Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Sometimes It Pays To Embarrass Your Mother by Marilyn Celeste Morris

I have to tell a story about how my 86-year-old mother reacted to my first novel, Sabbath’s Room. Keep in mind it’s a paranormal murder mystery.

She called me and said, “I sat down and read your book today, all in one sitting.”
I said, “Okay, what did you think?”
She kind of stuttered a bit, and I prompted her, “Go ahead, tell me if you didn’t like it.”
“Well, that’s not it. It’s just that….well, I was surprised by all the sex and violence.”
I have to tell you here, that the “sex “consisted of passages such as “necking like teenagers” and “she lay in his strong arms.” And it is a murder mystery, so it has some violence in it.
“Well, Mother, I’m sorry you feel that way. I could have put in a lot worse on the sex scenes and made the murder much more graphic, so what you’re reading is pretty mild. Are you ashamed of me?”
“Well, no. I’m not ashamed of you. It’s just that --- well,” she finally said in exasperation, “It’s just that I recommended it to my Sunday School class.”
I laughed and said, “Well, okay, next Sunday, apologize to your Sunday School class for the recommendation; that you didn’t know it had so much sex and violence in it.”
She said she would do that.
And guess what? My sales went up.
Gotta love those Methodists.

Marilyn Celeste Morris
Author of The Women of Camp Sobingo, Once a Brat and Sabbath's Room
www.sabbathsroom.blogspot.com

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3 comments:

thewriterslife said...

LOL, gotta love those Methodists. I bet it would make you blush what those Methodists have stacked in the back corner of a dark closet or underneath their mattresses....only a speculation of course..;o)

Kim Robinson said...

my mom told me that her and my father read some of my chapters to get his motor running LOL

Maybe you should do a tour of the methodist churches

Unknown said...

You know what they say about the Methodists, that they are methodical and like illustrative example. After all, do you know how many Methodist does it take to change a light bulb? That's under-termed: Whether your light is clean, dim and deemed, or completely screwed, you ARE love, no matter how brewed!

Cheers!