FourEver Friends - a novel
by Erica Miner
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It’s autumn, 1960, and JFK's presidential campaign heralds revolutionary changes in the American social and cultural landscape. In a specialized inner city Detroit high school, four teenage girls have established the roots of lasting friendship. Their backgrounds are different, but their passion for classical music and angst over raging hormones link them irrevocably.
The girls’ school is a cultural melting pot of race and ethnicity in which students are judged by their intellect and talents, not the color of their skin or religious upbringing. As the inseparable Jessica, Marg, Toma and Rachel negotiate the turbulent waters of adolescence and bond through their music performances throughout the city, forbidden loves and jealousies mar their closely-knit friendship. But they always remain loyal and true to each other.
In the end, poised for the leap into their post-high school lives, they question their ability to maintain their closeness in future years, when increased possibilities of separation by miles may threaten the sanctity of their group. Nonetheless, they swear lifelong loyalty as they set off on their new paths.
My new book, FourEver Friends, is a love letter to the three best friends I’ve ever had, the ones I’ve stayed close with since high school. It’s fictionalized, of course, but both the themes and the emotions of the characters are true to life. These ‘FourEver Friends’ are linked through their passion for classical music and their devotion to each other, and are pledged to help each other navigate the perilous waters of adolescence. The early 60s was a volatile period in our history, which Baby Boomers look back to - hopefully - with nostalgia; and their children and grandchildren are beginning to ask them what it was like to live in those times. Teenagers and young adults today will have their eyes opened by reading about the restrictions of living through this era of decades ago. Life was so different then: less permissive, more innocent. Yet, in the days before the sexual revolution, 9/11, and AIDS, young people did not face the kinds of worries they do today. In this book I am trying to place these two contrasting ways of life in a new perspective.
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Since I was forced to give up my professional musical career, writing has been both a creative outlet and a salvation. Creative people do so because they must; life is otherwise unlivable for them. I write because I love the process of creating characters, situations and settings. It comes right down to feeding my soul. We all have stories to tell. I write because these stories vie for my attention constantly, and because I feel other people can benefit from learning about other times, places and people. I give lectures to make my inner performer happy, and also to try to inspire and entertain people. In the end, it all comes down to story. Put simply, where would we be without it?
There is almost nothing I have written that isn’t about my first love, music. I was first a musician, then a writer. Every novel, every screenplay, every poem is infused with the music that has been my driving passion since I can remember. To me, music is a celebration, a basis for joy and edification in one’s culture. The fact that I can use my love for it to heighten my stories is an unending source of inspiration for me. The arts are inextricably linked: poetry is music, narrative is music, and even paintings and sculpture are forms of music. These art forms are what I consider to be the foundation of my essence as a writer and a creative force.
They say art imitates life and vice versa. I think the two are inseparable. What we create is what becomes an important part of our civilization, lasting evidence of who we were, what we felt and what we thought. That to me is what has endured and what will endure. The pen is truly mightier.
More About Erica
Violinist turned author Erica Miner has had a multi-faceted career as an award-winning screenwriter, author, lecturer and poet. A native of Detroit, she studied music at Boston University and the New England Conservatory of Music. After experiencing a variety of highs and lows in her quest to forge a career in New York City, Erica won the coveted position of violinist with the Metropolitan Opera Company, a high-pressured milieu but the pinnacle of her field.
When injuries from a car accident spelled the end of her musical career, she drew upon her lifelong love of writing for inspiration and studied screenwriting with authors and script gurus Linda Seger and Ken Rotcop. Erica’s nine screenplays, one of which is based on her award-winning debut novel, "Travels with My Lovers", have won awards and/or placed in such competitions as WinFemme, Santa Fe and the Writer’s Digest.
