Guest post written by Deep Time author Susan Sizer Bogue
Susan Sizer Bogue is a lawyer-turned-writer who has published many humorous essays and written the script for the musical “The Christmas of the Phonograph Records.” This is her first novel. She lives in the Denver, Colorado, area. Find her online at susansizerbogue.com,
About Deep Time: For adventurous fiction lovers, this debut novel tells the story of a young geologist working with ancient rocks who finds herself in present mortal danger when Mount St. Helens erupts with catastrophic power.
Forty-five years ago this Spring, mysterious things were happening at Mount St. Helens in Washington: earthquakes, bursts of ash and steam, rhythmic ground-shaking, and a growing bulge on the north side of the mountain. The volcano was awake!
Geologists and tourists flocked to the area. The road leading to the volcano was often lined by cars of people with picnic lunches and coolers of beer. Vendors sold Mount St. Helens Ski Team tee shirts. To keep people from getting too close to the volcano, Washington’s governor designated a Red Zone.
An eruption of Mount St. Helens could pose a grave danger to people in the surrounding area, despite extensive monitoring of the volcano. Remote-controlled cameras were focused on the mountain at all times. Seismometers recorded earthquakes in the area. Planes routinely took thermal infrared images. Deformation of the ground caused by moving magma was measured by tilt meters. And geologists sampled ash, steam, water, and rock in the crater.
Still, no one knew when or if a major eruption would occur.
At 8:32 a.m. on May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted with catastrophic power. An earthquake triggered the collapse of the north side of the mountain, the largest landslide in recorded history. The blast from the volcano released energy equal to 24 megatons of TNT, or equivalent to 1,600 times the force of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in World War II. Fifty-seven people lost their lives. It was the most disastrous volcanic eruption in U.S. history.
My novel, Deep Time, will be released May 6th, a few days before the forty-fifth anniversary marking the eruption of Mount St. Helens. It tells the story of Lauren, a young woman who decides to become a geologist after a life-changing raft trip through the Grand Canyon. She goes back to school in the 1970s male-dominated field of geology and thrives on the adventures geology affords her. But she struggles with a predatory, then jealous and vindictive, professor who hinders the progress on her degree. Chris, an honorable colleague, helps her fend off the professor.
When Mount St. Helens awakens, the main characters in Deep Time—the two geologists, Lauren and Chris, and Lauren’s husband—are eager to be part of the action. Mountains uplifting, continents shifting, and oceans forming are slow geological transformations that shape the earth over millions and billions of years. Geologists who study these events are said to work in “deep time.” Seeing a volcano erupt is a coveted experience because, for once, the earth is active in the same time frame as humans.
On a Saturday, they stake out the mountain, but Mount St. Helens remains annoyingly quiet. On Sunday morning they are late arriving at their observation site. When they reach the turn off, the mountain, with no warning, erupts with epic power. They turn around and flee down the mountain just ahead of a deadly ash cloud. In the end, the eruption changes Lauren’s life irreversibly.
Every novel has a story line, or plot, composed of background information, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. According to one reviewer, [Deep Time] “depicts the real-life eruption of Mount St. Helens in riveting and realistic detail, making for an exciting, emotionally gripping read.” What could be better for a climax than a volcanic eruption?
