Exposure: A Novel
A Letter from Author Therese FowlerIn an early review ofExposure, the reviewer said I’d done a brave thing in writing a story that was inspired by my own son’s arrest for what the media have dubbed a sexting crime. That word,brave, took me by surprise. Writing the novel had been necessary. It had been frightening. I didn’t--and still don’t--feel I’d done anything brave.I’d been working on a different book when my son, who had just turned nineteen, told me a warrant for his arrest was being issued. That book was under contract, so although life became very complicated very quickly, I felt bound to keep working and meet my deadline--but I struggled with it; the story just wasn’t doing what I wanted it to do.A few months after my son’s arrest, months in which his lawyer had urged us to stay silent about what was going on, the idea forExposurecame to me. I’m certain it grew from my horror and frustration with what was going on, and the effects events had on my son and on our family. I asked my son what he thought about my writing a novel inspired by the situation, and he was fully supportive. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.In some ways, the writing came easily because the scenario was so familiar and so close. In other ways it was hard, because even thoughExposureis entirely fictional--the story inside the book is not my son’s, nor mine--I knew I was putting my son and myself in a position where we would be judged. All the while, though, I was telling myself,Think of what books can do.I grew up being influenced by novels, and I fully believe in the power of story. Whether invented or true, stories have been the vehicles of lessons and warnings and inspiration for as long as humans have had the means to tell them.So to craft a novel that might prevent even one person, one family, from having to face a similar or worse crisis was not, to me, a brave act. It was an opportunity to tell a story that reminds us all,To err is human--which is especially true when deep emotions are involved. I felt obligated to set aside the other book and write this one, to give you Anthony and Amelia and Harlan and Kim, all well-meaning people whose actions and choices add up to a cautionary tale that I hope will give you, at the very least, many hours of good reading.Everyone inExposuremakes mistakes--as we all have done at times, and no doubt will do again. It’s what happens afterwards that makes all the difference.