Corinne Joy Brown

 

Corinne Joy Brown resides in Englewood, Colorado. In addition to writing novels about the west, she is also a staff writer for the National Cowboy Museum and Western Heritage Center publication "Persimmon Hill" and freelances for Western & English Today, Colorado Homes & Lifestyles and Young Rider, among others. Professionally, she also practices interior design and writes about design for shelter magazines.

A native of Denver, she is the first generation in her family to be born in the U.S. Inspired by the immigrant experience, the novel MacGregor's Lantern, published by Thorndike Five Star Press, is a chronicle of what that experience might have meant to certain members of the Scottish migration at the turn of the century. More importantly, it is a tale of transformation and individuation set against a sparkling era of change in the far West. A member of the Denver Women's Press Club, Western Writers of America and Women Writing the West, Corinne is busy with a new novel and a sequel to MacGregor's Lantern. A lover of horses, western music and travel, she also owns two Rottweilers and has a grown son. Visit Corinne online at http://www.corinnebrown.com

 

Corinne J. Brown's MacGregor's Lantern is a fascinating, intricate excursion into the heart of the west, that place where dreams and deeds meet to create myth. The story of Maggie McKennon, a willful, vulnerable, yet ultimately forceful woman of extraordinary inner strength, this tale is that rare novel that allows the reader to completely enter the protagonist's world." Jon Chandler, author of The Spanish Peaks, winner of the 1999 Medicine Pipe Bearer's Award for Best First Novel given by Western Writers of America.

 

Pageonelit.com: Where did you grow up and was reading and writing a part of your life? Who were your earliest influences and why?

Corinne Joy Brown: I grew up in Denver, Colorado in the 50's. We were a cowtown back then and I was a wishful cowgirl, weaned on black and white westerns which I adored, especially "My friend Flicka" and The Lone Ranger. I always believed in the TV West--it was full of conflict and triumph. One of five children, our family was helped by a live-in for many years who was a full-blooded Jicarilla Apache. She gave me much in ways that are hard to explain, ( a quiet love of nature, the silent observation of others, etc…) but are forever. She eventually left us, returned to New Mexico, and came back years later with a family. She had a daughter whom she named after me.

I had a horse named Danny who was my sole obsession until the age of 16. Not surprisingly, I devoured books about animals like Call of the Wild by Jack London, Smoky the Cowhorse, A Dog of Flanders, Black Beauty, and The Red Pony. I loved horse and dog stories mostly. I'd have to say Will James left me with the greatest impression. I believed every word he said and marveled at his illustrations. I still enjoy books with pictures: ergo--mine has them too. I wanted my novel to feel like a turn of the century book about the West.

I never read the children's classics as a child, (Wind in the Willows, etc.) except for Alice In Wonderland which I read many times. I think it liberated me from thinking of the world in everyday terms. It was my introduction to the fantastic, the impossible, and the world of wonder.

During high school, I spent four summers abroad: first in Pago Pago, American Samoa, then a summer with a family in Mexico City, then 3 months in Paris with my mother and my younger sister, then in Rome on a foreign campus studying art history. I absorbed each culture and language with full measure----by graduation, the world seemed endless, yet attainable. By the time I left for college in Boston at seventeen, I was ready to move on, but always knew I would return to the West which sustained me.

My father, born in Warsaw and educated in Paris, was a doctor and also a consummate sculptor and painter as well. In the early Sixties, he bought an old school house near Aspen, CO and over the next decade I helped him turn it into a summer home and sculpting studio. Like John Denver, I came of age in the Rocky Mountains, connecting deeply to the wilderness. At nineteen, I became a wrangler on a dude ranch there (the T-Lazy Seven) and spent the most memorable summer of my life. Horses and the mountains became my escorts into adulthood.

 

Pageonelit.com: Why did you write MACGREGOR'S LANTERN?

Corinne Joy Brown: MacGregor's Lantern was an answer to several questions. First of all, the anomaly of a 6000 sq foot Scottish castle which sits in the middle of a 5000 acre ranch near Denver dating from 1923. Why was it built, one must ask? And why, also, some 50 miles away, near Colorado Springs, is there yet another 5000 sq foot English Tudor castle on 800 rural acres, begun in 1888? I'm a Colorado native and never knew about the predominant Anglo-Saxon culture, including the English and Scottish in our state from 1870 on. They were there--in many numbers. Since architecture is about ideas, these shelters were homages to a British ideal--- in full recognition of the social structure of the time. The area, near Colo Springs, was a playground for the wealthy Brits who could travel and came here to hunt and sport. It was the height of the Victorian age--Americans of wealth catered to their English friends.

I needed to know more. I contacted the Cherokee Ranch to learn its history. The woman who owned the ranch, Mrs. Tweet Kimball, had been a leader in her field for over 50 years. and bought the property from its owners in 1953. I interviewed her, partially her to find out in addition what it had been like to succeed so fully in a world of men (cattle breeders). And then, I wondered--what would she have been like 100 years ago….?

The idea came to me to explore the relationship of a woman coming into her own life during a time when women in general were seeking acceptance and equality in a changing America. After all, Wyoming granted women the right to vote twenty years before Seneca Falls. A love story set aginst a rivalry seemed ripe with conflict…that, and a woman who thought she fell in love, but discovered the experience was more about finding her own strength.

I was fascinated by this time in the West when old world sensibilities ruled alongside frontier bravado. The open range cattle era was so brief--only some 40 years, and it came to a close with a definite thud. The fall of the foreign investors due to political backlash, encroaching settlers, the railroad, electricty and the motorcar, and the rise of the individual rancher/farmer against foreign absentee landowners. . . Great themes occurred--the ongoing battle of good and evil, the old world and the new, man against nature, etc…. Classic enduring struggles.

Like Gone With the Wind, I chose a relationship story of tranformation and change to play out against these vast forces. Personally, as a business woman and interior design professional for 25 years who works with male architects, builders, suppliers, banks, and clients, I've had my own conflicts and personality ploys to work through. I didn't know the cattle industry but I knew the wiles of men. Maggie grew from my own experience. She doesn't outride, outshoot or upstage the men in her life--she uses them to her best defense while she makes herself their equal. (OK-so the book has a feminist edge, in a gentle way.) Men are still my predominant readers and my biggest book fans!!!!

 

Pageonelit.com: You are the first generation in your family to be born in the U.S -- How much of your personal/family history in regards to immigration, the cattle business and the West went into MACGREGOR'S LANTERN?

Corinne Joy Brown: As you can see, my family history has no obvious connection whatsoever to this story. I grew up in the city. My mother raised four of her own children and an adopted sister. My father built a medical practice that spanned 58 years. He was a beloved member of the medical community when he died.

I was the kid with the horse--unlike any of my siblings. I wanted to be a cowgirl but grew up to become a folk musician, an artist, and a writer, instead. (Among other things.) I went off to college to study art education and later, interior design. Secretly, I was waiting for the Cartwright Brothers to return.

Finally, I dove into the subject of the book as an outsider, except that I had met Highland cattle breeders here in Colorado and fell in love with the beasts at first sight. I knew I would write about them someday.

I studied everything I could about ranching, cattle breeding, the expansion of the railroads, the banking system in America, the water politic, the land rush, Wyoming's statehood, women's rights, animal husbandry, the Wyoming Stock Grower's Association, etc. for two years. I drove hundreds of miles throughout Colorado and Wyoming to visit old Scottish ranches. In the 2nd year of research, I went to Scotland for two weeks to tour all the places my characters might have lived and see Highland cattle in the Highlands. I took notes, listened to the language, ate local foods, read about Celtic landscapes and mysticism. In short, I recreated this world of 1889 and walked in the shoes of my characters. This story took over my life.

But to answer your question, my parents came to this country in the midst of World War II--thankfully, the last civilian ship to leave France in the midst of Nazi occupation. My father was in the French army as a medical officer and barely escaped. They came to America in an effort to survive. Most of their families died in the hands of the Germans.

In this book, I attempt to explore the demands of immigration...what you have to give up to change, as well as what you take on and what you leave behind. The three Scottish characters and the Irishman, Skoll, all represents different aspects of the immigrant ----some never make the change, hanging onto old ways, like Kerr McKennon. Some, like Billy, never look back. Some like MacGregor, struggle.

 

Pageonelit.com: You have a Scottish character speaking in their brogue dialect -- How difficult or easy was it for you to write in that voice?

Corinne Joy Brown: I went for a basic sound. My editor went nuts. It took weeks of editing to make it feel right. I owe everything to my editor, Hazel Rumney, for making it work. Believe it or not, when I submitted the manuscript, MacGregor, educated at Oxford, spoke one way. Billy, unschooled, yet another, McKennon, yet a third. Hazel said the reader would be lost--so we made the dialect changes the same. Only the precise way the men use the language changes. It was a real challenge! (I had the book proofed by a Scotsman from Edinburgh who caught inconsistencies like the mixing of words from Highland and Lowland Scots! So it has passed muster in the homeland!)

 

Pageonelit.com: Talk a little about your main character Maggie -- Explain how Margaret becomes Maggie and Maggie's fascination with the land. Maggie's self determination to have and create her own life.

Corinne Joy Brown: Margaret is an archtype: a woman afraid of her own spirit, bound by convention, social mores, parental expectation. A universal in many ways. Like women of today, she was raised to adapt, bend, conform. Therefore, her call to adventure, as in any other hero's journey, requires loosening the bonds. Her own perception of herself changes as the landscape unfolds. (As seen in the scene on the train-she begins by changing her name.)

In the shadow of an older man, her husband Kerr, a veritable stranger, she still holds back, but embraces in his new world those changes which can safely make. She is after all, under the spell of that "mythic west" whose very message is one of personal freedom and individuation. Within time, she takes on greater risk and greater boldness, until she is renewed with a belief in her ability to take on just about anything.

The novel has been called a mannerist novel in the spirit of Jane Austen where like Elizabeth Bennet, an independent thinker begins to see things for what they really are. This story is as much about the illusions of life as it is about anything. About seeing through the veil--about what lies beneath.

The great horse, Bonniedoon, is of course, Maggies' dark-side, her own repressed fear,-- of the unknown, of taking charge, of her very self. That the horse passes through the hands of each of the men that loved her is highly symbolic. And that she rides it through the Armageddon of the great fire at the end and into the epiphany of finally knowing and trusting herself is super-charged, nearly mythic--the final integration. The absolute ownership of Maggie over her own life in spirit and mind, and of the horse as well. Essentially, the two fuse in spirit.

This book hopes to inspire. To teach other women about knowing--about trust. And about risk. Maggie is every woman who every dreamed of being more.

As the story unfolds, she lets go by degrees (first her name, then her manner of dress, then her attitude and behavior, until finally she becomes what she aspires to be….free to be her own self.) And yet-she takes on her late husband's dream--the ranch in Colorado. Was it really meant to be? Really hers to own? Book Two, the sequel, tells us not....

 

Pageonelit.com: When an author like yourself writes a historical novel about the "Old West" are there preconceptions that you have to break through to be honest with your setting and characters?

Corinne Joy Brown: This is always a problem. The old West isn't just about gunsmoke and horses, good guys and bad ones. One my purposes was to tell the reader about the other West: the one on the edge of the twentieth century; Cheyenne-the Paris of the frontier, for example. About thieves and princes, about women of substance and not just schoolmarms or soiled doves. Stereotypes abound in western lit and film: I believe I've avoided them all. I'd like to think so.

Keep in mind that one out of three cowboys back then was Hispanic: one was white and one was black. The West was settled by immigrants from many places--a vast multitude.This book attempts to remind the reader of that fact.

 

Pageonelit.com: What has been your feedback from readers? What do they say to you about their interpretations of MACGREGOR'S LANTERN?

Corinne Joy Brown: Heartfelt letters from women who love Maggie and her spirit. Many say she often reminds them of someone they know, especially their mothers or grandmothers. One Scottish reader, a man, raised in S. Dakota, called me and said that " I had truly penetrated the Scottish psyche."

One male reader in Colorado, a Westernophile, bought 16 copies for every member of his tent in the RoundUp Riders of the Rockies, a prestigious club, because he believed that every man he rode with should own this book!

I have many wonderful letters and quotes saved in a file.Go to B&N and Amazon.com-there are some great reader comments there.

 

Pageonelit.com: Who are your favorite writers and why?

Corinne Joy Brown: I'd say I'd have to start with Barbara Kingsolver, the mistress of metaphor, a wordsmith with a style so confident and polished that the author never ever gets in the way. I read her first work, Animal Dreams, and couldn't get over it. Picked up a pen and started my very first novel (one that is yet unfinished and unpublished) that very same day.

For sheer use of language and intellect, "The Palace Thief" by Ethan Canan blew me away. A modern day Faulkner, I love his work. He is a true writer. Larry MacMurtry's Lonesome Dove started me on the western trail. It was a riveting reading experience. In that tradition, Wallace Stegner (Angle of Respose) changed my life, and Elmer Kelton has my vote for the best regional writer anywhere(Texas.) Annie Proulx (Close Range-Wyoming Stories, especially) has more grit and courage in her work than anyone I've read. A master of language, too. In short, I am fascinated by style. By how the writer uses language to convey emotion, tell story, imply meaning. Simpy, I am most interested in the art of writing.

 

Pageonelit.com: What's next?

Corinne Joy Brown: Next is the sequel to MacGregor. I've promised the Dystel Agency I would have it ready this season. I'm half way there. It's astonishing, even to me. (They hope to sell the sequel and the first book in soft cover)

Currently, I have a new manuscript out, written last winter with a collaborator: a modern day resurrection story (Sanctuary Ranch) set against the machinations of the Country /Western music and rodeo world! (Hope to make it a screenplay!)

Next next-More importantly- a novel about the Crypto ( or hidden) Jews of New Mexico, (The High Road to Taos) the synopsis of which has already generated interest by Sherman Asher Press in Albuquerque. A compelling story about religious faith and conversion. A gift to the troubled world about sameness and difference, about acceptance, about hope in the world. A mega work told in a gentle voice, covering five centuries of Hispanic and Jewish life.

 

Pageonelit.com: What was the last book you read?

Corinne Joy Brown: Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul. Before that, Prodigal Summer by Kingsolver. Before that, Utopian Vistas, about life in Taos in the 1920's. Currently-I am reading Zorba the Greek and Snow in August by Pete Hamill. Hey, I'm in a book club.

 

Pageonelit.com: Do you have any hobbies? What are they? How do they enhance your writing?

Corinne Joy Brown: Yes, many. I write music and play the guitar. Have for years. I write reviews about musicians too.Western music in all its forms is something I truly love. I ride horses and own a Polish Arabian gelding. I am fascinated by the bond between people and horses. I also like to cook, play with my two dogs, and feel connected to growing things, life in general.

I author a column for True West Magzine (Outfitting the West) and write about western fashion for Western & English today. I love vintage western accessories.-I am a collector of sorts.

Everything I do and know about comes into play in my writing--not in a specific way, but as a general way of being. I suppose my ability to slip into another world or culture and make it my own is a big asset----the fictional dream is easy for me… Gosh-what else? I travel. A lot. Book circuit, design world, western shows, etc., etc.

I have been asked to be a judge for the 2003 Spur Awards-(Best First Novel) for Western Writers of America and the judge for the Western Heritage Awards-Best Western Novel at the National Cowboy Museum and Western Heritage Center in OKC. I am the founder and CoChair of WritingtheWest, an annual western writers conference in Gunnison, Colorado. This year-July 11-14, 2003.