A Southern Girl: A Novel Read online

  A SOUTHERN GIRL

  Pat Conroy, Editor at Large

  A SOUTHERN GIRL

  A Novel

  JOHN WARLEY

  Foreword by Therese Anne Fowler

  The University of South Carolina Press

  Publication is made possible in part by the generous support of the University of South Carolina Press Friends Fund

  For our daughter,

  MaryBeth Warley Lockwood

  IN MEMORIAM

  “The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch, which hurts, and is desired.” Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra, Act V, Scene 2

  Barbara Nelson Warley

  February 5, 1949–February 21, 2014

  © 2014 John Warley

  Published by the University of South Carolina Press

  Columbia, South Carolina 29208

  www.sc.edu/uscpress

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  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Warley, John.

  A southern girl : a novel / John Warley.

  pages cm.—(Story River Books)

  ISBN 978-1-61117-391-8 (hardbound : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-61117-392-5 (ebook)

  1. Adoption—Fiction. 2. South Carolina—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3623.A8624S68 2014

  813'.6—DC23 2013032346

  CONTENTS

  Foreword

  Therese Anne Fowler

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Part 1—Confluence

  Part 2—Rapids

  Part 3—Flow

  FOREWORD

  John Warley and I first met at the South Carolina Book Festival a few years back. As we got acquainted over drinks and hors d’oeuvres at the authors’ reception, I could easily see that he was an intelligent and thoughtful person. Soon after, I read one of his novels and saw that he was an excellent writer, too. But when he told me he was working on a new book about an adopted Korean girl told through the perspectives of not only the adoptive parents but also the girl’s birth mother and the female Korean adoption agent, I worried that he’d bitten off more than he could—or maybe should—chew.

  When a white writer tells the story of non-white characters, folks sometimes accuse the writer of cultural appropriation—as in, what business does this person have in telling those characters’ stories? Similarly, there is skepticism in some quarters about how well even the most observant and well-intentioned man can write about women’s experiences. These are reasonable concerns. Even though the story it tells is fictional, a good novel has to be authentic. It has to feel true. If it doesn’t, the author—male or female of whatever ethnicity—has done a disservice to the book’s characters, and even worse, to its readers.

  A Southern Girl aims to be more than simply a good novel, however. As John explained to me, its story is an exploration of personal experience as accomplished through fiction. In 1978, John and his wife Barbara, already the parents of two healthy boys, decided (not without some conflict between them) to adopt a daughter from another part of the world—in this case, Asia, a region that many Americans of the time associated with communism, war, and brutality. In June of 1979, they brought home a tiny infant Korean girl and named her MaryBeth.

  So all right, I thought. John knows something of what he writes. That’s a start.

  John gives his character Coleman Carter much of his own background, making him scion of a “South of Broad” Charleston family with roots nearly as deep as the most resilient of the city’s grand old magnolia and oak and cypress trees. Now, certainly, any decision to adopt is fraught with risks. What can the new parents really know about the child’s background, health, and mental capacity? How well, or how poorly, might the child integrate into the immediate family? What about the extended family? What about the community? All of these issues matter, but some prove to be more acute than others. Traditional Southerners to their core, Coleman, his parents, and the society they all keep could be the undoing of every good Coleman and Elizabeth hope to accomplish in giving this abandoned infant her first real home. Like John did, Coleman struggles to reconcile two powerful forces: his wife’s admirable desire and determination to adopt a child from Korea, and his parents’ not-entirely-unreasonable objections to any adoption at all, and particularly to this one.

  Coleman is not, of course, the only one with worries, and here is where A Southern Girl really shines. We get his wife Elizabeth’s earnest and poignant account of the journey. We see Jong Sim, the distraught but determined birth mother, as she does what most of us would deem impossible. We hear from Hana, the dedicated woman whose job it is to oversee the care and—in the best cases—adoptions of the orphaned or abandoned children in her ward.

  As I began reading A Southern Girl, I was quickly caught up in the story, to the point of forgetting what I knew about the author, or even that I knew him at all. Instead, I was pulled into these characters’ complex lives. With Elizabeth and Jong Sim and Hana and Coleman, I struggled with the practical versus the profound. I considered the problems and the benefits of birthright, tradition, opportunity, exclusion. I thought about loss and renewal and what constitutes family. I contemplated the questions of what we owe the people we care for and what we owe ourselves. I wondered how—or whether—Allie, the Korean born Southern girl at the center of it all, would come through her experience all right.

  We are affected and shaped by many forces in our lives, and among those forces is the power of story. Here in your hands is one that I hope will move you as it has done me.

  Therese Anne Fowler

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing a novel is a famously insular endeavor, yet any novelist who is circumspect will appreciate the debt he or she owes to those who nurtured, encouraged, and even criticized, if the criticism made for a stronger book. When the work has a prepublication life of twenty years, as this one did, the debts are particularly numerous.

  I must begin, as all good novels begin, with inspiration. In June 1979, Northwest Orient brought us our daughter from Seoul, Korea. Mary-Beth’s arrival enriched our family beyond measure. A Southern Girl is not MB’s story, but to deny that she was the inspiration for this book would be foolish. Equally foolish would be my failure to express my thanks to her mother, my wife, Barbara, whose courage, determination, and fore-sight brought MB to us. And to her “other mother,” whose name we have learned but whom we never expect to meet, thank you for your sacrifice in putting MB’s future first.

  In 1993 I moved to Mexico to write this book. Shortly thereafter, a courier delivered a large box filled with some of the best fiction I’ve ever read because it is some of the best ever written. Pat Conroy, my friend, Citadel classmate, baseball teammate, and now editor, had personally selected them at Cliff Graubart’s Old New York Bookshop in Atlanta. Pat knew what I needed in Mexico, and my debt to him is long and deep.

  Therese Anne Fowler’s acceptance of an invitation to pen a foreword to this book thrilled me. She is as nice as she is talented, as anyone familiar with Z-A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald will attest.

  I owe a sacred debt to Jonathan Haupt, director of the University of South Carolina Press. His editorial suggestions proved invaluable, and it is not too much to say that this would be a lesser book without his cogent insights and keen recommendations.

  Martha Price Frakes was a year behind me at York High School and has been a friend ever since. A bridesmaid in our wedding forty-two years ago, she has come back into our lives to provide timely encouragement and support. Thank you, Martha.

  I wrote the first draft of the manuscript in San Miguel de Allende, aided by my tolerant amigos in the writing group there—Donna Meyer, Roy Sorrels, and the late Barba
ra Faith de Covarrubias. Moral support and sunset planning in Mexico came from dear friends Federico and Barbara Vidargas, along with the late, indomitable Dotty Vidargas. Margarite’s Haiti room in the novel came courtesy of Anghelen Phillips, a longtime resident there. Haiti’s loss is Mexico’s gain. Mi amiga Nanci Closson furnished encouragement when it was needed, then and now.

  A special group of Virginians comprises my early readers—Wyatt Durrette, Christine Williams, Janice Harvey, Betsy Miller, and Doug and Tadd Chessen—whose advice and support I will always value. The Honorable J. Randolph “Randy” Stevens proved himself an avid and discerning reader, in addition to being a constant pal from my Yorktown days. A grateful nod goes to lifelong friends Ralph DeRosa, Palmer Lowery, and Howard Smith, Virginia gentlemen all. I abandoned my law firm by moving to Mexico, leaving said law firm most unhappy, so I must give a huge shout out to those who stayed behind and endured—my excellent and understanding partner Michael Mulkey, my office manager Charlene Smyth, Barbara Ferris, Cindy Norcutt, Jennifer Tobey, and Judy Allmond.

  My Citadel family has done what Citadel people do—stand by those who stood with them in the long, gray line. A crisp and by-the-numbers Tango salute to Paul and Beth Green; Mike and Pam Steele; Jay and Jane Keenan; Ed and Sally Steers; Holly and Lois Keller; DG and Janie McIntyre; Steele and Molly Dewey; Peggy Bowditch and her late husband, John, “the Bowd,” whom I miss every day; Tom and Lynn Benson; Ed Murphy; Jim and Lynn Probsdorfer; Rich and Bunny Lloyd; John and Haley Sitton; Barry and Deanie Wynn; Clarkson and Mary Ann McDow; and Dan and Jane Brailsford.

  To my Beaufort buddies, a giant thank you for your embracing me as you have—Pat and Sandra Conroy, Bernie and Martha Schein, the marvelous Patricia Denkler; Mike Harris; Trish and Van Irwin (who always manage to root for the wrong team); David and Terry Murray; Wilson McIntosh and the staff at McIntosh’s Book Shoppe on Bay Street; Kit and Lewis Bruce; my M.D. Clark Trask and his lovely wife, Evy; Nancy and D. C. Gilley; the irrepressible John Trask III; Janelle and Bob Proctor; Wendy Wilson; Bill and Carol Carpenter; Teresa Bruce; Sean Scappelatto; Terry and Peter Hussey; Jack and Marilyn Sheehy; and Cathy and Mike Nairne. My classmate Scott Graber and his very talented wife, the artist Susan Graber, have shown unfailing and undeserved kindness. Wright’s pointers Duke and Angie Hucks, Bob and Marylou Cullen, and Tom and Daria Paterson set a new standard for great neighbors. My roots grow deep in 29902, and you made Beaufort bloom for me.

  To Toller Cranston, the remarkable and gifted Canadian artist who lives in San Miguel, I owe a special debt for his efforts in the months prior to publication.

  By the miracle which is the internet, I “met” Lee Farrand on-line and found his blog, leeskoreablog.blogspot, both entertaining and an excellent source of information about Korea. Lee; his wife, Heather; and her parents, Min Jong-Hee and Jung Jae-Won, gave needed insight into Korean families and culture.

  A Southern Girl is essentially about family, and family is essential. My love and thanks to the beautiful folks who have fostered my work—the Warley women, MB and Barbara; the Warley men, my sons, Caldwell, Nelson, and Carter; the spouses who make my children and me happy—Heather Partridge Warley, Drew Lockwood, Erin Gemma, and Nessa Snyder Warley; in-laws par excellence Bob and Jeanne Partridge, Nick and Shannon Gemma, Howard and Mary Anne Snyder, David and Christy Lockwood; and grandchildren Addie, Eli, Anna, Ellis, and Oliver. To my sister Shanny Satterstrom, my brother Rob Warley and his partner Jim Hare, brother Tom Warley and to the memory of our parents, John Caldwell Warley and Susannah Barnwell Warley. On Barbara’s side, Chris and Ann Duplessis, Matt Langenderfer, and the Hutchison girls: Rachel Langenderfer, Barbara and Helen Hutchison, and the memory of their mother, sweet Beth—without you all, what’s the point?

  PROLOGUE

  June 28, 1978

  Dear Open Arms:

  My name is Elizabeth Carter. I am a twenty-eight year old mother of two biological sons. This letter responds to Section 3(a) of your application: “State in five hundred words or less why you want to adopt a son or daughter from a foreign country.”

  No question on a pre-printed form has cost me so much sleep as this one. My husband, Coleman, has been asking me this exact question for months (although he wisely did not restrict me to five hundred words—he knows better). My answers have not convinced him, and worse, they haven’t convinced me either. So I decided to put my desire in writing, in hopes that by the last period on the final sentence both you and I are persuaded that this adoption is best for everyone. If either of us remains doubtful, perhaps it was not meant to be.

  I cannot address the question without telling you something of my early life. As you know from responses to other questions on this application, I was born in Topeka, Kansas, on July 14, 1950. As a child I attached no significance to that date—the middle of summer heat when no one felt like doing much and my friends were either at camp or traveling, so the few birthday parties I remember were poorly attended. In high school, I learned I was born on Bastille Day. I liked the sound of it. Peasants storming a prison to liberate people who should never have been there in the first place spoke to me. I searched for some ancestral tie to France, but never found one. My folks were of Polish and German descent, and their parents were the outer limits of their genetic curiosity.

  So many of the girls I knew had parents just like mine: second generation eastern European, middle class, church-going, tax-paying, hard working. But somehow those families succeeded in areas where my family seemed predisposed to fail. My friends adored their parents, whereas I found mine rather stiff and removed. My friend Janet told me her three brothers were her best friends, but my two brothers just happened to live in the same house. I knew from visits to my friends at Christmas that certain traditions predominated, yet my family observed very few of those. In a real sense I grew up without the identity felt so strongly by those I spent my time with.

  Things only got worse when I reached high school. I was skinny, flat-chested, and bookish; hardly the attributes that got a girl elected homecoming queen. I had a few girlfriends, but they focused more on boys than anything else. By the time we graduated, a couple of them were already engaged. I, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to get away from Topeka, to run toward a special and exciting future that I was sure awaited me in some other place. I chose Hollins for college because it was in the East, had a strong English department, and promised some sophistication I hoped would rub off on me. My parents were none too happy with the price of tuition, but they reluctantly supported my choice. I filled out there, both physically and emotionally.

  I first met my husband on a blind date, then again just before he finished college at the University of Virginia. He is a true son of the South, but without that sappy drawl I find grating to the ear. He is an only child, the “golden boy” his parents doted on, in much the same way he dotes on our two sons, Steven and Josh. He is an excellent father, which is why I have been surprised at his attitude about this adoption. I probably shouldn’t be telling you he has reservations, but he does and I want to be honest even if it dooms my application; our application, because he has signed it despite those reservations. He says he doesn’t think he can love an adopted child the same way he loves our biological boys. I think he is wrong. In important ways I know him better than he knows himself, and once he gets past his fear of the unknown, he will be a great father to her (we want a girl, as specified in response to question 2(c)). He also says a foreign adoption will upset his parents. He is probably right on that one, as his parents are old school and quite conservative. I’ve come to learn that in the South, blood is everything. But as I say, he will come around. Whether they will remains to be seen.

  So I come back to my reasons for wanting this child. Part of it is altruism, no doubt. So many children are born into dire circumstances dooming them from birth. Rescuing one doesn’t solve that, but if our family is in a position to help, we should do it.

  Altruism aside, I sense that out there somewhere is an
infant whose life will be radically altered for the better by what we do. I am speaking here beyond the generic benefits of a loving family to a child without one. My own upbringing came with a liberal dose of alienation, and I know firsthand how painful that can be. A child adopted into a strange culture in a land foreign to her birth may feel that same alienation, particularly here in the South. I can relate. I can ease that pain. I can make the difference. I know I can. Somewhere out there is or will be a girl who with my help will grow up safe and secure and with the same sense of belonging our sons feel. And with those advantages, she will soar.

  I have used more than five hundred words, but this is too important to skimp. Please let us know your decision soon.

  Very truly yours,

  Elizabeth Carter

  Part 1

  CONFLUENCE

  O, Captain! Is there golden shore

  Beyond this golden sea?

  And will those curving, spotless wings

  Keep company with me?

  I know, I know the land I seek

  Lies far away to lee,

  And we are sailing with the wind

  Across a golden sea,

  But tell me of the golden shore,

  The world that is to be.

  And will these saintly, angel wings

  Be given even me?

  ROBERT WOODWARD BARNWELL, SR.

  “The Emigrant,” Realities and Imaginations

  1

  Jong Sim

  My sweet gardenia, today we will go into Seoul, a city I myself have never seen but one we can visit together. What a day we will have. Everything will be new, as you are new. Oh, do not worry about getting lost. Min Jung gave detailed instructions. This bus carries us to the edge of the city, where we will take another. The sights and sounds and the aromas will welcome us there. They will forever live in our pooled memory. Little flower, we will remember this day always.