Straying from reality

At 10 Landsdowne Street in Boston, in the shadow of Fenway Park, there was once a club for live music named, aptly enough, 10 Landsdowne Street. I attended two shows there circa 1971 (Elton John and Leon Russell).

Back then there was a Boston-area chain of restaurants called Pewter Pot Muffin House. There was a Pewter Pot in the heart of Harvard Square, on Brattle Street between Mass Avenue and Palmer Street.

In 1984 a friend of a friend had his first novel published. It was set in Boston ten or more years earlier, and there were two scenes early in the book that I still remember. The first took place in a Harvard Square restaurant situated exactly where the Pewter Pot had been located, but the author called it the Copper Mug (or something like that). The second scene took place at a club near Fenway Park that the author called 12 Landsdale Street. (There is no Landsdale Street in Boston.)

I was distracted by those scenes. I wouldn’t have found it disconcerting if the author had used the real names of those places, or if he had made up entirely different names. But I couldn’t figure out why he had taken that particular approach. It was so distracting that I stopped reading the book and never went back to it.

I think about that book, and my decision to stop reading it, because of issues I find myself dealing with when writing about Disney World and the Orlando area. How strictly should I adhere to reality? For example, the book is set in 2004, but I want to include a scene at a Disney World attraction that didn’t open to the public until 2005. Will anyone notice the incongruity? If they do, will it interfere with their enjoyment of the story?

And speaking of the Pewter Pot....

In 1972 I was dating a Boston University sophomore who worked part-time at a nearby Pewter Pot. The issue of tipping one's girlfriend is an interesting one. I worried that she might take it as an insult if I left a tip. She thought I would be insulting her if I didn't leave a tip. I decided it was best for both of our interests if I behaved according to her viewpoint.

Choosing a title

The idea for the working title of my book-in-progress, Two Months of the Mouse,  sprang directly from the scene in Pray For Us Sinners that I included in my first blog post. That book was the third in a series of mystery novels. The first two books in that series were Forgive Us Our Sins and Deliver Us From Evil.

When it came time to title the fourth book in the series, I asked friends for help. I told them I was looking for a title that sounded vaguely Biblical, had four words, started with an imperative verb, and contained the word "us."

One friend suggested Give Us a Break. Another suggested Spare Us This Book.

I went with Have Mercy on Us.

Where the idea came from

The passage below is taken from one of my previous novels, Pray For Us Sinners. The first-person narrator is my protagonist, a psychiatrist named Harry Kline. The other character is one of his patients, a college senior with inherited wealth and no certain plans for his post-graduation future. In this scene, Harry's patient describes an idea he has for a book he wants to write after he finishes school. Compare this passage to the first chapter of my book-in-progress.

    He said, "The prologue would describe my graduation. After the ceremony I walk over to the viewers' area to show my diploma to my family. They congratulate me. They tell me how proud they are. My mother hugs me. My father aims the video camera at me and says, `Well, Richie Conover, you have your degree, you have your considerable trust fund, you've got a good life and the whole world in front of you. What are you going to do now?'"

    He paused, waiting for my response. I said, "And what do you imagine yourself answering?"

    He grinned. "I take off my graduation cap and fling it into the air. I smile at the camera and say, `I'm going to Disney World."

    "Disney World?"

    "Right. You know, just like those commercials where they interview the Super Bowl quarterback as he's walking off the field. They ask him what he's going to do next now that he's had this great success, and he says he's going to Disney World."

    "I've seen the commercial. But I wonder why you want to go there."

    "Because I think it'll make a great book." He leaned forward in his chair, more excited than I had ever seen him in the two months he had been my patient. "This is how I see it. I spend a year at Disney World. I live a few weeks in each hotel. And I mean, I really live there. That's the gimmick -- I never leave the grounds, not once during the entire year. I do everything there is to do. Ride every ride, visit every attraction, eat at every restaurant. I interview the people who work there and the people who come for vacation. And at the end of the year I write a book about my experience. Sort of a combination guidebook and personal journal." His eyes widened. "Hey -- I could do it in diary form, a day at a time. I even have an idea for the title. I'm going to call it The Year of the Mouse ." He leaned forward: waiting, not knowing what to anticipate. "What do you think?"