Fictionalizing reality
My novels, Lying in Judgment, The Mountain Man’s Dog, and the future works in progress, are fiction. Nothing in them are true… sort of. Same for my plays.
Wait, what? “Sort of?”
Yeeeahhhh. Fiction imitates life. And in some cases more than others.
First, let’s set the record straight: I haven’t killed anyone, much less beat them with a tire iron, as in Lying in Judgment. I haven’t “made arrangements” for “escort services,” as in Family Hardware. And so on.
But characters, places, and in some cases events in my stories are inspired by personal experience. For example, in Lying in Judgment:
- Florentino’s, the Italian restaurant at which the murder occurs in Lying in Judgment is inspired by a much homier, close-to-town place my sweetie and I love to go to for lasagne.
- Frankie is… well, we all know a Frankie, don’t we?
- Stark’s Lumber is based on a certain lumber store I favor over the big box stores
- O’Hares and The Shamrock are based on two popular Irish pubs in Old Town Portland
- Peter’s love of coffee, dark beer, and of assigning “appropriate” ring tones to individuals… well, those are mine.
And some places in the book really do exist:
- Pazzo’s restaurant
- The Mulnomah County Courthouse (although the specific rooms, etc. are fictionalized)
- SE Division Street and SE Hawthorne Boulevard, Ladd’s Addition, Wood Village, etc.
- The Park Blocks, where Peter sits in the rain, trying to sort out his messed-up life, and where he sings “Amazing Grace”
Are you familiar enough with Portland, and the book, to identify other real-life places, and the real-life places that inspired other fictionalized places and things?
