I truly have little recollection of how this story came to be. I’d seen tourists at various places like Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon taking selfies to send to relatives or to prove they’d been there, and I thought there was something more to it than that. But that’s the title I had in my head without knowing where selfies fit in. (That’s happened to me quite a few times—I have a title but no story—“The Beautiful Morning of Almost June,” “Ringo Bingo.” “Purge,” “The Secret Child.”)
And I hadn’t ever set a story in a place I’ve birded ten times or so—the Upper Texas Gulf Coast between Galveston and High Island. When I was teaching at Austin, I rented a place once in Crystal Beach. This area is coastal prairie, which is low and has little to recommend it. Even the beach isn’t very nice. And the houses are not fancy, either—most are up on stilts so high storm tides can wash under them.
I didn’t know any of the people in this story. No one’s modeled after a real person—not even me. My feeling is that a reader is more involved with and cares more about a person who needs help than that same reader would be with a person who isn’t needy or likeable. So Irene’s the one who’s telling the story. She needs to learn to be different from who she is at the beginning.
The events are, of course, the catalyst for this to happen.