In this installment of Page 69,
we put Robert Eggleton's Rarity From the Hollow to the test.
OK, Robert, set up page 69 for us.
Lacy Dawn is a true daughter of Appalachia ,
and then some. She lives up a hollow with her worn-out mom, her Gulf War
disabled dad, and her mutt Brownie, a dog who's very skilled at laying
fiber-optic cable. Lacy Dawn's android boyfriend, for when she’s old enough to
have one, is DotCom. He has been sent to the Hollow from planet Shptiludrp, a
giant shopping mall and the capital of universal governance. His mission
is to recruit Lacy Dawn.
The Lacy Dawn Project is one of several strategies
approved by the Manager of the Mall, the most powerful being in the Universe,
to resolve an imminent threat to existing economic structures. The other
projects have folded and the threat is growing. The Manager has become
increasingly concerned. DotCom’s performance is being closely monitored by
management staff.
DotCom’s equipment includes infomercial videos of
Earth's earliest proto-humans from millennia ago. Lacy Dawn has watched the
videos. She has seen herself evolve by genetic manipulation from prehistory to
present. For over a year, she has spent every moment that she could in DotCom’s
spaceship, hidden in a cave up the path behind her house in the hollow. She has
been electronically tutored via a port that DotCom put in her upper spine –
languages, sciences, arts, sociologies, mathematics, politics, and other
subjects that she had no classification for, yet.
DotCom and Lacy Dawn have grown close – so close that
she begins to question her own values and he begins to modify his programming
to more fully understand her emotional content. Management staff notices.
DotCom is ordered to return to Shptiludrp. The scene on Page 69 is DotCom
telling Lacy Dawn that he has to leave the hollow for a job, but hopes to
return.
What is Rarity From the Hollows about?
Rarity from the Hollow is the story of victimization
and despair to empowerment and self-affirmation through accomplished
performance. Using the science fiction / fantasy genres as a backdrop, it shows
readers that happiness is achievable if pursued. With satire and comic relief,
it speaks to and encourages: war damaged and disabled military veterans, the
impoverished, adult and older adolescent survivors of child maltreatment, those
living in areas that have few economic opportunities and who have to relocate
from their families and communities to find jobs, persons who have been
diagnosed with mental illnesses, persons who are so consumed with making lots
of money that they have lost definition of true happiness, and those with
still-torn-apart familial relations due to ancient conflicts. It is about how
love rules all – how the artificial classifications of peoples, no matter what
planet they are from, cannot stop the open-hearted from loving. It is about how
our feelings, thinking, and behaviors are so inter-rated that if one function
is changed, it has exponential impact on the other two. Without reference to
Constitutional Law, the story illustrates that happiness is not a right, but a
determination. And, that assertive action is the remedy to dependency and low
self-esteem.
Do you think this page gives our readers an
accurate sense of what Rarity From the Hollows is about? Does it align itself the
book’s overall theme?
Page 69 of Rarity From the Hollow is a glimpse of what
the story is about that does align itself with the overall theme.
It accomplishes a significant status report on the success of
the android’s programming toward humanization:
- Before this scene, DotCom’s dialogue
with Lacy Dawn was monotone, dismissive, and void of emotional content. In
this scene, for the first time, he stutters, expresses emotion, including
the shedding of a tear, and lies to reduce Lacy Dawn’s worry about whether
he will ever come back to the hollow from his “out-of-state” job.
Page 69 also:
- Introduces the phenomenon of leaving
one’s family and community in order to find a job, as Lacy Dawn is must do
later in the story if she wants to save the universe.
- Expands a dilemma that Lacy Dawn
struggles with as the story unfolds – the values conflict between the role
of mainstream American females who weigh career and romance when timing
their marriages, against the alternative value held by residents of some
rural communities that girls should marry and have children when young
because they are healthy, access to medical care is limited, life is
short, and hard-working husbands don’t live that long anyway.
- First presents the possibility of
romance in the relationship between Lacy Dawn and DotCom. Before this
scene, she loved him as a friend and teacher. For the first time in the
story, the idea that DotCom might make a good husband for when she’s older
sneaks in sideways. She expresses irrational worry that he might get hurt
on the job, a common statement made between loving spouses in many
cultures.
“…No, err, yes, I do
not know. That is not what I am talking about.” (DotCom said)
“Well, make up your
mind.” (Lacy Dawn responded)
Lacy Dawn pointed her
nose up, gave a little twist of her not-yet-fully-developed-butt, and the
hearts on her panties flashed.
“I want you to help me
move,” DotCom said.
“Move where? That’s
what Faith did. She moved. Then she flunked and now she’s dead,” she
hyperventilated. “Why do you want to move anyway?”
Tears dripped onto her
keyboard. Her monitor went black—a programmed response to excessive moisture.
“I have a job to do,”
he said.
“Job, job, job, job,
job…,” she cried. “So many people have taken the Hillbilly Highway Charlotte Cleveland
"I'll be back
soon."
“Sure, that's what you
say now. Grandma and Grandpa took that highway once. Grandpa went to TV school
in Cleveland
"I'll be
careful."
“And what about your
job right here? You told me that you'd help me fix my family. Just because
Daddy don’t switch me as much, that don’t mean the job’s finished. He’s
destroyed almost everything in the house that ain’t his.”
“My, ahh, my supervisor
gave me a timeline for a project and, ahh, by Earth time tomorrow is the
deadline. And, ahh, I, ahh, just a moment please…. I want you to consider the
option of you going with me, Lacy Dawn.”
DotCom turned his back
to her and wiped his first tear ever with the back of his wrist. He licked at
his second with his tongue, but it escaped and hit the ship's floor. She
noticed and wilted into her recliner.
“What? No way. I
promised my mommy that I'd never move in with a man unless we're married.
Besides, I’m too young. I’m just going in the seventh unless they double
promote me. My cousin got married in the sixth, but she’d flunked a grade so
she was old enough anyway. Besides, she….”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Robert Eggleton was born in 1951 – the son of an alcoholic father with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (WWII), and a mother who was strong despite the domestic violence that she taught her children to endure. He grew up inWest Virginia
Robert Eggleton was born in 1951 – the son of an alcoholic father with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (WWII), and a mother who was strong despite the domestic violence that she taught her children to endure. He grew up in
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