|
 Wish You Well
Wish You Well is the story of Louisa Mae Cardinal, a precocious twelve-year-old girl living in the hectic New York City of 1940 with her acclaimed but sadly underpaid writer father, her compassionate mother, and her timid younger brother, Oz. For Lou, her family's financial struggles are invisible to her. Instead, she is a daughter who idolizes her father and is in love with the art of storytelling.
Then, in a single, terrifying moment, Lou's life is changed forever, and she and Oz are on a train rolling away from New York and down into the mountains of Virginia. There, Lou's mother will begin a long, slow struggle between life and death. And there, Lou and Oz will be raised by their remarkable great-grandmother, Louisa, Lou's namesake.
Suddenly a girl finds herself coming of age in a landscape that could not be more foreign to her. On her great-grandmother's farm, on the land her father loved and wrote about, Lou finds her first true friend; learns lessons in loyalty, tragedy, and redemption; and experiences adventures tragic, comic, and audacious. When a dark, destructive force encroaches on their new home, Lou and her brother are caught up in another struggle - a struggle for justice and survival that will be played out in a crowded Virginia courtroom.
Wish You Well is a tale laced with touching passages evoking the charms of rural Virginia, imbued with graceful humor, and enriched by unforgettable characters. The novel is a heart-wrenching yet triumphant story about family and adversity from times past that resounds forcefully today. Wish You Well is a breathtakingly beautiful achievement from an author who has the power to make us feel, to make us care, and to make us believe in the great and little miracles that can change lives -- or save them.
Researching Wish You Well
The story in Wish You Well is entirely fictional, but the setting, other than the place names, is not. I have been to those mountains, and also was fortunate to grow up with two women who called the high rock home for many years. My maternal grandmother, Cora Rose, lived with my family for the last ten years of her life, but spent the prior six decades or so on the top of a mountain in Southwest Virginia. At her knee I learned about that land and the life there. My mother, the youngest of ten, lived there for the first seventeen years of her life, and while I was growing up she passed along to me many fascinating stories from her youth. Indeed, neither the hardships nor adventures experienced by the characters in the novel would be unfamiliar to her.
In addition to the stories I listened to as a child, I spent considerable time interviewing my mother in preparation for writing Wish You Well, and it was an enlightening time for me, on many levels. Once we reach adulthood most of us assume we know all there is to know about our parents and other family members. However, if you take the time to ask questions and actually listen to the answers, you may find there is still much to learn about people so close to you. Thus, this novel is, in part, an oral history of both where and how my mother grew up. Oral histories are a dying art, which is sad indeed, for they show appropriate respect for the lives and experiences of those who have come before. And, just as important, they document those remembrances, for once those lives are over, that personal knowledge is lost forever. Unfortunately, we now live in a time where everyone seems to be looking solely to the fresh and exciting future, as though we deem the past unworthy of our attention. Yet, it may well be that our greatest wealth as human beings can be discovered by simply looking behind us.
Though I am known for my suspense novels, I have always been drawn to stories of the past in my native Virginia, and tales of people living in places that sharply limited their ambitions, yet provided them with a richness of experience few have ever achieved. Ironically, as a writer, I've spent the last twenty years or so hunting relentlessly for story material, and failed to see the lumberyard-full within my own family. However, while it came later than it probably should have, writing Wish You Well was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
© 2000 by David Baldacci
Getting Started on Your Family Tree
One reason I wrote the novel Wish You Well is because I was very interested in my family's history. My father's ancestors are from Italy who immigrated to America at the turn of the twentieth century. My mother's family, the Roses, have been in America for centuries. As the writing process was underway I found myself researching more and more into my maternal family's past and unearthing information I had never known before. The thrill this gave me, touching on elements of my flesh and blood's lives, was immense.
Many steps that I took in researching my family's past are outlined below. I found much worthy information at my state library in Richmond, Virginia. Whatever state you live in, typically the main state library has a genealogical section which can be a treasure trove of data that you can, in turn, use to narrow your search. Trips to the local area where your ancestors lived can also be very useful. A visit to a local courthouse can yield facts on a whole host of areas: marriage, births, deaths, land records and the like. You can even find out, as I did, that some of your family members might have been particularly litigious!
Above all, take your time, record things meticulously and treat it like an investigation. You start small and build on facts from there. You may end up at some dead-ends but don't grow discouraged. It may have taken centuries for the lives of your ancestors to play out, so don't expect to know everything about them within a few short weeks. Stick with it and I can almost guarantee that you'll find the whole process very rewarding and even uplifting.
Good Luck!
David Baldacci
What is Genealogy and How Can I Get Started?
Genealogy is defined as the study of history and one's past -- including past and present family members of a particular family, which usually includes the preparation of a family tree. With the use of today's technology, many people are able to successfully trace their family's history with little beginning information.
Some tips to get you started:
- Pull together all the pieces of information you currently have. Read over the information and categorize it (i.e. photos, letters, family bible, medical records, maps, land records, birth certificates and even old greeting cards).
- Interview your immediate family, relatives and family friends to glean as much information as possible. Ask for stories as well as names and dates, as stories can lead you to new and interesting paths for finding additional information.
- Write down or record as much of the information as possible. Use this information to start a rough draft of your immediate family tree. The Internet can provide you with numerous family tree forms to aid in this process. There are also numerous well-designed software programs that focus on genealogy.
- Explore the Internet and visit your local and state libraries for additional information. Try to focus your search at first to a particular surname. This will help you make progress and break down the process to a manageable size. If you hit a dead-end on one surname, start on another.
- Get other family members involved. This is a wonderful project for family members to share. And it may help you re-connect with distant family.
The following Internet sites can help get you started on your own family tree and search for your family history.
www.familysearch.org
www.genealogy.com
www.ancestry.com
www.genhomepage.com
www.storypreservation.com
www.genealogytoday.com
© 2006 David Baldacci Enterprises
Additional Information
- Excerpt
Read an excerpt from Wish You Well on David's site or on All America Reads
- Critical Praise
Read reviews of Wish You Well at Hachette Book Group
- Inaugural selection of All America Reads
Access free lesson plans and activities prepared by classroom teachers
- Origins Essay
In Origins of Wish You Well, David shares his reasons for writing Wish You Well
- U.S. Publication Details
- Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group USA
- First edition hardcover release date: October 24, 2000
- ISBN: 0446527165,978-0446527163
- Additional formats available: Unabridged and abridged cassette, unabridged and abridged CD, mass market paperback, trade paperback
|
