I mentioned my friend finished a manuscript before she died and this week the book was launched.The fabulous Ariel Booksellers in Sydney hosted the launch and it was very exciting to finally get my hands on a copy.
The publisher gave a lovely speech and read a few passages, with the most intriguing aside that one should never trust everything the housekeeper says. The book has a feminist angle, looking at women in those days when they had fewer options, and one character has to choose between the love of their life and their child, so I'm thinking this book may have more more links to Madama Butterfly than just the composer.
A lot of research went into the book and Sue met with Puccini's last living relative (a grand-daughter, I think) twice in Italy and once in the UK. So there should be lots of interesting 'inside' information in the book too!
It's next in my queue so a proper review will come soon. Available in eBook and Paperback here.
However, the strangest or most interesting part of the night, was meeting people we had heard stories of from Sue over the years. I know all about her children and grand children (now adults!) and many of her lifelong friends. And they know all about me. Whenever we caught up, Sue would bring me up to speed on her family as well as the other people she'd seen that week.
There's this weird familiarity with strangers, even strangers you don't recognise because you never saw pictures but know the ups and downs of their life, their interests and achievements and more.
There's a meme going around social media that says we should have bring a friend to work day so we can put faces to the characters in our friends work stories. There's so much truth in this. We are conncted to people we may never meet, just by a friend venting or gossiping on their daily life. We are characters that exist in an alternative universe, more or less, and the mutual friend is the portal between the worlds.
We had dinner with Sue, her son and his then partner (now wife) when they were dating, and yet chatting with him 25 years later, I knew his work, where he lived, his kids (much older than I'd realised) and all sorts of things. He too was asking us about things he'd only heard the stories of. It was a surreal expereince feeling connected and familliar with someone we'd only met once briefly.
I guess this is what historical fiction is. Hearing stories about people that you've never met then fleshing out them out imagination.
It's also the way we keep people alive in our hearts. Sometimes we can reach across the universe in celebration of the person that once linked us.
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