The Challenges and Delights of Writing a Shaker Mystery A Personal Essay Deborah Woodworth A mystery novel is, at root, a morality play an exploration of the struggle between good and evil. In the end, the vast majority of mystery novels try to bring order to a disordered world. Murky gray areas might surround the good and the evil, and the final order may not be ideal, but nonetheless resolution is reached, and justice generally prevails. What better place to locate such a story than a fictional Shaker community, where the members already struggle consciously against evil in the world and within their own hearts? The Shakers have always been known as a people of deep faith, integrity, and pacifism. They have stood steadfastly by their beliefs, striving to create a heaven on earth, to live as spiritual examples for the people of the world. How does one plunk such a community into a fictional tale of mystery and murder? That was the task I set for myself ten years ago when I first began contemplating what became the Sister Rose Callahan Shaker mystery series. Despite my years studying the sociology of religion, as part of my Ph.D. training in sociology, it s fair to say that when I began writing Death of a Winter Shaker, I didn t know what I was getting into. I knew something of the Shakers from my childhood in southern Ohio, where Shakers had once lived, and my many visits to the Warren County (Ohio) Historical Society s Shaker collection. However, the idea of setting a mystery in a Shaker village did not occur to me until 1991, when I visited Maine and Sabbathday Lake s Herb House. Enthralled by the sights, sounds, and fragrances, I asked myself that most favorite question of writers What if...? What if a body was found here, in this peaceful setting? What if the dead man was a Winter Shaker, someone who has come to the Shaker village more for food and shelter than out of spiritual yearning? The answer to that question became Death of a Winter Shaker and led me into a journey filled with learning, fascination, uncertainty, and deep satisfaction.
As a Shaker, my protagonist, Sister Rose Callahan, is deeply concerned with creating a heaven on earth. She lives in constant awareness that her actions reflect her spiritual state. Sister Rose strives, as do her fictional companions, to live her beliefs daily. Yet she is not so naïve as to think that evil cannot invade her village, or that people who are trying to express goodness with their lives cannot also erupt in evil. For Sister Rose, the search for a murderer becomes doubly important because Shaker theology values human life so deeply. Their pacifism adds to the complications Sister Rose must sort through how can she combat evil with as little physical violence as possible? How does she continue to live out her beliefs when confronted with others who follow different and often brutal rules? For Sister Rose, flushing out a killer is more than just a job it is both a spiritual duty and a process that forces her to re-examine her beliefs and understandings. A mystery story, like other types of fiction, relies on tension to pull the reader along. Tension, in a mystery, triggers and sustains suspense. Sociological theory has numerous lessons to teach about what creates tension within and between groups, and these insights have proven helpful in creating a Shaker mystery series. It is a sociological observation, for instance, that a group suffering economic hardship is likely to become antagonistic toward a group perceived to be doing better, especially if that group is visibly different. When conceiving the historical setting for the Sister Rose stories, I could have chosen the eighteen thirties, when the Society was undergoing a rich revival and experiencing Mother Ann s Work, or the Era of Manifestations. Instead, I placed my fictional village, North Homage, in rural Kentucky, during the Great Depression. In reality, the Shakers had left Kentucky by that time, but I imagined that, had they stayed, their relations with their neighbors might at times have been less than tranquil. The Shakers would surely have suffered from the Depression, and their membership would have been declining, especially among the brothers. Yet they would have had food, clothing, and a roof over their heads, and they might have looked suspiciously comfortable to their starving neighbors. Should murder occur, relations might have become strained to the point of breaking.
Brother Wilhelm Lundel, North Homage s elder, is perhaps the most sociologically inspired of my ongoing characters. While Sisters Rose and Agatha support cooperative interaction between the Shakers and the world, particularly in the area of commerce, Brother Wilhelm warns about the dangers of contamination from the world s values. He wants the community to return to old ways of dress and adopt an archaic form of speech to remind Believers that they are not people of the world. In the sociological history of a religious movement, often a leader or a faction arises whose goal is to purify the group s beliefs and lifestyle to return the group to an earlier, stricter, and perhaps more fervent state. Wilhelm s stance is well meant and not completely unfounded a religious community can certainly lose strength if it forgets its core values. However, Wilhelm also obstructs necessary change, often thwarts Rose in her murder investigations, and triggers at least one splitting headache for her per book. During my graduate studies, I had learned much about religious movements and communities, in general. Once I decided to write the Sister Rose series, I supplemented my knowledge with more specific research into the beliefs, history, experiences, daily lives, and written observations of Believers. But to write an engaging story, my characters and their lives had to become real to me. I had to be able to see their world through their eyes and feel it with their hearts. Yet I was not a Shaker and could only try to imagine myself into the life of a devout Believer. As I develop the stories and characters, especially the recurring character of Shaker eldress and sleuth, Sister Rose, I think about what it might be like to be Sister Rose to have her personality, experiences, and beliefs and how those elements might affect her perceptions of life and her behavior. For instance, the Shaker belief in the equality of the sexes gives Rose an opportunity for leadership that was rare among non-shaker women. As a result, she has the confidence to challenge Brother Wilhelm s attempts to undermine her authority. The Shakers deep belief in the equality of all races leads Rose, in A Simple Shaker Murder, to protect a mixed-
race girl, who has been neglected. When murder strikes Sister Rose s village, she works to find the truth in part, of course, she wishes to protect her community, but she is also driven by her faith, which teaches her to abhor violence. To create a fictional world that seems real, I make liberal use of the senses. I put myself into a setting and imagine what I would see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. In Death of a Winter Shaker, young Gennie Malone, a girl being raised by the Shakers, enters the Herb House and pauses to play her favorite guessing game. Inhaling deeply, she could recognize some of the fragrances, even this late in the drying process. She could distinguish pungent rosemary from the sweet rose petals, sage from lemon balm, all mellowed by the smell of earth and hay. When I mention herbs in the books, I ve usually grown them myself so I ll know how they look, feel, smell, and taste though I ve declined to eat the poisonous ones. If possible, I try Shaker recipes before describing how the foods smell and taste. If direct experimentation is impossible, I use a combination of reading, previous experience, and imagination to create a setting. When I began drafting the first Shaker mystery, I was leery of trying to use a Believer as the protagonist. I was concerned that I would not be able to understand her enough to make her real. At first, I tried to use her sidekick, Gennie Malone, as the main character. In short order, I realized that seventeen-year-old Gennie, eager and charming as she was, could not provide the depth of character needed for the role. So, reluctantly, I turned to Sister Rose, who was then trustee of her village. Sister Rose eluded me for some time. She seemed one-sided, at times almost like a stereotypical nun. So I wrote a biography for her, in which she was raised by the Shakers and then left as an eighteen-year-old to experience the world. She fell in love, became engaged to be married, but felt powerfully called back to the Society. When I returned her to the story, she had become fully human to me, though getting to know her completely is an ongoing process. In creating my characters, both Shaker and non-shaker, I begin with one basic assumption: All the characters are, first and foremost, human beings. I assume they have the
same hopes, fears, and dreams as the rest of us. The Shakers beliefs provide focus for those human feelings, as well as guidelines for their behavior. Their community gives them strength to keep their hearts trained on their spiritual goals. I suspect this is more easily said than done. We all know how difficult it is to try to bring our actions in line with our beliefs about what is right and good. For the Believers I ve written about for ten years, this goal is a daily struggle to which they devote their lives happily and, at times, not so happily. For example, in Sins of a Shaker Summer, Sister Rose must reconcile her faith with her growing feelings for the village s new trustee, Brother Andrew while she solves a murder! The stories themselves and the way in which Sister Rose goes about her sleuthing are heavily influenced by my research into Shaker beliefs and history. Rose is an observer of human nature. She knows that all the emotions that plague humankind such as anger, greed, hatred, and vengefulness can also appear in a Believer. However, characters will likely translate these difficult feelings into actions in different ways, depending on whether they are Believers or people of the world. One of my favorite ongoing characters, Sister Elsa Pike, is driven by ambition. If she were in the world, she might strive for social status or wealth, but as a Shaker, her most fervent desire is to supplant Sister Rose as eldress. Sister Elsa s presence complicates a story through her defiance of Rose s authority and her attempts to demonstrate spiritual superiority. She has cost Rose a headache or two herself. You may have heard writers assert that their characters seem to take off on their own at times and refuse to do what the writer wants them to do, or say what they are supposed to say. It s true. Sometimes a minor character refuses to settle for a walk-on part and just won t leave the stage. Sister Gertrude, the Kitchen Deaconess introduced in A Simple Shaker Murder, started talking and wouldn t stop. Before I knew it, she had a major role in the story. Perhaps the most startling example of such a character is Sister Agatha, Rose s predecessor as eldress. In the original version of Death of a Winter Shaker, Sister Agatha died of natural causes. However, she must have had a chat with my editor, because he called me and said, I like Agatha. Would you
bring her back to life? So I did, still thinking she was frail and probably wouldn t live long. Not only has she survived through six books, but she has become one of my favorite characters. She provides a level of spiritual guidance that Rose has not yet achieved, and she helps Rose think through all sorts of dilemmas. Sister Agatha seems at times to be writing her own dialogue. Frail as she is, I m afraid she now must live forever; I can t even imagine writing her death scene. On the other hand, when her time comes, she will probably tell me. I ve had a number of surprises as I ve created my fictional Shaker world. First has been my growing respect for Shakerism. Certainly, I began with a basic respect for the Shakers as a people who have devoted their lives to a greater good. But as my understanding of the Shakers and what they try to exemplify has deepened, so has my esteem for the Society. While my ongoing characters particularly, I think, Sisters Rose and Agatha have become richer in the process, my regard for the Shakers has complicated the writing for me. What could so twist a devout, and therefore pacifist, Shaker that he or she might commit murder? How can someone who is not yet a covenanted Believer but is drawn to the Shaker way of life even consider taking the life of another? Such questions help me grasp, through my characters, one of the most important issues in mystery writing what motivates human behavior? Another surprise popped up as soon as the first book, Death of a Winter Shaker, was published, and I began the signings and talks that comprise book promotion these days. I soon discovered how little most people knew about the Shakers. Many were aware of Shaker furniture, and that was it. On numerous occasions, I became more teacher than author as I fielded dozens of questions. Two questions I ve been asked at virtually every event are: Aren t the Shakers like the Amish? and How did they expect to survive if they were celibate? I ve enjoyed challenging these misperceptions and opening up, at least a little, the fascinating world of the Shakers to readers. I take particular delight in pointing out how many noncelibate communal groups, both religious and utopian, have come and gone, while the Shakers continue.
Perhaps the best surprise I ve had along the way was finding out that the Shakers at Sabbathday Lake read and enjoy my stories. I was a bit concerned, when I began writing the series, that the real Believers might not be thrilled by the thought of a Shaker village, even a fictional one, habitually overrun with murderers and their victims. Though I have always approached the writing out of deep respect for the Shakers and what they represent, I couldn t ignore their profound belief in pacifism. I hoped that, if the Believers ever decided to read one of my stories, they would understand that they are more about what is right and just than about killing. In 2000, I was thrilled to be invited to Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village to give a talk at the annual meeting of the Friends of the Shakers. I had the privilege of meeting the Shakers who then lived in the village Sister Frances (eldress), Brother Arnold (elder), Sister June, Sister Marie, Brother Wayne, and Brother Doug. Sadly, Sister Marie has passed away since then. I found the Shakers to be compassionate, spiritual, determined, and most definitely human. They take their calling seriously, yet display a marvelous sense of fun. Hard as I had worked on imagining what it would be like to be a Shaker sister, I still had collected some misperceptions that the Shakers proceeded to destroy. Sister Frances told me that, as a girl growing up in the village, she had read Nancy Drew mystery stories. The brothers and sisters were all far tougher and less easily shocked than I d imagined. Sister Rose would have felt at home with them. Deborah Woodworth is the author of Death of a Winter Shaker, A Deadly Shaker Spring, Sins of a Shaker Summer, A Simple Shaker Murder, Killing Gifts, and Dancing Dead (coming in March 2002). To order these books, contact the Special Sales Department at Avon Books, 212-207- 7528.