by Tim Michaels
When I started writing the book, I was re-reading Neville Shute’s On the Beach. I believe that explains why John Reynolds ended up sharing some of the same character traits as Dwight Towers, commander of the USS Scorpion in Shute’s classic. Towers and Reynolds are both family man with a strong sense of right and wrong. Both have lost a lot, and both are unable to let go of their loved ones despite knowing full well that they are dead. Beyond that, however, the characters are very different, in part because I purposely pushed Reynolds beyond the limits of his endurance. Towers lost his family, his country, and faced the end of the world, but circumstances allowed him to keep his responsibility and his dignity. He also had an emotional support structure in part because of the approaching fate he shared with everyone around him. Reynolds, on the other hand, was truly alone.
Like Reynolds, the rest of the characters in this book are entirely fictional, the only exception being Antonio Torrimpietra who is discussed later in this essay. The employees, executives, and shareholders of M & O are not based in any way on employees, executives, or shareholders of any real organization. Likewise, M & O is a completely made-up corporation and is not based in any way on any real company. Other businesses mentioned in the book – including GDH Fortress, Hover Anselm, TR2 Nexis and Bannerman – are also completely fictional and created in such a way as to bear no resemblance to any other organizations with which I am familiar, whether real or imaginary.
Some of the events associated with M & O’s merger as described in the book were based on a number of high-profile mergers widely reported in the media. Several of the quotes attributed to M & O executives, government officials and agencies are, likewise, based on statements made and documents produced by similarly situated individuals in the real world, again, as reported in the media.
On the other hand, there are times when the real world can be hard to fictionalize. In early drafts of the book, the difficulties the Reynolds family has obtaining COBRA were based on my own family’s misadventures after I left one employer. However, what happened to us was so bizarre and convoluted that it cannot be described in a way that is simultaneously easy to understand and credible. Thus, it makes for poor fiction. After umpteen rewritings, the Reynolds family was left with a post-employment health insurance experience that is far less unpleasant than the one with which I am familiar. However, the episode in which Reynolds was classified (for insurance purposes) as having two spouses, one of whom was his son, did in fact happen to me at one point in my career.
In terms of geography, the towns of Fortune, Iowa, as well as Ternos, Passarinho na Mão, and Pedra de Atiradeira in Brazil, are all fictional. The latter two names come from “Aguas de Março” a song written by Antonio Carlos Jobim, best known in the US for “The Girl from Ipanema.” All other cities, towns, and neighborhoods described in the book are real and rendered as accurately as I am able.
Of the two Torrimpietra Castles mentioned in the book, the one in Italy is real and does indeed bear the name Castello Torrimpietra. The one in the fictional town of Ternos is modeled loosely on Castillo Pittamiglio which sits on the waterfront in Montevideo, Uruguay. The exterior of the real Castillo Pittamiglio does, indeed, resemble a centuries-old sailing ship breaking out of a Victorian castle’s battlements, and is, as described in the novel, hemmed in by other buildings.
Humberto Pittamiglio, on whom Antonio Torrimpietra is very loosely based, was the structure’s designer and builder. He was an accomplished architect, scholar, politician and businessman. He also considered himself to be an alchemist. The Castle’s interior contains oddly shaped rooms, blind doors, stairways that lead nowhere, and a secret chamber. The Castle presently houses, among other things, the Montecristo restaurant, where the food is truly excellent and the ambiance is, to say the least, unique.
Pittamiglio left the Castle to the city of Montevideo upon his death in 1966, stipulating that part of the building be used as a museum… until his return.