Deciding on the vehicle for a novel’s message allows wandering through my personal experiences and prior relationships. It’s like being a casting director and locations guru. Place, first: I was fortunate to have access to water courses and bodies growing up, from the Bay of Naples to Four Mile Run in East Falls Church. Four Mile Run ran behind my friend Ken DuRant’s family’s house across Whitcomb Place from the Wideners. Four Mile Run became the chief boyhood location of Fishbein, Ascending but transformed into the Ninnescah River, a place I have not yet visited.
I was blessed to enjoy Four Mile Run in its natural state through elementary and middle school. By the time I graduated college, its condition radically was changed during constructing Interstate 66 and the Corps of Engineers channelizing the stream bed following mighty rains from Hurricane Agnes in June, 1972. Coincidentally, that was the month I committed to moving west. While by then, the creek, so-called, no longer was part of my everyday landscape, Four Mile Run remained etched in my memory. Its banks were thickly wooded, suitable habitat for salamanders, frogs, water striders, minnows and crayfish galore, and the occasional snake, when its water level was decently high. An adjoining landowner a few blocks to the east had a couple of Billy goats we fed. The creek’s source when we tramped the banks reportedly was Gordon Avenue, a block or two southwest of our street. It flowed easterly for several miles, but we tramped the stretch between Gordon and about the Falls Church/Arlington County line, enough room to explore and get scratched up by grasping limbs, rocks, and dirt, staining and ripping shirts, pants and shoes. Our parents were skeptical of its safety at times, their residences having limited visibility to its banks. Since we usually traveled there as duos or in a pack, our parents were enough at ease to give us a long leash. No smart phones to interrupt our investigations, either.
More than an amateur’s biology venue, Four Mile Run was a refuge of liberty, to share private thoughts and worries, to explore and take risks with our bodies’ safety, like jumping through or over obstacles, to pick up trash we claimed as treasures, to try over the counter tobacco products, and so on. Mostly, it was exotic and felt glorious in the shade and cooling summer breezes. I could see Matt and Chago doing likewise on the banks of woodsy Ninnescah. The symbolism of freedom and growth is consequential to Fishbein, Ascending’s themes.
Fishbein’s locations director decided that Matt and Chago needed to branch out from Sumner County and, the more exotic the limbs, the better. Another aspect of my good fortune as a youth was to live in Naples, Italy for six years. We visited the Bay of Naples and its shoreline often, including frequenting a Defense Department-leased beach north of the city about 30 miles. When my father had an assignment or time off, we’d visit Rome and parts north. As a youth I was aware of Lake Albano, although we stopped by the lake and drove through Lazio only once to my recall. Because Matt was an astronomer, Castel Gandolfo seemed an exotically suitable site. Also, as a graduate of the University of Arizona, the Holy See’s partner in operating the southern Arizona telescope on Mount Graham, Tucson and Safford seemed right for Matt. Southeastern Cuba was a stretch; Cancún’s the closest I’ve been to Cuba. I had to learn some local geography from afar, although Castro’s shenanigans didn’t require much review. (My family lived 4 miles from our Capitol during the Cuban Missile Crisis. My father operated a mainframe computer and read dispatches in Langley coming across the switch – not to his family, though. We knew things were dicey when Dad began stocking our basement with canned goods!)
Can’t scout Guantanamo in person, even today; the military isn’t keen for tourists at the base and the Cuban government isn’t welcoming, prohibiting all Cuban nationals from working there. There’s not much ingress and egress, as the novel suggests. I’ve spent enough time along Mexico’s coastline and in Costa Rican rainforests to imagine what sticky Guantanamo Bay and southeastern Cuba felt like, and relied on aerials for the rest.
Peck and Mulvane themselves? I’ve never seen either of them but have spent my share of time investigating small towns. I married a country girl. County social life where she grew up is organized around the co-op, small towns, and smaller enclaves. The novel’s July 4th Mulvane park scene was adapted from the same holiday’s celebration in Pulaski, Tennessee. Small towns truly are repositories of the right stuff: Patriotism; identity with kin and friends; deep-rooted decency. (They have their faults, sure; but let’s focus.) Choosing Sumner County went beyond celebrating Midwestern rural values. The spotter knew that a youth soaring 20 or so miles per hour had to leave home, get to Mission Control in south Texas, and return home within 7-8 days. Also, Matt couldn’t have run-ins with mountain slopes or tall building facades. Wide-open corridors, plausible mileages and easily visible (from aloft) highway ribbons ultimately made south central Kansas desirable for Matt’s launchpad.
What settings not to describe allows other interesting choices. It seemed worthwhile for Chago’s purposes to describe freezing football field bleachers and Sumner High’s stifling auditorium. But it seemed pointless describing the balance of the high school. If you’ve ever been to high school, unless you’ve been lobotomized, you’ll recall it well enough. Why should I intrude on splendid memories of your school’s hall lockers and gym, and other places your imagination will complete?