Jennifer Crusie's Blog: Argh Ink

I’m big on houses. I’ve been criticized for that (“Why are there always houses?”) which I don’t get (do they write John Irving and say, “So about the bears . . .”?) because I think the places people live say a lot about them, the places they choose to live (if they can afford to choose) and the things they put in the places they choose. Plus houses are a huge metaphor. The house in Crazy for You is very consciously a metaphor for Quinn; when her ex-boyfriend breaks in, it’s a symbolic rape, and when the long arm of the law fails her at the end, she finishes him off with the long arm of the porch rail. Nell’s first apartment in Fast Women is her transition home (which is where she has transition sex with Riley); when she finds her own apartment and moves in, she starts her permanent relationship with Gabe there. The gallery in Faking It is the body of the Goodnight family: The brains of the family is up in the attic and all their secrets are in the basement, plus the house is where they live and work, fight and dance, go broke and fall in love. In Wild Ride, Mab is living an isolated existence, temporarily staying in Cindy’s extra bedroom. When she joins the community there, she moves out to the trailer park and begins her new life as part of Dreamworld; that is, she moves into the Guardia when she moves into the Delpha’s Airstream. And in Maybe This Time, when Andie first sees Archer House, she quotes “The House of Usher” to herself, subconsciously realizing that the house is not a home but a tomb that the kids have been put living into:

. . . an ancient three-story stone house rose up, flaunting two rose windows, a crumbling tower, and a moat, all of it dark in the twilight. “The House of Archer,” Andie said to herself as she slowed to take it all in. Well, it was a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year.

Andie struggles to make the place a home but finally escapes with the kids back into the warmth of the real Archer House, the home in Columbus where the Archer family lives and where they all belong.

I’d go on but you’re bored. Short version: Houses are really important to me.

So now I’m doing Lavender, and in this first book, Liz has no house and doesn’t want one. She stays in a lot of hotels while she’s working on books and she’s rigged up her ancient little Camry with an office in the back seat so she can work no matter where she is. It’s awful, and that’s going to change in the next book, but for the space of the first story, she is houseless. There is her mother’s house, which I’m basing on the house I spend my first seven years in, and there’s the Blue mansion which is Alien Territory and helpful for contrast, but there’s no sense of self and place in Liz. She’s completely adrift.

I knew that was going to be a strain for me–I need a house–but I didn’t realize until I looked back on what I’d already written that Lavender has possibly the best house of my entire career in it. I just gave it to Vince.

I knew Vince lived outside the town in the woods on the river. I knew he had some kind of sturdy Jeep/Land Rover/Guy Car because he lived on a dirt road, and I knew he had a winch on the front because I have teased Bob mercilessly about the winch on his Jeep. Liz also mocks Vince’s winch:

“Why in the name of god would you need a winch?”
“To pull people out of ditches.”
“How many people have you pulled out of ditches?”
“None.”
“So the winch is—”
“Waiting,” he said. “Much like me.”
“For me to get out of the car.”
“Yes.”

I also had some vague idea that he lived in a trailer because that would be affordable. If he bought riverfront land that flooded–riverfront land is notoriously floodable–and had a housetrailer on it, he could afford the great view. So I had this vague idea of a trailer in a lot of mud and trees on the river. Low rent but with some very nice things inside. I was thinking Rockford Files. Jim Rockford had a good solid desk and leather chair, so I gave Vince those, and I figured I’d find some picture of the Rockford trailer on the net and I’d be done.

Then in an entirely unrelated search, I went looking for pictures of diners because there’s a diner in Liz’s home town called the Red Box that was important to her growing up, and that translated into a diner fixation since she was on the road all the time, plus the Red Box becomes one of the community settings in the series. I needed a picture of a great diner, and I found one, but while I was looking for that one, I tripped over the Valentine Diners:

“Valentine Diners began their nearly forty-year career in Wichita, Kansas–an idea born of the Great Depression. They were constructed as eight-to-ten-seat diners that one or two people could operate. If you were good at it–if you served good food at a fair price and kept your customers happy–you could make a successful business of a Valentine. In an industry where nearly all major diner manufacturers were on the East Coast, the Kansas creation managed to ship its little pre-fabs all across the country. Valentines could be found along major highways to attract travelers, in industrial areas to attract workers, and in small towns where they might be one of the only (if not the only) restaurants available.”
From “History of Valentine Diners” on the Kansas State Historical Site.

I fell in love with the Valentine Diners. They were such a brilliant idea: Mass produce a small diner that could be loaded on a flat bed truck, ship it to buyers on a time purchase plan, and if they didn’t pay, back the truck up and repossess the whole thing. No risk for the company and a chance at a solid business in a lot of little Midwest towns. They came in several styles including the Big Chef and the Little Chef, and there are still some in operation although they’re disappearing fast. They were constructed of heavy duty materials, so the ones still in existence can be restored, which is what Vince did.

See, there was this Big Chef diner in Kansas where he worked when he was in high school and where he and his grandmother used to eat, and it closed because of a fire. On his way back from his grandmother’s funeral he saw the diner had been damaged, called the owner and arranged to haul it away for free, and took it with him when he moved to Ohio for his new job. Here’s a drawing of Vince’s Big Chef diner before the fire:

There he had it put onto a cement foundation that raised it above the major flood level, tore out the part damaged by the fire, had the place replumbed and rewired, put in some panels where there used to be windows for privacy, and reconfigured the floor plan with a lot of elbow grease and glass block.

And now this is the Big Chef Vince lives in:

This is the floor plan Before Vince . . .

. . . and After Vince:

I’m not sure what the diner says about Vince yet. Well, it says he loved his grandma, and he has a deeply buried sentimental streak, and he’s open-minded about living spaces, but I’ll have to wait and see what emerges as I write the books to truly understand how it reflects his character. I never really know for sure what anything means until the book is completely done.

But I do know this: there are three things Liz can’t resist–quirky T-shirts, pearls, and old diners–and when she sees Vince’s home for the first time, in the moonlight after several drinks, she has a genuine Pemberley moment.

I’m loving this book. And Valentine diners. Also, Vince rocks.