AUTHOR'S COMMENTS #1

Hi Everybody. Here we go again. I'm glad to be travelling through this story with you.

Jack and York have similarities and differences as many of you have pointed out. Both are sort of outcasts of society, but basically good people, and quite self reliant. Both have been treated poorly, but in York's case it's mostly imagined maltreatment; in Jack's case it's quite real. York is very much at home and comfortable in his surroundings; Jack is very much out of his element.

Travel by sea was much more treacherous back in the 1940s. There was no radar on most boats. GPS had not been invented, nor had LORAN. When the fog closes in, and the wind and tides are pushing you, it's very hard to keep your course or even know exactly where you are without the modern electronics.

The "old salts" who spent their life on the ocean would be able to move around their local area in the fog relying on the lighthouses, the fog horns, bell buoys etc. But when those clues were removed it was very dangerous; and the waters around Grand Manan are littered with wrecks.

For an island the boats are a way of life, and in the 1940s were critical to supply as well as fishing. The WHITE LADY in the book is actually inspired by a boat that carried supplies to Grand Manan in the 1940s, the SNOW MAIDEN.

Some of you have commented on the structure of the book, jumping from the jail to the boat, back to the jail, to some fishermen on another boat. This is the structure of a novel that is written with multiple points of view.

FLU SHOT had just one point of view, that of York. Everything in the book was something that he saw, or did, or watched, or heard. TWO ISLAND LIGHT is a more complex book. We have already seen things from Jack's point of view, and the mate, and the fishermen, and Jenny.

Initially the novel has to present these shifts of Point Of View to establish for the reader what the structure will be. As you read farther, you'll find that you quickly became comfortable seeing the world through different eyes.

As you have guessed, Jack is one of the main characters and you'll see lots from his eyes.

So let's keep going; there are other places to see and people to meet, and maybe some surprises.