In Pursuit of Survival: Author Christina Dotson Discusses Pulling Inspiration from Her Personal Experiences
The first time I went to prison, I was eleven.
It was the summer of 1991, and my family and I had piled into a rented van to make the four-hour trip from Tennessee to Indiana, where my uncle was serving a prison sentence for bank robbery. Walking through the visitation room doors, I expected to see a room full of scowling, angry men staring back at me, like in the movies. Instead, we were greeted with the infectious sound of laughter. Joy and happiness existed together inside that room. My uncle, especially, was joyful. Maybe even a little hopeful. But like everything in life, joy and hope are fleeting. After being released on parole, my uncle would repeat his crime, this time, with his wife.
In my debut novel, Love You To Death, two best friends, Kayla and Zorie, are trying to rebuild their lives ten years after serving a prison sentence for an angsty teen prank. They soon find themselves on the run after an attempted heist at an antebellum-themed wedding turns deadly. While this story was inspired by a real-life wedding crasher, this duo’s plight will feel familiar to anyone who is struggling in their current life to make ends meet, whether it’s the ability to pay your rent, keep your electricity running or to feed your family. Like my uncle, Kayla and Zorie face an ethical quandary that examines their decisions as a means of survival. But was it? Were there no other options for surviving this life beyond committing crimes? And what are the moral consequences of these actions?
For my uncle, his life of crime began at a young age. At only thirteen years old, he’d stolen his first car and ignited an unrelenting fascination with criminal activity that would dominate much of his adult life. And while he pursued other interests post-incarceration, like cooking, and found a job that allowed him to showcase his impressive culinary skills, he would ultimately return to what was familiar, easy, and fast.
Life is not always generous with its opportunities to those in possession of a criminal record, it’s both an unfortunate and difficult reality. Many are forced to take jobs that barely pay minimum wage or offer a living income. Kayla and Zorie work as housekeepers at a hotel and consistently struggle to pay their bills. Custodial, factory work and construction are among the limited jobs available to those with a criminal record and often come with low wages. Kayla and Zorie simply want to make a life for themselves, free from the constant worry of eviction or hunger if they’re unable to stretch their meager paychecks. When struggle breeds desperation, people with good intentions make very bad decisions.
I’ll never know why my uncle committed the same crime after being given a second chance at life. What I do know is that his decisions kept him confined behind bars until his death at sixty-seven-years-old. When I think about Kayla and Zorie’s life in the book, it feels very real—their goal to be better people, to prove their worth, and to exist in a world that continues to ignore them. I think we can all recognize a Kayla or a Zorie in our lives, whether they’re someone we love, someone we’ve helped, or someone we refuse to give up on.
The question of doing what is right and what is necessary will always exist, and the answer will never be a simple one. There’s a line in Love You To Death when Zorie tells Kayla that animals do what is necessary to survive as justification for their own actions. After all, moral failings can’t exist if you give into your animal instincts, right? You adapt. You survive.
But at what cost?
And is it worth it?
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