Wednesday, August 21, 2019

The Ghosts in the Layers?


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HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: It's tempting, isn't it? To think of who has been the same places you've been, in the past, and waaaaay in the past? It crosses my mind whenever I walk on Boston Common, or go to Lexington and Concord,  or stroll down the street in Salem. You cannot tell me the present is all that's--present.

Our dear friend of the Reds Jeannette DeBeauvoir has been thinking just the same thing. 

The Ghosts in the Layers
By Jeannette deBeauvoir



I walk down Commercial Street—which here in Provincetown is our Main Street—and I think about what I’m seeing. I pass Lewis Brothers’ Ice Cream, and smile at the memory of my stepdaughter working there when she still lived with me. 

I stop in to East End Books for a lively conversation with my friend Jeff. I might go to the Portuguese Bakery for a decadent pastry—bittersweet memories, those, of breakfasts with my ex-husband. I have to go see Chomo at her Himalayan shop and find out what’s on sale. I’ll check out what Nan or Deborah put in the window at the venerable Provincetown Bookshop. If it’s a nice day, I might treat myself to a Bulgarian salad that I’ll take out on the pier and eat while watching the harbor. I’ll end up at the post office and have at least two conversations and three dog-petting sessions there. As I walk, I say hello to a lot of people; those of us who live year-round in this tourist destination pretty much know each other, at least by sight. 

And as I do all this, I realize that what I’m seeing is just a small slice of this street. I’m seeing what’s relevant to my life.

Which means I’m missing rather a lot.

I’ve talked a lot about the importance, to me, of using place when writing fiction, of populating one’s books with real shops and restaurants and streets and people. But it’s only recently that I’ve begun to think about the layers that exist everywhere, layers certain people see and others don’t. 

Commercial Street also has smoke shops, leather shops, bars, clothing stores, sex shops, antiques and home décor… I know they’re there, but they don’t really register. I don’t have a reason to go in, or a memory to attach to them. And what that means is readers of my Provincetown mystery series aren’t really experiencing Provincetown, are they? They’re experiencing my experience of Provincetown, and everybody’s mileage varies.

When I start thinking like that, I feel my head might explode.

To complicate things even more, there are ghosts that live in those layers, faces and voices and memories of people and things that are no more. I already mentioned two of my own: the ghost of my former marriage, the ghost of my stepdaughter handing out ice cream cones. There’s the memory of the old gatehouse at the Murchison estate, now replaced by something modern and forgettable; the real soda/malt shop with a long shiny counter that used to be part of Adams’ Drugstore; the horse farm over on Nelson that’s now condos.

Provincetown has more than its share of real ghosts, too, as we remember a time when men came here to die of an alienating plague; back then, there was a new funeral every week. Or we can listen to the wind that whispers over the dunes, reminding us of all the shipwrecked victims who died on our shores when the Cape was still the Atlantic’s favorite graveyard. 

Marc Cohn might have seen the ghost of Elvis when he was walking in Memphis; I strive to see the ghosts of my literary predecessors here, of Edna St. Vincent Millay scratching away in a cold attic room, of Eugene O’Neill staging plays on Lewis Wharf, Tennessee Williams at the Little Bar of the Atlantic House, Norman Mailer roaringly drunk and brawling with fishermen, John Dos Passos decrying war in three volumes of work. I don’t even expect most people are looking for the same ghosts as I am!

These thoughts could rapidly become paralyzing, as you can well imagine.

Of course, realistically, my perspective is valid. It’s the perspective I’ve given to my protagonist, Sydney Riley, who is actually quite a lot like me in ways both comfortable and distressing. But I also wonder if I have a responsibility toward those other layers, those other ghosts. Am I being honest in not including them? Yet how can I access things I don’t know about?

I don’t know the answer to those questions. Do you?

The one thing I know I can do is keep some of it alive. Honor some of the people who lived and died here and whose lives were so meaningful to the town. Ellie, the transgender woman who used to—at age 78—belt out Frank Sinatra in front of town hall.

 Richard Olson, the historian, who for decades sat at the bar at Napi’s and dispensed amazing wisdom. Tim McCarthy, activist, who was never without his video camera, documenting life. Names that in another ten years will have disappeared from memory, because they weren’t famous anywhere but here. But they were part of here, and so in my latest mystery, A Killer Carnival, Ellie is remembered; it’ll be Richard’s turn for my November release, The Christmas Corpses. And perhaps someone will pick up the book and muse, “yeah, right, I remember Richard! Gosh, I’d forgotten all about him.”

And maybe somewhere Richard will be smiling.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I'm sure that's true! And lovely to think about. And yes, we can honor them through our writing ,and our reading, as well. 

I know we've talked about "ghosts" before. But even if you haven't encountered them personally, where are places you've gone where you think they might still be?



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Jeannette de Beauvoir writes mysteries and historical fiction, sometimes intersecting the two. A Killer Carnival, Book Four of the Sydney Riley Provincetown mystery series, is just out, as Ptown’s Carnival parade starts with a bang—literally. More about her at jeannettedebeauvoir.com.


(PS from Jeannette: Just as a postscript, as I was writing this article, Atlas Obscura popped up in my inbox inviting readers to share a real place they’d discovered through a work of fiction. Timing is everything! You can see them all here.)



56 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your newest book, Jeannette . . . I’m looking forward to reading about Ellie.

    I’d never quite thought of it in this way, but it’s intriguing to think about the idea of readers experiencing place in a story through the experiences of the author. In the same way, perhaps ghosts inhabit places where we expect them to be, based on our earlier experiences. Remembering them in their special places, I think, is a very nice way to think about ghosts . . . .

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    1. I think it's important to keep people in the equation when we think about history. But even that is subjective, isn't it? The author gets to choose which people to include (and exclude)...

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  2. Interesting post, although it makes my head hurt a little. I love the idea of remembering people through books. It sounds like Provincetown is home to some interesting characters, both past and present.

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    1. Yes, it is a fascinating idea — and yes, Provincetown is one of a kind! Fabulous

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    2. Sorry to make your head hurt! (Mine does, too, if I think too much about this stuff....) I don't think that inserting real people in novels works all the time, but for this series it seems to make sense.

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  3. I love this, Jeanette. I think it's fine to write about what you don't know. You can access them through your imagination! I need to pick up your series - and visit Provincetown. I've only been there once and it was thirty-one years ago.

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    1. Oh, you should! It is quite the experience… Truly fabulous

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    2. Oh, Edith, you need to come visit! (But not right now: this is Carnival Week, which is the maddest time of a mad summer season.... it can be overwhelming.) I guess I'm not concerned about writing about what I don't know so much as marveling at how *much* I don't know, and how every one of us experiences places and people so differently.

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  4. I love this essay Jeannette--I could have written it about Key West. I think the same kind of things as I write--wondering if people will think my choices are odd and not really representative of the town. I will look forward to reading your books as I think Ptown is kind of a mirror image of Key West!

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    1. You are so right! I cannot wait to see you in Key West for myself

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    2. That's what I hear people say, Lucy; in fact, quite a few of those who summer in Ptown winter in Key West!

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  5. What an interesting way to look at things, Jeanette! When visiting places, I often wonder about the people who lived there in the past and what there lives were like. I know I've shared this here before, but I have a strong sense of deja vu (usually about moments, not places) but I keep hoping that someday I'll visit a new place and suddenly realize that I've been there before. Would that be cool? What a great way to start a mystery novel. :)

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    1. You should write that, absolutely!

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    2. That's a fabulous way to start a mystery novel. In fact, I can imagine a whole series around a protagonist who has déjà vu sensibilities.... could help her solve the mysteries!

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  6. Very nice essay and I know just what you mean. My own books are layered with the past of Brooklyn and I love visiting other places with right history. And I did, actually, see Norman Mailer on the streets of Provincetown once.But he was not drunk. :-)

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    1. He was quite a figure here for some time. There was an attempt to make his house into a writing center of sorts, but that fell through and it's been sold now. I'm a bit of a history tourist myself—when I travel, I always look into the place's past. It enriches the experience in the present....

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  7. Not "right "history but "rich" history. ( I hate auto-correct)

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  8. Fascinating! Now those thoughts will be in my head as I am reading and discovering new places. Well done!

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  9. Welcome and congrats. I'm about to make my first visit to PTown n a couple of weeks. Yeah, I know, almost twenty years in upstate and I haven't been to Cape Cod yet. But that's about to change, and I will look for the places you mention while I'm there.

    Ghosts seem to populate my life these days, perhaps because it's been rather long and so many places and people I've known no longer exist.

    And our house is old too. A few years ago we tore the kitchen out to the studs, and along the way we found our remodel would be the fourth iteration in almost a hundred years. The sink had been four different places, and we came across the drain for the ice box, a little pipe coming up out of the floor that carried off the ice melt. I thought then of all the people who had lived here, wondered who they were and why then left. It got pretty crowded with ectoplasm around here!

    And then there are the cats, half a dozen we've had over the years, all of whom are gone now. I see them out of the corner of my eye all the time, just a glimpse but enough to let me kow they are all still around. "For they shall follow me all the days of my life ..."

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    1. But you will have so much fun! Cannot wait to hear what you think!

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    2. Oh, Ann, I'm so glad you'll be visiting in September. I love fall on the Cape, when the noise and craziness has abated a little and the beauty of the place can really take hold of you. And it really *is* all about layers, isn't it? Layers of all the people who've lived in your house... the writer as archaeologist!

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  10. great premise! I look forward to reading your series. Last week I visited the Cape for the first time in thirteen years. My daughter was married on the beach in Falmouth, a town I'd never visited. As I wandered down Main Street one evening, I noticed passersby nodding or saying hello. They might have known me from a lifetime of summer visits to Chatham, or college days. I was home, in a way that I'm not in Cincinnati.

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    1. Oh, fascinating! I wonder who they thought you were!

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    2. I like Falmouth, it has a real "Cape Cod" feel to it (as does Chatham, in a different way). I'm glad you felt welcomed and "at home" here. I do think the Cape and the Islands have a particular friendliness to them, though I'm not sure I could say why... it just is.

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  11. Yes! I am attracted to places with a long, rich history. I think that must be part of what I am looking for in a new place to move to. We were just in the Shenandoah Valley last week, particularly Lexington. So many life changing events and people over the years in that neck of the woods. Whenever I go to Galveston Island I am thinking of my childhood and getting to go to the beach; my favorite gift shop there (and no hurricane has erased it yet). The stories of my parents meeting there during the war. Where they married. Where they lived. That lore is in me in a way my own memories in my own home town just don't compare. We almost bought a lovely old home in Georgetown, SC a few months back. Several things made me reconsider, one of them being the emotional baggage that came with the house. I decided I couldn't deal with the owner's problems and sadness. I've never been up to your part of the country Jeannette, but I certainly understand about "ghosts."

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    1. I loved that you listened to your reaction, you know? Very wise :-)

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    2. You are indeed wise to listen to your inner voice, especially as you choose a place to live. I love love love how you talk about Galveston Island and your parents' story. I do hope that wherever you end up settling, it will feel rich with stories for you—both old and new.

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  12. Oh, I love Cape Cod! What a perfect setting for a mystery series. One of the reasons I tend to make up towns is so that readers won't hold me to the facts. LOL. You're very brave. Looking forward to reading A Killer Carnival.

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    1. There is that! But do come to Cape Cod! Jungle red outing!

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  13. Hi Jeanette! I love this essay, love the whole concept. I think I've been looking for layers all my life. Of course they are everywhere in London, you can't escape them. And it's not just the ghosts of famous historical figures, it's all the ordinary lives going on around you all the time. At home in Texas I live in the old part of an old (by Texas standards) town, and there are layers here, too.

    I've never been to Cape Cod, but when Roberta said it reminded her of Key West, I could imagine it. I'd love to read your series, and best of luck with A Killer Carnival!

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    1. See? The reds take Cape Cod! Must happen!

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    2. I think that as readers and writers, we're all doing that, subconsciously if not consciously. We hunger for stories, and that's where they're trapped... in the myriad layers that make up the streets and lanes where we walk every day. (And it's perfectly okay, I should think, to make some of them up, too.) And you're right about London... so many centuries of stories, voices whispering at you from everywhere.

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  14. This is so very interesting. Like Hank, to me Lexington, Concord and Salem all are places of wonder. My one visit to The Alamo gave me chills. I wonder if everyone gets these sensations sometimes. I am acutely aware of people who preceded me in places I visit or revisit, although it doesn't always happen. Maybe that is the GHOST at work. Some of my strongest moments like that occur when I am somewhere that I was with a loved one. Sometimes it happens when I find a note or a birthday card from a loved one, long gone. Some of the strongest feelings I've ever experienced happened in The Old City in Jerusalem. I knew that prophets and biblical figures had been right where I was standing or walking. I felt that my ancestors were here thousands of years ago. I experienced that chill up my spine on occasions where I saw excavations showing ancient streets. There is one shop there with a view of a well that served residents of that city thousands of years ago. I have to visit Omar's every time I am in Jerusalem because I somehow know that is a link to a past that belongs to me.

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    1. Judy, that is wonderful. You are very lucky.

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    2. It's a sense of perspective, isn't it? That knowing that so many other people have been where you are, people perhaps you've read about, whose lives you've even studied... It gives you a place in that history, makes you part of the fabric of the place.

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  15. Love this! And interesting to read as I have the same sort of thoughts whenever we visit my hometown on the Eastern Shore of Maryland which is rich in history that includes generations of my own family history. My husband's family is from the Boston area, the Cape a favorite place to spend time. I look forward to reading your work.

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    1. I think you have to be open to it, don’t you?

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    2. I really think that people who love to read fiction are more attuned to this than others. Maybe because we're looking for stories? Or because we want them to be part of our experience of a place? I just think you cannot separate a love of stories from a sensitivity to them wherever you go.

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  16. Jeanette, thanks for this interesting article. I love to think who came before me in a place, especially historical places or literary places. Imagining Ernest Hemingway writing in his office studio or sleeping in his bedroom in Key West. Feeling the presence of George Washington as I stand on his back porch at Mt. Vernon, looking out at the Potomac as he must have done. One of the most moving experiences has been at Gettysburg Battlefield, surrounded by the ghosts of those soldiers dead and dying, wanting only to survive. It's an eerie feeling when you shut your mind to all else around you and think back in time about those soldiers and the nurses, too, and the people who lived there.

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    1. Sometimes it is overwhelming, isn’t it?

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    2. Yes; a good reminder that not all stories have happy endings. And that we need to be grateful that our lives are different.

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  17. When the rectory was being torn down, a baptismal font, broken in half, was found in the basement. They also found a headstone, broken in half. No one knows who the person is on the headstone is and there has been some speculations about some of the old nuns that used to live in a different house near by but I noticed the date of death precedes the construction of the church, so not a nun. It was confirmed that there were no bodies in the rectory's basement. I've always felt safe in our old church, which has been a temporary morgue, no ghostly feelings there.

    My sister told a story once about a ghost. About 30 years ago she talking talking wwith someone, I don't know who, anyway these people were talking about the old house they were living in. They like the house except for the noises in the attic. The house description sound familiar so my sister asked where the house was, it was on Sonoma Hwy, off Mission. Kath knew the house, it was so special to her, all of us, and she knew the ghost too. The ghost had to be our granddad. The people were living in the old family home he sold prior to his death. He had vowed to never sell to Mr Soandso, and had ended a couple of deals in the past when the guy tried to be a silent partner. But this last time granddad was too tried, he had to get grandma off the highway so he missed and didn't notice the dreaded person. So he when he died he just moved into the old attic trying to make life difficult for the underhanded buyer.

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    1. Wow! Deana, did you go visit the house? Did you experience any contact with your granddad there?

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    2. No, I never went back after we moved them. It's been torn down along with the other buildings on the property and the adjacent properties, converted into high price apartment complex.

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    3. Now *that's* a short story for sure! Sad, though, that your grandfather needed to spend afterlife time haunting someone he disliked...!

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  18. Wednesday I was busy moving The Girl back to college, so happy for me I get a second shot at meeting Jeanette!

    Yes, we notice what's important to us. I've found that with my husband. He'll say something is near a certain building, I'll say it's near another and when we look it's near both. But neither of us realized it because we were looking at what was important to us.

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    1. That's a brilliant summary of what I was trying to get at here. That's it exactly. "We were looking at what was important to us." And that's why I fret a little about giving readers only my protagonist's account of what is and isn't important. There's no way around it, but I fret anyway.

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    2. You can't have too many people telling the same story or it would be too confusing, or would it? Someone's voice has to be the one we believe and trust. Hm-m-m, are we now getting into politics?

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    3. I don't think it's an issue of other people telling the story, but of the protagonist's acknowledgment that other stories and other perspectives exist.

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