My life is made so much easier by the generosity of friends and readers! After my resourceful and generous Australian friend read about my current technology issues, he decided to do some research and discovered a free, open-source PDF-making software which will run on XP! He sent me the link last Monday; I downloaded it and it works perfectly, so now I’m back in the process of preparing Lost Angels for publication. The day before that, Chekhov dropped by, ostensibly to get some eggs and return a borrowed tool, but actually to give me a new TV set he claimed to have got on sale. It wasn’t too difficult to set up, and fortunately I was able to bypass all the streaming-channel setup stuff, which would have just been a waste of time. We did, however, discover that Samsung has planned-obsolescenced their own older soundbars by ensuring there is no compatible means of connecting them to their newer TV sets. Not to be daunted, Chekhov ordered a new soundbar to be delivered last Thursday, and though it was easy to connect I had a new problem: it barely put out any sound. To reach a comfortable viewing volume, I had to set the old soundbar at about 30 (of a maximum 100), but the new soundbar is nearly inaudible at that level; depending on the DVD and other, more mysterious factors, I had to raise the level to 75-100 for comfortable viewing (and it only goes to 100). The internet told me this is a known issue with Samsung soundbars, but provided no useful information on fixing it; every “separate” article I could find was apparently copied from some ur-text, right down to the wording, and none of them are much above the “make sure your cable is plugged in” level of helpfulness. Finally, Samsung customer service via text talked me through resetting the soundbar, so now it sounds good at 60. But I won’t be surprised if I end up having to do this more than once, or perhaps even regularly.
Posts Tagged ‘Lost Angels’
Diary #817
Posted in Diary, tagged Lost Angels, Sunset on February 24, 2026| Leave a Comment »
A Year Gone
Posted in Diary, Music, Philosophy, tagged disease, Grace, imaginative fiction, Lost Angels, psychology, video on January 25, 2026| 1 Comment »
One year ago today, at about 2 AM, I lost my best friend to what appears to have been an acute ischemic stroke, brought on by cancer, chemotherapy, and long-standing circulatory issues. We had known for years that her end was approaching, and had I not refused to see them, there were clear signs that it would be sooner rather than later. But human beings are very good at failing to see what we do not want to see, and I’m certainly no exception; I’m sure part of the reason was that I wanted to maintain a positive outlook to help her do the same, but most of it was just that I’ve already had so much pain and loss in my life I did not want to consciously face what even our idioms recognize as among the worst misfortunes that can befall a person.
Whenever a friend suffers a loss, we are moved to try to say something, anything, to assuage their pain; some of those things are helpful and some are not. But of the things my friends said to me, two stand out, and I still think of them often. One of them is philosophical: Grief is the price we pay for love. Indeed, people who have suffered emotionally sometimes become afraid of love because they fear the pain that must come when we must part from the loved one, and the greater the love, the greater the pain. The other helpful thing was more practical: The waves of grief never stop coming, but they do grow further apart. For the first few weeks after her passing I thought of little else, then for most of last year the waves came at least daily; in more recent months they’ve come two or three times a week. They have not yet become less intense, though I’m sure that, too, will happen in the fullness of time.
As I knew I would through long experience, I have tried to cope with the grief by retreating a bit from the world and burying myself in my work; the most important product of that work is a new series of pulp-style adventure stories featuring characters based upon Grace and myself, in which the narratives are suffused with my thoughts on friendship in general and our friendship in particular. They’re the longest and most complex individual works I’ve ever written, and the next project in the series will be my first novel. And the many hours it takes to create them not only feel like a way for me to share Grace with the world, but also a means by which I can squeeze just a little more time with her out of a world which took her from me much too soon.
Hellhound
Posted in Fiction, Music, tagged drugs, imaginative fiction, Lost Angels, New Orleans, video on January 16, 2026| Leave a Comment »
While I was working on “Until the End of Days“, I realized it would only be the first of a series of stories featuring Angela Morgan & Diane Rousseau, pulp-adventure characters based on Grace & myself. And by the time I was done with the first story, I already knew that the second installment would be a prequel, telling the story of how they met. Now that one is done as well, so I’m about to start the process of getting Lost Angels, the collection in which they’ll both appear, into shape; I’ve already started discussing the cover with Chester Brown, so I think we’re on track to publish by the end of spring. And here’s the really exciting news: my experience with these longer tales has convinced me that the next adventure should be a short novel, which I’ll probably begin in the next couple of months. But in the meantime, here’s a sneak preview of “Hellhound”, describing the events of Saturday, June 10th, 1922; the video at the end is a song which plays a part later in the novelette.
…While I was perfectly happy to dress and behave like a respectable maid of honor instead of a flapper for one day, there was no way I was going to indulge the government’s current exercise in wet-blanketry. So I took a generous sip from my punch to make room while on my way to the ladies’, then once I was safely away from prying eyes I lifted my skirt to get my flask from its hiding place in my garter and topped the glass back up with rum. Then I checked my hair, smoothed my dress and opened the door to find Tante Mathilde standing just outside.
She gently raised my hand to sniff my glass gracefully, and said, “Just as I thought.”
“Honestly, Auntie, it’s not like you’re a big fan of the Volstead Act yourself.”
She waved a hand dismissively. “No, I’m not, but you’re still too young.”
“I’m twenty-one, Auntie, and I just graduated with a real degree and everything; I’m not exactly still in pigtails.”
“Hmph. Well, at least you haven’t chopped off your lovely hair like so many girls your age.”
“Remember when I fell out of that tree when I was about twelve, and they had to shave my head to stitch it up? I know what I look like with short hair, and it ain’t pretty.”
“Nonsense, dear girl; you’re always pretty.”
“Thank you, but I know you didn’t come looking for me just to see if I was drinking.”
She took my left arm in the way she always did when she wanted a favor. “No, it’s because I want to introduce you to someone.”
“I think I already know most of the guests.”
“She’s not technically a guest, and I think y’all probably met in passing once or twice a few years ago”…She took me over to the doorway that led toward the hotel kitchen; in the next room were several large tubs of ice with electric fans blowing across them to cool the air. That may sound quaint to the modern reader, but keep in mind that air conditioning was extremely expensive back then, and it was still several years before even theaters and hotels in New Orleans began to install them. Diane was standing nearby, apparently taking the opportunity to cool off; she was a tall, fairly slender woman in her mid-twenties with long, straight black hair, hazel eyes, and strong features, and she did look somewhat familiar. “Angela, this is Louis and Claire’s youngest daughter, Diane. Diane, this is my grandniece Angela.”
She stubbed out her cigarette, turned to face me, flashed a quirky but winning smile, held out both of her hands to clasp mine, and said, “Hey there, honey! Ah think we met before.”
“Since you’re Miss Claire’s daughter I guess we have, but I don’t remember exactly when.”
“Ah been tourin’ with the band for almos’ five years, so musta been when we was in town.”
“Must have. I’ve been to the Orpheum quite a few times since then, but I guess never when y’all were playing…Are you doing anything with your friends tonight? You could come over to my house and we can make up for lost time.” She did not answer, but instead looked pointedly at my aunt, whose innocent expression had yielded to a rather sheepish one.
“Actually, that was why I wanted to introduce y’all. Diane has a little problem and I thought you might be able to help.”
“Oh?” I had instantly liked Diane, so I was already inclined to help if possible. But I wasn’t about to make it easier on my aunt; this wasn’t the first time she’d volunteered me for something.
“Normally, Diane stays at my place when she’s in town. But a strange man has been lurking nearby since she arrived Thursday evening, and she thinks he’s been following her.”
“We been seein’ him in the theaters an’ hotels for the last three stops, but we jus’ figured he was a fan; some of ’em are pretty devoted. But he’s hangin’ aroun’ your aunt’s instead of the hotel where the other girls are stayin’, so it must be me he’s after.”
“Ah, so if we can get you over to my place without him catching wise, maybe that’ll throw him off. But won’t he just follow y’all to your next gig in…?”
“Mobile. Yeah, we’re hopin’ to confront him before that. Mah daddy tried las’ night but he took off like his pants was on fire as soon as Daddy came out on the porch. If he loses mah trail today, he’ll need to come to the theater Monday night to pick it up again, then the bouncers can catch him without havin’ to call the cops to the house.”
“Makes perfect sense. You can have Marie’s room; she won’t need it any more!”
“Thank you, ah really appreciate it.”
“I’m guessing you already brought your luggage?” I asked, giving my aunt a look.
“Yeah, it’s in the green room.”
“I hope it’s not a lot; the only place we can carry it in my car is the rumble seat.”
“Just a big carpetbag. Except for mah bass and such, ah try to travel light.”
“There is no way we can fit your bass in a Stutz Bearcat, unless you think you can balance it on the running board”…
…About midnight, I went to get myself another punch, and asked if she wanted more bourbon, which was what she’d been drinking. “Actually, if you don’t mind, ahmana roll myself a reefer.”
“Go ahead; better a legal intoxicant than an illegal one, eh? I’d use it myself, but I’m afraid my lungs are too delicate; I can’t even smoke cigarettes.”
“If you wanna try it, ah could make you tea. Ah usually travel with some ’cause marijuana is illegal in some states, and sippin’ tea is more discreet than smokin’ a reefer.”
I was definitely interested in trying it, so we adjourned to the kitchen and Diane fixed it for me…I can’t say I cared for the taste, but sugar helped, and it wasn’t like I was drinking it for the flavor. Diane told me it would probably take an hour or so before I started to feel anything, but warned me that it might hit me pretty hard because I was unused to it.
“Why don’t we head upstairs, then? We can get you settled in Marie’s room, then if I’m too bent to manage the stairs I can just stumble next door.”
“That sounds like a plan!” she said, so I locked up and turned off the lights, and before long she’d put on her pajamas and we’d made her comfortable in Marie’s bed. I sat in the wingback chair while she rolled her smoke, and soon we were giggling like a couple of schoolgirls. Because we were already in such good spirits I didn’t notice the effects of the drug until I was already highly illuminated, and I think I got quiet for a little while as I adjusted to this new feeling. When I finally spoke up I realized Diane had dropped off, but I was still content to just sit there quietly, looking at everything through chemically-altered eyes and enjoying the breeze through the open window.
After Diane had been asleep for a little while, something very eerie happened; at first it spooked me a bit, but I told myself it was just a drug-induced hallucination and I should sit back and enjoy the show. There seemed to be a greenish-purple aura around her body, and as I watched it seemed to become concentrated around her left hand; it then began to take form like smoke, blowing out from her ring like steam from a teakettle (but in complete silence). It gathered itself into a cloud above her sleeping form, then moved like a living thing toward the window. As it exited I really wanted to get up to see where it went next, but I just couldn’t get myself to move out of the chair; it was almost as though I were tied down with the softest ropes imaginable, or weighed down with an entire litter of contentedly-purring kittens. It was less like not being able to move, and more like I just didn’t want to, even though I did…
I Miss My Friend
Posted in Biography, Philosophy, tagged Grace, imaginative fiction, Lost Angels, psychology on January 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »
On this day two years ago, I wrote: “I’ve gradually come to the realization that I’m happier now than I’ve ever been for any extended period in my entire life…but having a realistic view of the world requires accepting that it and everything it contains is impermanent.” Then almost a year ago, the truth of that was slammed home when I lost my best friend to cancer, and just like that the only extended period of happiness I’ve ever enjoyed in this Vale of Tears was snatched from me, never to return. I’m not saying I’m constantly miserable now, nor that I was prior to my retirement in 2021, but previous periods of happiness were both shorter and far more conditional than that four-year stretch of peace and content. My readers needn’t worry about me; pain and melancholy have been familiar features of my life for almost as long as I can remember, and decades of experience have taught me the alchemy of turning that darkness into beauty. In the past year I’ve written more fiction than I have in any year since 2016, including my first novella (which looks like it will turn into my first major series of tales). This is not in spite of the darkness but because of it; ever since I was a child, the monsters have been the constant attendants of my Muse of Fiction, and it seems foolish to expect that it will be any different in the time I have left. Creative writing is, in a sense, a form of exorcism, draining off the energy of my inner demons to drive the mills of my art. The process, however, is never so efficient as to completely dry out that black wellspring, and though I don’t cry for Grace every day any more, in any given week the tearful days still outnumber the drier ones. As a friend told me soon after she died, the waves of grief never stop coming, they just get farther apart. And as I’ve said many times in the last year; it’s not that I feel any sense that she died too young or too soon, or that her death was somehow unfair; it’s just that I miss a beloved friend who was a constant presence in my life for twenty-seven years, and whose departure has left a very large hole.
Until the End of Days
Posted in Fiction, Music, tagged imaginative fiction, Lost Angels, New Orleans on October 3, 2025| Leave a Comment »
If you read this blog regularly, you already know I’ve been working on a pulp-adventure novella featuring characters based on Grace and myself; their chemistry and repartee are based on ours, so much that I often cried or laughed while writing and proofreading it, and many of the characters and places are based on ones from my own life. Now at last it’s done; it will be the centerpiece of my next collection, Lost Angels, which is beginning to look like it will be published in late spring or early summer. But in the meantime, I’m happy to share an excerpt introducing the main characters; if you’re a paid subscriber and would like a PDF of the whole story, please email me; the rest of y’all will just have to wait for the book!
Friday, October 23rd, 1931
It all started one night at Lulu’s. Diane and I had taken my Tante Mathilde to see the new Marx Brothers talkie, and we decided to have a drink before taking her home. Well, to be honest, Tante Mathilde insisted we have a drink, and she had not accepted “no” for an answer from anybody since her husband died 33 years before. She was the family matriarch, my paternal grandfather’s younger sister, who had already outlived him by 23 years and Maman, my paternal grandmother, by 13. She was under 5 feet tall in heels and under 100 pounds soaking wet, but she conducted herself like the Empress Dowager and kept up with popular culture better than a lot of people half her age, which is why nobody who knew her would’ve been surprised to see her with her grandniece in a speakeasy.
I had a Brandy Alexander, which is what I always had in those days; Diane had a highball, which is what she always had after it became impossible to get decent bourbon; and Tante Mathilde had a Bee’s Knees. It may seem strange that I remember that over thirty years later, but it’s because Diane hated lemons and had apparently made some sort of comment about it while I was in the Ladies’, and when I got back to my seat my aunt was pontificating about how Diane didn’t “know what’s good.”
“Honestly, I can’t leave for five minutes without coming back to static.”
“It ain’t my fault if your aunt’s opinions are still stuck in the 19th century.”
“And it’s certainly not my fault if your friend there is a bumpkin.”
“Who you callin’ a bumpkin, you old crow?”
“Waiter! Another round please!” I wasn’t actually worried; they always sounded like that. It was just their way, and they actually loved each other as much as if they’d been blood kin. They practically were; Diane’s father had worked for Tante Mathilde’s husband his whole life, and she made him the general manager of the sugar cane plantation after the old man died in ’98, so she’d bounced Diane on her knee from the age of three. Of course, nowadays the size differential was almost the opposite: Diane was a tall, solidly-built woman of 5’9″ with long, straight black hair and strong features that hinted at her Houma ancestry, and she had a husky voice which made my aunt’s thin soprano sound childlike.
Anyhow, I wasn’t in the mood for their shenanigans, so I figured I’d throw some cold water on it. But my aunt was not having it. “She doesn’t even like ‘Stardust’. Who doesn’t like ‘Stardust’?”
“When did I say I don’t like ‘Stardust’?”
“Just now, when Angela was off to the loo.”
“I said nobody can play ‘Stardust’ like Armstrong, is what I said!”
“Well, the band here did a lovely job of it just now.”
“It had no damn pep at all. Them cats play jazz like they was playin’ at the Frumps and Fogeys Society.”
“Nonsense!”
“Really, Auntie! Diane knows more about jazz than both of us put together.”
“Especially since she don’t know beans about jazz.”
“C’mon, Diane, you’ve gotta admit Auntie’s pretty hep for eighty-one.”
“Nobody who can’t dig Cab Calloway is hep in my book.”
“I think Mr. Calloway is a fine musician, but I also think all his nonsense singing is silly. All that scooby-doo and hi-dee-ho foolishness, what is that supposed to be? Why can’t he sing sensibly like Jolson?”
Diane had been rolling her eyes while my aunt opined about scat, but in response to that last question she suddenly stopped, looked at her as though she had just upchucked on the table, and stated matter-of-factly, “The only word for Jolson is ‘grotesque’.”
“Grotesque! You want grotesque? I’ll show you grotesque!” With that she reached down as if she were going to get something from a bag that wasn’t there, then said, “What am I doing? Of course it’s at home.”
“What is, Auntie?”
“This simply awful thing I got at an estate sale this morning, and meant to give you.”
“Um…thanks?”
She laughed and patted my hand affectionately. “Oh, I didn’t really mean it was for you, but I thought your Mr. Girard might like it, since he’s a connoisseur of the outré.”
“Which is probably why he likes Angela so much.”
“Look who’s talking!” I said in mock offense, but Diane and my aunt had apparently left off of teasing each other to have a giggle at my expense instead. At the time, Armand Girard was my sugar daddy, and though Diane sometimes joshed me about him, Tante Mathilde had no room to judge because his age exceeded mine by exactly as much as her late husband’s had exceeded hers. Plus, he was basically the only thing standing between me and penury at the moment, and Diane was especially fond of him since he’d given me his “old” car – a 1927 Packard Custom Eight sedan – last year when he replaced it with a new Dusenberg Model J. That of course meant she got to tinker with the Packard, and let me tell you, she had that thing purring like a kitten when it idled and roaring like a lion when I stepped on the gas…
I’m sure you won’t consider it a “spoiler” if I tell you that the “simply awful thing” Angela’s aunt bought led our intrepid heroines into the greatest adventure of their lives, one that required all of their wits and derring-do; I hope everyone who reads it has as much fun as I had writing it!
Diary #793
Posted in Diary, Fiction, Philosophy, tagged imaginative fiction, Lost Angels, New Orleans, psychology on September 9, 2025| Leave a Comment »
I’m finally almost finished with “Until the End of Days“. I finished the rough draft late last week, and on Sunday I wrote the prologue; it may seem strange to non-writers that I saved the prologue for the end of the process, but it was necessary because the story is told in first-person, and I wanted to know everything that happened in the tale (which grew in the telling) before I tried to introduce it. Part of the reason was practical; if there were any important details I had not managed to fit into the narrative, I wanted to mention them in the prologue. But another reason was that I wanted to be able to identify as fully with the POV character as possible, since I wanted the tone of the prologue to be more personal. The word count is now in the vicinity of 19,000 words, and I still have a bit of editing to do, (such as describing three major characters more fully), so I think it’s fair to call it a novella. I’ve really worked at developing the characters’ world, so much so that I already have the fragments of two prequels and a sequel in my head, and that’s good because spending so much time in that fictional world of the past makes the pain of my real-world present much easier to bear. The irony is almost too perfect: after spending most of my life living in a future which never came to pass, I now find comfort living in a past that never was.
Diary #787
Posted in Diary, Fiction, tagged imaginative fiction, Lost Angels, New Orleans, psychology on July 29, 2025| Leave a Comment »
As I mentioned in my anniversary column a few weeks ago,
…my Muse of Fiction wants my attention again; perhaps she feels I don’t need her when I’m happy. Whatever the reason, I’ve written three new stories since finishing Who in Review, and I’m starting on a much longer one than I’ve ever written before, in part as a tribute to Grace…
Because I did want to write a much longer story than is typical for me, I’ve had to develop a new technique; typically, even my full-length short stories come into my head almost fully formed, and all I need to do is write them down and fill in a few details. But that won’t work for this one, which is currently over 7000 words and only in the vicinity of half-done (generally speaking, anything under 10,000 words is considered a short story; longer than that is in novelette territory). So what I’m doing is writing each episode of the tale as it comes into my head, then fitting the pieces into the larger whole and editing as necessary. The first scene I wrote was a pivotal one perhaps halfway through the narrative; I then wrote the first full scene, then the climax and denouement, and now I’m beginning to fill in. The characters are based upon Grace and myself, the setting is New Orleans in 1931, and the genre is adventure mixed with black comedy (which is why I recently re-watched The Avengers and watched The Thin Man series for the first time). I’m enjoying the process, and writing action and dialog for Grace’s character is almost like having her nearby, which is part of why I’m doing it. And I’m already thinking of other situations for the characters. So even though the word “therapeutic” is probably overused in this sort of context, it’s the right one. And I hope it will give my readers a little (fictionalized) taste of Grace’s personality, and the chemistry that made us such a great team.
Fifteenth Anniversary
Posted in Biography, Philosophy, tagged Grace, imaginative fiction, Lost Angels, psychology on July 10, 2025| 1 Comment »
I’m only just beginning to internalize that yes, it really is okay to keep slowing down, rather than just saying it aloud but not really believing it. – “Fourteenth Anniversary”
When my dearest friend and companion passed away in January, I wrote:
When my marriage was starting to fall apart, I threw myself into this blog, churning out essays at a prodigious rate so my mind would have something to chew on other than my pain. But Grace was with me that whole time, quietly offering her unflagging support; I’m not sure what will happen to my creative energy this time, so it’s possible you may notice some changes to adapt to that. Because there has never before been an Honest Courtesan site without her.
Well, it has now been long enough that I’ve begun to see the answer. It has, for the most part, become easier to get my daily work done, because I no longer have my Grace to care for, and focusing on my writing crowds out the pain just as it did fifteen years ago. And strangely, I’ve found that my Muse of Fiction wants my attention again; perhaps she feels I don’t need her when I’m happy. Whatever the reason, I’ve written three new stories since finishing Who in Review, and I’m starting on a much longer one than I’ve ever written before, in part as a tribute to Grace. They’ll all be included in Lost Angels, which I expect will be published around this time next year. And in the meantime I’ll keep going, just as I always do and always have done, until the day finally arrives when I no longer have to.
Diary #782
Posted in Diary, Fiction, Philosophy, tagged Grace, imaginative fiction, Lost Angels, psychology, recipes, Sunset, Who in Review on June 24, 2025| 1 Comment »
We had another unusually-chilly spring this year, so I didn’t trust my tomato plants outside until this past weekend; if they can’t survive in the first week of summer, I’ll just have to throw up my hands in despair. But though the temperatures haven’t been quite summery, even by Olympic peninsula standards, the days are as long as they’re going to get, and that means my seasonal anxiety is back. As I’ve noted in the past, it isn’t nearly as bad since I moved to Sunset as it was in Seattle, probably because the quiet of the countryside counteracts some of it, while the noise and commotion of the city aggravates it. But this year, it sneaked up on me because I’ve been attributing my emotional stress to grief. It wasn’t until a week or so ago that I asked myself why that should be worse now than it was immediately after Grace’s death, or in the first few months afterward; I only just realized that as is typical for me, the anxiety runs under the surface and breaks out at weak points. Expressed another way, the anxiety is acting as fuel for my grief, making it just as intense as it was in January and February, and more intense than it was in March and April. But now that I’m done with Who in Review (and have even set up my store to sell autographed copies), I have time and space in my life to do some creative writing again. I’ve already written two new stories for Lost Angels, with a third probably coming this week; it’s percolating through my brain, going through the alchemy by which grief, loss, and pain are transmuted into art, much like a compost heap transmutes organic garbage into humus for growing new plants. When the tomatoes are ready, I’ll use some of them to make salsa from the recipe Grace and I developed late last summer. And when Lost Angels is published, the pain I’m enduring now will have given rise to beauty I can share with the world.
Paying For It: The Premiere
Posted in Biography, Perception, Philosophy, tagged Canada, comics, Ladies of the Night, Lost Angels, Reviews, Stand-Up Guys, The Forms of Things Unknown on May 23, 2025| 1 Comment »
Long-time readers need no introduction to Chester Brown, the well-known Canadian graphic novelist who came out as a regular patron of sex workers in Paying For It, his autobiographical 2011 graphic novel; Chester is a friend and a regular reader of this blog who occasionally shows up in the comments (and the blog itself!) and did the covers for both Ladies of the Night and The Forms of Things Unknown, and has agreed to do the cover for Lost Angels (which I’m currently working on) as well. As I announced last August, Canadian actress and director Sook-Yin Lee has adapted Paying For It into a film, and it made its long-awaited US premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival last Saturday! Chester was kind enough to send me a complimentary ticket (for some reason the producers did not opt to send him to Seattle), and I was excited both to see the film and to meet Sook-Yin in person, since Chester has spoken so highly of her. Apparently, he also spoke highly of me to her, because when I went up to introduce myself after the showing, she immediately recognized me before I could say more than her name. We didn’t get to talk long, but I’m hoping it won’t be our last meeting. I’m also happy to tell you that I enjoyed the film very much; I think Sook-Yin did an excellent job of adapting Chester’s documentary style into a cinematic one, with additional material depicting the romantic ups and down of “Sonny”, the character based on her, as a way of translating Chester’s expository text to the screen and allowing the viewer to make their own judgments about the subject. The visual style of the film references Chester’s artistic style as closely as possible, including the use of his own lettering font and sketches of the characters in the end credits, and I found the whole funny, sweet, and very moving. Judging by the positive reaction of the audience, none of whom had read the book but me and one other, I don’t think that’s because I’m biased; I’m unsure where and how the film will be shown next, but I’ll keep y’all posted and I’d definitely recommend seeing it when you get the opportunity. P.S. – no, that’s not a cane I’m holding, but my red umbrella; the weather was quite rainy and I had to park on the street, and Sook-Yin suggested the picture after I was ready to walk outside. Since Chester’s artist’s eye caught that detail, I figured I’d mention it should anyone else wonder.
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