S.L. Jacobs is the author of the new novel Public Comment. She is a retired lawyer and also is a writer, director, and performer in community theater.
Q: What inspired you to write Public Comment, and how did you create your character Debra Wolfson?
A: As with most kinds of satire, Public Comment was “inspired” by my outrage and grief at the direction our nation is heading and, at the same time, by the tender and sincere intimacy of small-town governance.
The reader knows from the first line (which won a First Line Contest at Write By Night in NYC) that Wendell is a murderer, and it isn’t long before the reader also knows that he will do anything to keep the bodies well-buried on the golf course where he is a grounds guy.
But the only way he can keep his murderous secrets hidden “in perpetuity” is to run for first selectman (mayor) of the little town which owns the golf course property. How does a chaotic, narcissistic, and fraudulent leader “govern” in a small town unused to life-and-death controversy over what to do with a bankrupt golf course?
Enter Debra Wolfson. Like Debra, I have a decades-long history as a lawyer, mediator, civic volunteer, elected and appointed official, and political partisan, so Debra and I know each other very well. But, assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, I am not Debra.
Ironically, early drafts cast Debra as a minor character. She appeared only toward the end of the book and had little role to play. I was encouraged to bring her forward and expand her role, her character and, most importantly, her interaction with Wendell.
She drove the story in ways that I hadn’t even imagined when I first started writing. Specifically, I embraced the contrast of the satiric treatment of Wendell with the gentle tongue-in-cheek treatment of Debra, the small-town dramas, and the cozy genre itself.
Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The title was never in doubt, and I am delighted that not a single beta reader, editor, press, publisher, or relative has ever suggested that I change it.
At its most elemental level, “public comment’ is a legally required agenda item at nearly every kind of public municipal meeting. As an active civic participant in my community, I have sat through hundreds of hours of “public comment.” Any member of the public is permitted to speak on any topic, subject to rarely enforced time limits.
At its most elevated level, it is an essential component of democracy and, for my purposes, is a metaphor for every vulnerable and fragile institution in our nation which can all too easily be hijacked for political and destructive purposes.
In the real world, it is often inadvertently hilarious, occasionally tearful, sometimes angry, sometimes even praiseworthy, rarely brief, and very tender.
Q: Did you know how the story would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I knew the ending, just as I knew the beginning, but that pesky middle can become a muddle. I have to say, though, that I loved playing with the possibilities, adding dialogue, changing up a plot line, honing the humor and satiric elements with nutty thoughts that came up in the middle of the night.
But, no surprise, over the course of writing Public Comment, the story took winding twists and turns along plots lines and secondary characters. Early versions were from Wendell’s point of view, then rewritten in first person to accommodate Debra’s point of view, then landing, ultimately, in third person, but third person close, so the narrative voice is perched on Debra’s shoulder.
I did, however, manage to maintain two structural imperatives. First, there had to be 18 chapters, because a golf course has 18 holes. That might sound silly, but it gave me structure. Second, I placed the story in the late 1980s, allowing me to incorporate incipient technology, as needed, into Wendell and Debra’s worlds, while also avoiding the dominance of screens in daily life.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: There is little question that Public Comment is a genre cocktail, mixing a politically satiric base with elements of a cozy mystery, all with a bit of salt on the rim.
That creates a bundle of expectations, but I hope readers will find parallels with our daily news cycle and will discover something a little more mysterious and foreboding than just murder in a small town.
I hope that readers also take away a renewed faith in the capacity of democracy to work.
Those lofty aspirations are accompanied by my hope that readers laugh!
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Debra Wolfson is still going! She is caught up in hilarious criminal mischief committed while her synagogue’s Community Theater wing is workshopping a play. This involves blackmail complications at the costume shop, cult-driven coercion, and a possible murder at a nearby church, involving a scarecrow and moose antlers. The sequel is in progress and is tentatively entitled One Part at a Time.
There will likely be a third installment, as well, where Debra gets caught up in chicanery and bean sprouts at her local CSA farm.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: As a first-time author (and a very senior citizen), I am particularly proud of the fact that my debut novel found a publisher and that Public Comment is, itself, public comment, written in dissent and protest!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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