手取川製本 ~ Tedorigawa Bookmakers

Ep. 303: Three 303 Blank Notebooks

Bookbinding

I delved into prefect binding – the binding that uses glue instead of thread to keep the signatures together; the style of binding most common in ordinary store-bought, factory-produced books that sometimes results in pages falling to the floor on the 787 flying to London, if you were so lucky as to be heading to Europe while re-reading Gravity’s Rainbow. Or your classroom floor. 

I made three blank notebooks using the perfect binding. They are all in the landscape orientation to make it easier to use more of the pages as I envisioned them as notepads for artists.

Book One is A5 with brown endpapers and green tactile covers. It has maybe 50 pages. I grabbed a bunch of a massive amount of paper I got years and years ago from a printing company that was going to throw them all away. The spine edge is tinted blue and there are printer’s cut marks, also on the spine edge. The title is 303. It is pasted on the front using the same paper as the brown craft endpapers.

Why 303? I read about Lennon and McCartney talking about their song One After 909 and the journalist wondered why 909? I assumed it was either a train designation or a departure time. In the article, Lennon mentioned that he had an affinity and connection to the number 9 (Number 9 Dream, Revolution Number 9, One After 909) being born on October 9, and the Beatles first performing in the Cavern Club on Feb 9, 1961, and on Ed Sullivan three years later, also on February 9th. Well, if he had a connection to 9, I wondered, like the journalist, what number do I have a connection with (Other than my birthday and Mick Jagger’s being the same day (different year))? 303 was my draft number back in 1969 when the Nixon administration was handing out draft numbers so that 18-year-old men could know when to move to Canada to avoid the draft. Or plan their lives around being drafted. As it turned out, some draft boards began drafting men in reverse order. I switched my 2S student draft deferment to 1A available but was not called up. Whew, a long and winding road to explain a three-digit title.

Book Two is smaller. Rather than A5 it is A6 (about the same as an American pocket book). I used part of my supply of Chiyogami paper for the title (again, 303). The endpapers are the same brown craft paper as the first book.

This book is completely blank, so it’s useful for doodling or planning trips to Liverpool with your significant other to check out the Mona Lisa Twins (or on YouTube) covering Beatle songs in the Cavern Club. It is small enough to fit in your pocket for easy access to sketch fellow travelers or musicians. It has about 60 plus pages.

Book Three is also A5 with the endpapers pulled from a local newspaper’s stock page. The front title is also pulled from the newspaper but the final 3 is a colorized advertisement for osechi-ryori which is a traditional meal prepared for the New Year’s holidays. Enough food, technically, to feed a person for three days. The colorized final 3 is echoed on the back cover where the 303 is duplicated but in a smaller size with the final 3 upside down. Book Three also has a title page: 303 Tedorigawa Sunrise and the Tedorigawa logo and QR code on the final page. 

I’m not sure if I will be making more of these perfect-bound blank notebooks. I’m not sure if I will be using them or selling them. If you’d like one, let me know. I’m also not sure how long they will last as perfect binding is not known for holding the pages in for long periods, as I mentioned above about pages spilling out all over your classroom floor or the floor of your flight to Barcelona, among other European destinations.

I once bought a book that the entire cover came off about an hour after I bought it. The store clerk sympathized and offered to give me a replacement which, of course, I accepted with gratitude. The cover of that perfect-bounded book has stayed on for about 40 years.

Fiction

In fiction, we have two stories to tell. First, the Proust–Mann Connection. No, I’m not writing a novel called the Proust–Mann Connection (although that might be a nifty title for a time-warping adventure story). I’m reading Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (I’m in book three: The Guermantes Way) and Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. I have noticed some similarities. First, they were published within two years of each other which means they were probably written simultaneously (in different countries and languages). Second, they both deal with memory or mis-memory or daydreams. One scene, in particular, is when the unnamed narrator in Proust daydreams about an activity he hopes to have with Mme Guermantes. There is a very similar scene in Mann when Hans Castorp similarly fantasizes about Madame Chauchat. Third, minorly, the unnamed narrator in Proust talks about a memory of his when he was in the Alps at a spa recovering from an unnamed ailment which, of course, is where The Magic Mountain takes place, in a spa in the Alps where the rich recover from lung diseases (probably tuberculosis). 

In my fiction, I’ve worked a bit on The Posthumous Autobiography of Agnes Grout, Death Weaver. Now, for a long time, I was stuck on it. I moved neither forward nor backward. Then, while looking at a very partial and incomplete outline, thoughts appeared in my head about the structure of the life of Agnes. And a flood of revisions and changes swept across my keyboard (normally, liquid on a keyboard is a bad thing.). 

Changes include a new opening chapter, a strengthening of three characters to bring them forward in the plot, and a very large narrative arc for one incident. This last one, the narrative arc, starts early, includes hints along the way, and concludes near the end of the book. It is a vision that frustrates Agnes because most of her visions conclude several chapters after their introduction. 

Videos

Again this week, nothing. Being busy making books, writing books, and living life make for a dirth of time for video making. 

Ep. 302: Blank Proust

Bookbinding

This week, we have a notebook called Blank Proust. I made it because I wanted to make a blank notebook with an interesting cover. Simultaneously, I’m reading Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. (I’m at the beginning of book three: The Guermantes Way). Combining the two, I landed on Blank Proust, if memory serves.

This A6-sized Coptic-bound notebook has nine signatures of five folios for a total of 180 pages. All but two are blank. One has the title: Blank Proust with a snapshot of Marcel. The other has Tedorigawa Bookmakers and tedorigawabookmakers.podbean.com. It’s not exactly A6 because the papers are off-cuts from a larger production that were given to me about 10-12 years ago. 

The front cover is brownish with an Edwardian-esque (?) subtle design. The front has four photos of Proust (one a caricature in color; one other is in color, but two are sepia-ish). The back cover has, of course, and as expected, a picture of a few madeleine cakes. If you’ve read or heard about In Search of Lost Time, you’ll understand the significance of that particular dessert.

The endpaper on the front cover is the first paragraph of the first book (Swann’s Way) where the unnamed narrator complains about not getting to sleep.

The endpaper on the back cover is the last paragraph of the seventh and last book (Time Regained) where the same narrator contemplates the passage of time. Or, as Proust wrote it 102 years ago: Time (capitalized).

Fiction

Life, making Blank Proust, and reading The Guermantes Way plus another novel from the same period: Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, have put a crimp in my writing time. I have edited one book (Feeding Vicki’s Corpse) and dabbled in another (The Saigawa Strangler, a mystery). But mostly the fiction side of my brain has sat idle these past few weeks.

Not entirely idle. I have been editing Feeding Vicki’s Corpse. I’ve been both line editing it, developmental editing it, and proofreading it. In the overall story part of the editing, (developmental) I moved a chapter from about Chapter 10 to Chapter 1 because I thought it made for a more dramatic opening.

In line editing it, I, of course, found many typos and misspellings but I have also made it more unique and not so cliche-ish or stereotypical. For example, instead of someone ‘glancing’ at someone else, they ‘take a peek’ or ‘glimpse’ or ‘study surreptitiously’ look at someone. As if surreptitiously looking at some is possible, which I doubt, but I go with the flow.

Videos

Coming soon to a YouTube near you: something. Maybe. If I have the time and inclination.

Ep. 301: Blank Reds & Editing

Bookbinding

Today we have two blank red notebooks. Both are A5 (pocketbook) in size, about 100 pages each, and with stylish endpapers. Useful for sketching, scheduling, taking notes, or practicing ransom notes or whatever you wish to do with it.

Book one is entirely blank. Not even a Tedorigawa Bookmakers logo on the penultimate page. No page numbers, no title page. Freedom! It does have a bookmark to assist you in finding a page you find important. The bookmark is brown-purple (mostly brown) to match the endpapers. Yes, the endpaper is brown with a British empire-era-esque semi-floral design. I hope that makes it clear enough.

Book two is blank but for the title page, the Tedorigawa logo on the last page, and the page numbers. Similar to the Dibujo Sketch Book of an earlier post (296), this one has a train, rain, cloud, and umbrella on the page numbers. There are 105 numbered pages. The endpapers are a floral design with what look like pomegranates or peaches or kiwis (formerly known as Chinese gooseberries) or all three.

Fiction

I continue editing Feeding Vicki’s Corpse and formatting City of Cocks. This means other novels on my stove have been reduced to the back burner of such. Novels like The Posthumous Autobiography of Agnes Grout and Ferrell on Ferrell: An Autobiography Based on a True Story. 

In editing, the most common change I’m making – but, by far, not the only change (other changes deal with timing, clarity, and suspense) – is deleting conversation markers. Those ‘he said’ phrases such as:

“You can’t pay me enough to steal his Munch-themed underpants,” he said as he hoisted a bale of cocaine into the airplane’s cargo hold. “Know what I mean?”

I change it to:

“You can’t pay me enough to steal his Munch-themed underpants.” He hoisted a bale of cocaine into the airplane’s cargo hold. “Know what I mean?”

A small change, but I think it reads faster and more naturally. Naturally, I put the ‘she said’ or ‘Roberta said’ in if it makes understanding who is speaking clearer. If I want to make the conversation clearer; sometimes I don’t for suspense, timing, or to make the reader feel as confused as the characters. If I want to make it clear he is speaking while moving product, I divide the spoken words with some action. Like this:

“You can’t pay me enough…” He hefted a bale of cocaine onto his shoulder. “…to steal his Munch-themed underpants.” He tossed the bale into the airplane’s cargo hold and caught his breath before turning to her. “Know what I mean?”

More difficult but maybe more important is putting in the characters’ emotional thoughts into the story via actions and language.

Ya’ll’sTube

Not yet. Coming. Soon. Maybe. Don’t hold your breath.

Ep. 300: Barf Bag Book

Bookbinding

I took a plane flight the other month. As soon as I saw the vomit bag (waterproof disposal bag, according to the airline) I thought: Book Cover! As one does when one makes books. On the same flight, I was given three pieces of paper to prove my existence on the flight: a yellow flimsy paper with my flight gate, seat, destination, etc; a formal boarding pass with the same info; and a pink paper with, yet again, the same information. And I, of course, again, immediately, thought: Book Cover!

 

 

So, I made a Barf Bag Book.

This barf bag is technically called, judging by the inside front title pages: Airplane “Bag” Art Sketchbook and Waterproof Disposable Bag Art. It is a 100-page A6 blank notebook Coptically bound so the artist/user can access all the pages.

The cover is made of the barf bag but bits and pieces of the paper are glued to both the front and back; more are pasted on the front than the back so users can tell which is which. 

One difficulty with the barf bag book is that the interior of a waterproof disposable bag is waterproof; i.e. resistant to liquid substances, including glue. It took a bit of maneuvering to glue the bag to the book board but eventually, I succeeded. 

By the way, the book board for the particular book was a thick envelope used by the Japanese post office to transport documents worldwide. Not quite so thick but thick enough to support this book. And a reasonable repurposing of a source that would otherwise end up in my city's incinerator.

 

Fiction

Aside from galavanting across the nation in relatively cramped quarters, I wrote a bunch on a few novels. None, of course, finished to my satisfaction. None, in fact, finished at all.

• The Posthumous Autobiography of Agnes Grout: Death Weaver. A young woman ‘sees’ deaths and accidents of loved ones as she weaves in 19th century New England.

• Ferrell on Ferrell: An Autobiography Based on a True Story. The fictional author of a series of tragic novels writes his autobiography which greatly parallels that of his fiction.

• KZMG #1. A mystery by Doro Ferrell about a thief in Kanazawa, Japan who continually taunts her victim.

YouTubeski

A short (about 5 minutes) Youtuberesque video of me unsuccessfully making City of Cocks into a book about six years ago. The Kanazawa Art College is no longer there; it moved several blocks away.

Ep. 299: I Did It Again

Bookbinding

Not much in the way of bookbinding this week, but I have an excuse: heat and laziness on my part. I did, however, purchase several tenugui that I will eventually turn into book covers. The latest (and second overall) book cloth I made came out very wrinkled. I attempted to iron it flat but I should've ironed it flat Before I added copious amounts of glue and backing (shoji paper, in my case.)

Fiction

Fiction‽ What can I say about fiction? I’ll tell you what I can say about Fiction! Creation and Forgetfulness.

First, the Creation part.

I started writing two novels simultaneously. One is progressing nicely while the other is kind of in the doldrums. The first is called Ferrell Baits Ferrell: The Autobiography of Doro Ferrell; Based on a True Story. It’s about the author who wrote The Fear Trilogy. This author is fictitious so it’s appropriate he has his own autobiography complete with AI-produced portraits (younger and older).

The second, doldrum-bound novel is called The Autobiography of Agnes Grout, Death Weaver. I’ve written about her before (Ep. 297). The reason it’s fallen off the charts is because I need to do more research into 1800s Lowell, Massachusetts factory workers, history, and environs. Not that it takes place in Lowell, MA but because Lowell is easier to research because people post a lot about it on web pages.

Now, the Forgetfulness Part

I’ve written before that I thought I finished a novel (Heart of September, about a high school kid’s tragic adventures in the Congo), but had not. I wrote the last chapter, but not several chapters before the last one. Having written the last chapter, my pen moved on. Going back to print and bound Heart of September, I discovered the missing chapters. And I finished them. (See Ep. 290.)

Well, I did it again. I was editing a novel called Growing Slurry. I got to the Twelfth Chapter and it was going smoothly and as I was about to check the Thirteenth Chapter I made a discovery: it didn’t exist. Nor any subsequent chapters. Again! I hadn’t finished a book I thought I finished! 

It gets worse. It gets worse in two ways.

First worse way, I remember writing a section about the main character of Growing Slurry doing some sleuthing in either Costa Rica or Guatemala. I can’t find it. I searched using the title and the main character and fraud and sleuth but I can’t find it on this or my other computer.

Second worse way, while looking for a chapter I remember writing for Growing Slurry, I found another novel I don’t remember writing. At all. Nada. Zip. And it’s 250 pages! How can I not remember writing a 250-page novel‽ 

First on my agenda, write the missing chapter and finish Growing Slurry. Second on my agenda, edit this new novel I don’t remember writing. Third, continue with Ferrell Baits Ferrell. Fourth, read more about the weaving industry in 18th-19th-century New England.

I’ll keep you posted.

Substack

In this month’s issue of Substack by Tedorigawa, ie me, we have Chapter 19 of Heart of September, in which a pygmy woman who is bought and raped wreaks vengeance upon the sinner, Tip Tipu, the slave trader. There is violence. 

Ep. 298: Tenugui & Gangsters of Love

Bookbinding

We (meaning I, i.e. the royal We), made an A6-sized (pocket book) Coptic-bound, blank notebook with seven signatures of four folios for about 112 pages. Pages are numbered for easy reference. Unremarkable really as I’ve made a few of these bunkobon (文庫本) books in the past. So, what makes this edition warrant special mention?

First, 文庫本 is an A6 size book equivalent to what Americans refer to as a pocket book (but not a pocketbook which is an accessory for holding cash and credit cards). A pocket book measures about 4.25" x 6.87" whereas a 文庫本 measures 4.1"×5.8"

The remarkable part? I used tenugui (手拭い) as a book cloth. What’s tenugui? It’s a towel. A traditional Japanese  hand towel (35 by 90 cm;  13" x 35") that dates back about a 1,000 years (to the Heian Era, if you’re interested in Japanese history – back when Lady Murasaki was writing The Tale of Genji). 

It’s the towel that often gets wrapped around the heads of people who wrap towels around their heads to inspire themselves and others. And used to dry hands or sweat from brows.

I got the towel wet, applied a healthy chunk of glue, patted down some shoji (障) paper to back it, allowed it to dry for 24 hours, and cut it to size. Using the tenugui was an experiment on my part that worked out quite well, I think.

So, I hear you asking, What is shoji paper? It’s the paper used in those paper walls Japan is famous for but increasingly doesn’t use much anymore unless decoratively for a ‘Japanese’ accent in homes with tatami mats which are also not used as much anymore.

One advantage of using 手拭い for a 文庫本 book cover is that I can get two book covers out of one 手拭い. Plus, many 手拭い have quite stylish designs. (And you thought you couldn’t read Japanese, you silly goose (gachou – 鵞鳥)).

Fiction

Whilst waiting for somebody to get her act together, I started fooling around with my computer and wrote a title then started writing a story to fit the title. Over the last fortnight I finished it. Called The Gangsters of Love, it sporadically includes lyrics from Steve Miller’s The Joker while maintaining a plot about a missing woman, her daughter, and an attempted murder all seen through a first person narrator with synesthesia. It is a short story topping out at about 25 pages.

Plus, after a few hours of research into Lowell looms in the 1800s, the novel The Posthumous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout, Death Weaver continues unabated. But with a few changes.

One big change is pushing the birth of Agnes back a decade or so as I have her being born at about the same time the Lowell factory was fading out which was in the 1830s. Caused by, among other things, economic depressions esp the 1837 one; immigrants allowing factory owners to pay them less for their labor (owners already employed females because they could pay females less that males, a tradition that continues to this day); an oversupply of cloth driving prices down; unionization, which both the government and factory owners ignored; and the elevating of profit over people even more so by the factory owners.

Another change was learning that Lowell factory workers worked 80 hours a week plus had to attend church services on their only day off plus were encouraged to attend lectures to educate themselves.

Research is fun! Writing is work. Having written is Fun!

Substack

Check out Chapter 18 of Heart of September in which Hairball squeals on a fellow antique book buyer who is smuggling several valuable volumes out of England.

 

Ep. 297: Balloon Books & A Reincarnation

Bookbinding

We finished the renovation of a client’s well-used travel book. It got a new map, a new cover, and new endpapers. The client also requested a blank notebook so I sent two blank notebooks. Knowing that one book was going to an artist, I sent a coptic-bound book because coptic-bound books open flat and are much more useful for drawing and sketching than case-bound books. Case-bound books are your usual hardcover books.

Secondly, I finished a creative outlet book that had two purposes. One, to see if I could make a book in one day. Two, to see if I could use up some scraps of paper and other supplies I had laying around. The result: A Cat Balloon Blank Notebook. 

Purpose #1 ended in semi-failure. I didn’t finish it in one day; it took two. Purpose #2 ended in success. Cat Balloon Blank Notebook has seven signatures of four folios. It is B6 in size. It has no page numbers because I don’t like my printer so I’m snubbing it. Plus, it’s running out of one color ink which means I can’t use it to print a completely different ink. 

Fiction

In fiction, we have failed to write a detective novel in thirty days. It has been about 15 days and we only have the first three or four chapters. We have a dead body, though, so that’s a plus. My problem is research.

For example, the dead body is found in a lake. My questions: what animals that live in the lake would help devour the dead body and what is the timeline for decomposition due to those animals, bacteria, and the water. And it’s not just any lake because lakes in different parts of the planet have different creatures living in it. This is Lake Washington in the Seattle area which is sometimes colder than expected. It’s also deeper than people think. But the body was found in a small cove which is not so deep. How does the temperature and depth affect deterioration of a full-clothed (minus shoes) female? These are the questions that hold progress back but fill my brain with useful (?) information.

So I resurrected a different novel. One that deals with a character who can read the future deaths of people around her. And 18th century New England loom factories. Which lead me to a zillion other questions that required more research. (18th century loom factories, for one.) Titled: 

The Post-Humous Autobiography of the Widow Agnes Grout: Death Weaver.

And she lives to be 170 years old so that hit me with a lot of research into American history.

Substack

Ever wonder why news stands in court rooms were often managed by blind people? Thomas Gore (Albert Gore’s relative and Gore Vidal’s grandfather) can answer that. In this episode of Diary of a Dead Cat Quarterly I write on the history of the white cane and seeing-eye dogs.

Ep. 296: Yellow & Red Blank Notebooks+

Bookbinding

We found ourselves finishing up two blank notebooks this week. One yellow and one mostly red with a slightly floral motif. 

The Yellow One has a title on the front cover: Dibujo & Kaku (the Kaku being, in Japanese, 描く. Both carrying the meaning of Draw or Drawing. On the inside title page of the yellow one is a sketch of the front of a steam train, an umbrella, a cloud, and rain. The word Train is over the umbrella. T/Rain was the idea. 

There are 105 numbered pages in Dibujo/描く. Each page has one part of the sketch on the inside title page: the train, rain drops, the umbrella, or the word train hovering over the page number.

Both the Dibujo/描く book and the red one have the same William Morris-esque end papers that give the books a bit of elegance to them.

The red one has a inside title page: Sketch 描く Dibujo and sketchbook in Japanese which is スケッチブック.

It also has 105 pages but it is not numbered so the artist/scribbler must remember approximately where in the book they scribbled or arted (?). It does, however, have a yellow band around the lower portion both as a way to discover the front and to use up a band of yellow book cloth.

Fiction

While I finished Molly Bright, I started yet another novel but this one a slight twist for me. There seems to be two (or more) ways of writing. One is outlining everything and being label a planner. The other way is to wing it, let the story meander about until the author discovers both a plot and character; this called winging it or a pantser (seat of the pants type of thinking). I wing it. Usually.

I  outlined a previous novel. And lost interest because I knew where it was going so I never finished it. The one I just started I have outlined but I also set a goal of finishing it in 30 days (not unlike NaNoWriMo but not in November).

It’s a murder mystery set in Seattle with the main character (Max McKenzie) and his female assistant (JT Proust) being Seattle Police Department detectives. Titled: The Abandoned Corpse. But it isn’t just abandoned because the woman is dead, but also abandoned by a lover (jilted), and she in turn abandons several friends, ambitions, dreams).

The first Max McKenzie Murder Mystery explores the dark lives of rich people who abandon people and things to make, they think, their lives better. 

Substack

Chapter 16 of Heart of September (formerly Heart of November and Eating November).

Amelia, Hairball, and Sakombí battle it out with some of Tipu’s henchmen. A very large snake attacks one henchman. He spills the beans about Tipu’s location. Our heroes march off to do battle with the Congo’s biggest sex & drug trafficker

Ep. 295: Conserving & Creating

Bookbinding

A client sent me a book that needed to be rebuilt, repaired, and improved. I need to fix the covers, the spine, and a map is glued to the back cover. Because I have to fix the covers I was thinking of updating the map, too. This is an exciting proposition because I have to investigate maps! Also, the client wants a soft cover so he can cram it in his book bag without fear. 

Fiction

I finished Molly Bright!

I have included sub-plots concerning Molly (trouble with her boss), Merengue & Early (who want to help homeless orphans) and the marital problems of Keiko of Kyosuke. I have also, always, strengthened characters.

I wrote the ending where all the main characters are happy do what they dream of doing. Of the two bad guys, one begs for Frank to send for the police rather than have Frank take care of him. The other bad guy escapes in a shoot out and disappears into the Osaka night.

 

Other than Molly Bright I have been improving my four-book Fear Trilogy. More action, of course. More excitement, naturally. And fewer spelling mistakes, perhaps. 

The Fear Trilogy (in four books) follows the life of Max McKenzie from his incarceration at age eleven for the murder of his mother to his status as a war hero in a dystopian society. In this society three things have happened: the Conglomeration owns and runs everything; beings from a moon from Jupiter have landed; the beings, called Jeeters, are severely discriminated against. The Conglomeration gives them third or fourth-class rankings in society; menial jobs, substandard housing, discrimination on a daily basis.

This results in a civil war between the Jeeters and the Conglomerate and the governments of Io send troops to aide the Earth-bound Jeeters. In the course of the war Max is made a foot soldier, then a manufactured war hero, an advisor to a Senator who becomes President, then a liaison between Jeeters and the Conglomerate.

Substack

The Diary of a Dead Cat Quarterly focuses its paws on the canals of our body, our planet, and our nearest planet (Mars).

Ep. 294: A Yellow A5 Blank Book &

Bookbinding

In the last few days or weeks, I’ve created an A5 Blank Notebook with page numbers on slightly yellow paper with a bright yellow cover (red threads, though), and red headbands with a dark red (maroon?) bookmark for your viewing and using pleasure. 

This monstrosity has nine (9) signatures of four folios each for a grand total of 144 pages. It also has a William Morris-influenced pair of endpapers that set off the yellow of the covers quite nicely, I believe. You are more than allowed to decorate the front cover as you see fit. You bought it, you name it (as Joe Walsh wants titled an album.) It opens nicely, too, so it can be used for sketching or doodling to your heart’s content.

In this project I believe I might have improved slightly on the spine. I've experimented with the space size between the cover and the spine quite a bit. I think I've managed to find the sweet spot for this book. You professionals might (or not) disagree but I feel like it's better than most covers.

The more I experiment with design and dimensions, the more confused I make myself. I have taken to writing down information for the Next book and sticking it on my cork board To Do panel that hovers over my workbench.

Fiction

This probably happens more often than not among writers. Taking a character from one novel and placing them in another novel. I’m not talking about a series like Harry Potter. I’m talking about a minor character in one book showing up as the major character in another book. Like Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet (consisting of Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, and Clea.)

Or, more recently, David Mitchell’s novels that contain many of the same characters with different emphasis in different novels (Ghost Written, Number Nine Dream, Black Swan Green, and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.)

I’ve done that with Molly Bright. One character in Molly Bright is a Japanese dancer who changed his name from the very common Suzuki (which is why Ichiro is called Ichiro and not Suzuki, too common) to Merengue (the dance, not the sugary pastry). When he worked in a medical supply company he called himself Suzuki but when he began meditating in an ashram in Bari, Italy and learned to dance, he switched to Merengue.

He is a free-spirited dancer who learned dance in Italy and the Dominican Republic. He continues to dance when he returns to Japan and is often rousted by the police for his unusual life style: no permanent job or home, sleeping outdoors, walking everywhere, holding no great quantities of cash. 

I have put him in another novel in which he is the main character. He relates and learns from a variety of people in Italy and the Dominican Republic. He helps Molly and Early in Molly Bright with the police following Sawako’s kidnapping. This episode shows up at the end of his novel. The tentative title is Merengue or The Dancer Merengue or Merengue the Dancer but I’m not pleased with any of those titles. 

Meanwhile, Molly Bright is staying the course and rapidly coming to an end. I need to develop all the characters a bit more, clean up the chronology a tad, fix typos, spelling errors, check my grammar, and make sure the plot is relatively hole free.

Hopefully, it will be wrapped up by the next episode of Tedorigawa Bookmakers. Don’t hold your breath; I’m also reading Infinite Jest. 

Substack

On Substack you can read Chapter 15 of  Heart of September / November. While you’re there, read about Tarzan’s connection to Electric Cars in the previous post.