Book cover design & photography: John Boden
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This novella began as a song in 1987. It didn’t sound right with an acoustic guitar, so I knocked up another version using a Yamaha keyboard, and recorded it on a Fostex four track. It still didn’t really do what I wanted it to do, but you can download/listen here if you are interested. Eventually I thought it would be better as a short novel.
At the time it was coming up to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. I was curious about what happened to the man on the grassy knoll. After a little research I wrote my version. Although some of the detail is accurate, it is nevertheless completely fictional. I was interested in his thoughts and feelings, as much as in what he did. To a certain extent this is a companion piece to “Stine’s Photographic”. It was written the following year, is also in the first person, and also doesn’t contain any dialogue. In both books I was interested in keeping the reader completely inside the head of the protagonist. Later I adapted it as a script, at the request of a company who thought it might be profitable after the success of “JFK”. The following month “Ruby” was released. I thought “Ruby” was a pretty good film, but it had poor box office returns on its opening, and my script was dropped within a week. Unlike the novella the script has two interweaving strands, plenty of dialogue, and no voice over. For a film this works much better. The download available here is a slightly amended version of the original novella written in 1988. |