pitfalls of reverence

On my recent trip to see family in L.A., I discovered that a couple of my relatives absolutely revere my grandfather, John Indrisano (his IMDB bio and info about him is here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0408565/bio. One relative even wanted me to write a biography of him--I have little to no interest in doing that and I told her that some other family member was welcome to do that. To be honest, I find his energy to be terribly frightening and--strangely enough--I have all kinds of accidents in my writing room whenever I write about him, usually involving things shoved off my desk when nobody's been in the room (okay, it could be the cat, but it's strange).

I told my relative that the book focuses a lot more on my grandmother Mary--John still has a lot of fame in certain circles, and my grandmother has almost nothing to show that she ever lived--there's some jewelry in the family, pieces of her dish set that I own, a short obituary in the LA Times that tells nothing detailed about her life, and her grave in the San Fernando Valley Mission cemetary. There is not one photograph of her in the family. Maybe her story isn't as "spectacular" as my grandfather's, but I found her to be a really courageous person who became an independent woman back in the 40s and 50s. She wasn't perfect--she failed to understand how to protect my adolescent mother from my grandfather, for one thing--but she was a pretty wonderful human being. My grandfather is definitely in my book, but he's not a reverential figure--he's not a totally bad guy, just sad and totally defeated at the end. Plus, I bring out a lot of not-so-nice things about him, too--that he abandoned my grandmother in the middle of the Depression, for one thing, and that he was inappropriate in a lot of ways with my mother (she would describe these weird things as if they were normal or something--this was in an era when nobody really talked about most forms of abuse, and I believe she had no way to understand what was normal anyway).

I'm wondering at this point if I should just change half the names in my book of anyone who's living and/or has some contention about this book (one relative, from whom I've been estranged for years, has graciously let other relatives know that she will sue me when the book is published because I am not "telling the real story"). It feels these days like I have Judge Wapner looking over my shoulder as I write. Still, I'm telling my story as I remembered it. If it turns out I have to put the doily of changed names on everyone and/or market it as a novel, so be it--but those decisions are down the road.

Later today--finally, "The Hours" agency gave me back my query. It was passed, within the agency, to an agent I would not want to represent me, to be perfectly honest--I know about him and he simply represents a different category of writers than me. I don't know why they gave it to him (except that he has an Italian surname). He did write me an extremely nice personal letter about it (I think it's really good that, at this very early stage of sending to agencies, that I am getting personal letters and emails), though he passed on it. The list of agents I've drafted since sending to them seems to be a little more on the mark of who I want to represent my work. So, I will be making my multiple submissions on November 15th, which is (yes, you guessed it) the full moon. I do like my little rituals.