I’ve been asked “Hey Jim, how is that you, Ohio born and raised, and longtime Michigander, wrote a book set in Wisconsin?” Excellent question. Let me explain…
It all comes down to this: In the late spring of 1975, at a hospital in suburban Detroit, a cute, brown-haired baby girl was born—my daughter, who we named Heather.
As Liam O’Connor would say, “Bullshit. What does that have to do with Wisconsin?”
Bear with me. This cute baby girl, still known as Heather, and I found ourselves living in Traverse City, in Northern Michigan, during the ‘90s. She would graduate from high school and then the University of Michigan, from whence she moved to New York City to pursue an acting career. [I know, I know—this still seems completely irrelevant. Stay tuned… ]
While Heather was busy doing all those things undergraduates do at UM (most of which I didn’t want to know), I was spending a fair amount of time traveling between Traverse City and Chicago for business and social reasons. Let’s just say I was becoming more comfortable with the other side of Lake Michigan and leave it at that.
While in New York, Heather not only acted, but she bartended, and most importantly, met and introduced me to my soon to be wife Naz. Now I was becoming comfortable with the East Coast as well as the Midwest. In short order, Naz and I married and she moved to Ann Arbor (did I mention I left Traverse City for Ann Arbor?), and Heather tired of her New York City life and decided to go to law school. Does this all make sense now? Of course not but hang on.
Some of you may see where this is going. After applying to and interviewing with a variety of very good law schools, Heather fell in love with the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Naz and I helped move her there, also fell in love with the area, and happily visited as often as we could during her time there.
And there you have it. Heather Adams = Wisconsin. Wisconsin = Liam O’Connor. Kismet…