Blog Tour: The inspiration Behind The Weighing of The Heart by Paul Tudor Owen @PaulTOwen @ObliteratiPress@lovebooksgroup

Following a sudden break-up, Englishman in New York Nick Braeburn takes a room with the elderly Peacock sisters in their lavish Upper East Side apartment, and finds himself increasingly drawn to the priceless piece of Egyptian art on their study wall - and to Lydia, the beautiful Portuguese artist who lives across the roof garden.

But as Nick draws Lydia into a crime he hopes will bring them together, they both begin to unravel, and each find that the other is not quite who they seem.

Paul Tudor Owen's intriguing debut novel brilliantly evokes the New York of Paul Auster and Joseph O'Neill.

Guest Post: The Inspiration

My novel The Weighing of the Heart is about a young British guy living in New York called Nick Braeburn, who moves in with a couple of rich older ladies as a lodger in their opulent apartment on the Upper East Side. He gets together with their other tenant, Lydia, who lives next door, and the two of them steal a priceless work of art from the study wall.

The work of art that Nick and Lydia take is an Ancient Egyptian scene, and as the stress of the theft starts to work on them, the imagery of Ancient Egypt, the imagery in the painting, starts to come to life around them, and it’s intended to be unclear whether this is something that is really happening or whether it’s all in Nick’s head.

Originally the artwork wasn’t an Ancient Egyptian scene at all; it was a 1960s pop art work. But not long after I had started the book I went to a fascinating exhibition at the British Museum called The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, which told the story of what the Ancient Egyptians believed happened to you when you die.

As I learnt from the exhibition, the Ancient Egyptians believed in a ceremony called ‘the weighing of the heart’, something in some ways similar to the Christian idea of St Peter standing at the gates of Heaven, deciding whether or not you have lived a worthy enough life to come in.

In the Ancient Egyptian version, Anubis, the god of embalming, presides over a set of weighing scales, with the heart of the dead person on one side and a feather on the other.

If the heart is in balance with the feather, you get to go to Heaven, which they called the Field of Reeds.

But if your heart is heavier than the feather, you get eaten by an appalling monster called the Devourer, who has the head of a crocodile, the body of a lion, and the back legs of a hippopotamus – three of the most dangerous creatures that Ancient Egyptians could encounter.

To the Ancient Egyptians, the heart, rather than the brain, was the home of a person’s mind and conscience and memory, which was why it was the heart they were weighing.

And, intriguingly, one thing they were afraid of was that the heart would actually try to grass you up during this ceremony – sometimes the heart would speak up and reveal your worst sins to Anubis at this crucial moment. You could prevent this from happening by keeping hold of a little ‘heart scarab’.

I was spellbound by this ornate mythology, which had formed over centuries and millennia; I loved the way it was so familiar in its overall concept but so strange and unfamiliar in its details.

And I suddenly realised that the painting Nick and Lydia should steal should be an image of this ceremony, the weighing of the heart. It was so fitting, because the book is essentially about guilt and innocence; it’s about you weighing up as a reader how much you trust Nick as a narrator, and it’s about Nick himself and the people around him weighing up how much they trust him, what they think of him, what they know about him and his character. And without spoiling it for anyone who hasn’t read it, I hope that I found a way to knit all that imagery into the book effectively, especially towards the end.

Once I’d settled on this, there were a number of strange coincidences. I found out there was an artist who used to work for the British Museum who had become quite well-known for producing reproductions of Ancient Egyptian scenes. His name is James Puttnam, and I discovered he was going to give a talk at the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities in Hackney, so I went to see the talk and ended up partly basing the artist in the book on him.

And at one point in The Weighing of the Heart Nick recalls a school trip to the British Museum, and it is suggested he might have stolen one of these heart scarabs that could protect you during the ceremony. I had written this scene but I wanted to get the details right, so I looked through the British Museum’s collection of scarabs on their website and identified the one that best fit the bill, and then I went down to the museum to take a look at it in person.

But when I got there and found the case where this scarab was supposed to be, the space for this scarab was empty. Instead of the object itself there was just a note on the wall that said: ‘Heart scarab (lost).’

It was a strange moment of life imitating art.

• Paul Tudor Owen’s debut novel The Weighing of the Heart is published by Obliterati Press and has been nominated for the People’s Book Prize 2019 and the Not the Booker Prize 2019

Twitter: @paultowen
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Blog Tour Guest Post: My Own Choice, by Ryder on the Storm Author Ray Clark @T1LOM @lovebooksgroup

When builder Terry Johnson spots what he thinks is a bargain he can’t resist but to succumb to temptation. The large, detached house stands on the side of a railway track and would be perfect for his needs … and it’s cheap! 

But Billington Manor has a very tainted history, and the grounds upon which it stands were part of an unsolved murder back in the 1850s. Terry is about to discover that the road to hell is not always paved with good intentions.

Based upon a true incident, Ryder On The Storm is a stand-alone supernatural crime novella from the author of the IMP series, featuring desk sergeant Maurice Cragg.  

My Own Choice.

It’s surprising how many real life incidents can influence your writing. I once visited a wonderful little place called Woods Hole, in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

I had not booked any accommodation but the tourist information sent me to a large Colonial mansion: The Woods Hole Inn. I parked the car and the only person I saw was a South American who spoke as much English as I did Mexican. I managed to convey that I was after a room. He took me into the building, grabbed his mobile phone, called God knows who, and then passed it over to me.

The voice on the other end asked if I’d looked around? I said yes, and told him, pretty amazing: beautiful place. By now, I thought it might be best to leave: I didn’t think my budget would stretch to a room here. He said, great, pick a room and settle down, we’ll talk later. The line disconnected and I gave the phone back to the Mexican, who then disappeared.

After depositing my stuff and exploring Woods Hole, I eventually returned as it was starting to go dark. The lights were on but there was no one home. I showered and changed, went back out for a meal, returning later that night for bed and still I saw no one.

 

I awoke the next morning, showered and changed, opened my bedroom door into a dining room with a fully laid breakfast table. It appeared there was still only me. Concern seeped into my brain. Where was I? Nevertheless I still ate breakfast. With the pots cleared, and a plan for the day, I took the car out, returning once again as it started to go dark. Passing an empty reception on the way to my room, I showered and changed and went back out for a meal, wondering if I would spend my entire stay alone. If I did, maybe I wouldn’t have to pay!

Returning after the meal, the lights were burning nicely, the atmosphere was serene but there was still only me. Why I locked my room I had no idea – it wasn’t like anyone was coming for me. The next morning the same thing: empty dining room, full table. The first and only thought that came to mind was, The Twilight Zone. Here I was at last. I had finally entered the strange little world of Rod Serling. Leaving could be a problem. Would I be allowed to? Great story for a writer.

After breakfast I passed reception when a voice boomed out, ‘morning’. Once he’d picked me up off the floor and phoned 911 for a near fatal heart attack, we had a great laugh. He explained how sorry he was that he couldn’t be here when I arrived, but he was in hospital having an operation on his foot. The second bonus was that the room only turned out to be $85 per night plus tax: the third bonus was paying cash: he said, forget the tax.

That still ranks as one of the strangest but best holidays I’ve ever had. I remember catching the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard where Steven Spielberg filmed his smash hit, Jaws, which to this day, remains a classic.

And the strangest thing of all? I still haven’t written that story in any form whatsoever.

Maybe one day.

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