The Cry of the Halidon
For all those who in strictest confidence helped me research this novel so many years ago—you know who you are, and I’m still forever grateful.
INTRODUCTION
A number of years ago—a quarter of a century to be precise—an author barely in his forties was so exuberant over the fact that he had actually published two novels that, like an addict, he relentlessly pursued the source of his addiction. Fortunately, it was the narcotic of writing, chemically not dangerous, mentally an obsession. That obsessed author, me, is now far older and only slightly wiser, and I was exhilarated until I was given a gentle lecture by a cadre of well-meaning publishing executives. I was stunned—walleyed and speechless.
Apparently, it was the conventional wisdom of the time that no author who sold more than a dozen or so books to his immediate family and very close friends should write more than one novel a year! If he did, he would automatically be considered a «hack» by «readers and critics alike.» (I loved this last dual-persona, as expressed.) Such writing giants of the past came to mind, like Dickens, Trollope, and Thackeray, fellows who thought nothing of filling up reams of copy for monthly and weekly magazines, much of said copy excerpts from their novels in progress. Perhaps, I thought silently, «hack» had a different meaning then, like in «he can’t hack it,» which implies that to «hack» is good, as opposed to «he’s a hack,» obviously pejorative. It was all too confusing, and, as I mentioned, I was speechless anyway. So I said nothing.
Nevertheless, I was the new kid on the block, more precisely on Publishers Row. I listened to my more experienced betters and submitted The Cry of the Halidon as written by someone called «Jonathan Ryder,» actually the first name of one of our sons and a contraction of my wife’s stage name when she was a popular actress in New York and its environs.
I’d be foolish to deny the influence this novel had on subsequent books, for it was the first time I actively forced myself to research obscure history along with the roots of myth as opposed to well-documented, if difficult to unearth, historical records. For me, it was terrific. My wife, Mary, and I flew to Jamaica, where most of the novel was to take place. I was like a kid in a giant toy store. There was so much to absorb, to study! I even stole real names before I learned you weren’t supposed to do that without permission. For example, «Timothy Durell,» the first character we meet in the book, actually was the youngest and brightest manager of a large international resort that I’d ever met; «Robert Hanley» is a pilot in the novel and was, as well, in everyday life. Among other detours, Bob ferried Howard Hughes around the Caribbean, and was on Errol Flynn’s payroll as his private pilot when the motion-picture star lived in Jamaica. (Other liberties I really should not reveal—on advice of counsel.)
Of course, research is the dessert before an entrée, or conversely, the succulent shrimp cocktail before the hearty prime rib, the appetizer leading to serious dining. It is also both a trap and a springboard. A trap for it ensnares one in a world of geometric probabilities that an author resists leaving, and a springboard for it fires one’s imagination to get on with the infinite possibilities a writer finds irresistible.
The first inkling I had regarding the crosscurrents of deeply felt Jamaican religiosity and myth came when my wife and I took our daughter, along with the regal lady who ran the kitchen at our rented house, to a native village market in Port Antonio. Our young daughter was a very blond child and very beautiful (still is). She became the instant center of attention, for this was, indeed, a remote thoroughfare and the inhabitants were not used to the sight of a very blond white child. The natives were delightful, as most Jamaicans are; they’re gentle, filled with laughter and kindness and intelligent concern for the guests on their island. One man, however, was none of these. He was large, abusive, and kept making remarks that any parent would find revolting. The people around him admonished him; many shouted, but he simply became more abusive, bordering on the physical. I’d had enough.
Having been trained as a marine—and far younger than I am now—I approached this offensive individual, spun him around, hammerlocked his right arm, and marched him across the dirt road to the edge of a ravine, I sat him down on a rock, and vented my parental spleen.
Suddenly, he became docile, trancelike, then started to chant in a singsong manner words to the effect of: «The Holly dawn, the Hollydawn, all is for the Hollydawn!» I asked him what he was talking about. «You can never know, mon! It is not for you to know. It is the holy church of the Hollydawn! Obeah, Obeah. Give me money for the magic of the Hollydawn!»
I realized he was high on something—grass, alcohol, who knows? I gave him a few dollars and sent him on his way. An elderly Jamaican subsequently came up to me, his dark eyes sad, knowing. «I’m sorry, young man,» he said. «We watched closely and would have rushed to your assistance should you have been in danger.»
«You mean he might have had a gun, a weapon?»
«No, never a gun, no one allows those people to have guns, but a weapon, yes. He frequently carries a machete in his trousers.»
I swallowed several times, and no doubt turned considerably paler than I had been. But the episode did ignite the fuses of my imagination. From there, and courtesy of Bob Hanley and his plane, I crisscrossed the infamous Cock Pit jungles, flying low and seeing things no one in a commercial airliner could ever see. I traveled to Kingston, to waterfronts Bob thought I was nuts to visit. (Remember, I was much, much younger.) I explored the coves, the bays, and the harbors of the north coast, questioning, always questioning, frequently met by laughter and dancing eyes, but never once hostility. I even went so far as to initiate negotiations to purchase Errol Flynn’s old estate, when, as I recall, Hanley hammerlocked me and dragged me back to the plane under sentence of bodily harm. (Much younger!)
I was having so much fun that one evening, while sipping cocktails in the glorious glow of a Jamaican sunset, Mary turned to me and, in her delightfully understated way, said, «You were actually going to buy the Flynn estate?»
«Well, there is a series of natural waterfalls leading to a pool, and—»
«Bob Hanley has my permission to severely wound you. Your right hand excepted.» (I write in longhand.) «Do you think you’ll ever start the novel?»
«What novel?»
«I rest my case. I think it’s time we go home.»
«What home …?»
«The other children, our sons.»
«I know them! Big fellas!»
Do you get the picture? Call it island fever, a mad dog in the noonday sun, or a mentally impaired author obsessed with research. But my bride was right. It was time to go home and begin the hearty prime rib.
While rereading this novel for editorial considerations, I was struck by how much I’d forgotten, and the memories came flooding back over me. Not regarding the quality of the book—that’s for others to comment on one way or another—but the things I experienced that gave rise to whole scenes, composite characters, back-country roads dotted with the great houses and their skeletons of bygone eras, the cocoruru peddlers on the white sandy beaches with their machetes decapitating the fruit into which was poured the rum … above all the countless hundreds of large dark eyes that held the secrets of centuries.
It was a beautiful time, and I thank all those who made it possible. I hope you enjoy the novel for I truly enjoyed working on it.