that lifestyle.

“Why should the best beaches go to the people who spend only two months of the year there?” she said.

She also clearly remembers some of the transgressions she and her summer pals played out on the locals.

Running through “Indian Town” and poking fun at the residents may be one of those ill-thought-out ventures.

When conducting her interviews for the book, she discovered the Native American residents remembered the Point kids doing just that, she said.

Her book was a journey, taking five years to write. Accelerating that journey was a class she took with noted author Anne Lamott that provided the discipline she needed to write. She followed that class by joining Lamott’s weekly writers’ group, further refining her writer’s voice.

“I have been in the writers’ group for 11 years and I have it recorded in my palm pilot calendar for infinity,” Gamble said.

When an early manuscript went to an agent it was a “train wreck” and needed the assistance of a professional editor, she said.

She thinks her second book, which follows a similar summer beach family on the “cusp of obsolescence,” will be easier to complete.

“Once you are published, you have a voice and you know what it takes to write. Before that, saying you are a writer is just an affectation,” she said

She finds living in San Francisco is helpful since the Bay area is very supportive of the arts and writers in particular, Gamble said.

In her first summer after high school, she personally underwent one of the book’s central themes – a life-changing experience.

The summer prior to attending college for her English degree, she arrived early in Harbor Springs before the summer cottages were opened, or as the locals call it, “The lights are on at the Point.” She spent the summer with a local family – and became friends with a townie, the daughter of a butcher. Life was different after that. For the first time, she saw life from the other side and wasn’t initially accepted and experienced reverse discrimination. She didn’t belong.

She experienced a similar life-changing experience in her class with Lamott.

“I always felt like a writer. I would see something and say, how do I put that in words, but I needed a method and Lamott’s class helped me do that.”

She says a favorite passage in the book reveals the craft she honed in the Lamott class.

The sexually charged passage is about the main character, Winnapee, when she confesses her sins to a priest.

She won’t say much more about that sequence since one of her pet peeves is with reviewers who tell too much of the story and ruin the reading experience.

Gamble is a disciplined writer who works without an outline, attacking her writing from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. everyday. Like most writers, she is happy with a page a day.

She said that “Where did the title come from?” is the most frequently asked question at readings. An observer might guess that water and dancing play an important part in the book, but you will have to read the book to find out why and how they interrelate.

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