Cuero author says writing saved her life

CUERO - She was 68 before she wrote her first novel. Little did she know, it would end up saving her life.

Lois Barrett of Cuero was suffering from multiple health problems back in 2003. In danger of becoming what she called a dying sofa spud, she suddenly remembered the manuscript she had started in 1953 when she was 18 that was still lying in a box in her closet.

"I never got another chance to touch it, what with raising kids and working as a reporter. So I decided to dust it off and for the next 30 days and most nights, I wrote" Barrett, 73, said. "Soon I had a rough draft of a novel."
As a first-time novelist, Barrett had trouble getting agents and publishers to even look at the book.

Not to be deterred, she started her own publishing company called Brick Hill Publishing. Five years and four published novels later, Barrett has found a new lease on life.

"I remember thinking to myself, I'm 69-years-old and I can't find anyone to publish this book. I probably won't live to see it published. So I'll just do it myself," she said. "And I did."

Three of her books, including her latest, "Gulf Coast Love Affair," are historical fiction that follows the lives of the Smith family. Barrett takes real life natural disasters, such as the 19th-century earthquakes that rocked Illinois and the hurricanes that ravaged Indianola, and puts her characters into the thick of it, she said.

The other two titles in the series are "When the Earthquake Spoke" and "Preacher's Son and Henry Brown," which is about the War of 1812.

She also wrote a book that is not in the series called "There Oughta Be a Law."

A huge history buff, Barrett does her homework for each book, researching everything from the clothing people wore back then to the real life accounts of the natural disasters.

"I love research, always have. That's why I became a reporter in the first place," she said.

She was only 18 when she started her "great American novel," but for Barrett, it's more than finally accomplishing her adolescent dream.

Despondent from her health problems and recovering from three surgeries in nine months, it was writing that gave her a reason to get up in the morning.

"I'm more apt to write books than clean house," she said. "I thought I was going to stop after the first one, but I already have the idea for a fifth book in my head."

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Lois Barrett takes her characters to hurricane country

It is not an easy life being a character in Lois Barrett's historical fiction. She has previously placed Campbell Smith in the middle and in the aftermath of the great earthquakes of 1811 and 1812.

Now she is sticking her characters in the middle of the devastating hurricanes on the Texas coast in 1875 and 1886 in her book "Gulf Coast Love Affair."

Barrett divides her time between two towns, Harrisburg and Cuero, Texas. When in Southern Illinois her mind is on earthquake history and when in Texas she writes about tropical storms.

Barrett bought a house in Cuero, Texas, that had been moved there from Indianola, Texas. Many houses moved inland after a hurricane in 1886.

"It was wiped clean to the sand," Barrett said.

She decided to take the Smith family from Boston to the west and place them in hurricane country.

Barrett researched historical hurricanes, especially the ones in 1875 in Galveston, Texas, 1886 and 1900 that destroyed the homes of 8,000 people.

She became fascinated with the psychology of coastal people.

"I was researching why people keep going back to the coast," Barrett said.

She came to believe that even though destructive storms are almost guaranteed, the sense of home and belonging overcomes the fear.

Barrett's husband pointed out to her risk is everywhere.

"I keep coming up here for the earthquakes just like people move back to the hurricanes," she said.

While coastal residents have a love affair with the coast, Barrett's main characters pursue a love affair of their own, one of a forbidden relationship due to religious conviction.

Barrett will be at The Book Emporium in Parker Plaza noon to 3 p.m. June 13 signing her book and the book is now for sale there.