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.
