Camel and Scorpion's Playlist: Dreams

The Camel and the Scorpion opens in Texas in 1977.

What music did protagonists, Caroline and Lydia, hear on the radio?

"Caroline noticed Lydia’s navy blue pea coat was pilling, frayed at the sleeves. She watched Lydia struggle to clasp the bottom black button, but it wouldn’t fasten around her large hips. Probably a hand-me-down, or else Lydia was once much thinner.

"Students spilled out from the four, three-story limestone buildings that comprised much of the campus, accidentally brushing against Caroline and Lydia in their haste to make their next class or grab a cup of coffee or hot chocolate at the student union. The students slapped each other on the back, chatting excitedly on that first day of class, snippets of their conversation drifting in the wind, 'Hey man, who you have for psych, what’d you do over Christmas break, isn’t Fleetwood Mac’s song ‘Dreams’ far-out?' But none said hello to Lydia. 

"Up ahead, Caroline winced as she spied her colleague Joe Lambert turn away from the magnificent outdoor fountain in front of the student union, and head straight toward her and Lydia. Lambert taught American Politics, sported a Fu Man Chu mustache, pony-tailed hair and a green army jacket, though he’d never served a day in the military. He had spearheaded the UTSB search committee that led to Caroline’s hire, but informed her she’d been their second choice—the first being a Georgetown University male grad who’d bowed out after landing a job at Princeton. As if UCLA were some rinky dink outback. As if graduating summa cum laude from there were second-rate.

"As Lambert passed Caroline and Lydia, he said hello with an exaggerated smile and mimicked pecking frantically at a typewriter with his index fingers. 'Remember, dissertation professor!' 

"Lambert had also given Caroline an ultimatum during the interview—her dissertation had to be finished in six months. Or else."

Fleetwood Mac's Dreams:

"You say you want your freedom

Well, who am I to keep you down?"

Fleetwood Mac, Dreams

On Writing: Writing Despite Illness

Jane Friedman hosted a guest blog in 2017 by Audrey Berger Welz.

An author with Parkinson's Disease and a survivor of an abdominal aneurysm, Ms. Welz shared how chronic and acute physical events intertwined with her writing.

Ms. Welz wrote How I Used Writing to Survive. An excerpt:

I was very proud of how I was dealing with [Parkinson's]. Emily and Bess melded into the Circus of the Queens after my husband had asked me who the queens were and I couldn’t come up with an answer. It also slowly became a full-blown adult novel and it grew and grew as I wrote and rewrote until I fell in love with my own pages. Then in just a second my world changed. Like a tsunami crashing its way to shore with all the force and destruction it could muster, an undiagnosed aneurism exploded in a major abdominal artery as my novel was nearing completion.

... While in my coma I saw my novel written out word for word. It was in a triangle surrounded by a circle and encompassed by a square. I used it to draw out every ounce of strength in me. Even though I couldn’t move, talk, and could barely see, I would recite passages in my head trying to communicate with the doctors that I was the same girl who had written this beautiful book. Though now disabled, my brain was intact, and I wanted to live. I was worth saving and I needed to hold my finished novel as a book, in my hands.

The Camel and the Scorpion is a book inspired by true events. It is the story of #StrongWomen - Caroline, Lydia, Anna - who spoke out for a good world despite their personal challenges. 



Image credit: “Life of Nichiren: A Vision of Prayer on the Waves” by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (Japanese, 1797–1861), Japan via The Metropolitan Museum of Art is licensed under CC0 1.0