Good grief: how I found stories for my novel without really trying

When I started writing The Sugar Bowl Feud, I had no idea how people would open up about the family rows that erupted over settling an estate.

The story follows four grieving siblings in small-town Nova Scotia who inherit their Mom’s house packed with “stuff,” as they call it. When the oldest selects the family sugar bowl as a keepsake, the others suddenly want it too. Sparks fly, sibling rivalry flares up, and lines are drawn in the sand.

As the book progresses, their behaviour switches from sneaky and salty, to selfish and comical. Tensions rise leading up to their mother’s funeral, and when they all refuse to back down about the sugar bowl, the family foundation is threatened.

While researching, I didn’t look far to find family stories; they found me. After I told a few friends about the subject, I felt like a magnet for anecdotes. I estimate more than 100 people shared their estate incidents with me. There was a lot of pent-up emotion and once they started talking, they couldn’t stop.

The anecdotes ranged from poignant and moving to surprising and hilarious. One time when I was in a shop chatting about the book with a friend, two shoppers joined our conversation and said, “We’re from Cape Breton. Have we got tales for you!”

Early on I decided to set the book in the fictional town of Danbyville, Nova Scotia because people had recounted many similar incidents – especially around funerals and the deceased’s ashes. I didn’t want anyone to think I’d written about them, so I was protecting the innocent, and maybe even the guilty.

I also drew on my own experience growing up in small places in Nova Scotia including Windsor Junction, Windsor, Bridgewater and Chester. Plus, my Dad’s family was from Pugwash and my Mom’s from the Annapolis Valley. In many ways, Danbyville represents ‘Everytown,’ Nova Scotia.

When describing Danbyville, I recalled the ebb and flow of small-town life from my early years where people often knew more about others than they should. And when they were missing info, they’d take a wild guess, then tell others.

Yet when disaster struck, they were the first to jump in and help others in the community, even somebody who annoyed them ten minutes earlier at the grocery store. While supporting people in emergencies is a proud Canadian trait, I think Atlantic Canadians take it to another level entirely. And that’s how I pictured Danbyville.

I also learned about settling estates while experiencing multiple family losses in 2021. While it was a terrible time, I was lucky because my family was supportive and worked together without incident. Sadly, that’s not the case for everybody.

Friends told me that rifts still happen even when a loved one writes a will. Losing someone is devastating enough, yet families are thrown into the chaos of organizing a funeral, clearing out a home, and endless paperwork when they’re at their most vulnerable. Yet everybody still has to show up for work, their families and everyday life. No wonder tempers flare.

Further, most of us have no idea how long it can take to settle an estate – experts say anywhere from a year to many years if there are disputes. Lives today are complicated and it takes a long time to fulfill legal requirements, which creates tension between an executor and beneficiaries because it feels like it’s taking forever.

When writing the novel, I felt compassion for the characters and didn’t judge them, even though several were highly flawed. What I realized is that some people are facing the loss of a loved one for the first time – and they may not know how to process their emotions. If we can assume everybody is doing their best with what they have, we might be able to reduce family squabbles and longstanding feuds.

I also sprinkled in some comic relief, so that things wouldn’t become too heavy. I’d heard so many we-can-laugh-about-it-now incidents, including pets wreaking havoc at crucial moments, that I decided to include them.

The goal for me from this book? I hope readers can see how important it is to not let feuds ruin family relationships. I can’t tell you the number of people who have long forgotten the details of a dispute from years ago, but they remember exactly how someone made them feel.

After the book came out, a woman wrote to me, saying she read The Sugar Bowl Feud all in one go, then sent copies to her siblings because they hadn’t spoken since the loss of her parents years ago. She heard back from one and hopes to connect with the other so they can start over as a family.

That took courage to reach out to her siblings, and hearing her story made my day. While there are no guarantees, my sincere hope is that they reunite as a family and have a happy ending. We all long for happy endings.

This article first appeared in Saltwire. Gina Brown has written two novels and is the founder of NovaHeart Media, an independent publishing platform. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.