Announcing a break from bi-weekly essays
The first essay I published on www.freshstartpress.com appeared 29 months ago – on August 9, 2022. Titled A Symphony for the Senses, it recounts the delights of a holiday in Provence. Since then, I’ve published 64 essays (non-fiction and fiction). One is titled Timing is Everything and I hereby recognize that “timing IS everything” in many aspects of life.
I’ve decided to switch gears for a while and write a screenplay, of all things.
When emptying my family’s home in 2001, I discovered 78 compelling letters written by my mother at the age of 24, to her family in Montreal. To entice the world to read about her student life in Paris and extensive travel throughout Europe, I wove a narrative among the letters. In 2021, Through Her Opera Glasses: The Collected Letters of Betty Harbert’s 1930-1931 European Tour with Fictionalized Narrative by Her Daughter came out. It's still available on Amazon and Indigo.
Four book clubs engaged me to speak, and the story is now an audiobook on Audible.ca. Several readers have encouraged me to write a screenplay, thinking the story would make an absorbing movie. Think Room with a View meets Remains of the Day.
I quote my historical novel’s back copy:
“It’s August 1930 and storm clouds are brewing across Europe, heralding the rise of fascism and the upheavals of the Great Depression. Even so, these frightening realities can’t stop twenty-four-year-old Betty Harbert from making the most of her tour of the continent. Sailing from Montreal with her wealthy Aunt Barbie and cousin Win, Betty attends a Parisian finishing school, tours Europe twice, and spreads joie-de-vivre wherever she goes. Based on a stack of letters written by the author’s mother during her year abroad, this novel offers an exciting glimpse of inter-war life in some of Europe’s great cities, through the eyes of a vibrant young woman who never failed to appreciate the magnificent world around her. Whether she’s riding around the English countryside in her date’s Morris Cowley sports car, at the salon getting a Marcel wave, or touring the Louvre and the Tuileries Gardens, Betty’s great wit and warmth come through in every line of this account of her adventure abroad.”
One of the most striking and engaging qualities of reading my mother’s letters was the sense of relative
innocence, in face of the Great Depression and the rise of fascism. Of course, none of the characters know war is inevitable, but the signs are there at every turn.
In our age, with growing political extremism, collapsing centrist governments (Germany and France), and bloody violence on European soil, one can only wish the parallels are not too close.
Alas, the story of a young woman who just wants to enjoy life, to ignore geopolitical dangers, to focus on what she sees through her opera glasses, seems all too timely.
I am under no illusions. Writing a compelling screenplay is no guarantee a movie will ever be made, but I want to give it a try. Wish me luck!
In the meantime...
On June 11, 2023, I published a guest post on "A Considerable Age," Alice Goldbloom's terrific Substack newsletter. It's titled "Magical Moments" and decribes the priviledge of being a grandparent.
I'd love you to check it out. Go to aconsiderableage.substack.com/magicalmoments
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