I'm home. It's been six months but finally I am home. It seems strange to say that about returning to a village 4000 miles from the country I called home for almost three quarters of a century, but the truth of the matter is that this is much more my home than any other I have experienced since I left the small Iowa town where I was raised.
I awoke to the chimes of the church bells, never in synch with the others of the village, but none-the-less far more soothing than screaming sirens or the growling of jet engines during take-off from a nearby airport. The screech of sea gulls, which in other situations elicits different reactions, is the singular sound that reveals the final bit of evidence...yes, I have returned.
The cobwebs, results of thirty plus hours of travel that included three flights and three train rides and the airports and stations linking them, lost their battle with the rays of Mediterranean sunshine, I then mustered the energy and limped to the corner bakery where the first of many croissants to be devoured over the ensuing months met its final destiny. Only when paired with the foamy hot chocolate served at the Marine Bar [no frilly name for this local hot spot] do they reach their true potential. For the last six months my morning drink has been Starbucks from a Styrofoam cup. This pause reminded me that the object of French tradition of espresso in a corner cafe is to watch the world wake up and absorb the pace of life before entering into whatever the day may have in store.
It's time. I am now freed from being imprisoned by my bitterness over betrayal and the resulting legal entanglements. The resolution has been slow to come and has resulted in six months away from my home in Marseillan, France. But I'm ready to look upon life through the eyes of Tiny Tim rather than Ebenezer Scrooge. It's time to restart my blog.
One of the primary reasons for remaining in the US for so long has been that I signed a contract for the publishing of my most ambitious novel to date.
The story is set in a small Lake Michigan village. The character, a successful Chicago businessman, returns there after being absent for forty years and discovers evidence that suggests he is a murderer. I describe the work as a psychological murder mystery. The premiss is based on dissociative amnesia, a form of amnesia caused by trauma not necessarily of a physical blow. My son Jason lost a complete day from his youth when he was involved in a tragic car accident. It remains lost thirty years later.
I include a passage from THE PROLOGUE of The Dark Side of the Dune.
I have no idea what the outcome of this complicated nightmare will be. There must be an outcome, and though it would be particularly unpleasant for me, I often wish I had the courage to end it, to take responsibility for my actions. I alone have the information which would finally bring my life to a comfortable place. But fallout that would sprinkle down on me from taking that demeaning step keeps me captive, and prevents me the satisfaction of announcing to the world I am not who the world thinks I am. This recitation will present the details as they unfold or rather as I am able to discover them. Some parts of the great puzzle are history to be discovered. Others no doubt will be related as they unfold and that is the scariest part of what lies beneath the surface. It's my story, a tale that has lay dormant for forty years and quite inexplicably has emerged close enough to haunt me but remains distant enough to be clouded in the unknown.
Since I made the horrible discovery a few weeks ago I have been in constant turmoil. The one thing that I have been able to establish is that I suffer and have suffered for forty years from a condition called 'dissociative amnesia'. Yes, it is a big psychiatric term, and no professional has been involved in the diagnosis. To involve a psychiatrist would mean that I must relate what I have found to be the truth of my early life. Instead of risking that I choose this method to hopefully reveal to myself the truth of who I was. This recitation will relate what I have discovered and what I experience in the coming months or years. It will be locked up with my will and instructions to my lawyer will be to release it upon the reading of that will. I'm comfortable that I know who I am now, but that's a shame if I find out that the evidence of forty years ago convicts me of living a lie.
Here is the charge. I am a murderer. That is a sobering conclusion, but it is the only one that can possibly be drawn from what I discovered in that desolate spot. She had lain undisturbed for forty years until I was inexplicably drawn to her resting place, a place that I have no memory of ever having visited. I know not who she might have been, but what disturbs me most is that she was somebody's daughter, probably somebody's sister and could have been somebody's mother if her life hadn't violently ended. She deserves better, and I am determined to attempt to bring her some dignity. Obviously, that is at my peril. To discover who she was and to right the wrong that has for forty years been perpetuated is to expose the secret life that I have been living. But that life has now been indelibly impacted by her presence. She is with me every waking hour and the likelihood of her fading from memory is impossible to imagine.
This is my story. I write it from the cabin of my sailboat, the Aphrodite, which rests in the harbor along Lake Front Drive in Chicago. The forty years in the middle of my life are inconsequential. My childhood is important only as background. The important elements are of recent months. That's where my story begins and my life as it was ends. The forty years that are of little consequence now were of critical importance as they were unfolding. The opportunities that blossomed with the right schooling and preparation resulted in a prosperous life. Marrying the oldest daughter of a Chicago business leader added to the formula for ascending both economic and social ladders. Add two bright children who in their own right were driven to success padded the biographical resume. Include the formulation of friendships with numerous others either ascending the ladder of success or enjoying the view from the top of the mountain would seem to capsulize those years that need no further mention.
Now you know the game in which I am involved. The rules are vague at best and there is no scoreboard. I have no way of knowing for certain, but I suspect it's late in the fourth quarter.
There you have the first chapter of The Dark Side of the Dune. I have okayed the final edit, and the formatting has begun. This has been a much more painstaking process, but the finished product will be worth the wait. I am unable to predict a date of release, but March is my guess.
It's good to be back.