CH 9: Confessions in the Gloaming Backstory
The Confessions chapter is set in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania, which is about 30 minutes south from where I grew up in Butler. My Aunt Bobby lived there. She was a nice woman and gave my family something I will always treasure: her spaghetti recipe. I think it was clipped from the Pittsburgh Press. Not to ruin the surprise, but the secret is chili powder.
To be honest, McKees Rocks has seen better days. It was hit hard by the turn away from American steel back in the seventies like the rest of the region was, and hasn’t fully recovered. Still, I have to admire the tenacity of those who continue to live there, like lichens clinging to a rock committed to staying for the duration.
This chapter has the distinction of being the first thing written for the book. I had an image in my head that wouldn’t go away – I really think it inspired the whole novel: McGhee sitting in the cold winter early morning hours on a stoop in front of a bar. I wanted to know how he got there. I didn’t know anything about him, but loosely imagined that could be me in different circumstances. In short, that mystery fueled almost 700 pages of discovery.
I wrote that chapter one late night about 3 am after writing what would become the prologue – an urgent prodding to myself to get writing. Confessions was only a fragment – about 3 or 4 pages – but it turned out to be enough. I later returned to the image and re-wrote the chapter. Interestingly (at least to me), I had McGhee speaking with an Irish accent in the first draft. Ultimately, I knew I couldn’t sustain that, but his Irish heritage would remain as part of what he needed to reconcile. This plays out in A Dublin Homily (CH 20) later in the book where he has another theological debate, this time in a bar in Dublin named Doheny & Nesbitt. I’ve never been there, but it looks like a good place for such a debate to occur. More on that in a later backstory blog.
In Confessions I had a priest bump into McGhee on that stoop and they have a discussion about their lives and religion. I gave that priest the name of a good friend of mine I’ve known since I was about 7. His name is Mark Chepelsky. He’s not a priest, but remains one of the best guys I know. He’s a pretty amazing dad (just check out his Facebook page for copious evidence) – a father – so it seemed appropriate. I was relieved when he read the chapter and told me he liked it!
