Behind the Curtain
how does it all happen?
The short story collection A Book to Live By releases week of January 26 !
Show me a writer who’s never been asked where his/her ideas come from …
Answer: “I don’t know, everywhere! True, but it’s a bit of a cop out, isn’t it? Because nothing is created from nothing. Spontaneous generation doesn’t exist in nature, and the concept doesn’t fly in literature either. There’s always a little bit of something, from back in the back of the mind, a spark, and when it finds favorable terrain a story may emerge.
For the release of my new short story collection, A Book to Live By (out around January 26, link coming soon), I’ll give you a peek at the gears. Because in some cases, I know exactly where the idea came from …
Here we go. Four examples.
Carla, the shortest story in the book (two pages), is inspired by the promenade along the Ostend Casino Kursaal (built in 1852, rebuilt in 1875). When I went there in the 1980s, the arcades were still somewhat like the second image below (without the chairs).
The place was dilapidated. Peeling paint and the occasional chunk of masonry fallen from the ceiling. I haven’t gone back but I think the building has been restored. It was November, late afternoon, nobody in sight, under a heavy layer of mist. In the distance, the dinging of tramways, the sound cushioned by the fog. I might have been somewhere in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, waiting to make contact with a defector.
It could have turned into a spy story; it became a love story instead.
Carla appeared at the end of the colonnade, a silhouette in a black coat. She walked fast like somebody who had business to attend. She stopped a few steps from him, the distance between dream and reality, and held out her hand as if he was a stranger she had just met.
If location is ever at the origin of a story, this is it.
In a completely different register, The Sand Bar came from driving with a kid in the back seat who played Baby Shark on her tablet. For hours. On repeat. I stand behind the father’s reaction, in this line of dialogue:
“That’s CIA hard core, Manchurian Candidate. Knock me out if you see my eyes glaze over and I start saying things like: Got. To. Find. A. Telephone.”
I have to thank a toddler and the most annoying song ever for one of my favorite stories. A mix of family tension, humor, and drama.
A long ago trip to Indonesia is responsible for Where the Gods Live. Like the narrator, I stayed in bare bones guest houses and visited Borobudur at dawn and the Dieng Plateau later in the day. That place feels haunted and is (was, it might be Disneyfied now) exactly as described:
I was used to the tropical heat and humidity, but this was a different world. High up and biting cold. Gray, brown, and desolate. A handful of lakes like brightly colored jewels added to the eerie feel. I covered my nose, but there was no escaping the stench of rotten eggs. The visit to Borobudur had filled me with joy and peace; the temple sang of beauty under the calm smile of Buddha. Here, an undertone of disquiet, a vague sense of menace tugged at my nerves. The silence was ominous.
My last example, Sacrifice, is the result of a memorable experience during a long driving trip in Ireland.
I was with a girlfriend and most of the times, we camped. In an overloaded Citroën Dyane (a variation on the 2CV), we lugged an old Polish army tent that held with one pole in the middle. Setting up was fast and easy. The thing also leaked, which we discovered on our last night on the island before taking the ferry in Dun Laoghaire. Everything soaked and the car stuck in the mud. Eternal thanks to the farmer and his tractor. For six weeks we had managed to sleep under a dry sky. In Ireland! Nobody will believe me.
One day, we were deep into County Mayo, a part of the country that can be pretty bare and is not heavily populated. This is the area referred to in “To Hell or to Connaught” of Cromwellian times … look it up. It was getting dark and we still hadn’t found a B&B or a place to camp. Then we lucked upon the hotel featured in the story. For two imaginative twenty-year-old girls the place was straight out of a horror movie. The hotel owner and the weird dining room were as described. The noisy bed—you couldn’t turn without the springs screaming bloody murder—and the creaky stairs are not included in the story. Everything else is pure fiction.
The man showed them the dining room and brought coffee and sandwiches. Maybe it was a variation on the ancient bread and salt gift, a guarantee the guests wouldn’t be slaughtered in their sleep. The dining room was dark and high-ceilinged, curtained in red velvet and filled with heavy furniture and moth-eaten game trophies. Stuffed black birds and religious prints that documented the last moments of Christian martyrs were everywhere. Whoever did the decoration had a taste for the macabre. Kate repressed a smile. It was a bit much. Ben winked at her. The sandwiches were very good.
Not all twenty-four stories are based on such pinpointed memories. In the next installment of this newsletter, I’ll talk about a few others. Because even the wildest ones have these thin threads of truth …
In stores now! The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year 2025
If you like the genre, this is a must read. My Harry McLean story Drop Dead Gorgeous (also nominated for a Shamus award) made it to the anthology! It is an honor. (Harry is one my recurrent characters. I should do an article about him someday.)
Here’s where you can get the book: Paperback - EBook
The foundation of your biography!
Gosh these books look good Martine I'll be checking them out