Writing a Book About a Family Gap Year

Crafting a Tantalizing Title

Hello to anyone who may be reading this,

Writing a book about a family gap year, or really any book, is hard. It is something I have always wanted to do in my life. I remember telling my brother many years ago that I was attempting to write a book. It was going to be a book about an owner of an Inn in South Africa named Harry.

As a young man Harry hires a black apprentice, Simpiwe, to help on his construction crews. Harry was anti-apartheid. That was unusual, but certainly not unheard of, for a native white Afrikaner. Harry has an acquaintance named Viktor, who strongly disagrees with his views on apartheid and is a staunch supporter of the white regime.

Harry slowly befriends his new apprentice, to the chagrin of his white workers. As he and his wife had been unable to have children of their own, this boy becomes a surrogate son. Given the boy’s tenuous situation living in the township of Alexandra outside Johannesburg, Harry feels responsible for his safety. Harry invites more scorn from his white counterparts who warn Harry that he is treading dangerous waters.

One night during a barbecue at Harry’s house, Viktor, who was Harry’s wife’s friend’s husband, gets drunk. Simpiwe comes over to get some tools out of Harry’s truck. Viktor hears the commotion out front and goes around to investigate. Seeing a black “man” rifling through Harry’s truck (not knowing that he was Harry’s own worker) he pulls out a concealed gun and repeatedly warns him off. Viktor ignores the pleas from his own wife and Harry’s wife to stop. As Harry tries to disarm him he shoots and kills Simpiwe. Harry then strangles Viktor to death in rage at the senselessness of Viktor’s actions while his wife and Viktor’s wife watch in horror.

Harry cradles the boy in his arms and carries him off into the township in an attempt to bring him home. As he staggers down the streets of the slum with the boy, some locals eventually take the boy from his arms and beat him into unconsciousness. “I ran towards Alexandra with Simpiwe limp in my arms, his blood on my hands. The moonlight splayed across the dark undulations of terrain ahead of me and the night world lay lidless under the stars.“

The story opens with Harry reminiscing on his life from his old age, after the events above, and after he served time in prison for the killing of Viktor. Harry buys the Inn in the countryside as an attempt to restart his life. He smokes biltong (beef jerky) and drinks with his friends at his bar. The first scene is at this bar in which one of Harry’s friends is recalling the time he spent as a paratrooper serving in Angola. He says he jumped from a plane once with a small dog tucked into his flak vest. Harry and his friends call him a fool and serve him another drink. This scene is pulled from a real life encounter of mine at a small country Inn somewhere in South Africa. I can’t recall where.

The book was to be called Of Another Life. It’s a play on Harry recalling his past life.

My brother told me he couldn’t imagine ever writing a book. Sadly, I never finished the book. It was a sensitive subject and required deep local knowledge and the ability to navigate the politics and racism which were eventually beyond me.

Here is the end of the opening prologue: “The truth of the matter could never be escaped and I knew it. I had run from it all and landed in the veld, far away from anything I knew prior and tried in vain to forget about my past. The Inn was an escape created by Louise and myself to leave behind a life that in my case had gone terribly wrong. I was lucky to have been able to carve anything even as remotely happy as this existence out of it. My real story begins elsewhere, not in this cozy Inn, not in the South African veld…but in the turmoil and despondency of another life.“

I thought the title was perfect for this story; the idea of a person recalling a past life, or even a portion of a life, that was distinct from the rest. It was lyrical and poetic in a way, evocative.

So as I wrote my book about our family gap year, I remembered this story and the title and I thought, it’s perfect for this story, too. Here is the sentence that the title comes from in my book about our family gap year: “This was our last night of true camping before we arrived in Fort Collins to begin the process of transitioning back to the grind, from this trip that was already reminiscent of another life. We talked about what it would be like.“

In this context it sounds good. But in thinking further about it, it does not fit. It is not a clear introduction to what my book is about. It reveals no content, emotions, feelings about the trip. You would look at it on the cover and only the tagline “One Family’s Adventure Across America” would give you any indication what the book was about.

I don’t like corny titles, such as, “The Year We Ruined Our Lives”, “Don’t Make Me Pull Over” or “On The Road…With Kids” (From published books, by the way) They make a book seem like a joke, and I am not interested in trying to pull readers in with a laugh. Even if they may help sales.

So I have come up with a new title. If you have read this far, let me know what you think.

My new working title is: Together, We Left: One Family’s Adventure Across America.

Thanks for reading