As Husbands Go (46 page)
Authors: Susan Isaacs
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Contemporary Women
Backstory is dandy, but I needed a front story. I later realized it had been waiting for me from the moment I took on the voice of someone who is all about surfaces. What would happen when something occurs, something potentially shattering, to demolish a gorgeously constructed existence? Could Susie face the truth, no matter how awful? She might be willing, but would she be able to stand up for this truth, fight for herself and her family? Was there substance beneath the style?
Also, with all the current chatter about values, family and otherwise, few people truly have to put up or shut up. But here was my protagonist, thirty-five years old, someone who’d never given morality a thought beyond the vague understanding that it has to do with the Ten Commandments (of which, maybe, she could recite five). Facing what might be a major injustice—the wrong person being convicted of a crime—could she act? Was it even her responsibility, considering that all the authorities considered the prosecutor’s case a slam dunk? Can someone whose lifetime thinking about morality probably totaled two minutes develop a sense of ethics, along with the courage to actually do the right thing?
So that’s how I began. I joined with my new companion, Susan B Anthony Rabinowitz Gersten, saw through her eyes, thought her thoughts, comprehended all she was up against. Now I could finally do what she’d asked of me: set down her story.
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