When I first started work on Friends to the End, my intention was only to write a novel with a woman as ‘bad guy’ for a change. I had no idea where work on this would take me!
I had some ideas, and so I went to the ‘Net to do a little research. I was arrogant enough to think I had the basic knowledge of what would happen for a man who was a victim of domestic violence. After all, I had ten years’ experience in working with private charities and social services of all kinds in my community. I thought I had procedures down pat. All I was doing with this research session was to confirm what I already knew, because I like to have my details right—I’m picky that way.
After several hours’ futile searching, I e-mailed a dozen or so of the websites and online support groups focused on women asking if they knew where I might find information relating to male victims. About half of them ignored my e-mail entirely, and of the rest, they either thought my query was some kind of joke or were adamant in insisting that there is no such thing as a male victim. One reply was so hostile and personally insulting I was stunned. Yet I knew there are women who abuse their husbands. I’d seen it happening; in one case one of my husband’s co-workers was forced to leave his family because he feared for his life.
Meanwhile I kept working on the writing of the book itself. It was one of those cases where I couldn’t just set it aside. I was several weeks into the writing by this time and I was convinced this was a story that must be told. Even though I was a real e-mail junkie back then, and loved nothing more than to write to my cyberfriends, I let my discussion lists go and my inbox piled up with unread messages. One of my writer’s groups was on the verge of kicking me out anyway, for having the gall to suggest any woman might be abusive toward her husband.
When I wasn’t writing, I was still on my quest for information online. One night I found it. The website was full of men’s personal stories, academic studies and references to a few non-fiction books written on the subject. What were missing were the resources. Unlike the women’s sites, which had links and info for dozens of resources for abused women, there was nothing on this otherwise authoritative website on resources for men. I e-mailed the webmaster, and found to my surprise, the reason there weren’t any resources listed on his site was because there weren’t any!
I wondered then, how many other factual errors I’d made. After sending the webmaster a synopsis of the story and a list of questions, I found myself re-writing the entire thing from scratch. The only details left after his corrections were the two main characters and the location. This was not easy to do; not because it’s hard to throw away 40,000 words, but because with the points of fact corrected, the story became unbelievable. Writers know that the difference between fact and fiction is that fiction has to make sense. I still had that determination going for me, though, so I kept plugging away.
Now that the book is finished, I have no regrets. I have lost friends because of the book; my first actual hate mail came when our local paper mentioned the book and interviewed me. These kinds of things are not easy, but I’m still determined that the story be told. Survivors of domestic violence tell me the book is right on and accurate, and they appreciate having an advocate in what has been seen by many male victims as the ‘enemy camp.’ Sometimes this is what makes writing worthwhile; it’s not so much the recognition or any money that might be made, but being able to take advantage of an opportunity to speak the truth.
Note from the author: Friends is now out of print.
