Bethel Park author explores family secrets in a new novel
Courtesy of Ann K. Howley
Bethel Park author Ann K. Howley has published her first novel, “The Memory of Cotton.”
Courtesy of Ann K. Howley
The cover of the novel “The Memory of Cotton”
You’d be hard pressed to find a family that doesn’t have a few skeletons rattling around in its closet.
The drunken uncle. The philandering granddad. The distant ancestor who owned slaves or served time in jail.
Bethel Park author Ann Howley used an eye-opening family revelation as the basis for her first novel.
One day many years ago, her grandmother received a surprising package in the mail – a relative mailed her the Ku Klux Klan robe her father wore when he was a member of the white supremacist organization decades before.
“I remember how mortified I felt,” Howley said. “I always remembered that sick feeling. And I thought about the story for a long, long time.”
She added, “There are all kinds of skeletons in every family closet, and we don’t realize how prevalent it is.”
That startling and unwelcome kernel of family history inspired “The Memory of Cotton,” which was published in May by Propertius Press. A work of fiction geared to young adults, it’s the story of Shelby, a 15-year-old girl who journeys to North Carolina to try to solve a mystery surrounding the actions in 1956 of her great grandfather, a Klansman. It is Howley’s second book, following her 2014 memoir, “Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone Bad,” in which she recalls the clash between growing up in a buttoned-down, Christian conservative household amid the loosening cultural mores of California in the 1960s and 1970s.
Howley has had a varied career, working in California in television production – she was an assistant to “Matlock” producer Dean Hargrove and regularly worked with Andy Griffith on the series’ script notes – and, more recently, as an administrator in a public accounting firm. She’s a regular contributor to the magazine Pittsburgh Parent, and has also written for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Bicycle Times and other publications. A winner of several writing prizes, Howley teaches writing classes for the Community College of Allegheny County’s community education program and has hosted weekend writing retreats.
Howley admits that switching from writing features to penning fiction was a bit of a trial.
“It wasn’t easy at first,” she explained. “It was definitely not an easy transition for me. … At first, it was very hard. It was very difficult for me to shift to a different style of writing.”
But then, she warmed to process, driven by the fact that she could write “whatever I want.”
“The Memory of Cotton” is designed for young adults, and Howley has a soft spot for the genre. She recalls being an avid reader when she was in the target range for young adult fiction, which is designed for readers aged 12 to 18. In fact, Howley said she still enjoys reading young adult fiction.
“There’s a simplicity to the stories,” she said. “I would rather read a book for young adults than a romance novel.” She has a second young-adult novel in the works. It has no title yet, but it’s about a 10-year-old boy in heaven who teams up with his teenage sister’s former pet rat to try to prevent her from getting in trouble on Earth.
“The Memory of Cotton” touches on historical LGBTQ issues as well as issues of race, which would theoretically make it a target for book-banners who have put books on those topics in their gunsights. According to Howley, “I am absolutely horrified by these efforts. They’re wrong-headed and short-sighted. … I am proud if my voice is standing up for basic dignities and human rights.”
She added, “It would not stop me from telling what I think is the truth.”
Additional information is available at www.propertiuspress.com.