My opinion on my novel

I was asked by the 'Ripperologist' bimonthly magazine's fiction reviewer, David Green, what I thought about my book not as a writer, but as a reader.  He had read my book and had already writen a review to appear in December's edition of the magazine. I had no idea what he would say although I had a few hints. This is what I told him:

It's hard to distance oneself as a reader from a book I wrote. Nevertheless, I'll try to tell you what I like about it.

We have to go back to the first draft which was written in the third person point-of-view. The story was totally different. Woodrow Wilson was the Ripper and Gordon Fiztgerald became aware of it after having observed him in a pub looking at other women in a very strange and disturbing manner. From the moment he addresses him with these words, “I know who you are”, a growing complicity builds up between both of them. The problem I had with the plot, although it seemed appealing was one could figure out the outcome.

The second draft is basically the story we have in the final version, but still written in the third person. I wasn't satisfied with most of the sub-plots, not that they weren't interesting, but they did not allow me to focus enough on what was going through Riley's mind. Using the first-person point of view gave me that possibility and presenting the story as a diary made it easier. It would also allow for the reader a more personal connection with the main character. Those are the reasons behind the third draft which, by the same token, gave me the opportunity to add a romantic touch by including Elizabeth. So this is one of the things I like about the book, the use of the first-person POV.

The problem, however, I had with this diary format was that I had to find a way to deliver it. It's not like the diary of Anne Frank'or Maybrick's diary. It couldn't just pop out of nowhere. Someone had to have found it, hence the prologue and the epilogue. Why not going a little further along the thin fiction/reality line and tell the reader I was the one who found the diary. Epilogues often create a questionable delay preventing the reader from entering quickly into the story. They are used as an introductory setup of the story in terms of location and period. To avoid this problem, I decided to create a story around the story and have the reader jump into it directly with what I consider to be a rather good opening hook: “Prepare to drop the anchor”.

Of course, one aspect I gave a priority to was working on a JTR story which would not be the story of a police officer chasing the Ripper, nor a JTR pursuit through time. I wanted to tell a story about someone who lived in the district and had nothing to do with the Ripper turn into a man hunter. It's funny to see that a story that began in the first draft with someone befriending Jack the Ripper turned into a story about someone who ran away from his home when he was a young boy and hid himself from his past by working with corpses only to find himself hunting the Ripper. Globally speaking, I tend to believe the story is more than a Jack the Ripper pursuit and offers an interesting blend of brutal reality, drama and wit.

Another thing I like about the book is having tried to integrate, in the dialogues, as much descriptive elements as possible, breaking them down into small fragments. Too often, novels provide the author with the chance to show how well they can write descriptions or narrative parts. Of course, it does, but sometimes it slows down the pace at the wrong moment. You'll find an example on pages 204-205.

Building characters was probably the most demanding task I went through. However, it's also the most fascinating one. It's like writing a short biography for each one of the main characters. I must say that Luigi Pirandello's play, 'Six Characters In Search of an Author' showed me how important character creation is. Once it's done, all the writer has to do is offer them a scene within his story and they'll do the rest. I believe I gave them strong personalities. Considering the fact that in most stories, the hero wins (and has to be an American!!!), something I hate, Woodrow Riley had to be an anti-hero. In the case of those who existed, Abberline, Le Grand, Lusk, etc., I preserved what we knew about them seeking coherence before anything else when I used them. I like what I did with Le Grand, turning him into Riley's quipping partner. I wanted to avoid the kind of characters we find in movies such as In Hell where Abberline is presented as someone in complete contradiction with the person he really was.

There's also all the historical research the story required of me. Buying period maps, subscribing to archives. I even bought a 1888 Bradshaw railway guide just to get the exact departure time from the Euston train station when Riley leaves London to go to Manchester. All this doesn't make a story, but I enjoyed discovering details that became part of it such as the November 10 event where Riley almost gets lynched (p 351). It was based on an insignificant event that actually occurred on that day in Spitalfields. It was metionned on page 5 of London's Daily News, November 10, 1888 edition.

As for the things I like less, I'll mention the extended use of inquiry descriptions of the victims, although one cannot imagine a JTR story without blood and gut cutting. Maybe I should have edited them more. However, the aspect worrying me the most is this feeling I still have about the end of the story. It may seem I crashed landed the end. But then, there was no need for fast paced loaded action. Riley was crossing the ocean, wounded, sick almost dying and still trying to get a hold on Tumblety. In my mind, the main character had to be an anti-hero til the end. Even if he had caught Tumblety, he would have learned he wasn't the Ripper something everybody had already told him. Then what? So I made him prefer surviving, something we don't know if he actually did.

 He didn't consider the way I handled the end the same way I did and told me how he felt about it:

My view is that the ending works very well indeed. Sometimes these kind of shocking, dramatic revelations in the last paragraph can come across as a little contrived and stage-managed - but I didn't feel this was the case with My Ripper Hunting Days. Besides, there are hints in the novel that the astute reader will already have picked up on (i.e. on page 298 where we learn that Riley's father killed his wife in a Ripper-style manner; and on page 384 he says "You're my..." just before he dies).
When the magazine was realesed on December 24, I didn't expect such a positive review. This is what he wrote:

Woodrow Riley is a highly unusual young Irishman. He works as a laboratory assistant at the London Hospital preparing bodies for dissection. He seems a rather creepy figure at first, more at home among the dead than the living, until a chance encounter with Francis Tumblety propels his life in a new direction.

Tumblety’s elaborate scheme is to harvest the reproductive organs of deceased prostitutes and have Riley preserve them using the facilities at the Hospital. To that end Riley supplies Tumblety with a black bag containing amputation knives. But then the mutilated bodies of women start turning up in Whitechapel… Riley sets out to hunt down the man he believes has committed murder; but he also embarks on a journey of self-discovery, delving into his own past and uncovering uncomfortable personal truths.

The novel is presented in diary format, which poses conundrums for the reader: is it a reliable and comprehensive document? Does it set out to deflect suspicion from Riley by manipulating the evidence in his favour? Tumblety may be a credible Ripper suspect, but what exactly is his relationship with Riley? Is the younger man being drawn unwittingly into the role of an accomplice? Nothing is quite what it seems and the astute reader soon learns to mistrust what the narrator is telling us (at least part of the time). Characters dissemble and utter untruths; they adopt disguises or assume false identities. Innocent conversations turn out to be tip-offs or confessions.

Several subplots offer counterpoint to Riley’s hunt for the Ripper. Early on, he falls under the influence of Gordon Fitzgerald, a wealthy philanthropist from Dublin, who has his own agenda. And it is with Fitzgerald’s daughter Elizabeth that Woodrow seeks to resettle destitute East End families in Quebec. Meanwhile, Inspector Abberline and Sergeant Thick are taking a close interest in Riley’s Ripper hunting activities, yet both officers seem preoccupied with an earlier ongoing investigation into Irish Nationalism and Fenianism.

My Ripper Hunting Days can be enjoyed simply as an historical murder mystery, but I suspect Bernard Boley’s true intentions lie elsewhere. He 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 plotted and fascinating work that shines with intelligence.

I