Backwater Secret Revealed: The Real Ivy Breedlove Speaks Out

I'm Jean (with an e) Bauer -- daughter of the author. When I was in high school my mother gave me an incredible gift; she made me the main character of her fifth novel, Backwater. I had just gotten back from three weeks of studying historical revolutions at an academic summer camp and was hooked for life. My mom was fascinated with my, well let's be honest here, obsession with history. I'd always liked history, but then I'd always liked every subject in school (even if I didn't like every teacher). After that summer something was different. For years I'd been asking Mom when she would write a book about a girl who loved school. One of my favorite things about Mom's writing is that her characters always have an animating passion: farming, photography, selling shoes, playing pool, the list goes on. Well my passion was school, and I thought it was high time Mom wrote about it.

Kids who love school often have a tough time. Teachers love us, but we don't always get along so well with our peers. I had close friends growing up, but it could be hard to explain why I loved learning so much. Backwater solved that problem. For starters, Mom gave me a long list of questions about why I love history, what I learned from history, who was my favorite history teacher (and why), the list went on and on. By the time I finished that I had all the answers I needed! A good friend of mine (who was even more of a history buff than I was) also received the questionnaire, and we're both thanked in the acknowledgements.

Ivy Breedlove really is me. It's kind of scary to read the book, especially ten years later (no one wants to remember high school too well). But there are a few major differences that I feel honor bound to point out. First, I'm a good hiker, and while my intense fear of heights would have kicked into high gear on that ledge, the woods are not a foreign country to me, and I've carried some pretty heavy backpacks in my time. Second, I love big dogs and think having a wolf as a pet is beyond cool (Malachi is my favorite character in the book). As Backwater took shape Ivy also become a genealogist, a side of history I've never explored personally, but have often used in my own research.

By now you've probably guessed that I've grown up to be a professional historian. Right now I'm getting my PhD in Early American History at the University of Virginia. My dissertation (the book I have to write to earn my degree) examines the earliest years of the American Foreign Service to understand how the United States interacted with other countries in the midst of revolution and war. I hope to spend the rest of my life researching the past and sharing my work with others through writing and teaching. One of my favorite moments in Backwater is when Ivy's cousin, Egan, thanks her for helping him with his paper on Franklin Roosevelt.

When people find out that I'm the Real Life Ivy Breedlove, there is one question they always ask: "What do you think of Jack?" Well, my then boyfriend hated him, but I always found Jack to be a very attractive guy. However, I think overtime he and Ivy would have run out of things to talk about, especially if Ivy ever ran into Zack Coleman -- the crazy smart, deeply funny, and extremely brave physicist from Mom's latest novel Peeled. Zack is based on my husband.

For more about Jean Bauer, see her website at www.jeanbauer.com