Coming Soon

 

Okay, I can FINALLY announce that the audiobook version of The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle is "coming soon" --"soon" meaning in September.

From Tantor Media.

Also, Eliza Doolittle Day is May 20. Mark your calendar!

Beach Read

Fishing Boats on the Beach by Vincent

 

After rigorous analysis and testing, I'm happy to report that 

The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter 

has been designated by the Beach Reading Association as 100%

Beach Readable

Because of this designation, you are hereby guaranteed to enjoy this read on any beach in the world, from Cozumel to St. Tropez to Bondi Beach, without fear of sun-bleaching or sand-scratching.* 

Enjoy your summer!

*not water-proof

King Tut: Fact or Fiction?

       Historical fiction thrives in the space between fact and rumor. I'll give you an example from the next Sherlock Holmes novel I'n working on, The Strange Case of the Pharaoh's Heart. There were a number of deaths attributed in the years after Tutankhamun's tomb was opened which were attributed by believers (of whom Conan Doyle was a prominent and vocal member) to "the curse of King Tut."

Hugh Evelyn White

     One of the more violent deaths, in 1924, was that of Hugh Evelyn White, a scholar
and translator of ancient Greek, and a popular lecturer at the University of Leeds. He was also an Egyptologist, and among the first to visit the newly opened tomb in 1923. 

     His story is quite a gruesome one, and it can be found all over the internet: he wrote a suicide note in his own blood on the wall of his office, blaming the curse for his action, then hung himself above his desk. A terrible realization of the curse.

     Except it didn't happen that way. If you take the trouble to read the newspaper obituaries from the time, you find that he stepped out of his house, hailed a taxi, and asked to be taken to the house of a physician, Dr. Maxwell Telling. He would never arrive there.

     The driver heard the gun blast (how could he not?) and turned to see White falling forward. He sped to the nearest hospital, but White was pronounced dead an hour later.

     He had left a suicide note. Though not in blood, and not mentioning King Tut, it was certainly problematic. Here's how it read:

“I knew there was a curse on me, though I have leave to take those manuscripts to Cairo. The monks told me the curse would work all the same, Now it has done so.”

No one knew what papers he referred to, or who the monks were.

     But here's the rest of the story: White was about to appear at the inquest for another suicide, one Mary Helen Ninds, a music teacher, who was desperately in love with Mr. White, and had threatened in a letter to take her own life if he did not return her affections. He had written her back, threatening to go to the police if she threatened suicide again.

     Did he feel guilt over the girl's death? Had there been a love affair, or even any relationship at all between the two? Could she have been carrying his child? We can only speculate, and speculation becomes fertile field for a historical novelist. We can let our imaginations run away, stitching together fact with whole cloth.

     And where did the story of the bloody suicide note and the hanging surface from? Again we can speculate. First, one must realize that Lord Carnarvon, who paid for the expedition, had sold exclusive rights to coverage of the excavation to the London Times--which meant that every other paper in the world was boxed out of the biggest story in the world, and when journalists don't have a story they will sometimes... make up a story. The whole "curse of King Tut" story was catnip to them, and anything and anyone involved tended to get twisted, exaggerated, aggrandized.

     Now how prevalent this wild story might have been at the time is also impossible to say. When I say that you can find the story all over the internet, we all know that the internet loves nothing better than a good story and will spread it like Nutella on a spoon. Ubiquity on the net has nothing to do with authenticity.

     But it does have everything to do with fiction. Seeing the kind of wild rumors that were floating around at the time points the way for one's own wild rumors to plant in the story--as long as they are labeled as rumors, not as fact. We have to play fair with the reader.

     And the truth is, there are always wild rumors and wild surmises associated with any historical event. Misinformation is not a modern invention. And while we should do our best to separate fact from rumor, our characters are under no such edict. Let them mix it up.

     (Don't forget the monks and the papers.)

 

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Tea and Crumpets

 

Actually, you're not going to get tea OR crumpets, but you can get a nice conversation about The Strange Case of the Ditch Painter and cabbages and kings with the crew at Beyond the Trope 

HERE.

The Man in the Long Black Coat

 "There was Bruant, striding up and down the top of the bar in the same costume we’d seen in the posters, a gamekeeper’s outfit with a scarlet shirt and scarf, an opera cape and wide-brimmed black hat. He pointed a rattan cane at us and said, “See how they gawk? Like sheep about to be sheared! Muttonheads!”

The crowd laughed. “What are you laughing at?” said Bruant, picking out a balding little pickle of a man in front of him, “You’ve already been sheared to your pink-and-white hide. And the rest of you smell of sheep dip!”

The crowd roared at every word. These were hardly the denizens of the underworld I’d expected to see. They were stock clerks and assistant managers, wine merchants and lace manufacturers, the shank of the bourgeoisie, along with their mistresses and perhaps a few daring wives. They had climbed the butte of Montmartre to come and be scandalized and insulted by the three-penny poet of the bateaux. Bruant gave them good value for their money. A piano player in the corner by the bar banged on the keys, and Bruant tore into a song.

--The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter

King's River Life Review + Coal Tar

 

A new review of The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter:

"The mystery is filled with twists and turns, and there is even a bit of an added mystery in
the epilogue. If you are looking for a new Sherlock Holmes story that is a bit different then you are used to, be sure to check out The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter."

For the full review, check HERE.

Plus, a bonus article in which I take on the burning issue of Sherlock Holmes and coal tar derivatives!

"Instead of painting gods and heroes, kings and queens, they could paint street scenes, picnics by the river, water lilies, dancers, the whole joyous repertoire of everyday life for which we have come to love the Impressionists and with a whole new palette of bright synthetic colors to mix from."

Read it all in King's River Life Magazine.

Swoopers and Bashers, oh my!

 I'll admit right here and now:

I'm a swooper.

How about you?

On entering Arles

 "I tripped over the threshold into the cafe, cutting a slice out of the early-morning silence. An old billiard table commandeered the center of the room, the baize worn down to the slate. It was flanked by a dozen granite-top tables. One of last night’s patrons was passed out face-down at a table near the door, with the reek of vomit rising from him. A small bar stood at the far end of the room beneath an old station-clock; its drip-drop tick-tock was the only answer to my call of good morning."

The Strange Case of the Dutch Painter

At War with the Ants

 Here's a blast from the past. 

A screenplay which I wrote in 2010 was subsequently filmed by our local community college, BPCC. And now, barely 12 years later, there's a trailer up on Youtube. If you're curious, it's called At War with the Ants. 

Check it out.

And I guess, just in case you're so wowed by the trailer, that you'd like to see the whole movie, Go Here to buy.

Reading Club

My high school English teacher getting ready to grade my latest paper.

Umberto Eco

 

“Until then I had thought each book spoke of the things, human or divine, that lie outside books. Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of books: it is as if they spoke among themselves. In the light of this reflection, the library seemed all the more disturbing to me. It was then the place of a long, centuries-old murmuring, an imperceptible dialogue between one parchment and another, a living thing, a receptacle of powers not to be ruled by a human mind, a treasure of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or had been their conveyors.”

― Umberto Eco

First Book

 I haven't nagged you about First Book in a while, but they're putting books into the hands of kids who would otherwise go without. 

If you can, consider giving. You can learn more HERE.