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Why Jan Karon Left Mitford

What the author of the best-selling, prize-winning series of life in a small town had to do to keep focused.

by Phyllis Ten Elshof

Jan Karon, 63, had to leave home. She hasn't abandoned Mitford, the fictional home of characters such as Father Tim Kavanagh, Cynthia Coppersmith, Dooley Barlowe, and Uncle Billy Watson, who have charmed millions of people into reading At Home in Mitford, A Light in the Window, These High, Green Hills, Out to Canaan, and A New Song.

But like Mitford, which became like a too-tight collar for Father Tim upon announcing his retirement, Blowing Rock, North Carolina, where Karon has lived for several years since quitting a successful career in advertising and where she has written nearly all her fiction, was threatening to choke the kind of freedom she needed to continue writing. She still has a house and family there, reasons to visit often. But for creative privacy, success sent her scurrying.

"People were coming from all parts of the country to Blowing Rock," Karon said in a recent interview. "Folks in town would tell them where I lived. I'd have people climbing through my hedges, ringing my doorbell, and peeking into my windows at all hours of the day."

Father Tim, for example, whom Karon describes as the parson (derived from the word, person), is the one to whom people in town reveal themselves, the one who listens to what's happening in their lives.

"He's an ordinary human being, sweet and tender, and a man of God, who lives out his convictions in the midst of a town filled with other ordinary people," Karon says.

Father Tim is also human in his frailty; a man who struggles with disappointments, impatience, fears, and health concerns. He gets tired and used up by personal and parish demands, yet he's too sensible and committed to take a little time off, much less an expensive vacation.

"Even after he retires, when he's got all the time in the world, and has a bit of money from what his mother left him, he just doesn't know how to have fun," Karon says.

Cynthia Coppersmith, Father Tim's attractive neighbor with good legs and a sassy white cat and who eventually becomes the Episcopal priest's soul sounding-board and wife, knows how to have fun. She can, and does, carve out time for a retreat, vacation, even retirement for her harried husband. But like him and every other character in Karon's books, she is not without flaws. Sometime in her past there was a divorce to a high-ranking government official and a near-suicidal depression. And she is far too committed to writing children's books to fit the mold of a small-town parson's wife.

Karon believes that flawed mix is what attracts readers to her books.

"These people are flawed just like you and me," she says. "They're people in whom we find ourselves."

"People are starving to death for this kind of message," Karon says.

Early on, some well-meaning friends tried to counsel the author, saying, "Oh, you don't want to go out there and talk about Jesus in your books."

Her answer was unequivocal: "I'm going out there, and I'm talking about Jesus. I'm talking about people's relationships with him. Let the Holy Spirit do the rest."

That conviction was forged in the fire of Karon's own commitment to Christ at age 42, decades after a four-year marriage ended with divorce and a baby girl to support. The hardworking, single mom had won her way in the advertising world, working her way up from receptionist to creative vice president, before coming to the end of herself. After months of journaling and fervent prayer seeking guidance in what to do, she said goodbye to the world that had given her prosperity without peace. She sold her home, moved to Blowing Rock, and began writing the books God gave her to write.

"Even if I had been brilliant enough to have written books that appealed to people of all ages and beliefs, I couldn't have done that on my own," Karon says. "I'm only able to do that because they're God's books. I write for him."

Sometimes that leads her to an uncomfortable place she can't get out of. A character such as Buck Leeper, for example, the profane, alcoholic construction superintendent who threatens a mother's fragile walk to sobriety in Out to Canaan, brought Karon to a place she didn't want to go.

"It was very scary to go into the character of this man," she said. "Finally I prayed, asking God for help to do what had to be done. And he showed me how."

Karon doesn't write books from an outline; rather, she begins with characters, who she says "walk in and introduce themselves to me and I'm stuck with them." These characters interact with each other and in one way or another with God.

For some, such as Father Tim or Cynthia, walking and talking with the Creator is as natural as breathing. For others, such as Dooley Barlow or a jewel thief in an attic, a relationship with God must first prove itself genuine in others. And for still others, such as the inherently wicked and scheming Edith Mallory or the amoral opportunist Mack Stroupe, God and his people are merely obstacles to be outwitted and cast aside.

Will Father Tim and Cynthia leave Whitecap, North Carolina, where he serves as interim pastor in A New Song, and return to the renovated parsonage and the little yellow house in Mitford? Will Esther Cunningham, whose motto is "Mitford Takes Care of Its Own," remain mayor, or will the town succumb to the pressures of new housing developments, malls, and expansion under the leadership of someone like Mack Stroupe?

What will happen to Dooley Barlow and Lace Turner? Will they, like Buck Leeper and at least one character in every one of the Mitford books, ever pray the Believer's Prayer—"Thank you, God, for loving me, and for sending your Son to die for my sins. I sincerely repent of my sins and receive Christ as my personal Savior. Now as your child, I turn my entire life over to you."

Before answering questions like those, Karon takes a trip back to an earlier time in Mitford. Sometime between book two, A Light in the Window, and book three, These High, Green Hills, Father Tim and Cynthia got married. The courtship, with all its fits and starts, is beautifully indulged in book two. The marriage bans are published. But nothing is said about the wedding.

"In life a wedding is a large event; in fiction it's a large event. I didn't have the energy to write about a large event at that time," Karon admits. "When I get done with a book, I'm exhausted. Then I've got to deal with all the trips to New York to meet with the publisher. By the time I'm done with all the condensing, rewriting, marketing, and book signings, the thought of the next book about does me in."

Readers wouldn't let the matter rest, though. "Why didn't you let us go to the wedding?" people asked. So Karon, who listens to her readers and corresponds with many of them, went back and put on a wedding. The result, A Common Life, about to be released (see accompanying excerpt), is the kind of love story that begins where most leave off: the proposal. Of course, there's a lot of Mitford fun along the way (including the orange marmalade cake). Karon had a great time with the wedding, and so, she expects, will her readers.

"I think it's better this way," she says. "You get a fresh look at people in Mitford, many of whom have moved on."

Coming back to Mitford for the wedding gave Karon reason to move Father Tim and Cynthia back home for the final two books: In This Mountain, to be released in 2003, and Light from Heaven, in 2005. Coming home isn't always easy, however. As Karon says, the parson and his wife return to find the idyllic life they had tucked into memory turned "upside down and backwards."

That's the next to last book. The final book, which follows Father Tim into his 70s, is a golden finish to a lifetime of helping people along the way. It also tidies up loose ends, such as how Dooley finds his true calling.

Happily, the books also bubble with the kind of humor that tickled readers in the first Mitford books.

"They deal with heavier issues, but they're funny, too," Karon says. "You'll laugh more with these books."

Does the homecoming of her main characters hint at Karon's own return to Blowing Rock one day? Currently, she spends most of her time at a home somewhere in Virginia. She's up to her elbows writing books, crafting the script of the first Sunday night TV movie version of the Mitford series, and managing the historic renovation of an 1816 farm, which may one day host children sponsored by the Mitford Children's Foundation.

"The foundation is for kids like Dooley and Lace to learn what it's like to live on a farm; to do simple things like catch a fish, milk a cow, and work in a barn," Karon says.

She isn't ruling out living back in Blowing Rock someday. After all, its comfort allowed her the kind of healing she needed to grow her writing gift. "I love that little town," Karon says.

For the residents of Blowing Rock, who clear off the bookshelves of every new Mitford book that comes along, the feeling is mutual.

A Christian Reader original article.

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