When you first think of this word, it is with a slippery slope in mind.
I’ve been on a few of those in my time.
And while we’re on the subject, those inclines measured in degrees are very important if you want a train to get up and down the side of a mountain.
For the train, that’s an incline plane, the point where traction alone won’t get the iron horse up the hill.
Did I say ‘Iron Horse’? Sorry, regressed there, back to the mid-1800s in the American West for a moment.
It’s not that important when it comes to trucks and cars, and less so if you like four-wheel driving; getting up near-vertical mountainsides often present a welcome challenge to the true enthusiast
But for the rest of us, not so much if you find yourself sliding in reverse uncontrollably into the bay. I’m sure it’s happened more than once.
Then…
Are you inclined to go?
A very different sort of incline, ie to be disposed towards an attitude or desire.
An inclination, maybe, not to go four-wheel driving?
There is another, probably more obscure use of the word incline, and that relates to an elevated geological formation. Not the sort of reference that crops up in everyday conversation at the coffee shop.
But, you never know. Try it next time you have coffee and see what happens.
Hang about. Didn’t I read somewhere you need to plan your novel, create an outline setting the plot points, and flesh out the characters?
I’m sure it didn’t say, sit down and start writing!
Time to find a writing pad, and put my thinking cap on.
I make a list, what’s the story going to be about? Who’s going to be in it, at least at the start?
Like a newspaper story, I need a who, what, when, where, and how.
Right now.
I pick up the pen.
Character number one:
Computer nerd, ok, that’s a little close to the bone, a computer manager who is trying to be everything at once, and failing. Still me, but with a twist. Now, add a little mystery to him, and give him a secret, one that will only be revealed after a specific set of circumstance. Yes, I like that.
We’ll call him Bill, ex-regular army, a badly injured and repatriated soldier who was sent to fight a war in Vietnam, the result of which had made him, at times, unfit to live with.
He had a wife, which brings us to,
Character number two:
Ellen, Bill’s ex-wife, an army brat and a General’s daughter, and the result of one of those romances that met disapproval for so many reasons. It worked until Bill came back from the war, and from there it slowly disintegrated. There are two daughters, both by the time the novel begins, old enough to understand the ramifications of a divorce.
Character number three:
The man who is Bill’s immediate superior, the Services Department manager, a rather officious man who blindly follows orders, a man who takes pleasure in making others feel small and insignificant, and worst of all, takes the credit where none is due.
Oops, too much, that is my old boss. He’ll know immediately I’m parodying him. Tone it down, just a little, but more or less that’s him. Last name Benton. He will play a small role in the story.
Character number four:
Jennifer, the IT Department’s assistant manager, a woman who arrives in a shroud of mystery, and then, in time, to provide Bill with a shoulder to cry on when he and Ellen finally split, and perhaps something else later on.
More on her later as the story unfolds.
So far so good.
What’s the plot?
Huge corporation plotting to take over the world using computers? No, that’s been done to death.
Huge corporation, OK, let’s stop blaming the corporate world for everything wrong in the world. Corporations are not bad people, people are the bad people. That’s a rip off cliché, from guns don’t kill people, people kill people! There will be guns, and there will be dead people.
There will be people hiding behind a huge corporation, using a part of their computer network to move billions of illegally gained money around. That’s better.
Now, having got that, our ‘hero’ has to ‘discover’ this network, and the people behind it.
All we need now is to set the ball rolling, a single event that ‘throws a cat among the pigeons’.
Yes, Bill is on holidays, a welcome relief from the problems of work. He dreams of what he’s going to do for the next two weeks. The phone rings. Benton calling, the world is coming to an end, the network is down. He’s needed. A few terse words, but he relents.
I thought since it is Winter here, we could do with a breath of fresh air and colour that comes with the change if season
Living in Queensland, Winter never quite seems to be as cold as it is in the southern states, which are closer to Antarctica.
We have had a relatively mild winter this year and I didn’t have to light the fire once, though we did use the reverse cycle sir conditioning.
But, from now the temperature will be rising as well as the humidity and will hang around until April next year.
Normally this would mean that a large proportion of the population would be planning their summer holidays, but with Covid restrictions, we may not be allowed to leave our state, or only visit states that have no or few cases like us, and definitely no overseas travel.
For people who like to travel, this is a bitter pill to swallow, and especially so for all those retirees who have worked all their lives, and decided to wait until retirement to see their own country and the world at large.
To me, the adage ‘don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today’ seemed appropriate and we decided once the kids were old enough, we would travel far and wide while we could. It was a wise decision because neither of us are as agile as we used to be.
Seems we were the lucky ones.
Now we are content to see our own country which no doubt will be able to manage Covid to the extent that life might return to a form if normal sooner rather that later.
And if it doesn’t, then I have enough to amuse myself at home. I’m sure we are all familiar with the expression ‘spring cleaning’. We have decided to clean house, and do some renovating.
And it’s a surprise when cleaning out those cupboards, drawers, and boxes, the stuff you’ve accumulated over many, many years. Last I heard, we were taking about getting a large skip, so I suspect this culling is going to be savage.
But, just to be clear, no books will be thrown out!
I feel like I’m on the outside looking in at this poor fellow struggling to work out what needs to be done, and in the end, getting nothing done.
Writing had suddenly become all that more difficult to do, not because I can’t, there’s an endless supply of ideas running around in my head, it’s just wanting to sit down and do it.
What are my expectations?
I had set a list of projects I wanted to work on, more episodes for the three continuing stories, and a start to the next episodic story, ‘motive, means, and opportunity’, though for this story I have brought together all the writing I’ve been doing in past few months.
Then there is the completion of ‘the things we do for love’ which at long last now has a completed second draft with a lot of updates and changes to properly reflect the situation of the characters. I have also got ‘strangers we’ve become’ to a point where it can finally get editorial sign-off. Publishing is not far away after that.
It would be easy to blame COVID 19 for the delays or the lack of commitment to the task, but that’s not the problem. I’ve been home and had the time, but there have been a number of distractions, and ideas for new stories always seem to divert my attention from what I should be doing.
It’s not writer’s block. It’s not laziness. It seems that I just don’t have the time to work on them, and that might be because my subconscious is telling me there are problems with the narrative, and I’m just not ready to address them.
What has got my attention then?
I’m not sure how or why, but something triggered the idea of passing through a portal into another time, in the past. I think I might have been looking for photographs to write another photo/story, and I came across a covered bridge, and which led to looking for photographs of ghost towns. What topped it off, there was an old western in black and white, High Noon, which provoked a whole lot of memories of many westerns I’d seen in the past.
What other reason do you need to write your own story?
Then, when visiting my grandchildren, we just happened to do some stargazing, using Google Sky Map, picking out the planets. Somehow I managed to take a photo, and looking at it, took me back to the days of Star Trek, and the many series, which sort of gave me an idea for another story, which has been running off and on over the last few months.
Equally, I’m always on the lookout for photo opportunities that I can use to write short stories, and these continue apace, the latest, number 150. These are being formed into anthologies, stories 1 to 50, and stories 51 to 100. The first has been assembled into book form and is awaiting the editor’s first reading and report. I’m still working on the second.
And, now there is the next, stories 101 to 150.
Perhaps some of the time has been spent keeping up with Twitter, where over the last six months, and more recently, sales of my books on Amazon have been increasing. Not to best-seller numbers, but people are reading my stories, and the reviews have been very good.
It has, of course, pushed me to work harder on marketing and that has consumed some of my time, which unfortunately takes me away from writing. It sometimes feels like a self-defeating exercise, but it is the same for all of us.
Oh, and something else that cropped up this month, my brother has been digging into our family history, and around the middle of the month, he found some interesting revelations about some family members, including a pseudo-Luddite that ended up in Tasmania of all places, and then later on, when chasing down the places that we, as a family, lived, and this brought out some very interesting information about our father.
I’m discovering for what I’d always assumed was an ordinary man, he had done a lot of very interesting things in his life, and not only that, I’ve been fictionalizing the story. I have potted pieces written over various stages, and, one day, it might come together as a sort of biography. It is astonishing just how much you don’t know about your family, until much later on, at least for some of us. Our relatives have always been a mystery to me, and it’s fascinating as each one is brought to life with a new detail here and there.
Looking back on what I’ve just written, perhaps the passing of time had been more productive than I first thought. It just seems like nothing major has happened.
The Pleasure of Invention: Why Writers Craft Fake Biographies From Life’s Raw Drama
Philip Roth, a master of blurring the lines between fact and fiction, once offered a strikingly honest glimpse into the novelist’s mind: “Making fake biography, false history, concocting a half-imaginary existence out of the actual drama of my life is my life. There has to be some pleasure in this job, and that’s it.”
At first glance, it sounds almost confessional – a writer admitting to deceit. But look closer, and Roth isn’t describing fraud. He’s articulating the essential, pleasurable alchemy at the heart of all meaningful storytelling. This isn’t about lying; it’s about the transformative act of taking life’s messy, unresolved drama and shaping it into something that resonates more deeply than mere truth ever could. Let’s unpack why this “fake biography” isn’t a betrayal of reality, but its most honest servant – and why writers find profound pleasure in it.
The Raw Material: Life’s Unfinished Drama
Roth anchors his process in “the actual drama of my life.” This is crucial. Fiction writers don’t start from a blank void; they begin with lived experience – the quiet anguish of a conversation left hanging, the sudden flare of jealousy at a party, the weight of an unsaid apology, the peculiar way light falls on a kitchen floor at 4 p.m. These are the raw, unpolished nuggets of existence. Life, as we live it, is rarely neatly plotted. It’s full of loose ends, ambiguous motivations, and moments that feel significant but lack clear meaning. The writer’s job begins not with invention, but with observation – gathering the scattered fragments of human experience that pulse with potential.
The Craft: Shaping Truth Into Story
Here’s where the “fake biography” and “false history” come in. The writer takes those real fragments and shapes them. They might combine three different arguments into one pivotal scene that reveals a character’s core flaw. They might compress years of gradual change into a single, explosive confrontation. They might invent a detail – a specific song playing, the exact shade of a stranger’s coat – not to deceive, but to unlock an emotional truth that the bare facts obscured. This isn’t falsification; it’s distillation. Like a jeweller cutting a rough gem to reveal its inner fire, the writer selects, emphasises, omits, and invents in service of revealing a deeper psychological, emotional, or thematic truth that the chaotic reality of lived experience often buries.
Consider Roth’s own work. American Pastoral isn’t a biography of Seymour “Swede” Levov; it’s a furious, heartbreaking exploration of how the American Dream disintegrates under the weight of idealism and violence – a truth felt more acutely through Seymour’s fictional tragedy than through any single historical account. The “false history” of Swede’s life becomes a vessel for a very real national anxiety. The pleasure Roth describes lies precisely in this act of creation: taking the confounding, often boring, reality of being human and forging it into a narrative that means something.
The Pleasure: Not Deception, But Discovery
Why does Roth insist there “has to be some pleasure”? Because this process, far from being deceitful, is profoundly creative and revelatory for the writer themselves.
Control Amid Chaos: Life is uncontrollable. Writing offers the godlike power to shape causality, to give suffering purpose, to let a character finally understand what eluded us in our own lives. That agency is deeply satisfying.
Emotional Honesty Through Artifice: Sometimes, we can only access our own deepest feelings by projecting them onto a fictional construct. Writing a character’s shame might be the only way to confront our own. The “half-imaginary existence” becomes a safe space to explore truths too raw for direct autobiography.
The Thrill of Making Sense: Humans are storytellers by nature. We crave narrative to mitigate life’s absurdity. The pleasure Roth cites is the quiet joy of the maker – the moment when a fabricated scene suddenly clicks, revealing a connection between seemingly random events that feels truer than coincidence. It’s the satisfaction of solving a puzzle you invented yourself.
Connection, Not Isolation: By crafting these “false histories,” writers don’t withdraw from reality; they reach deeper into the universal human condition. A fictional biography, built from real emotional stakes, invites the reader to recognise their own unspoken dramas in the made-up life. The pleasure is shared.
Why This Matters Beyond the Writer’s Desk
Roth’s insight isn’t just for novelists. It illuminates why memoirs often feel less true than the best autobiographical fiction – the memoirist is constrained by literal fact, while the novelist, freed from strict chronology, can pursue emotional and thematic truth with greater flexibility. It explains why we gravitate toward stories that feel “realer than real”: they’ve undergone this essential transformation. Even in our age of curated social media selves (our own, constant “half-imaginary existence”), we’re engaging in a diluted version of this drive – shaping raw experience into a narrative we hope others will find meaningful, even if the pleasure is often tinged with anxiety rather than Roth’s confident joy.
Embracing the Alchemy
Philip Roth wasn’t confessing to a guilty habit; he was defining the novelist’s sacred task. The “fake biography” isn’t a departure from truth; it’s the most honest path we have to it. Life gives us the clay – the joys, the wounds, the mundane moments that secretly vibrate with significance. The writer’s pleasure comes from the messy, magical act of spinning that clay into a vessel that holds water: a story that doesn’t just reflect life, but helps us live it more consciously, more empathetically, more fully.
So the next time you lose yourself in a novel and feel a startling jolt of recognition – “This is exactly how it feels…” – remember: you’re not encountering a falsehood. You’re witnessing the pleasure of invention, the alchemy where life’s actual drama, touched by the writer’s hand, becomes half-imaginary, wholly true, and utterly necessary. That’s not just the writer’s job. It’s the gift they give us all.
Key Takeaways for Readers & Writers:
Truth in fiction is emotional/thematic, not literal. Seek what resonates, not what matches a checklist.
The pleasure is in the shaping. Embrace the process of transforming raw experience into narrative.
Your life is the material. Pay attention to the “actual drama” – it’s where all stories begin.
Writers aren’t liars; they’re truth-translators. Their “false histories” serve a deeper honesty.
Escape the Crowds: Rome’s Top 5 Unsung Tourist Gems
Rome. Just the name conjures images of the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, and endless lines of eager tourists. While these iconic sights are essential, the Eternal City offers so much more—especially for those willing to venture slightly off the beaten path.
If you’re looking to soak up Rome’s history, beauty, and distinctive character without battling the massive crowds, we’ve curated a list of the top five visitor attractions that are surprisingly peaceful and utterly captivating.
Here are Rome’s best-kept secrets, proving you don’t need a huge crowd to have a monumental experience.
1. The Centrale Montemartini Museum (Museo della Centrale Montemartini)
Why Visit: This museum offers one of the most stunning juxtapositions in all of Rome: pristine classical statues set against the backdrop of a decommissioned early 20th-century thermoelectric power plant.
The Distinctive Feature: Imagine towering, oily industrial machinery—boilers, engines, and generators—acting as the unlikely stage for brilliant white marble statues of gods and emperors. Originally intended as temporary storage for overflow artifacts from the Capitoline Museums, the exhibit became permanent and breathtaking. It’s an unforgettable blend of industrial archaeology and ancient art, offering a quiet, contemplative space far from the bustling Capitoline Hill.
Crowd Level: Extremely low. Often, you’ll feel like you have entire halls to yourself.
2. The Baths of Caracalla (Terme di Caracalla)
Why Visit: Everyone knows the Roman Forum, but fewer people explore the vast, evocative ruins of the ancient Roman baths. The Baths of Caracalla were a massive public complex, more like a modern leisure center than just a place to wash, accommodating thousands of Romans daily.
The Distinctive Feature: Unlike the Forum, where structures are densely packed, Caracalla’s ruins are sprawling, allowing you to truly appreciate the sheer scale of Imperial Roman architecture. The remaining walls and arches soar towards the sky, hinting at the dome-covered halls and mosaic-tiled floors that once existed. Visiting here is an atmospheric experience, particularly beautiful at sunset, offering a powerful sense of quiet grandeur.
Crowd Level: Low to moderate. While tour buses occasionally stop, the immense size of the site easily disperses visitors.
3. The Basilica di Santo Stefano Rotondo al Celio
Why Visit: If you’re tired of the gilded splendor and tourist throngs of the major papal basilicas, head to Rome’s oldest circular church. Dedicated to Saint Stephen, this basilica is an architectural curiosity unlike any other in the city.
The Distinctive Feature: Built in the 5th century, the church utilizes a striking circular plan with concentric rings of columns. Inside, the walls are lined with graphic frescoes depicting the horrific martyrdoms of early Christian saints. While certainly macabre, these 16th-century paintings are historically fascinating—a unique and somber art gallery within a classical structure. Its isolated location on the quiet Celian Hill ensures a serene, thought-provoking visit.
Crowd Level: Very low. You are likely to find peace and solitude here.
4. The Quartiere Coppedè
Why Visit: Leave the Roman ruins behind for a moment and step into a fantastical, fairytale neighborhood that feels lifted straight out of a storybook.
The Distinctive Feature: Though technically a small urban area within the larger Trieste district, Quartiere Coppedè is an architectural masterpiece designed by Gino Coppedè in the early 20th century. Walk through the stunning archway (the Arco di Coppedè) and discover whimsical palaces, fountains (like the famous Fountain of the Frogs), and facades adorned with sculptures of nymphs, animals, and mythical creatures. It’s a hidden gem of Art Nouveau and Baroque fusion—a completely unexpected visual delight perfect for photography and quiet exploration.
Crowd Level: Minimal. This is a residential area primarily visited by local residents and architecture enthusiasts.
5. The Protestant Cemetery (Cimitero Acattolico)
Why Visit: Tucked away beside the Pyramid of Cestius, this cemetery is one of the most beautiful and tranquil spots in Rome. It is the final resting place for non-Catholics, including famous figures like the poets John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
The Distinctive Feature: Far more than just a graveyard, this site is a lush, perfectly manicured garden park often referred to as “the most beautiful corner of Rome.” Cypress trees cast shadows over elaborate, touching monuments and tombstones written in dozens of languages. It offers a poignant, introspective break from the city noise, blending art, history, and nature in a profoundly moving way. The air of quiet contemplation is palpable.
Crowd Level: Low, though the small entrance fee helps maintain its peaceful atmosphere.
Rome’s true magic isn’t just in its famous landmarks, but in the countless layers of history waiting to be quietly discovered. By seeking out these distinctive, less-trafficked attractions, you can enjoy a richer, more personal experience of the Eternal City. Happy exploring!
The novel ‘Echoes from the Past’ started out as a short story I wrote about 30 years ago, titled ‘The Birthday’.
My idea was to take a normal person out of their comfort zone and led on a short but very frightening journey to a place where a surprise birthday party had been arranged.
Thus, the very large man with a scar and a red tie was created.
So was the friend with the limousine who worked as a pilot.
So were the two women, Wendy and Angelina, who were Flight Attendants that the pilot friend asked to join the conspiracy.
I was going to rework the short story, then about ten pages long, into something a little more.
And like all rewrites, especially those I have anything to do with, it turned into a novel.
There was motivation. I had told some colleagues at the place where I worked at the time that I liked writing, and they wanted a sample. I was going to give them the re-worked short story. Instead, I gave them ‘Echoes from the past’
Originally, it was not set anywhere in particular.
But when considering a location, I had, at the time, recently been to New York in December, and visited Brooklyn and Queens, as well as a lot of New York itself. We were there for New Year’s, and it was an experience I’ll never forget.
One evening, we were out late and finished up in Brooklyn Heights, near the waterfront, and there was rain and snow; it was cold and wet, and apartment buildings were shimmering in the street light, and I thought, “This is the place where my main character will live”.
It had a very spooky atmosphere, the sort where ghosts would not be unexpected. I felt more than one shiver go up and down my spine in the few minutes I was there.
I had taken notes, as I always do, of everywhere we went, so I had a ready supply of locations I could use, changing the names in some cases.
Fifth Avenue near the Rockefeller Centre is amazing at first light, and late at night with the Seasonal decorations and lights.
The original main character was a shy man with few friends, hence not expecting the surprise party. I enhanced that shyness into purposely lonely because of an issue from his past that leaves him always looking over his shoulder and ready to move on at the slightest hint of trouble. No friends, no relationships, just a very low profile.
Then I thought, what if he breaks the cardinal rule and begins a relationship?
But it is also as much an exploration of a damaged soul as it is the search for a normal life, without having any idea what normal was, and how the understanding of one person can sometimes make all the difference in what we may think or feel.
Escape the Crowds: Paris’s Top 5 Hidden Gems (That Deserve Your Visit)
Paris. The City of Lights, romance, and… endless queues? While the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre are undoubtedly must-sees, experiencing the best of Paris doesn’t have to mean battling shoulder-to-shoulder with thousands of fellow tourists.
If you’re looking to explore distinctive Parisian culture and history without the notorious bottlenecks, we’ve uncovered five incredible visitor attractions. These spots boast unique charm, fascinating features, and best of all: relative tranquility.
Pack your walking shoes, grab your camera, and prepare to discover a side of Paris few tourists ever see.
1. Musée Rodin (The Gardens)
While the Musée Rodin itself—home to iconic works like The Thinker and The Kiss—is popular, the vast, sculpted gardens surrounding the mansion are often overlooked as a place to linger, making them a true, peaceful escape.
Distinctive Features:
Sculpture Meets Serenity: The three-hectare garden is an open-air gallery, where Rodin’s profound bronze figures are set against lush lawns, rose bushes, and towering hedges. It creates one of the most sublime atmospheres in Paris.
The Reflection Pool: A large, tranquil pool reflects the 18th-century Hôtel Biron (the main museum building), providing stunning photographic opportunities and a space for quiet contemplation.
The Workshop: You can catch glimpses of the former studio spaces, helping you connect directly with the creative process of one of history’s greatest sculptors.
Why It’s Worth the Trip: You get world-class art without the crush of a major museum, allowing the beauty of the artwork and the landscape to truly sink in.
2. Butte-aux-Cailles
Forget the tourist trap boutiques of Montmartre; head instead to the Butte-aux-Cailles in the 13th arrondissement. This small, elevated neighborhood feels like a secret village preserved within the modern city, rarely appearing on mainstream tourist itineraries.
Distinctive Features:
Village Atmosphere: The area escaped the sweeping renovations of Baron Haussmann in the 19th century, leaving behind narrow, cobbled streets (like Rue des Cinq Diamants) lined with low, charming houses and hidden courtyards.
Art Nouveau Architecture: Look out for beautiful examples of brick and stone façades and original lampposts.
Street Art Hub: While peaceful, the Butte-aux-Cailles is also a discreet, vibrant center for Parisian street art, featuring colorful, high-quality murals and stencils often tucked away on small side streets.
The Artesian Wells: The area is famous for its natural hot springs, and you can still find the historic communal swimming pool—Piscine de la Butte-aux-Cailles—fed by underground water.
Why It’s Worth the Trip: It offers an authentic glimpse into local Parisian life, complete with wonderful traditional bistros and quiet cafés, far removed from the noise of the center.
3. Parc des Buttes-Chaumont
When most visitors think of Parisian parks, they picture the Tuileries or the Luxembourg Gardens. But for truly dramatic landscapes and peaceful seclusion, the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in the 19th arrondissement is unbeatable.
Distinctive Features:
Dramatic Topography: Built on a former gypsum quarry and landfill, the park features steep cliffs, grottoes, artificial waterfalls, and a large central lake.
The Temple de la Sibylle: Perched atop a sheer, 50-meter-high cliff (known as the Belvédère Island) is a miniature Roman-style temple offering one of the most spectacular, yet uncrowded, panoramic views of Paris, including Sacré-Cœur in the distance.
Rustic Charm: Unlike the manicured symmetry of other parks, Buttes-Chaumont embraces a rugged, romantic English garden style, complete with a charming suspension bridge designed by Gustave Eiffel’s company.
Why It’s Worth the Trip: It is a breathtaking feat of landscape architecture, providing dramatic views and quiet walking paths that make you forget you are in a major European capital.
4. The Archives Nationales (Hôtel de Soubise)
Tucked away in the historic Marais district, the Archives Nationales houses France’s national historical archives. While the documents themselves are fascinating, the primary draw is the opportunity to wander through one of the most beautiful and best-preserved 18th-century aristocratic residences in Paris, the Hôtel de Soubise.
Distinctive Features:
Rococo Masterpieces: The most stunning features are the magnificent state rooms, particularly the oval salons, which are considered peerless examples of French Rococo interior design. The intricate gilded woodwork, ceiling frescoes, and elaborate ornamentation are breathtaking.
Courtyard Grandeur: The cour d’honneur (main courtyard) immediately transports you back to the age of Louis XV, showcasing the sheer scale and opulence of Parisian high society.
Historical Significance: Visitors can tour selected exhibits showcasing pivotal documents from French history, offering a deep dive into the nation’s past within a spectacular setting.
Why It’s Worth the Trip: You get to explore hidden architectural gems that rival the palace interiors of Versailles, but without the mandatory entry lines and huge tour groups.
5. Musée de la Vie Romantique (Museum of Romantic Life)
The name truly says it all. Located in the residential Nouvelle Athènes neighborhood (near Pigalle), this delightful museum occupies two charming small buildings and a lush garden courtyard that celebrate the artistic and literary life of the 19th-century Romantic era.
Distinctive Features:
Intimate Scale: Housed in the former home of painter Ary Scheffer, the museum is dedicated to the works of George Sand, Ernest Renan, and other Romantic figures. It feels more like visiting a well-preserved family home than a traditional museum.
Literary History: Artifacts include portraits, jewelry, and personal items associated with the writer George Sand, offering a deeply personal look at her life and times.
The Best Tearoom in Paris: The garden courtyard transforms into a glorious, ivy-covered tearoom (operated by Café Renoir) during the warmer months. It is hands-down one of the most idyllic spots in Paris for a restorative coffee or lunch.
Why It’s Worth the Trip: It offers a deeply atmospheric and gentle cultural experience. It is the perfect antidote to the high-intensity visit of a major museum, wrapped up in Parisian charm and elegance.
The magic of Paris extends far beyond the well-trodden paths. By seeking out these distinctive, less-crowded attractions, you can enjoy the city’s profound history, stunning architecture, and unparalleled beauty at your own pace. Happy exploring!
This case has everything: red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.
See below for an excerpt from the book…
Coming soon!
An excerpt from the book:
…
When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.
Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone, one of his captors had called Doug.
It was not the name that worried him so much; it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.
Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there were several sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.
But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and a costly mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt, he would soon find out.
His mother and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.
At the time, he couldn’t help himself, and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation that ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.
For several days, he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.
Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.
Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, it literally made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head, trying to prevent a recurrence. It was to no avail.
Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.
It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.
It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.
Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.
Except, of course, when it came to Harry.
He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact that his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.
So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.
There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.
So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.
There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall, cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.
She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.
Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.
Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.
Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile that Harry had considered doing it himself.
Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticised trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.
Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.
The Pleasure of Invention: Why Writers Craft Fake Biographies From Life’s Raw Drama
Philip Roth, a master of blurring the lines between fact and fiction, once offered a strikingly honest glimpse into the novelist’s mind: “Making fake biography, false history, concocting a half-imaginary existence out of the actual drama of my life is my life. There has to be some pleasure in this job, and that’s it.”
At first glance, it sounds almost confessional – a writer admitting to deceit. But look closer, and Roth isn’t describing fraud. He’s articulating the essential, pleasurable alchemy at the heart of all meaningful storytelling. This isn’t about lying; it’s about the transformative act of taking life’s messy, unresolved drama and shaping it into something that resonates more deeply than mere truth ever could. Let’s unpack why this “fake biography” isn’t a betrayal of reality, but its most honest servant – and why writers find profound pleasure in it.
The Raw Material: Life’s Unfinished Drama
Roth anchors his process in “the actual drama of my life.” This is crucial. Fiction writers don’t start from a blank void; they begin with lived experience – the quiet anguish of a conversation left hanging, the sudden flare of jealousy at a party, the weight of an unsaid apology, the peculiar way light falls on a kitchen floor at 4 p.m. These are the raw, unpolished nuggets of existence. Life, as we live it, is rarely neatly plotted. It’s full of loose ends, ambiguous motivations, and moments that feel significant but lack clear meaning. The writer’s job begins not with invention, but with observation – gathering the scattered fragments of human experience that pulse with potential.
The Craft: Shaping Truth Into Story
Here’s where the “fake biography” and “false history” come in. The writer takes those real fragments and shapes them. They might combine three different arguments into one pivotal scene that reveals a character’s core flaw. They might compress years of gradual change into a single, explosive confrontation. They might invent a detail – a specific song playing, the exact shade of a stranger’s coat – not to deceive, but to unlock an emotional truth that the bare facts obscured. This isn’t falsification; it’s distillation. Like a jeweller cutting a rough gem to reveal its inner fire, the writer selects, emphasises, omits, and invents in service of revealing a deeper psychological, emotional, or thematic truth that the chaotic reality of lived experience often buries.
Consider Roth’s own work. American Pastoral isn’t a biography of Seymour “Swede” Levov; it’s a furious, heartbreaking exploration of how the American Dream disintegrates under the weight of idealism and violence – a truth felt more acutely through Seymour’s fictional tragedy than through any single historical account. The “false history” of Swede’s life becomes a vessel for a very real national anxiety. The pleasure Roth describes lies precisely in this act of creation: taking the confounding, often boring, reality of being human and forging it into a narrative that means something.
The Pleasure: Not Deception, But Discovery
Why does Roth insist there “has to be some pleasure”? Because this process, far from being deceitful, is profoundly creative and revelatory for the writer themselves.
Control Amid Chaos: Life is uncontrollable. Writing offers the godlike power to shape causality, to give suffering purpose, to let a character finally understand what eluded us in our own lives. That agency is deeply satisfying.
Emotional Honesty Through Artifice: Sometimes, we can only access our own deepest feelings by projecting them onto a fictional construct. Writing a character’s shame might be the only way to confront our own. The “half-imaginary existence” becomes a safe space to explore truths too raw for direct autobiography.
The Thrill of Making Sense: Humans are storytellers by nature. We crave narrative to mitigate life’s absurdity. The pleasure Roth cites is the quiet joy of the maker – the moment when a fabricated scene suddenly clicks, revealing a connection between seemingly random events that feels truer than coincidence. It’s the satisfaction of solving a puzzle you invented yourself.
Connection, Not Isolation: By crafting these “false histories,” writers don’t withdraw from reality; they reach deeper into the universal human condition. A fictional biography, built from real emotional stakes, invites the reader to recognise their own unspoken dramas in the made-up life. The pleasure is shared.
Why This Matters Beyond the Writer’s Desk
Roth’s insight isn’t just for novelists. It illuminates why memoirs often feel less true than the best autobiographical fiction – the memoirist is constrained by literal fact, while the novelist, freed from strict chronology, can pursue emotional and thematic truth with greater flexibility. It explains why we gravitate toward stories that feel “realer than real”: they’ve undergone this essential transformation. Even in our age of curated social media selves (our own, constant “half-imaginary existence”), we’re engaging in a diluted version of this drive – shaping raw experience into a narrative we hope others will find meaningful, even if the pleasure is often tinged with anxiety rather than Roth’s confident joy.
Embracing the Alchemy
Philip Roth wasn’t confessing to a guilty habit; he was defining the novelist’s sacred task. The “fake biography” isn’t a departure from truth; it’s the most honest path we have to it. Life gives us the clay – the joys, the wounds, the mundane moments that secretly vibrate with significance. The writer’s pleasure comes from the messy, magical act of spinning that clay into a vessel that holds water: a story that doesn’t just reflect life, but helps us live it more consciously, more empathetically, more fully.
So the next time you lose yourself in a novel and feel a startling jolt of recognition – “This is exactly how it feels…” – remember: you’re not encountering a falsehood. You’re witnessing the pleasure of invention, the alchemy where life’s actual drama, touched by the writer’s hand, becomes half-imaginary, wholly true, and utterly necessary. That’s not just the writer’s job. It’s the gift they give us all.
Key Takeaways for Readers & Writers:
Truth in fiction is emotional/thematic, not literal. Seek what resonates, not what matches a checklist.
The pleasure is in the shaping. Embrace the process of transforming raw experience into narrative.
Your life is the material. Pay attention to the “actual drama” – it’s where all stories begin.
Writers aren’t liars; they’re truth-translators. Their “false histories” serve a deeper honesty.
There was something about this one that resonated with me.
This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.
I’ve been guilty of it myself, as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.
For the main characters, Harry and Alison, other issues are driving their relationship.
For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.
For Harry, it is the fact that he has a beautiful and desirable wife, his belief that she is the object of other men’s desires, and, in particular, his immediate superior’s.
Between observation, the less-than-honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.
When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, and she realises only the truth will save their marriage.
But is it all the truth?
What would we do in similar circumstances?
Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.
And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, is that nothing is ever what it seems.
