East Garrison started from my imaginings, staring out my foggy office window on the former Army base, Fort Ord. I drove and hiked around the eerily-empty decrepitude and wondered what it would be like for a woman to be stranded on part of the deserted base (where even the police don't patrol) under the most physically difficult circumstance I’d been through (having a baby), and then I added a mountain lion protecting her cubs. A screenwriting teacher summed up the formula well, "I got my protagonist up a tree and then began chucking rocks at her." However, what began as crazy musings quickly became a personal study into my deeply disturbing relationship with my father, who inadvertently materialized into my main character.
East Garrison's plot is fictional; many of its characters are not. I grew up in the late 60s/early 70s with a father who had a thriving mail-order business for replica Nazi war memorabilia, which he sold as originals. He had me removing "made in Japan" stickers off Gestapo badges, and antiquing German battle flags in the washing machine with Rit number 1 yellow dye before I was ten. Then, on top of the pool table, with my drunken father singing Nazi marching music and instructing me which stamps to use, I'd mark the edges with bizarre numbers and letters. I knew the words to the Nazi Party anthem, Die Fahne hoch (The flag on high) before I ever heard the Star Spangled Banner. I recognized Adolf Hitler and his book Mein Kampf (my struggle), but didn't know who was president of the United States of America. I had no clue what this was all about, although I couldn't help but be acutely aware of the strange looks I got from both peers and adults. My feelings of not "fitting-in" quickly turned me into a candidate for the suicide hotline. Only now do I understand why I grew up with a keen sense of "outsiderdom”. I'm fairly certain that my childhood was unusual, and hopefully people will find East Garrison a good read.
