Today, the Wild Rose Press released my seventh novel, Undeveloped Memories! Each release has been special to me, but for various reasons, this one feels particularly heartening. This took me the longest of any of my past works, partly because of other projects getting in the way, but the delay in no way suggests a lack of enthusiasm for this story.
In the book, Lorelei Carmichael thinks she knows all of her uncle’s stories about his career in photojournalism. After all, she followed in his path to become a photojournalist herself, and Uncle Reed taught her everything she knew about the craft. When she discovers a roll of undeveloped film hidden away in his house, a different side of him is availed to her, making her question how well she really knew his past.
The concept of undeveloped film struck me a few years back, when I was searching through old photos in preparation for a slideshow I had to make. My packrating mom kept many of the negatives with the envelopes of pictures, in case we ever wanted to make duplicates. As I dug through all of these, I remembered a roll of film we once lost after a special occasion, and though she feared it was mistakenly thrown away, I kept hoping to come across it.
Unfortunately, I never did, but just the notion of it sparked inspiration. I started thinking about the next generation finding it one day and what someone could think if they chose to develop it. There would be people they might not recognize, some having passed away and others simply moved on from that time.
That scenario spun around in my brain for quite a while, becoming the plot line of Undeveloped Memories. I had specific elements when I sat down to begin the manuscript, wanting the main character to be a photographer and therefore interested in the roll, instead of discarding it the way many relatives would. I also didn’t want the uncle to be dead at the time she found it, but I needed to create a reason why she wouldn’t simply ask him for the details of this adventure he never mentioned. To check that box, I gave him a memory that is touch-and-go due to a rare health condition…though I’m told it doesn’t take any particular diagnosis to make a man refrain from confiding things in a loved one!
Other elements fell into place gradually. Like I highlighted in Setting Spotlight: Alaska, a friend who survived the 1964 earthquake gave me the event I wanted Reed to be covering in Alaska when he experiences the life-changing events that are catalogued on the undeveloped film.
Over the course of the two and a half years that I wrote Undeveloped Memories, the book turned into more than an ode to my family’s mishap. Seismic shifts in my personal world left me feeling shaken. With most of my work, I enjoy bringing levity so as to help myself and readers escape from the seriousness of reality. During this time, however, I yearned to just soak in my feelings.
While none of the storyline covers any of those real-life heartaches, it provided an outlet for me to process what was unfolding. Having to research and imagine survival stories from the earthquake helped me to regain resiliency and see that beauty can come out of brokenness.
I hope readers take that away from Undeveloped Memories. Along with some twisting character arcs, family revelations, and a little bit of true history, it has one prevailing message from beginning to end: hope.
About Undeveloped Memories
We assume we know everything there is to know about those who raised us…until we discover that we don’t!
Lorelei Carmichael returns home to check up on her aging uncle, but another investigation awaits her. An undeveloped roll of film, abandoned by her photographer uncle, beckons her attention. Also a photographer, she develops the images and discovers an Alaskan journey he never disclosed, alongside a woman and child.
When an opportunity provides her the chance to peek into the past, she retraces his footsteps through the Alaskan countryside. Will she figure out the whole picture of this unfinished love story? And might the trail of breadcrumbs lead her to capture a love of her own?
Excerpt
In preparation for the cold snap, she searched for her warmer quilt, the one cherished possession missing from her room. Her mom made the pastel blanket for her, starting it while pregnant and not completing it until Lorelei grew out of her crib. She asked Uncle Reed its whereabouts, but his memory failed him in that area. She hoped he stashed it away someplace safe, rather than the alternative possibility that her brother snatched it for one of his kids.
She did a second sweep of her closet before scouring through the others on the main floor. When none of them presented it, she tried the attic, where her sentimental uncle stored a lot of the family’s keepsakes. She started her quest in the boxes that held select belongings of her mom and dad’s. On countless occasions, she lingered in the photo albums, trinkets, and the sparse collection of clothes her grandma gave them after settling the estate. With dust covering them and the order of their contents the same as she left them, however, he clearly didn’t disturb them.
She checked some of the other boxes, such as the ones where he secured her old toys, but they, too, appeared untouched. Running out of options, she gave up on the meaningful spots, many of which would be hard for the older man to access. She reverted to practicality, treading back to the alcove beside the stairs. The area didn’t harbor many boxes but primarily stowed old furniture he should’ve just hauled away.
Lorelei noticed a blue tweed suitcase she never remembered Uncle Reed using, and despite her doubts, she knelt down for a gander. The fabric on it didn’t show dust like the other surfaces, but its stale odor indicated its lack of use. Her logical brain needled her for even bothering to unzip the case, but she proceeded. Right before she opened the lid all the way, she caught a glimpse of her blanket on a rocking chair behind a nearby desk, but a glance into the suitcase commandeered her interest.
The canister lying in the shadows netted her attention first, as she guessed it to be from the sixties or seventies. Meticulous Reed Carmichael kept track of his unused rolls so as to not waste any, and she wondered why he missed this one. Fetching it, she spied the envelope in the opposite corner and picked it up, too. She extracted the photos inside and flipped through the stack. Frame after frame captured devastated houses, roads, and landmarks, along with a splattering of majestic mountains, lakes, and glaciers. One featured a wooden sign that was split in two but still bore the name Chenega Village.
All at once, she understood Gabe’s statement about Uncle Reed being a resource for the story of the Alaska earthquake: he witnessed it first-hand. But how?
And why wouldn’t he disclose that to her?
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