Strachan's Attic

 Contact Fran Caldwell at her website.

 ©2009

Strachan (pronounced ‘Strawn’ , per the Gaelic) Marshall is a bit of a loser and knows it, long ago deciding there was nothing to be done about it.  She lives in Toronto, has a so-so job, an OK apartment, a cat named Rupert, and one good friend; she is more or less satisfied with this and has given up on the idea of meeting a nice guy and falling in love. She doesn’t watch much TV, but she reads a lot.  Other than a few angst-ridden poems written during her teen years, Strachan has never had the impulse to write.  

So when she produces a beautifully-executed novel, set in 1940s England, which focuses on the love affair between a young woman and an RAF serviceman,  people are bound to have questions. Telling the truth would mark her as psychotic, so she lies.  

She knows nothing much about  England, other than the obvious, and has never read any history of World War II (for guys, isn’t it?), yet her detailed descriptions of the era:  the bombings, the rationing,  the styles of the day,  even the conversational quirks, are acknowledged as being as accurate as if she had lived through it herself.

She tells people she did a lot of research.  She didn’t.

Only those closest to her know about Strachan's Attic.