Inspiration for writing Gabriela and The Widow by Jack Remick In one way or another, fiction is autobiographical but the story doesn’t have to be, as they blare out on TV, “based on a true story.” It’s the other way around—the novel, the fiction becomes part of the author’s autobiography. The novel is an expression of being. The author puts a writer into every story and that writer is the narrator. For Gabriela and the Widow, the autobiographical stimulus, call it the impulse to write, came when I visited my mother to celebrate her 92 nd birthday. For the last few years, my mother’s caregiver has been Gabriela. I watched as Gabriela fed her, dressed her, bathed her, combed her hair and put her to bed. But for Gabriela, this wasn’t just a job. She had a connection to my mother that was true, real, and honest. She didn’t change her behavior for my visits. She didn’t coo and perform, so I knew that what I saw was the real Gabriela and the real Mother. And there was somet...
Opening a Chapter of Inspiration Served with a Heavy Dose of Reality