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"'REAL
CHARACTERS' FROM COVINA WRITER"
BY JAMMIE SALAUGBANG, SAN GABRIEL VALLEY TRIBUNE, When Alicia G. Copeland set out to write her book, "Discord in Harmony,"
she made sure she had a lot of index cards. For each of her numerous characters, even the minor ones, she had a card filled
with information like the names of the relatives and parents, height, weight, eye color, birth date, place of birth, nose
shape and even the favored hairstyle of the person.
Some of this information did not even make it into the book,
but Copeland said it "helped make the characters real to me."
The characters seem real to the reader,
too. The story centers on the lives of the people who live in the small town of Harmony during the Depression era. A string
of petty thefts has scandalized the town. Sheriff Cletus Haley, one of the main characters, goes on the chase and travels
down many other paths along the way. These sidelines introduce the reader to more of the town's people, like Ruby Jean Johnson,
the sheriff's love interest and psycho extraordinaire who can play the piano and men's hearts with an ease that borders on
genius.
Copeland is also able to capture the coarse angriness of Jimmy Pinkerton, a foul-mouthed bully and thug,
even though she describes herself as the proud mother of two who never uses the F-word herself.
Her characters
are studies of good and bad and shades of gray. Even if readers do not see any redemptive value in the vilest characters,
they will understand how they came to be that way.
"That's what people are, a mix of good and bad," Copeland
said. "I think it's better to show that rather than depicting someone as perfect when none of us is perfect. In a lot
of ways, it makes us better. We all have a dark side and we have to try and overcome our dark sides."
The
background of the town these characters live in is just as detailed as the characters. Although there is a real town called
Harmony in California, Copeland fictionalizes hers, yet spent 11 months researching the area she wanted the town to be in,
down to the type of plants that grew in the area.
She also researched the time period. Because one of the characters
has an obsession with greatness and fame, Copeland made sure the movie stars and the titles of the movies they were playing
in were historically accurate. She included slang from that era too, using phrases like "he did it for ducks,"
(which meant) to be funny.
...She manages not to muddle the several story lines ... The action moves progressively
along ... and (though)the story does have a predictable ending ... there is joy in the journey to get there. It has several
plot twists and enough revelations to keep readers turning the pages...
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