An Answer to a Reader of "Manhattan Morning"

In my last post about comments from readers of "Manhattan Morning," someone asked several questions that I didn't then answer. 

Here's the answer to one of them: "where did the story come from and how much of it is autobiographical?"

Where the story came from is answered in the book's introduction: I wanted to write a story based in large part on the sights and sounds of Manhattan. I spend five or six weeks every year there and have always been fascinated by the city and it's nervous energy.

It is most importantly autobiographical in an intellectual sense  – particularly with respect to Dan's thoughts about art and the relationship of art to society as he wanders around.

The middle section – Marcy's affair with a preacher – is not autobiographical and is not a story I heard or know from anyone else. I put that in there in large part to bring up the question: what do we think about a person who does good things for society, but is morally flawed (often on his or her own terms)? That seems to be a recurring phenomenon.

Why a preacher? Well, that made the moral question easier to write about, but there were other factors that went into that decision as well that I might talk about at another time.

I made the preacher of Indian extraction in part so I could reference Partition -- the violent split of British India into two different countries on the basis of religion -- as a very significant postwar development, particularly in view of what has been happening in the Middle East for many years now and because the notion of politics based primarily on identity appears to be gaining ground.

And I wanted to put material in the middle of the book that would contrast with Sheryl’s expressed values at the very end – something for Dan (and readers) to think about, as it were. 

I'm currently talking an opera workshop on how to write a libretto and we have repeatedly been told that stories need "a twist" to be successful. "Manhattan Morning" has a twist but it doesn't jump out at you -- readers have to think about it.

The end of the story, which many readers have said they like very much,  is a very lightly fictionalized version of an event I experienced. It remained strongly in mind for a long time and I thought that I would like to write about it one way or another, but couldn't figure out just how. And  as I mentioned in the introduction to the book, I had always wanted to write a story based on some of the sights and sounds of Manhattan, but once again hadn’t known how to proceed.

Then I once stayed the Warwick Hotel in Manhattan and, like my protagonist Dan, had a "day off."  It then occurred to me I could use the walk from the Warwick to Grand Central Terminal for the sights and sounds portion of the story, and then use my rather poignant luncheon encounter for the ending. I think it worked well, but it is clearly not for everyone and  probably nothing that any commercial publisher would be interested in.

"Manhattan Morning" can be obtained as an e-book from Amazon, Smashwords or Kobo and in a printed version from The Book Patch. (Click on any one of those names).

I can also send a PDF version by email free to anyone who can't deal with the above, or doesn't want to spend the money. That would be on the condition that such readers then offer their comments, which don't have to be favorable, for possible anonymous publication.