Sheryl Sorrentino

Anyone who has self-published knows the agony of relying on stock photography for the “perfect cover.” There is no such thing. But we self-pubbers understand that (unless money is no object) it doesn’t make economic sense to commission an artist or photographer to custom-design a cover. Royalty-free stock photography is licensed for a small, one-time fee that allows an author commercial use of up to 500,000 copies. (To give you an idea, many so-called “best-sellers” sell only about 4,000 - 5,000 copies.) Lest you think using stock photography is tacky, even traditional publishers do it.

I first forayed into the netherworld of royalty-free images nearly two years ago, when I was about to launch my debut novel, Later With Myself: The Misadventures of Millie Moskowitz. After a dizzying search, I was thrilled to find a pretty-close-to-perfect image dubbed “Girl on Bus;” it captured with uncanny emotional accuracy Millie’s foolishness and despair when she cut school to have underage sex with an intimidating school bus driver. Is it the perfect cover? Hardly. But the mood and imagery are spot-on, and for me, that is what matters most in a cover.

Fast forward one year to my third novel, The Floater. This one’s a legal fiction drama, but it is also a highly personal story about "finding oneself" in mid-life—about moving past self-imposed limitations, bad behavior patterns, and the emotional shackles imposed by small-minded, self-serving family members. I combed through thousands of images before settling on my controversial potty pic (see www.thefloater.biz). All the legal-themed photography I found was either boring, lacked emotional nuance, or depicted a woman who did not remotely capture the spirit of my protagonist Norma Reyes. Since The Floater contains some squirmy adult material, I opted for a racy and jarring cover, hoping to convey the paradoxical provocativeness and lightheartedness of this story, while playing off the book’s title.

As anticipated, I've gotten some flak for my choice:

“The cover portrays what looks like a white woman sitting on a toilet wearing a thong. This is a serious novel about discrimination and harassment of a Puerto Rican woman. I would not get that from the cover.”

“I . . . really, really disliked the cover. A woman sitting on a toilet with a pair of thongs dangling between her knees while writing on a pad does not invoke good things to go along with the title 'The Floater.' Just saying . . .”

I got some positive comments, too:

“Let's talk about the book cover first. Caught your eye, didn't it? It may seem light-hearted and maybe even comedic. But this book has way more serious moments than the cover portrays.”

“The cover of Sorrentino's novel, The Floater is eye-catching and fun, but there are surprising scenes behind it that are thought-provoking, revealing . . . and so very human . . .”

Two novels later, I’m back to trolling stock photo sites, hoping to find the perfect likeness for my title character in Stage Daughter. Razia Schoenberg is a multi-ethnic, attractive twelve-year-old, thin yet well-developed for her age, with signature dreadlocks dangling down her forehead—a rather tall order for stock photography! For the moment, I’ve settled on a whimsical picture of a young girl meditating cross-legged on train tracks. While it adequately symbolizes Razia’s rebellious spirit and monumental transition from adolescence to adulthood, the model in the photo is flat-chested, has a big forehead and no dreads. I learned from a careful read of the license agreement that I can modify the image (with certain restrictions). So I tried drawing in some dreadlocks—with disastrous results. My girl looked like she had bad facial tats or hair dye dripping down her forehead.

I am once again resigned to never finding the perfect cover for my latest book. Perhaps I should have Razzi’s mom snip those twisties in the dead of night. After all, there's more than one way to skin a cat, and no “right” way to choose a cover.

I have been doing a great deal of Internet research on Islam for my upcoming fourth novel, Stage Daughter. Aziz, one of three main characters, is a Muslim man, so I have been undergoing a crash online course to better understand how he might think, feel, and react in different circumstances. When not worried about dark-suited CIA agents appearing at my doorstep, I have learned some rather interesting things.

Naturally, all religions have their more bizarre teachings and their more extremist followers (a fringe element of virtually every religion will always twist the so-called “word of God” to suit their petty needs and perspectives). But one edict of Islam struck me as particularly sound: The “three day rule.” If I understand correctly, Muslims are taught that they should not argue or avoid one another for an extended period of time. If two people have a disagreement, they can observe a brief “cooling-off period.” But after that, “The better of them is the one who is the first to greet the other.”

There is great wisdom in this edict. Even during my most heated arguments with my husband, I have found it physically and emotionally impossible to fuel my anger for longer than three days. It takes a lot of energy to stay mad, and we hand over our precious inner peace with the effort of maintaining our grudges, however justified we may perceive them to be. Anger gives the other person dominance over us; we grant them that power by harboring acid in our guts and throttling our hearts with resentment. Nine times out of ten, the other person doesn’t feel culpable and doesn’t especially care; when I simmer in my fiery juices, it is a stew purely of my own making.

I have read that hatred can make us internally ill, and I believe it. It has become fairly well established that happiness is a necessary component of good health, and it is impossible to be happy while fuming. We squander precious time and energy being angry, dreaming of revenge, and blaming others while remaining blind to our own failings. Because this is a shared human frailty, I can only imagine the ripple effect we could have on the planet if we each made today’s goal the elimination of bitterness from within our individual hearts. “When we open our hearts and pardon others, we are granting ourselves an inner peace.” “We think that hatred is a means of revenge against those who have harmed us, but by begrudging them we are only harming ourselves.” “Our enemies will never feel our anger, because they live contently as we suffer.”

Stage Daughter is all about forgiveness. Every character in my story must forgive and be forgiven. Just as my twelve-year-old protagonist, Razia, is not quite ready to “revert” to Islam to appease her Muslim father, neither am I about to jump on this—nor any other—religious bandwagon. However, in researching Muslim views on forgiveness, I am grateful to have stumbled upon these very sound and beautiful quotes, among others. At a time when religious conflict is at an all-time high (and Muslims are the target of a collective national angst), Islam’s simple philosophy of tolerance and absolution provides a much-needed reminder of the basic humanity we all share in common.

I just finished reading T.C. Boyle’s San Miguel, a brilliant work of historical fiction that chronicles the lives of two sheep ranching families who resided on this remote island off the coast of Santa Barbara during the late nineteenth century and the 1930’s. Mirantha Waters, the story’s first female protagonist, loathed the isolation and merciless weather on San Miguel island and was often at odds with her husband. In contrast, Elizabeth Lester, the island’s subsequent female homesteader, delighted in the seclusion and scenic splendor it had to offer.

I couldn’t help but draw parallels to my own love-hate relationship with another amazing place—fifteen nearly-pristine acres nestled at 3,100 feet above sea level in a little-known corner of Mariposa County. On this remote property at the bottom of a dirt-and-gravel road half a mile long sits the rustic, run-down old cabin we use as a monthly getaway. Like Mirantha Waters, I sometimes find myself feeling taxed and demoralized by its harsh conditions. But far more often, I’m Elizabeth Lester, basking in the restorative glow of untouched natural beauty. Unlike the Waters or the Lesters, we have electricity and indoor plumbing (at least when the power isn’t knocked out and the well pump doesn’t malfunction). What we lack is central heat, relying instead on one ancient woodstove for warmth in the dead of winter.

A few months ago, our bathroom flooded from a leaky pipe. And so began my husband's ill fated, never-ending renovation project. Now, don't get me wrong, I am extremely grateful the man knows how to fix things, because when you’re in an out-of-the-way location an hour's drive from the nearest small city, you need to be self-sufficient. But it has been cold—too cold, according to him, for the new floor tiles to set properly, or for the outdoor task of cutting the plywood that will eventually replace our water-damaged walls. So for the time being, a new bathroom sink and cabinet occupy a nonfunctional place of honor in the center of our kitchen, while the living room remains cluttered with plumbing materials and old, water-damaged drawers filled with our bathroom toiletries and supplies. Nonetheless, despite the inconvenience of a torn-up bathroom, I looked forward to the peace and tranquility of ringing in the New Year at the cabin.

When we first arrived, I discovered little green poison pellets tucked inside my pillowcases, suggesting that lizards or mice (I could not tell which) had slept in my bed since my last visit a month earlier. They also left a trail of droppings on the kitchen counter and knocked over some empty water bottles—more mocking proof of the party they’d had in our absence. To add insult to injury, that night I caught sight of an eerie swooping motion through the corner of my eye while I stood brushing my teeth at the kitchen sink. We’ve been visited by bats before (including the time one such vampiric critter maniacally plunged itself into my deep dish pizza and sent me shrieking for cover in the bedroom). But this visit, my husband couldn’t be bothered coaxing the frenzied creature outside into the cold, so we kept the kitchen door closed and confined our new “pet” to the enclosed front porch. My daughter even named him “Norman.” Over the next four days I found myself, like Mirantha Waters, growing increasingly cross at my husband for accomplishing nothing in the house while leaving me terrorized by the prospect of scurrying and flying critters attacking me in my sleep.

It’s tough coping in the middle of nowhere, with no place to go and nothing to do besides relish the togetherness wrought by endless chores that never seem to get done. Perhaps I should take a tip from Boyle and write a story about a mountain woman coping with a hardscrabble mountain life in the Sierra Foothills. God willing, that will be me in another ten years, retired from civilization and cranking out novels amid natural beauty, expansive terrain, and a view of perpetually snow-capped mountains. That is, when not hauling wood, battling bats, or praying for the end of winter.

As we enter a new year in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook rampage, there is precious little we agree on where gun control is concerned. So I’d like to begin with these fairly incontrovertible but conflicting premises:

(1)   Criminals and insane people do not respect the law.

(2)   “Bad guys” will always have access to guns, no matter how tightly they are regulated.

(3)   We each have a fundamental right to protect ourselves—and others—from violence, invasion, and threats of injury.

(4)   We must find ways to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally unstable, avoid accidents (particularly involving children) and prevent theft of poorly-secured firearms.

(5)   Otherwise law-abiding, mentally-stable individuals sometimes wreak havoc with guns in moments of weakness, strain or passion.

No one selectively touts the first three principles more vehemently than gun-rights proponents, who envision a world where armed guards stand soldier-like at the entrance to every school, movie theater and post office. I, for one, take little comfort in the prospect of even more visible and concealed guns filling our public spaces. Whether or not you buy into the NRA’s overused maxim that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” perhaps it isn’t so wise to make it easy for people in categories (4) and (5) to kill other people by availing them of weaponry to throw a catastrophic, armed temper tantrum. Given our present hodgepodge of inconsistent and ineffective gun laws, we as a society have no real assurance that even lawfully-acquired weapons will not wind up in the hands of those inadequately trained to use them, or otherwise ill-equipped to react appropriately in a crisis. Clearly, something needs to be done in response to this latest bloodbath caused by a lone madman who claimed twenty-six innocent lives with one high-powered weapon. But what?

While there are no easy answers to our current state of national anguish, banning all guns does not seem to me a logical or attainable goal. Still, given the inherent hazards posed by guns, shouldn’t they be regulated at least as rigorously as vehicles? A car is a means of transportation, and yet we as a society recognize that, used improperly, it has the potential to kill, maim and ruin innocent lives. Why should guns be treated any less seriously? You cannot operate a motor vehicle anywhere in this country without proving you know how to drive and understand the rules of the road. You’ve got to obtain a license, register your car each year, and carry insurance in case you harm someone. You also need to take an eye test, and in some states, pass a vehicle inspection. These rules apply whether you purchase your car from a dealer or a private party, so why do existing gun laws contain a “gun show” loophole?

It also blows my mind that certain states (Alaska, Arizona and Vermont) allow the general public to carry concealed weapons without the necessity of any license or permit. (Source: Buckeye Firearms Association - “Defending Your Firearms Rights,” http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/node/6744.) And while so-called “shall issue” states require state and local authorities to issue gun licenses to individuals to carry a concealed firearm as long as they meet enumerated criteria (such as proof of residency, minimum age, fingerprints for a background check, no record of mental illness, and certification from an acceptable handgun safety class), these requirements differ significantly from state to state. For example, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Washington do not require any certificate of firearms training. You would think that the sale and distribution of an instrumentality designed specifically for the effective taking of human life would be monitored at least as closely as the sale of an automobile.

And then there is the matter of assault weapons. Just as we cannot drive a tank down a city street, I cannot understand why a well-drafted national ban on a clearly-defined category of assault weapons should be the least bit controversial. Why should anyone be allowed to legally own an automatic assault weapon capable of taking out scores of lives in a single clip? Adam Lanza’s Bushmaster AR-15 was purchased legally by his mother. What remotely justifiable need did she have for owning such a weapon? Sure, the gangbangers and military have them, and probably always will. But seriously, does placing that degree of fire-power in the hands of so-called law-abiding citizens really make us any safer as a society? I seriously doubt it. It’s the job of the police and military to combat the gangbangers, organized criminals, and would-be marauders. Who else is sufficiently equipped to assume such an enormous responsibility?

Despite our widely varying attitudes about guns, and the arguments for and against private gun ownership, it seems that a uniform regulatory scheme that includes mandatory FBI background checks, a national gun registry, and an across-the-board ban on automatic assault weapons is a sensible step toward deterring unsound gun ownership absent appropriate documentation, training and forethought. This would weed out some—if not all—the “crazies” while preserving citizens’ basic right to self-defense.

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