Repeat That Name, Please  

            Identity is a big deal in my novels. Maybe it has something to do with all the Superman comic books I read in the barbershop while my dad was having his hair cut. Lots of identity stuff in those stories, secret and otherwise. Midwestern farm boy or big-city newspaper reporter? Mild-mannered, bespectacled guy or visitor from another planet able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?  

            Names—specifically, who we are versus the person we allow the world to see—are a common thread in my first four published novels, three darkly romantic vampire tales and a thriller. Vampires reinvent themselves from century to century; the rest of us sometimes do, though over shorter lifetimes. And, of course, in literature and in life, often all we know of a person at first is the name presented to us.

            In my fifth novel, A Poetic Puzzle, one name sets my protagonist, M. Irene “Mimi” Jones—an under-recognized, under-employed poet/English literature professor—on a mission. It’s the name she shares with internationally acclaimed poet Mary Irene Jones, who has vanished, but not before sending Mimi a cache of her heretofore unpublished manuscripts. Is the timing of these two events a coincidence? Are the manuscripts clues of some sort? And if so, why entrust them to Mimi, of all people? The same-name thing must be significant, right?

            I should mention here that the house Mimi lives in is one she inherited from yet another Mary Irene Jones, the paternal grandmother for whom she was named.

            About that: The name Mary Irene Jones is what prompted me to write A Poetic Puzzle.

            You see, my own father’s mother was a Mary Irene Jones, too, before she married my grandfather. She didn’t disappear, per se, but I never got to know her. My dad scarcely did—he was only nine years old when she died in 1931 of what was apparently characterized as “women’s trouble.” My mother suspected that meant some sort of reproductive or breast cancer. I’m not sure anyone now living would know. My father was the family’s youngest child; he, his older brother, and his two older sisters are gone now.

            I look like my father, as does my son. Both of them more closely resemble George McLaughlin, Mary Irene’s husband, my paternal grandfather. But in the lone photograph I have of her, I can see myself.

            That photo, actually a picture of a photograph, may be the only one that still exists. I don’t know whether she had siblings whose children or grandchildren might have family photo albums. I have never had close ties to my McLaughlin relatives, let alone any Jones descendants who might be her family. Judging from her husband’s birth year, I think this Mary Irene was born in the United States in the late 19^th century, but I don’t know when or where. I know she married a man from northeastern Pennsylvania and ended up living in Philadelphia, but I don’t know the circumstances. Except for the year, I don’t know the date of her death or where she was buried.

            That sepia-tone image of my grandmother sits next to my laptop as I write this. I’ve studied it endlessly, searching for clues beyond the obvious. In it, she has dark hair, brown, I suppose, since my father and I and at least one of his sisters had dark brown hair. She has a long face not unlike mine—my late Aunt Vera, whom I resemble a bit, had the same long face.

            Pince-nez eyeglasses sit on my grandmother’s nose—maybe she was near-sighted the way I am. Her light-colored, lacy long-sleeved dress is cinched at the waist with a bow. And she is standing outdoors, with trees in the background. Holding her left hand is a small boy, maybe sandy-haired, maybe five years old. He is dressed for warm weather. My mother told me that she had been told that the boy was not my dad, but who offered that information, I don’t know.

            Were my grandmother and this boy, presumably her other son, standing in their backyard? Were they having a picnic in a park? Were her daughters—one older than the boy, one younger—playing away from the camera’s lens? Was my father an infant napping nearby?

            How my mother came to give me this photo, I don’t recall. Did my uncle’s wife, a distant cousin of Dad’s who married his brother, give it to my parents? My mother always suggested that particular aunt-by-marriage was the source of whatever McLaughlin family history we were aware of. Ancestry.com shows any number of second and third and more distant cousins with whom I share a bit of DNA, but because I have no details about my grandmother’s forebears, I can’t readily know which of these many cousins, if any, sprang from the same branch of the family tree she and I came from. Answers might lie at the bottom of a deep and daunting rabbit hole, to add another garden metaphor, or it might be a fruitless search.

            Truly, Mary Irene Jones McLaughlin is a mystery to me.

            Which got me thinking back in spring 2022: What if I immortalized her (sort of) in a mystery? What if, given that I knew little more than her name, that’s where my story began?

            I dropped her married name from the plot line, lest someone think this book was nonfiction. Also because, as names go, Mary and Jones are definitely common ones.

            As A Poetic Puzzle opens, the reader learns that the two Mary Irene Joneses not only have the same name, but also the same occupation, and are affiliated with the same small college in suburban Philadelphia. It soon becomes apparent, however, that what’s in a name is a confounding, confusing bit of business.

            Mimi Jones discovers much as she scrutinizes the pieces of A Poetic Puzzle, not the least of which is this:

            How well do we really know anyone?  

A Poetic Puzzle

Internationally acclaimed poet Mary Irene Jones has vanished—calls and texts unacknowledged, bank accounts emptied, car abandoned. But before she disappeared, she mailed never-published manuscripts to a lesser-known namesake poet, M. Irene “Mimi” Jones. Are the manuscripts clues only Mimi can decipher? And what about the handsome Philadelphia cop assigned to the case? He seems as intrigued by Mimi as by the missing celebrity poet. Talk about a person of interest…

Amazon.com: A Poetic Puzzle: A Mystery in 32 Pieces: 9781951967130: McLaughlin, Joanne: Books
A Poetic Puzzle – Kindle edition by McLaughlin, Joanne. Romance Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Joanne McLaughlin began telling stories in second grade, creating superhero fan fiction in the Philadelphia rowhouse where she grew up. She has worked for public media and newspapers in Philadelphia, upstate New York, and northeastern Ohio, involved in award-winning coverage of topics from politics and public health to fashion and financial markets, as well as Pulitzer Prize-finalist architecture criticism and a Peabody Award-nominated podcast. For several years, she also served as vice president of a firm that managed and booked blues musicians. Her novels include the romantic mystery A Poetic Puzzle; Chasing Ashes, a crime thriller; and Never Before Noon, Never Until Now, and Never More Human, a vampire trilogy. Her latest short fiction appears in Ruth and Ann’s Guide to Time Travel, Volume 1; the short stories Peppina’s Sweetheart and Grass and Granite are available on Amazon. Joanne is inspired by strong women like the ones who raised her, determined to meet challenges head on. Joannemclaughlin.net

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