Week 7

I received the saddest news this week of the death of my lifelong friend, Jan Leary. ‘Friend’ really doesn’t do our relationship justice, for Jan, who was like a second mother to me, has been part of my family and my life for the past forty-five years. She taught me to drive when no one else could—or would, since I was so bad at it! She made my teenage years bearable. She nursed my stepfather through his final illness. She nursed my mother through hers. I loved her dearly.

It almost feels as if history is repeating itself, for whilst he was writing installments of The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins lost his mother. He was bereft, but managed to keep on writing, as will I.

Janet Elaine Jewel Leary, you extraordinary person, thank you for always being there for me. I will miss you always. I already do.

Jan and I, April 1964.

Till next week,
Michael


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Photograph: Workers on the Silent Highway by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

Week 6

It’s a fairly short chapter this week, but it’s an important one. A certain amount of Gooseberry’s back story is revealed (yes, there is more in the pipeline), and with it come some strong hints as to why the eight-year-old Gooseberry chose Mr. Bruff’s offer of employment over returning to his important and lucrative position in ‘The Life’.

Julius’s character starts to reveal itself, and we also learn a little more about Bertha. Though the chapter finishes on a relatively high note, the truth is, at the moment it’s a relatively fragile accord, and one which any of the characters can upset with a wrong word or a wrong gesture. I love it.

Although we haven’t met him yet, I now have a name picked out for the clerk at Mr. Bruff’s law firm who gave Octavius the nickname Gooseberry. It’s Mr. Grayling—first name, Christopher. Here’s the only mention of him so far, from the very first chapter:

I don’t object to Mr. Bruff calling me Gooseberry, though I would have you know that it is not my real name. It’s a name that’s been given to me by one of Mr. Bruff’s clerks on account of my eyes. They bulge. At least, that’s what this clerk delights in telling me almost every single day. Naturally I can’t help them bulging any more than I can help being blessed with brains, and blessed with brains I am—to a far greater degree than either of the Georges, or that fool of a clerk, come to that.

This is in response to author Kathy Lette’s call to fellow authors to use the name of the British Secretary of Justice for a villainous character in their books. Like Lette, I think the Justice Secretary’s ban on sending books to prison inmates is shameful. Prisoners should be encouraged to read and to improve their literacy skills, not discouraged. This ban is small-minded, shortsighted, and petty.

Till next week,
Michael

P.S. Do let me know what you think of it. If you can, please post your comments on Goodreads (my blog has a comments box!)


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.

Week 5

This week’s chapter reveals the identities of the two people depicted in the daguerreotype: Duleep Singh, the now deposed Maharajah of Lahore, and his East-India-Company-appointed guardian, Dr. John Login. Both are real historical characters, and the extraordinary tale that Murthwaite relates is in fact a relatively historically accurate account of how the young Duleep came to power. I only cut out one major player—the wazir Dhian’s brother, Gulab, who took Chand Kaur’s side—in order to simplify what was already quite a convoluted story. Such pity, for brother-versus-brother scenarios are so very primal! In a sense, it’s yet another tale of a family in turmoil, and, as readers of The Scarab Heart will know, this is one of my favorite subject matters. I should point out that, though nearly everything you’ve read about Duleep and Login is accurate so far, the rest of their involvement within the novel will be fictional.

Mr. Murthwaite is, of course, one of The Moonstone’s original characters. I think I’ve done him justice in terms of his description, his characterization, and his speech patterns. I’ve also placed him at the Oriental Club, the gentleman’s club that he would have belonged to, if he had actually existed.

As far as Gooseberry himself goes, I am truly beginning to LOVE writing him. It’s such a pleasure seeing him try to negotiate his way through the world, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. With him as narrator, it’s a rather delicate balancing act to show what his peers actually think of him, but it’s worth all the effort.

Till next week,
Michael

P.S. So what do you think? If you can, please post your comments on Goodreads (my blog has a comments box!)


Michael Gallagher’s Gooseberry is serialized in weekly installments every Friday from July 4th 2014 on Goodreads. Michael Gallagher is the author of The Bridge of Dead Things and The Scarab Heart, as well as the popular non-fiction title Why the Victorians Saw Ghosts.