Bobbi Ann Johnson Holmes

JAX made me cry…

Have you ever started listening to a song and then just broke into tears? Until a few weeks ago, I hadn’t. But over on TikTok a new song by Jax came across my FYP (aka For You Page). It was from her newly released debut album, Dear Joe. The song that made me cry? Too young to be Old.

If you don’t know who Jax is, she’s a young songwriter who is rather well known over on TikTok, especially for her song, Victoria’s Secret.  I really liked that song, but the one that knocked me over and makes me sob every time is the one she wrote for her father. And I am serious—I actually cry real tears when I start listening to that song. It triggers something in my heart.

Not sure if I was the audience Jax was going for, but I have a feeling it’s a demographic that might find itself crying along with me. 

I’m a sixty-nine-year-old woman who, for over five years, was the full-time caretaker of her mother with vascular dementia, until Mom had to be moved into a memory care facility last year. Mom is 96, and I visit her every week, spending four or five hours with her each visit.

There is a line in Jax’s song that goes, “The hardest part of growing up is watching time take everyone you love.”  When I hear that line, I think of Mom, and how all the people in her life have slipped away. Her father when she was a child, and in later years her mother, my father, her siblings, and most of her friends. 

When she was still living with me, and not as lost in dementia as she is today, she would tell me how lonely she was, as most of her friends were gone, along with all her siblings and cousins. But the song also stirred emotions about my father.

My sister and I were daughters of a girl dad. I found the lines in Jax’s song poignant and relatable. There is one line about her father moving her into an apartment and assembling all her chairs. I remembered Dad moving me into my first apartment with my sister, and all the times he was there to put something together—not always furniture and sometimes metaphorically.

Jax’s line, “The hardest part of growing up is watching time take everyone you love,” didn’t just slam me in the gut because I thought of Mom’s losses. I thought of mine. Dad died over thirty years ago, with Mom and me by his bedside. 

Her lyrics about her father’s aging and her wanting to deny it because she still needs him, took me back to my own experience dealing with my father’s illness and his subsequent death.

Her song made me think of both of my parents—losing my father, and the long painful goodbye of my mother. It reminded me of my own mortality, and how short life is. These days when my husband and I go onto Facebook there always seems to be news of another friend passing. In fact, next week we are attending the memorial service of a dear family member.

I urge you to check out Jax’s debut album. I would love for you to buy her music. She’s a talented young songwriter, and I’d like to see people support her, after all, she made me cry. 

Cancelled for being “Woke”

I’ve a file where I store emails from readers. It’s labeled “Fans” which is inaccurate, because some emails are from readers who’ve discovered something they dislike about my books and feel compelled to share their opinion with me. Fortunately, most of the correspondence is favorable, which is why I haven’t bothered to re-label the file.

When looking through the file this morning I came across two emails received from the same reader, on the same day, back in February of this year.

In the first email the reader begs me to kill off a character who she dislikes, telling me the character makes her want to stop reading. Since I wanted readers to dislike that character, I suppose that is sort of a win on my part. Yet, I don’t want the unlikable character to chase away readers.

I contemplated how to respond, as I try to respond to all emails. Yet, sometimes life gets in the way, and I don’t get to everyone. Before I had the chance to respond, that reader sent a second email. It read:

Oh wow! That’s it for me. Again, I am on book 24.  You have now added “white guilt”.  Good grief. Does everyone need to feel they need to be woke? I’m now done with your books.  I will not recommend them, or purchase any in the future.  

I decided to look up the definition of woke, as it pertains to urban slang. According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, woke means,aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)”

It also stated it is a “general pejorative for anyone who is or appears to be politically left-leaning.”

The only conclusion I can draw after reviewing the definition of woke is that my storyline in Book 24, The Ghost and the Silent Scream, made that reader uncomfortable. 

Did I add white guilt? I don’t think so. To me, a book with white guilt implies adding exaggerated racial content to a story for no reason other than to inspire guilt from white people. That’s not what I did.

Authors find story fodder in all sorts of places, such as personal experiences and history. I’ve always enjoyed using history as story fodder and as inspiration. In my Coulson Family Saga, written under my Anna J. McIntyre pen name, I heavily used American history as story fodder and as a backdrop to the story that unfolds over the five books. 

Did I do it to guilt out men, because a good chunk of the story was about women and how their place in American society changed over a century? No. I simply told a realistic story, and if it made some readers uncomfortable, I think they need to look in the mirror.

Haunting Danielle is a paranormal cozy mystery series, that sometimes involves murder. When reading about murder, readers typically want to learn, by the end of the book, who committed the murder and why. When looking for plot inspiration I often turn to history, especially when many of my characters come from the 1920s. 

In The Ghost and the Silver Scream, the only thing I could find that the disgruntled reader may have seen as white guilt was a storyline that involves parents who have disowned their daughter for falling in love with a Black man, which sets off a chain of events.  

So, how did I respond to that reader? I didn’t. She is entitled to her opinion, and no reader is obligated to recommend my books, or purchase them.

I will confess, I am a little perplexed as to why—at Book 24—this reader decided to be offended. I have to assume she read the prior 23 books. Most of my readers read Haunting Danielle books in order, as they are chronological, and I don’t advise jumping into the middle of the series.  

In previous books I’ve addressed what some might consider woke topics, such as how it used to be illegal for Blacks to reside in Oregon, and storylines have included Oregon’s early history with the KKK. This began in the first book in the series. But maybe it was another woke thing that bothered the reader. 

The Florida Department of Education, American Pride, and Jane Austin

If you go to the Florida Department of Education’s website, you will see how its commissioner, Manny Diaz, Jr., included Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice as one of its recommended books for July. 

At first glance, Jane Austin fans might see that as a good thing.  Pride and Prejudice has always been one of my favorite Austin books.

Yet, his recommendation isn’t a salute to Austin’s literary talents—it’s a salute to Diaz’s embarrassing ignorance. 

According to the website: “The Commissioner’s books for the month of July highlight the importance of American pride as we celebrate the month of our country’s founding.”

I don’t know if I want to laugh over that absurd explanation, or cry at the dismal ignorance displayed by Florida’s Department of Education. And these are the people who feel they know best when it comes to banning books?  

The following quote appears on the Florida Department of Education’s website:  “As we look back upon our nation’s history and recognize the efforts of the founding fathers to build a country based on the values of freedom, it is paramount that we impart a sense of American pride on our students during the month of July,” said Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz, Jr. “With this book selection, I encourage students to continue to celebrate American pride month and reflect on the unyielding spirit and heroic patriotism of the many Americans throughout history who fought in the pursuit of liberty and freedom.”

The absurdity of the book’s inclusion for the reason given by Diaz is not because it was written by a British author, years after our country was founded, but the fact the word “Pride” in the title of Austin’s book was not meant as a positive attribute—just the opposite.

If Diaz seriously wants readers to read Pride and Prejudice to reflect on the pride we have as Americans, is he suggesting that like Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth in Jane Austin’s book, we need to set aside our pride if we want to come together with others? Austin shows us in her book that pride is not a positive attribute. It can divide and alienate people, even people who could fall in love, as do Darcy and Elizabeth after they set aside their pride.

Or perhaps I misjudged Diaz, and he is not literature ignorant, but clever. Perhaps he is telling Americans that we need to set aside our pride—and even our prejudice—if Americans want to come together, as did Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth.