20 Questions with 'Fighter Pilot's Daughter' Mary Lawlor

It's time to play 20 Questions! Today's guest is Mary Lawlor, author of the memoir, Fighter Pilot's Daughter. She is also the author of Public Native America (Rutgers Univ. Press 2006), and Recalling the Wild (Rutgers Univ. Press, 2000). Her short stories and essays have appeared in Big Bridge and Politics/Letters. She studied the American University in Paris and earned a Ph.D. from New York University. She divides her time between an old farmhouse in Easton, Pennsylvania, and a cabin in the mountains of southern Spain.

You can visit her website at https://www.marylawlor.net/ or connect with her on Twitter or Facebook.

~ Book Description ~

Fighter Pilot’s Daughter: Growing Up in the Sixties and the Cold War tells the story of Mary Lawlor’s dramatic, roving life as a warrior’s child. A family biography and a young woman’s vision of the Cold War, Fighter Pilot’s Daughter narrates the more than many transfers the family made from Miami to California to Germany as the Cold War demanded. Each chapter describes the workings of this traveling household in a different place and time. The book’s climax takes us to Paris in May ’68, where Mary—until recently a dutiful military daughter—has joined the legendary student demonstrations against among other things, the Vietnam War. Meanwhile her father is flying missions out of Saigon for that very same war. Though they are on opposite sides of the political divide, a surprising reconciliation comes years later.

⤷Read sample here.

⤷Fighter Pilot’s Daughter is available at Amazon.

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╰┈➤Book Details

Genre: Memoir
Sub-genre: Women in History / Military Leaders Biography
Language:English
Pages: 323
Paperback ISBN: 978-1442222007
Kindle ISBN: 978-1442222014
Publisher: Rowman and Littlefield
Format: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle, Audiobook

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╰┈➤Here’s What Readers Have To Say!

“Mary Lawlor's memoir, Fighter Pilot's Daughter: Growing Up in the Sixties and the Cold War, is terrifically written. The experience of living in a military family is beautifully brought to life. This memoir shows the pressures on families in the sixties, the fears of the Cold War, and also the love that families had that helped them get through those times, with many ups and downs. It's a story that all of us who are old enough can relate to, whether we were involved or not. The book is so well written. Mary Lawlor shares a story that needs to be written, and she tells it very well.” ―The Jordan Rich Show

“Mary Lawlor, in her brilliantly realized memoir, articulates what accountants would call a soft cost, the cost that dependents of career military personnel pay, which is the feeling of never belonging to the specific piece of real estate called home. . . . [T]he real story is Lawlor and her father, who is ensconced despite their ongoing conflict in Lawlor’s pantheon of Catholic saints and Irish presidents, a perfect metaphor for coming of age at a time when rebelling was all about rebelling against the paternalistic society of Cold War America.” ―Stars and Stripes

20 Questions with Mary Lawlor

Are you a morning writer or a night writer?

I’m most definitely a morning writer. The best time is 5:30 am, before the sun comes up. It’s a magical, silent hour, and no one else is up but me. I love writing in the dark and the half-unconscious feeling that stays with me for the first hour. Images and ideas surface without restraint and, if I’m lucky, spill out onto the page. A cup of tea helps get the juices going. That

moment when the light starts creeping across the sky is inspiring too and makes me feel like there’s promise for the day, for my work, even if at the moment what comes out is random and murky.

Do you outline or are you a pantster?

I do both. Usually I start with an idea that slips into view from something I read or saw or heard. For most of my books, the generating idea stayed with me for months before I finally saw it was something I wanted to spend time writing about—my family history, a 12^th century English monk translating Arabic books in Spain, an 18^th century Irish woman who died in Andalusia. I’ll sketch out a situation, then a plot, then start writing. The plot always changes, so I’ll go back and change the outline as I go. The outline is really more of guide than a strict framework I make myself honor.

Which comes first – plot or character?

Character, always. It’s the person who inspires me. In the case of Fighter Pilot’s Daughter, it was actually my mother and her experience of living without a home until my father finally retired. She was always packing up our house or unpacking everything and making a new home for us. This happened every two years. Of course, as the story developed, my father became the central figure, since it was his career that determined so much and served as the plot of the memoir.

Noise or quiet when working on your manuscript?

Quiet! I used to like to listen to classical music, but as the pieces I liked became familiar—and new ones too—I would get distracted by the arrangements and the emotional effects of the movement. Now I keep it quiet as much as possible.

Favorite TV show?

It changes from season to season. At the moment my favorites are “Slow Horses” and “The Diplomat.” A while ago I was really taken by “River,” with Stellan Skarsgård and “Unforgotten,” with Nichola Walker. I like fast moving, difficult-to-follow-if-you’re-not-paying-attention dramas like these with well-developed characters and unusual situations.

Favorite type of music?

I live in Spain half the year and have become a fan of flamenco, of all things, especially Paco de Lucia, Pepe Habichuela, and Cameron de la Isla. I like good rock music from the 60s and 70s like The Doors, Cream, The Stones, Stevie Winwood, Jack Bruce, George Harrison, and John Lennon. I also like Max Richter, Dustin O’Halloran, Chilly Gonzales, Mozart and Beethoven.

Favorite craft besides writing?

I like cooking and photography (in my case not an art but more like a craft…). We travel a lot in Spain, and I like taking pictures of my little farm there. I also take a lot of photos of the beautiful countryside and the many gorgeous cities of Andalucía.

Do you play a musical instrument?

I used to play guitar and sing, but I gave up both years ago when writing started pulling at me and demanding all my time. When my father was stationed in Germany, I set off to college in Paris and before long was playing a lute I’d bought (really just a guitar with a melon-shaped back more than a real lute) in a café in Place Saint André des Arts in the left bank. That didn’t last long…

Single or married?

I’m married and happily so to John McClure, a professor of English at Rutgers University and author of several fine books, including Partial Faiths, a really smart look at contemporary American fiction.

Children or no?

I have a stepdaughter who’s been with me since she was a little girl. She’s all grown up now, and I try not to see her as still my baby! She’s a wonderful, super smart woman with stepdaughters of her own now.

Pets?

I don’t have any pets now, mostly because we travel a lot. I used to have two cats who I loved very much, Osa and Miel. They were sisters, although they were opposites in coloring: one was black tortoise and the other was white with brown and black patches. They were both characters, and I’m tempted to tell cat stories here, but will resist.

Favorite place to write?

I write in my study on the third floor of my house, where I’m far enough away from whatever’s going on downstairs to really be left alone. It’s a big room which takes up the entire floor. The windows look out on a big Norway spruce, the street, and the mountain in the distance. The floor is nice, finished pine boards, and I have amber lights over my desk and a bed on the other side of the room for resting.

Favorite restaurant?

There are two places near the square in our town, The Quadrant and The State Grill, where I like to go for breakfast with friends. Both have great food, are super casual, and have welcoming, easy-going atmospheres. We live close to New York City, so I also like to go there for dinner, especially to the Village, where for a long time I’ve loved the pizza and pasta at Arturo’s on Houston Street. I often work at a library I joined last year in New York.

Do you work outside the home?

They have study rooms where you’re really sealed off from everything and can concentrate really well. I’ll take the bus into the city and the subway to the library, then stay there for several hours before heading back home. I also travel a lot and take my laptop with me wherever I go. Early morning is good for writing anywhere, even in a hotel room when my husband’s sleeping.

What was the name of the last movie you saw?

I just saw “Operation Mincemeat” (2021), with Colin Firth and Kelly Macdonald. It’s an intriguing spy story set in WW II Britain. You have to pay close attention to the plot to follow it, but it’s a great story.

Favorite outdoor activity?

Walking! I walk a couple of miles most days. When the weather’s warm and there’s a beach nearby, my very favorite thing to do is swim. If I’m in shape, I can swim 40 laps at a time in an outdoor pool, but I’m happy to just dawdle around in the water too.