I was having my daily
Bloody Ceasar sitting in my patio in the beautiful city of Merida where I live when something rather unusual happened to me.
The main character of
my novel, Woodrow Riley, suddenly appeared only to tell me he had
accepted an interview with one of those famous writer's blog the name
of which I can't remember.
Anyway, this is the
content of his interview.
“Good evening
Woodrow Riley. It's a pleasure meeting you. It seems that you carry
quite a load in Bernard Boley's novel, 'My Ripper Hunting Days'. You probably
wonder what your creator had in mind when he decided
to call upon you as his main character in his novel. Do you want to
tell us something about this? ”
“It's a great
pleasure for me also to have this conversation with you, mister
Thompson. May I call you Gregory? ”
“Of course, you may.
”
“Let me begin by
making things clear. It's my diary and not Bernard's we are talking
about and he graciously offered me to be my editor, agent, ghost
writer and publisher. ”
“So you actually
existed? ”
“Have you ever heard
of Luigi Pirandello's play, Six Characters In Search of an Author? ”
“Who hasn't? ”
“Well, Bernard
turned out to be my Pirandello. ”
“Would you like to
expand a bit more? ”
“Bernard and I met
in one of those bars of the old part of Quebec City. As he would
always do, he wrote down some words on his damn notepad. You know,
the kind of bar where all the good looking women would find
themselves by the end of every afternoon hoping they would meet
Prince Charming, fall in love and happily live together for the rest
of their lives. I was reading while he was writing. I looked at
him and asked him, "What the bloody Hell are you doing? Didn't
you notice I was here each and every day you come here and you've
never noticed my presence?”
“Did he react?”
“Of course he did!
But not the way I expected. He kept observing the beautiful women all
around him, ordering Champagne after Champagne hoping one of them
would want a sip of his venom. God only knows what would have
happened to anyone of them should one of them had accepted. I had to
insist and remind him of the nightmare he kept having. ”
“And? ”
“So I told him, "I
know who you are. You're like the predator I hunted during months a
century ago. I'm the one whose's been sending you this nightmare and
you still can't figure out what it's all about?" Well after
three complete rewrites of the novel, he finally managed to
understand what I demanded of him. ”
“I'm I to believe
you are a ghost? ”
“Didn't you listen
to what I said? Pirandello, Pirandello for God's sake. ”
“Do forgive me,
Woodrow. So what's your story about? ”
“When I was a young
boy, I ran away from home hoping it would put an end to the miseries
I battled through because of my drunk and violent father just to find
out fifteen years later it only served to set up a countdown where I
found myself pursuing the man I was convinced to be Jack the Ripper
and whose name was Francis Tumblety? ”
“Was he the Ripper?
Did you catch him? ”
“You know what? Tim
Riordan's Prince of Quacks and Michael Hawley's The Ripper's Haunts
made a great fuss about Tumblety, but I'm the only one who knew
exactly what was going on. I personnly knew him when he was in
Whitechapel in the autumn of 1888. You know, London's East End.”
“With all due
respect, Woodrow, I'm sorry but you didn't answer my question.”
“Listen my dear
Gregory, if I told you what happened, you wouldn't believe me. I
helped Tumblety in gathering female body parts, met Gorden Fitzgerald
who became my protector, fell in love with his daughter, Elizabeth,
struggled with Frederick Abberline and became a friend of Charles Le
Grand, not to mention my close relation with Derrick O'Connell, a
member of the Irish Brotherhood. I almost lost my life more times
than one would want to. The rest belongs to you, if you decide to
know what actually really went on.”
“So it's not a
fiction?”
“There are so many
non fiction theories about Jack the Ripper and even if no one has
managed to come up with some valid historical and criminal evidence
or interpretation of what happened, Bernard decided it would be
better to submit it as a fiction because nobody would anyway accept
what I went through.”
“Did Bernard get any
comments about his telling of your story?”
Ripperologist's worst
Jack the Ripper novel writer's nightmare, David Green said in his
December 2016 review and I quote,"Bernard has written a
picaresque drama about courage and personal responsibility and the
consequences of family legacy. Its theme is not only how individual
lives may be shaped by the course of history but how history itself
is shaped by the actions of individuals. Ambitiously, several of the
novel’s most important characters are kept on the periphery of the
tale, and the Jack the Ripper murders are illuminated largely by
subordinating them to the unfolding of Riley’s individual destiny.
These are risky literary manoeuvers, but the author pulls them off
magnificently. This is a thoughtful, skillfully plot"
“So he did a good
job?”
“We both did a great
job.”
“It was a tremendous
pleasure having you with me Woodrow. Should we expect more of you? ”
“You shall if ever I
decide to haunt you while you're dreaming like I did with my good
friend Bernard. Until then, read our book, 'My Ripper Hunting Days'.”
