For those who have read Blood Pudding, you might enjoy this ancient picture, which my brother showed me on my recent trip back to Pittsburgh. I had never seen this family photograph before, and when my eyes first landed on it, I was shocked. The children in the picture - my father and my aunt and uncles most likely taken about 1915 - correspond to certain characters in my novel: Vera, Tad, Ziggy, and Max.
Fast forward a century with me now to 2022. For the two years of composing Blood Pudding and then the past year of editing the book with my publisher at Fulton Books, I have lived with these children and their siblings and parents in my imagination, chapter by chapter, day by day, sentence by sentence. To see them decked out in their Sunday best clothes, Tad and Ziggy in fabulous sailor outfits and Max in a double-breasted jacket with knickers, took my breath away. It was as though they had come to life magically. I would not have been surprised if Rod Serling might have popped out of the corner of the picture to narrate the opening of a Twilight Zone episode.
I suspect that the clothes these children are wearing in the photographer’s studio were sewn by their mother, my grandmother. A friend who recently read Blood Pudding and then saw the picture said, “Yes, they are certainly well dressed, and it looks like Max is already copping an attitude.”
For this inaugural post of my website blog, I simply had to share this image. And with it I salute the children in the picture, particularly Tad, for enduring and for loving each other and for prevailing. Dziękuję bardzo!
And at the same time, let me salute my readers for getting to know my characters. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you!
-Ivan