Saturday 24 March 2018

Rachel Archer

Rachel Archer  Character Post 33


Rachel Archer is the middle child of C. George Archer and his wife, Melanie Case. Above her in the family is her superior and smart-mouthed brother Justin. Below her is her inventive and active brother Jeremy. Also residing in the household at least some of the time are two sets of grandparents, Melanie's brother, Harrington, and his fiancee Lorelei... not to speak of Granny's dog Peanut Brain and a being known as Venus the Vegetable Vampire.
Things tend to Happen to the Archer/Case family. Everybody except Grandpa is a rugged individual, determinedly pursuing his or her own goals. Even Grandpa has a goal - to be left in peace, so he's adopted a persona of gentle senility quite at odds with reality. At eleven or so, Rachel doesn't have this option. She does her best to put her stamp on life by being sarcastic and stubborn, but most of the time, no one notices. She resents the family adventures, which tend to be surreal, but at the same time resents the fact that she never has any. At moments of extreme annoyance, she goes off to stay with her friend Tamika Whickerson, who is uppity but a better bet than the family.
Of course, if anyone says a word against her relatives Rachel comes out swinging. She protects Jeremy, when he'll accept it, and sometimes acts as a sounding board for Justin. 
If nothing else, she regards family life as excellent training for being a grown up.

Rachel appears in the Bandinangi Books, especially Five Easy Lessons, One Weird Week and Three Loony Months. These were published in the 1990s, but who knows; one day I may pick up Rachel again and see what she's like as an adult. I suspect she has a family and a high-powered job, and is considering politics.


ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. She runs  Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. 2017 is now behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of February 18th 2018 I STILL haven't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books to come, and I'll certainly showcase those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, just for a change. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!

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