The level of literary interest in this country is very high. Even a high school kid asked for help on how to work on one of my books. I was asked by the Canadian embassy to interview Giller prize winner, Suzette Mayr as she passed through the book fair, and it was a great to talk to her about The Sleeping Car Porter. Here is a photo of one of the finer houses, taken a few years ago. Here are a few photos. First the exterior, and then three interior shots of the bookshelves.
It was a former urban mansion with a modest exterior, but with some opulent decorations in the interior, including a grand staircase which Kristina will mount with complicating outcomes. It is a rambling old cemetery that runs over a couple of hills and a valley.
First Martin and Kristina will simply go for a walk through the opening. Of the two photos, one shows the exterior and the other shows the interior, with the painting of Mary Mother of God behind a window on the second floor. Originally, another building stood outside the gate. Kostas describes this place going up in flames, as it really did near the end of the second world war. This place is now very fashionable, but it was run down in the Soviet period.
He suggested I do this last spring, before he moved on to another posting in Belgium. It only took me six months or so to get to it! Thanks, Richard, and good luck with the new assignment. Lyn Lake is far from everywhere, deep in the forest in a place with no cell phone reception and very close to the Belarus border. Many unusual things have happened in this place, and my correspondent, Eirimas Martunass, whose father grew up here, has told me about some of them.
I am drawn to this remote village because Kostas Kubilinskas, the Dr. Seuss of postwar Lithuania, taught in the elementary school while on an undercover mission to penetrate and betray the underground anti-Soviet resistance. Stories from this place are often tragic, but with a ironic twists of the kind Rod Serling might have imagined on The Twilight Zone. But as I work toward the story, I discard my earlier versions of it.
