Mandy Claridge said she started to write her book, “Dear Diary,” in her head long before she set pen to paper. Just short of 30 years old, Claridge was already thinking about the image of loss, her character being confronted by why close friends move on. A diary became a vehicle for exploring the reasons – not the main character’s own diary, but the diary of a person who has passed on.
A Bayonne resident all of her life, Claridge attended Lincoln Community School before going onto the Bayonne High School.
She said she started to write the book in earnest late last year.
“There was a lot to process and a lot to write a book.” — Mandy Claridge
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Once she was inspired, the book flowed out of her.
In some ways, her character searches for the secret to life and why people pass away. The diary became a kind of spiritual guide through the dark world most living people fear and don’t usually explore until absolutely confronted by death.
In some ways, the book is a romance and a tragedy, published by Author House after about six months of researching publishers, she said.
This is a book for adults, not for children, involving human relationships. Yet it raises questions that go beyond that most romance novels do, asking about why people make the choices they make.
Laney, the book’s main character, cannot get the image of her best friend’s suicide out of her head, and cannot understand why people make that choice when life presents so many others.
“Laney decided no matter what, she had to figure out what had been going through Sandra’s head to make her do what she did,” Claridge wrote. “She didn’t know how she was going to solve this mystery, but somehow she had to.”
Finding the diary in Sandra’s room began a mythological journey into the head of the dead woman’s past, a kind of journey into underworld where she could see, hear, and feel many of the same emotions that led to her friend’s tragic end.
Other emotions that add complications play into the story. Sandra’s best friend Laney also envied things about Sandra – creating another level of conflict. How could someone Laney envied see her life as unworthy to continue?
Laney’s reading of the diary takes her through Sandra’s high hopes for love, meeting the man she’s always dreamed about, the rise of emotions, and the aftermath.
The book explores areas like honesty in relationships and learning how to confront painful personal issues.
For a short book, “Dear Diary” packs a lot into its slightly more than 100 pages.
A huge fan of Jackie Collins, whose writing Claridge says she read voraciously, her own book in some ways has a more poetic feel to it than that of a romance best seller, partly because she’s chosen to move beyond the usual themes to explore some of life’s fundamental mysteries.
Interested in TV production, photography, and areas of art she has yet to explore, Claridge has leapt into writing with a passion for answers to massive questions that other writers have yet to find.
“I draw a lot on my own experiences,” she said, but emphasized that the book was not an autobiographical account
The book can be found on line through Amazon.com and other venues for about $13.
Al Sullivan may be reached at asullivan@hudsonreporter.com.