The chapter’s title is drawn from what many consider the epitome of prog rock songs: the 23-minute track, “Supper’s Ready,” off the Peter Gabriel-era Genesis album, Foxtrot, 1972.
Play Supper’s Ready Live on YouTube (starting around 36:52 time stamp)
EPILOGUE
Chapter 40. The Boston Interview (In His Own Right)
The original, working title for this novel was In Her Own Right.
The Boston Interview feature on Ross is discussed in Chapter13. Beautiful but Unlikely.
The reporter got her facts wrong: Lacie and Tillie are Birmans; Elsie’s a stray.
Do the names Lacie, Tillie, and Elsie sound familiar? They are named after these characters in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll:
“Once upon a time there were three little sisters,” the Dormouse began in a great hurry; “and their names were Elsie, Lacie and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well―” “What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating or drinking. “They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two. “They couldn’t have done that, you know,” Alice gently remarked; they’d have been ill.” “So they were,” said the Dormouse; “very ill.
And personally for us, the admission by the Public Ministry in Guatemala last year that the Chief of Police of Quezaltenango and his agents murdered Danilo Morente and Jorge de Leon, human rights workers and friends of ours.
Danilo Morente and Jorge de Leon’s story is told in Chapter 30. Silent Sons.
Chapter 41. Extraordinary Redux
My old friend, Jean Ronnell. We’re listed as co-founders of HvW, but she really was the one who ran the whole shebang. As a nurse, she had the background.
Nurse Jean Ronnell appears both here, in Beautiful but Unlikely, and roughly five years later in The Water Is So Wide (as Aunt Jean in Chapter 9). She is the only character present in both stories.
Finally, thanks to all who inspired Beautiful but Unlikely. I will leave the last words on the importance of turning one’s inward gaze outward to a man I’ve long admired, a man who never lost the drive of curiosity or his sense of wonder, William Shatner:
. . . I truly believe there is an entanglement at work in the universe, that we are all connected. Each time you open yourself up to that possibility, there is a little bit more on offer, a little bit more to explore. There is synchronicity in our universe; we may not be able to understand it, but opening our minds to this synchronicity allows us to better explore the greatest frontier of all: our shared connection to each other.
William Shatner from Boldly Go, p.202.
Top Image: Jenny. Source: Private collection.