The first page of this book is true. In October 2020, as my son Jim was clearing out the attic of my cottage in Maine, he found the manuscript of a book I had written more than thirty years earlier and (at eighty-eight) had completely forgotten. I took the manuscript back to my winter home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and started reading it. Ah, yes, the near autobiography I had written about growing up in Pittsburgh—“the Arsenal of Democracy”—during World War II. My agent had advised me it was a nonstarter in the publishing world at that time, and so I put it away. Now, I had only this—one hard copy of the typewritten manuscript, 517 pages long.
I had copies made and asked my partner, Sandy, my daughter, Elizabeth, and two good friends to read it. We gathered to discuss. Too long, they all said, but they loved the main character, Rye, connected with her struggles with growing up and fitting in, all set alongside the constant turmoil of the faraway war. Why not self-publish? they suggested. If, my daughter said, you cut about two hundred pages.
She and I worked together, targeting lengthy subplots and unessential characters that could be deleted. We discussed how to make this decades-old story more intriguing for contemporary readers. I hit on the idea of adding myself, the Old Woman, who, as she reads this book she wrote, expands on Rye’s experiences, linking later choices in my own life with these events from 1943.
And so, a slimmer book with a new title and a new, unexpected character. A challenge at times to revise, but it is so satisfying to have this book finally out of my attic and into readers’ hands.
A thirty-five-year-old manuscript is found in an attic. Its author barely remembers it, this almost true story of a girl growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during World War II. She begins to read.
Spring 1943. The world wobbles, and even in Pittsburgh, eleven-year-old Rye Getchell feels the impact of the war. Her favorite uncle is in the navy; air-raid drills disrupt school; food, gas, and rubber are rationed. No family visits to New Hampshire, no new bicycle. A neighborhood boy shoots his knee to avoid military service. Worst of all, Rye turns twelve this year—the terrifying threshold of “Ladydom,” more daunting than a German invasion.
Rye struggles to find her place in her family, where her brothers have freedoms denied to her, and among the “tribes” in her neighborhood with their diverse values and income. Her two closest friends make choices that baffle her; her father calls Bubby, her first crush, a coward.
As the woman reads this book she wrote decades ago, she traces the lines between Rye’s choices and her own, uncovering the hidden map of a life.
“I fell completely under this novel’s spell. The child’s world, coming of age in WWII—ration books, coal dust, secret crushes, and the terror of turning twelve—feels heartbreakingly real, while the Old Woman’s rediscovery of her long-ago self is pure grace. This is a story about memory, love, and the small acts of courage that shape a life. I didn’t want it to end.”
~ Virginia DeLuca, If You Must Go, I Wish You Triplets
Double Take is now available at Amazon as both paperback and e-book.