The Furnace: How one childhood memory became the heartbeat of an entire novel.
Isn’t it funny how traumatic a core memory can be – and how it can shape an entire life?
I’m not saying that all of my core memories are rooted in trauma. Quite the opposite, actually; I had a great childhood. I wouldn’t change a thing about it – except…
The furnace.
Here’s the story.
When I was a wee lass in 1981, my dad got a new job and moved the family – my parents, my younger brother, and me – to Williston, North Dakota. The Williston Basin was in the midst of an oil boom. Things were good. Businesses were thriving. People were moving in.
One big drawback? There wasn’t enough housing for all the people.
We spent a few months in an apartment, and then my parents managed to snag maybe the only available rental home in Williston: a 1908 one-story cottage just west of downtown. It boasted four bedrooms, one bathroom, a garage with folding doors, a back porch, and a doghouse in the backyard. It was a little lacking in amenities, however; it had no shower, only a bathtub, and an absolutely ancient heating system.
The furnace.
Did I mention that three of those four bedrooms were down in the basement? Naturally my parents had the master bedroom upstairs, next to the showerless bathroom. My brother and I got rooms in the basement.
Right next to the furnace.
The furnace was the noisiest, scariest thing I had ever seen in my short life. It was a hulking, monster-like thing with giant tentacle-like arms jutting from the top like some kind of deranged octopus. And it sat directly outside my bedroom door (which had no doorknob, by the way).
Sleep was a long time coming many nights, especially during the winter when that thing clanked and rattled like it was coming to life – and coming to get me.
I learned later that it was originally a coal furnace that had been converted to gas. I know now that the giant tentacles were just the air ducts. And there was one more interesting thing: in a dark corner behind the furnace, up high in the foundation, was an old coal chute. My dad told me that in the old days, trucks would bring massive loads of coal and send it down the chute and into the basement. And those huge piles of coal fed the furnace and kept the house warm when it was cold outside.
A charming concept now. Scary for a little kid.
Eventually the furnace and I made our peace, and I was able to move past my intense fear of it. We moved out a couple of years later, into a somewhat newer house that had all of its bedrooms on the main floor. A couple years after that, the economic boom had turned into a bust, and it was time to leave Williston and move back to Minnesota.
But I never forgot that old furnace in that old house. Many years later it would spark a story, which would eventually become my newest novel, The Coal Room. It’s a work of fiction, but also an intensely personal walk down memory lane, and I hope you enjoy it! It’s coming your way September 15!
The house as it looks today. It had white stucco and dark brown trim when I lived here from 1982-1984.
A terrifyingly accurate representation of the furnace.