"Sketching a Life"

I thought readers might be interested from time to time in a sketch of the main characters in Their Town. Let's start with the protagonist.

Margaret Warren Craig is the main character of Their Town. She's a straight woman, about 35, newly elected as the Town Clerk of Grover's Corners, N.H., basically kind of unsure of her abilities, but trying really hard to believe in them. She has a good sense of humor.

Margaret married right out of high school, and has a daughter, Annie, 16. Margaret hasn't traveled much, and has lived in the town all her life. She has been divorced from her high school sweetheart, Tom, for about two years - he cheated on her, and she is not really over it. The divorce sent Margaret, who had only had part-time jobs in the past, into a panic - although Tom pays some child support, Margaret's primary concern has been making enough money and having a stable enough job to provide for Annie on her own. That, she feels, is what will make her "a good mother." Her duty as a parent is, to her, the most important thing.

Just after the divorce, Margaret used her training as a secretary to get a job as the office manager of a N.H. granite tombstone company. The Grover's Corners economy is depressed, and this was the best job she could get, albeit one that required her to commute 90 miles roundtrip a day. She was worried that she was not home enough for Annie. When her friend Joe Hersey suggested she run as Grover's Corners Town Clerk at the same time that he run for mayor - and on the same ticket - she gave it a shot and won. Town clerks generally die in their jobs; the benefits and pay are good, for the area; and Margaret now feels like her life and Annie's are "settled," taken care of. She feels like she has finally found her footing, and the job has boosted her self-confidence.

So Joe's surprise plan to make Grover's Corners a sort of gay Mecca - by virtue of marrying a same-sex couple there - scares and angers Margaret, because she could be taken down with him. She has never really thought much about gay people or their concerns - she's someone who thinks it's not really any of her business. She knows gay people, but only peripherally. However, she's not particularly religious, and she's an adherent to the state motto: "Live free or die." Still, when she discovers her own daughter is gay, that's another matter - and one that throws her for a loop. She would just like things to go back to "normal" - whatever that is. The question Margaret ultimately has to answer for herself is: What does it mean to be "a good mother" to a daughter who's not what society sees as "normal"?