From fact to fiction: Author tells a story of New Bedford's South End

For most readers, “Blue Collars” is the story of an Irish American girl and her family living in the South End of New Bedford during the 1950s and the poverty, abuse and heartache they endure.

But for Dartmouth author Catherine McLaughlin, the fictional story has a deeper meaning.

Speaking at the Dartmouth Cultural Center on Friday, Nov. 7 during an author talk, she explained that many elements of the story were based off of her own experiences growing up in the South End tenements in a working-class family.

Elements of the story, including some of the plot lines, the number of siblings the main character has and her dad’s occupation as a millworker mirror McLaughlin’s life growing up in the South End.

There are seven plot lines in "Blue Collars," including when the family moves out of a “relatively poor area” and when characters endure child abuse. The story also tackles alcoholism, death and loss.

It took McLaughlin nine years to write “Blue Collars,” which was published in October 2017, but it is a story decades in the making.

McLaughlin began writing the book shortly after her mother moved in with her and “became the focus of every day.”

“My entire focus changed. I had my kids to deal with at the same time, and I was teaching, and I just felt I better get this out of me or something’s going to happen and I’ll never come out,” she said.

She told herself she didn’t have to do anything with what she wrote, as long as she could “get it out.” From there, she would see what, if anything, happens.

“Before I wrote the words, I knew I wanted to write something,” McLaughlin said. “I knew I wanted it to be about my mother and me and our complicated relationship.”

McLaughlin described her relationship with her mother as “complicated” and said that her mother and some other relatives who were the inspiration for some of the characters in “Blue Collars,” originally objected to the book.

“I got to a point where … I needed to get this out and put it in a drawer or just get it out,” she said.

McLaughlin describes the book as one that she had to write before moving on to other projects.

McLaughlin, who has also published a book of poetry, is working on a story set in 1970s Ireland. This story is also inspired by her life and focuses on events that transpired between her host family and a neighbor while she was studying abroad in Dublin.

During the author talk at the Dartmouth Cultural Center, McLaughlin told the audience about her writing process.

She explained that rather than outline the book’s beginning, middle and end before sitting down to write the story, she let her writing process be guided by the characters.

“I have a character that I'm interested in, and that character is going to lead another character, and they're going to cross and things are going to happen, and I just follow the way they lead,” she said, calling it a “strange process.”

She added, “You don’t know where you’re going to end up … follow the character’s lead.”