IN THE MATTER OF NIKOLAS TESLA: A ROMANCE OF THE MIND by Anthony Flacco

 

 

 

~~~ THE LIE OF TRUTH ~~~ Tesla's Time - Long Overdue

     Nikola Tesla is among the 20^th Century’s greatest forgotten heroes – a European by birth, and an adopted U.S. citizen who radically changed our world. In spite of that, our American culture promptly made it a point to forget him. First he was destroyed by conspiracies, then he was obscured to history.

 

     Working alone, he invented the entire technology to build electrical generators under Niagara Falls and designed the entire Western world's electrical grid. Still, if you were educated in the U.S., it's likely you weren't taught that little fact and were further instructed that the invention of radio was done by the Italian, Marconi, over in Europe. Not only is that not the case, but six months after Tesla died in 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Tesla's patent preceded Marconi's, and that he was the true father of modern radio.

 

     Yet for decades in the United States, the Marconi story was told to school children and preached as historical fact. If you didn't answer that way on a test you got a lowered mark. If you answered that an obscure Serbian immigrant named Nikola Tesla actually invented radio and not Marconi, you may have even been forced to write the school's incorrect answer on the blackboard many times over.

 

     Even though he was briefly wealthy in his early adulthood and later was revered by author Mark Twain, he died too poor to pay his own light bill, cheated by the robber barons of his day: Thomas Edison, J.P. Morgan, and George Westinghouse. Tesla was robbed of millions by George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison portrayed him as a lunatic in an attempt to suppress his inventions, and J.P. Morgan manipulated his funding to prevent him from completing his Universal Power System.

 

So why was he so easily dismissed and forgotten?

 

     For one thing, his eccentricities made it easy to ridicule him while sitting under the lights of his alternating current system. And more than anything else, it is his humility that caused him to be forgotten. Not that he shied away from publicity during his time, but because he had no ambition to cheat anybody out of anything, in an era where cheating in business was the expected behavior. In the Age of the Robber Baron, Nikola Tesla believed in the power of a simple handshake and thought that anyone gifted as he, Edison, and the others had been was morally obligated to deal straight and keep their word.

 

Worldwide System of Free Electrical Energy

 

     The very notion of such a thing is ridiculed by today's scientists, but it bears note that of his seven hundred patents, Tesla never set out to design anything that he didn't go ahead and build. All his inventions worked as intended because of his extreme ability to visualize details in his imagination.

    

     His overarching lifelong goal was to solve the problem of how to supply free, unlimited electricity to the entire planet.  He knew that universal power could end poverty forever. So today, while we all know about the current energy crises, we are only repeating concerns that preoccupied him at a time when such things caused him to be laughed at.  

 

     Nevertheless, Tesla swore prior to World War II that he had already solved the Universal Power problem. And this came from a man who never invented anything that failed to work exactly as he predicted it would.  Still, he found to his great dismay that capitalists had no interest in helping to supply anything to the world for free. It is a known fact that the U.S. Secret Service raided Tesla’s New York hotel room and confiscated all of his papers on the day he died -- before his body was even removed.  Those papers remain unaccounted for today.

 

     Nearly everything written about Tesla has been nonfiction, for a simple reason that Tesla’s solitary life makes him hard to dramatize. And so there has been no definitive treatment of his life story as taken from the point of view of the handsome Serbian scientist himself.

 

     On top of working to help set the record straight about this generous and productive naturalized citizen and loyal American, I have used the fictional form to go after the question: what was it like to be Nikola Tesla, to live inside his mind?

 

     While the answers in the book are fictional, I believe the lie of fiction can here be more honest than fact. And because Tesla was nearly buried and forgotten before our new age began to waken to his gifts, his inscrutable character becomes clear and sympathetic not via biographies, but instead through the device of his Muse in fiction. She allows us to enter the mystery of his solitary life.

 

     So, then - why the devise of his Muse? The book Prodigal Genius by John J. O'Neill is the only Tesla biography authored by a writer who actually knew the subject. O’Neill interviewed Tesla on more than one occasion.  Significantly, O’Neill is the writer Tesla tried to tell about his Muse in real life, only to have O’Neill refuse to print Tesla’s claims. O’Neill later lamented that decision in the pages of his book, and although the decision was made while he was editor at Collier’s Magazine, and in his book he made it clear that he would not have made the same choice again.

 

     Tesla’s story about the source of his inspirations was never believed during his life, and my book simply takes him at his word about the driving force of his incredible inventive imagination.

 

      So you have a genius protagonist who spent his life trying to give the world's poor the best chance anyone could provide them by offering free power for lights, the digging of wells, and the running of irrigation pumps, who ended his days in a tiny double room at the Hotel New Yorker after years of subsisting on crackers and milk. He was kept alive by a pittance pension, not from his adopted company where he accomplished so much and was so badly treated in return, but by the home country he left to spend his life here.

 

      I believe it's clear to anyone who becomes familiar with this astounding life that among the many glittering individuals who turn out to be made of fool's gold, he's one American too important not to know, and the fictional form's "lie of truth" is the key to meeting the real man.

 

Anthony Flacco

Seattle

 

July, 2013

 

 

 

Anthony Flacco is an author of five nonfiction books and three historical novels, all released by major publishers. He holds an MFA in screenwriting from the American Film Institute. He was selected for the Walt Disney Studios Screenwriting Fellowship, and spent a year writing for the Touchstone Pictures division. His first nonfiction book, A Checklist for Murder, was acquired in auction by Dell Books and turned in solid sales. Anthony adapted his book as a two-hour television movie script and sold it to NBC Studios for a movie of the week.

 

 

http://www.anthonyflacco.com/index.php

 

 

ANTHONY FLACCO is the guest this week . Mr Flacco's essay on' History the Agreed Upon Lie' will be posted on Sunday August 4th 2013

A Romance of the Mind

 

Anthony Flacco

 

 

What does the life of the premier genius of the 20^th Century

tell us about ourselves?

The answer goes to the angels and the demons

in each of us.

In this photo you see Nikola Tesla at the age of thirty-six. He is wealthy and famous, and in the prime of his life. Do you also see an isolated man caged behind those eyes, aching with loneliness? If we are to blame for the demons we carry, then he is the sole cause of his extreme isolation.

At that moment in time he is riding a wave of international fame for beating Thomas Alva Edison at creating the electrical power that will dominate the century. He works with such mysterious forces that some suspect him of supernatural acts.
In person, he is renowned for his gentlemanly manners, impeccable taste, and ability to speak several languages. His American English is better than most Americans. He is adept at mixing with high society when he needs to attend conferences or secure funding, though he otherwise avoids all social contact. Women swoon to no avail. Men try in vain to befriend him. He never becomes personally close with any of the people he employs to build his creations.

Tesla describes himself as “a monk of science,” on the surface it appears true. Yet he is filled with passions so intense that they overflow any religious definition of a monk. They drive his inspirations even as they imprison him.

Not all of that passion is sublimated into his work. Tesla has a muse no one can see.

And in spite of being mocked for attempting to tell others about her, he holds her as his primary relationship through many years. His loneliness is real, but only she can fill it, only her. Nevertheless, when he describes her to John J. O’Neill of Collier’s Magazine, the editor refuses to print it out of “respect” for Tesla’s reputation.

During this time, the fountainhead of his inspirations may be invisible to others, but the resulting inventions change the world in profound ways. Unless you are reading this right now under natural light or by battery power, you are using his inventions to see these words and for anything else you plug into the wall or operate via wireless signal. Tesla represents the gold standard among eccentric inventive geniuses.

However, in his old age, it was only his small pension from his native country that saved him from being unable to pay the monthly light bill on the power system he invented, designed, engineered, and installed under Niagara Falls. His muse remained with him during those years, but most everyone else abandoned him. He died broke and virtually forgotten in 1943 Manhattan.

How could this be?

     Foremost, he was repeatedly cheated in business because he took others at their word and refused to be suspicious of his business partners. He persisted in this attitude because his sense of personal honor was at the heart of his need to justify his choices of avoiding his father’s church, leaving his Serbian home and family, and coming to America. His self-selected role as a “monk” was an appeasement to his father, whose angry image resided in his mind long after the older man’s demise.

     The demon of memory encouraged Tesla to over-compensate with his excessive faith in others. Time and time again, he allowed himself to be cheated out of countless millions by refusing to protect his interests, as if others would honor those interests for him. The angel of his tender trust in fellow human creatures was beaten back by the demon of his father’s condemning memory, requiring him to make extraordinary gestures to placate it and prove his “faithfulness,” then reap the terrible consequences of his misplaced faith.

     Thus one of the smartest mortals to walk the earth was felled by the same personal disaster that can strike any one of us. It makes no difference where we fall on the I.Q. scale. As with an actual scale, the issue is balance. He confused his demon with an angel, focusing on what he dearly hoped would happen while ignoring what sheer common sense should have told him. He took magical thinking to realms most of us couldn’t reach with a bucket of magic mushrooms and a personal guru.

We can allow the moon to inspire us without believing that it speaks.

Hope-based delusion keeps us at the roulette table in a thousand ways. Everybody has private visions of their heart’s fondest desire. We live either frustrated or contented to the extent that we find ways to pursue such things. And as Tesla taught us, the object of our pursuit isn’t what matters, rather it’s the balance of those forces driving us. We all run from demons of memory, striving to avoid repeating them. But if that fear makes us embrace false reassurance, denial becomes our undoing – just as it was for Tesla.

It’s a fundamental struggle. We have the better angels of our nature to show for the sake of feeling proud of ourselves. But we’re never far from the private demons we carry in cruel memories of things we want very much to avoid. The demons do their work when we flee them so hard that we stop looking ahead to watch for tricks and traps. We think we flee the demons while we leap into their arms.

Tesla dodged his demons by living an excessively honorable life compared to the social mores of his day, as if his show of faith proved the demon’s condemnation wrong. He pursued that angelic image so hard that he was blind to cautionary cues a much slower person would never miss. We, too, can hear encouragements or threats in idle conversations, guaranteeing that we read things wrong and dream of success while choosing disaster.

But when we immerse ourselves in a great story about an amazing individual such as Nikola Tesla, who fought every day to balance his need to achieve greatness with the need to accurately read the world’s signals, we sharpen our own skills at the same thing. A muse exists for each of us in the form of that abiding dream that quickens our heartbeat and sends us far out of our way to get closer to it. We serve that muse best when we dare to read our strengths and weaknesses in terms of what we’ve seen about them in our past, to predict how we should handle them in the future, leaving the magical thinking to the magicians.

The ability to make that distinction would have radically altered Tesla’s life. We’ll never know how much more creative output he might have brought to the world if he hadn’t tried to poison his demon with delusions of goodness.

When we chose wrong, meaning when we believe in ourselves too little or too much, we can take comfort in our own versions of a creative muse, in a force that inspires. That inspiration serves as a reminder, a compass check. So too in dealing with the world. The never-ending dance moves back and forth across the floor, toward and away from our goals, from our dreams. Demons of memory chase us in one direction while our inspired selves spin away in the other.

Tesla’s personal story takes place behind his eyes. Its power is delivered by what we learn about ourselves while we follow his journey from within his mind, observing his constant struggle to balance the scale within himself, and so learning more about our own. It’s a conversation of blades between what we fear, what we know, and what we wish. Its power captures and holds us while years flow by, while mortal partners come and go. It’s an endless courtship. A romance of the mind.  

The black hand of La Cosa Nostra meets the sinister underworld of an equally Machiavellian, Mexican drug cartel. Where Faustino, an up and coming Wall Street stockbroker, is living his dream of wealth, status and power. A man who long ago swore himself to a single end: to escape like a pursued criminal the poison barbed tentacles of the poverty from which he arose. His success, is perpetually shadowed by Paul Banelli, best known as don Banelli, who reigns as the capo di tutti capi—boss of all bosses—of the ever notorious La Cosa Nostra.
His relationship with the Don turns precarious when Michelle Banelli—the precocious, pressing, and alluring only daughter of the mob boss—sets her sights on more than just fashion, high society, and, of course, being the apple of her father’s eye. She decides that for long enough her and Faustino have toyed with the faux indifference and lie that nothing more than a platonic, sibling-like affection exists between them. Her carelessness leads Faustino into a quagmire of blackmail, kidnapping and murder, where to survive he must forfeit the life and position he has worked so hard to attain. He now flees, not only poverty, but a vendetta, that will stop at nothing to devour him.
Faustino heads for the border, hoping to lose himself among his native roots: Mexico. In doing so he turns his back on everything, that up until now, has defined him; all to submerge and disguise himself in the very poverty he vowed never to return to. Where he soon finds himself tangled and quartered in between a friendship more akin to a brotherhood; an unspoken but ever-present debt of gratitude and fealty for don Banelli; a Mexican drug lord, Enrico Mezón, who despite being a sociopath, possesses the keys to his aegis; and finally, the mesmerizing niece of Enrico, who will stop at nothing to possess his affection, control his mind, and own his heart—a heart that little does she know belongs to another. Calling to task years of the Don’s tutelage, bringing to fruition a kind of iron-willed mental acuity of purpose and determination to overcome the jockeying oppositions threatening from every side. Learning first hand, that true greatness is never achieved outside of adversity.
With one hand he dips into the truth of his past, discovering a secret that up until now the Don has guarded with unflinching resolve; with the other he seizes the tainted opportunity from the blackened hand of the Mezón cartel: taking it upon himself to bridge a chasm of distrust, greed, and mutual animosity between two crime families. An endeavor that will demand his acquired acumen and finesse in finance along side the wicked statesmanship of Machiavelli himself, so as to appease two masters with one life. Suddenly he’s stuck in a tug-a-war between his own desires and a duty to a way of life not entirely his own. A way of life bound by Omerta, a code of silence and honor, where the only vindication from betrayal...is death.

 

www.amazon.com~The-Consigliere

NAFTA’s Lie is Mexico’s Truth by Mario "El Gecko Gomez"

In November of 1993, the Clinton administration promoted a media Blitz on a two-thousand page bill set to impose momentous and unorthodox changes to the relationship between popular sovereignty and capitalism, with deferment going to the latter. The legislation was clandestinely drafted, without the benefit of public hearings or Democratic debate, then presented to the House of Representatives with a “fast-track” proviso that it be voted on without amendment and with only two days set aside for debate. The result was the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

At the time of this legislation I had just arrived at NYU from Mexico City to study finance and economics at Leonard N. Stern School of Business. NAFTA was a major topic of discussion in and out of classroom. Professors spoke of NAFTA as a breakthrough for economic progress bent towards the social political stability of the region; touted as a cure for “Mexico’s economic backwardness,” that would offer the chance for a more benign relationship between Mexico and its stronger northern neighbors. The agreement would help to offset Mexico’s problems of hyperinflation, foreign debate, unequal wealth distribution and political instability.

As the only Mexican national in my classes, I was often called upon by professors or classmates to validate the open assertion that the trilateral trade agreement would dig Mexico out of it’s economic rut.

I mostly nodded in agreement. After all, the way NAFTA was presented in both the media and the classroom made it sound reasonable. The trade agreement would complement Mexico’s surplus labor with manufacturing technology and capital, causing Mexico to increase its productivity by further industrializing, thereby becoming more competitive in the global economy. Productivity and competitiveness would lead to a higher skilled labor force, causing wages to increase. Higher wages would give birth to a middle-class, expand education and labor related skills, fuel other economic activities, and ultimately slow migration to the United States.

What was not to like about the promised results?

Former president Bill Clinton assured the world that NAFTA was going to promote “more equality and better preservation of the environment and a greater possibility of world peace.” Clinton’s Mexican counterpart, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, said that beyond creating jobs it was “an environment improvement agreement…a wage-increasing agreement.”

However, when I returned to Mexico for my graduate studies, my eyes were opened to a much different reality: NAFTA was not fostering meaningful and inclusive economic development or growth—i.e., reducing unemployment, under employment and poverty—it was doing just the opposite. The truth of the matter was all around me: Rising crime, rampant poverty, and growing inequality were just some of my immediate observations. And time, loss, and further observation has confirmed these doubts.

Official statistics show that from 2006 to 2010, more than 12 million Mexicans joined the ranks of the impoverished, causing the poverty level to reach 51.3 percent of the population. And what of the job creation mentioned by Presidents Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Bill Clinton?

According to recent data, dozens of U.S. companies have moved into Mexico. Thanks, in part, to a report released by the McKinsey management consulting firm, claiming that “for a company motivated primarily by cost, Mexico holds the most attractive position among the Latin American countries we studied…[starting] with low labor costs.”

In response, companies like Walmart (now Mexico’s largest private employer), Frito-Lay, Pepsi, Citigroup, Fruit of the Loom, and Blockbuster all have Mexican operations. A development that has caused NAFTA advocates and capitalist enthusiasts to champion other trade deals, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), with an aim of making more developing nations subservient to U.S. led neoliberal ideologies and “free trade” economics. And this, despite startling data that shows how NAFTA policies have only benefited a few to the detriment of the many.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, manufacturing workers in Mexico made an average hourly wage of only $4.53 in 2011, compared to $26.87 for their U.S. counterparts. Between 1997 and 2011, the Mexican-U.S. manufacturing wage gap close by only 4 percent. By comparison, manufacturing workers in Brazil earn double their Mexican counterparts while Argentinians earn triple.

NAFTA promised a flourishing North American economy that would benefit all. However, after two decades, the promised benefits are nowhere to be seen. Instead we’ve seen good jobs vanish, income inequality worsen, public services weaken, and our food insecurity and health concerns increase.

The influx of American corporations into Mexico, in search of cheap labor, has meant the displacement of millions of farmers and increased migration to the United States. Furthermore it has made Mexico more dependent on the U.S. in critical areas such as food, security, finance, and overall Democratic development.

According to a recent U.N. report, Mexico has now surpassed U.S. in terms of obese and overweight residents—32.8 percent of Mexicans, compared to 31.8 person of Americans. And the report cited the obvious as a principle cause: more processed in calorie-rich food, coming from a higher concentration of commercially available snack food.

NAFTA supporters often point to Mexico’s growing middle class as evidence of the trade agreement’s success. In the recent book, Mexico: A Middle Class Society, NAFTA negotiator Luis De La Calle and his co-author Luis Rubio, argue that the trade agreement “has dramatically reduced the costs of goods for Mexican families at the same time the quality and variety of goods and services in the country grew.” Apparently this is what “middle class” equates to: more purchases being made at discount prices. And this, while the evidence surrounding the vast majority of the Mexican populace tells an altogether different story.

Mexico, during Felipe Calderon’s presidency, yielded the slowest growth since 1954. A paltry average of 1.58 percent from 2007 to 2011, and, between a similar time period, GDP per capita decreased by 3.71 percent. Performance that places Mexico amongst the worst performers in Latin America. Add to these numbers the fact that twenty-eight million Mexicans face “food poverty,” and more than 50,000 died of malnutrition during Calderon’s presidency, and what you have is a dire situation that makes Mexico’s U.S. instigated drug war look like a footnote to an otherwise dysfunctional nation.

NAFTA has also permitted the “Walmartization” of Mexico. The trade agreement was signed there were only 14 Wal-Mart retail stores in all of Mexico. Today there are more than 1,724 retail and wholesale stores under the Wal-Mart brand. Is this something to be celebrated? The fact that a country like Mexico is now importing traditional food staples, such as tortilla chips and salsa, from California and Texas, has only served to fatten corporate pockets at the expense of the millions of displaced, small-scale farmers and producers. A disgrace that NAFTA advocates don’t speak of.

And what of the high-tech jobs promised to Mexicans?

Companies like Plantronics, Google, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Dell Computers do in fact have operations in Mexico. But together they employee less than 7000 people throughout the entire country. The reality is that most of the employment born from NAFTA is not much better than the sweatshop operations in China.

To say the least, the socio-economic and political benefits are elusive. Billionaire businessmen like Carlos Slim and Michael S. Dell have certainly benefited. But the majority of Mexicans have only seen stagnated wages, skyrocketing inequality, and increased dependency on the U.S. The “growing middle-class” in Mexico is not “turning Mexico into a more democratic, dynamic and prosperous American Ally,” as it was irresponsibly reported in The Washington Post. But unfortunately this is the lie most accepted and therefore the sad reality we live with as truth.

Bio

Mario Gómez was born in 1975 and studied finance and economics at NYU, UNAM, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and ITAM, Instituto Techológico Autónomo de México; his principle residence is in Mexico City, but also resides in NYC and Bogotá. Professionally his expertise resides in finance—brokerage, asset management, estate planning, and venture capital—from NYC, Mexico City, to Medellín. A career path and culmination of experiences that indoctrinated him into the obdurate underworlds of the Western Hemisphere, propelling him to write his first novel, The Consigliere 2011. Now dedicated to activism, he devotes himself to volunteer work, philanthropy, education, and social change—mostly throughout Latin America. He enjoys scuba, sand castles, and triathlons. His highest aspiration—laughter.

Twitter: @geckogomez

FaceBook: Mario "Gecko" Gómez 

GoodReads: Mario Gomez

Website: www.geckogomez.com

Reviews for TAN and THE GOLDEN GRAVE

THREE REVIEWS FOR TAN:

Best in a long time, February 14, 2013

By

Voracious Reader – See all my reviews

This review is from: Tan – A Story of Exile, Betrayal and Revenge (Kindle Edition)

My Review: It has been awhile since I read a book I had trouble putting down at bedtime. This book is one of those. From the beginning I was drawn into the lives and world of the people of the early days of the IRA. From Liam getting run out of town to the final scene I was hooked. You always want all of the good, fight for the right, characters to end up happily ever after however since this is historical fiction you know they can not. You suffer the sadness and horror they go through while fighting for their independence from the brutal rule of the British. It is one of the best historical novels I have read in a long time and I was not ready for it to end.

 *****

REVIEW FROM AMAZON Grabs you and doesn’t let go until the final page!, October 12, 2012

By

Jim L. Wright “Jim L Wright” (Amman, Jordan) – See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Tan – A story of exile, betrayal and revenge (Kindle Edition)

I’ve just finished reading David Lawlor’s TAN and frankly I’m all done in! On page one I was transported to Balbriggan, Ireland in 1914 and thence to the Continent for the first World War and back again to Ireland for a horrifying story based on factual events.
Lawlor is a masterful storyteller and I was scarcely able to put his book down for meals or sleeping. Each character in this tale became real for me. I endured their fears and felt the bile of anger and frustration rising in the back of my throat. I smelled the cordite hanging in the air after a pitched battle, and fell exhausted back into my chair.
The awful history of the Tans meting out their twisted sense of “justice” in occupied Ireland is a story well known to all. In TAN, David Lawlor has made it personal and real. It isn’t without its moments of levity though; there were smiles and laughter enough.

I did need to look up, and clarify a few Irish slang terms early on but it didn’t detract from the story at all. I’m not even certain looking them up was necessary for the enjoyment of the story. That’s just my way. The pace of the tale is tight and well written with little “cliff hangers” tossed in here and there that made me more and more anxious as the story progressed. The immensely satisfying ending left me with an enormous smile on my face despite the fact that I am sorry to be saying farewell to a group of characters I quickly came to love.

This book is a definite 5 star read that I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who enjoys history, action, and mystery/suspense. Get it. Read it. You’ll love it!
*****

Gripping historical fiction, February 7, 2013

By

Carol Bodensteiner (Iowa) – See all my reviews

This review is from: Tan – A story of exile, betrayal and revenge (Kindle Edition)

TAN is a gripping novel that begins before World War I and continues into the Irish War of Independence. Framed for a crime he didn’t commit, Liam is exiled to England and endures five years of trench warfare in France before making his way back to his homeland as a member of the infamous Black and Tan forces, a group that served as a brutal strong arm force for the English crown. Stationed in his hometown of Balbriggan, Liam is forced to confront his own divided loyalties, as well as those of his own family, and face the brute who framed him.
Lawlor is a fantastic storyteller. He created characters I cared about, crafting even minor players in ways that made them memorable and real. I was pleased to find that the women in the story were written with substance and compassion. Lawlor builds the action in scene after scene in a way that makes the book hard to put down. Fortunately the frequent battle scenes that create an abundance of tension and anxiety are balanced with moments of humor.
The author’s sympathies are clearly with the Irish, but the story fairly points out that both sides in a war are capable of brutality, both sides have legitimate points of view. Because Liam’s own brother sides with the British, readers face the complicated reality of families torn apart by war. No one gets off easily in this one.
Many characters speak in Irish vernacular, which took me a while to settle into, but which ensured I was immersed in Ireland. The dialect didn’t get in the way of enjoying the story, since it could all be understood in context.
TAN made me want to know more about the Irish War of Independence. Lawlor has me eager to read his next book.
*****
THREE REVIEWS FOR THE GOLDEN GRAVE:

An entertaining way to learn history. May 11, 2013

By Mary Crocco

A post WW1 impressive historical novel and the sequel to `Tan’, The Golden Grave picks up with Liam Mannion in search of gold. A train cargo packed with enough bullion bars to persuade Liam and his war buddy to return to the horrific battlefields of France once again.Gold wasn’t the only lure; there is a gold seeking, conniving bitch named Sabine, a former lover of Liam, who has recruited a group of servicemen to carry out her dirty work.Lawlor takes his readers back in time by reliving the horrors during battles. Buried bodies, active explosives, and weapons all come alive in their search for gold. The stench and sight of war being thrown in their faces make the men sick and twisted with greed. Everyone has a plan, there are secrets and lies, and this is what kept me engaged from page one.
What differentiates a good book from a great book is unpredictability. The Golden Grave is packed with surprises throughout the story, none of which takes away from the historical details.
Who ends up with the gold, if anyone? Was it worth the return to hell?
I recommend The Golden Grave to readers who enjoy a great historical novel; it’s an entertaining way to learn history.

Splendid 20 April 2013

By diebus

“Golden Grave” by David Lawlor is a splendid thriller in a very interesting historical setting.
A prologue introduced the title theme with a short and gripping description of a train journey in Flanders in 1917. Loaded with a special “24 carat” cargo the train comes under fire and comes to an unscheduled stop.
Jumping forward in time to 1920 the author `returns’ to Liam, hero of his previous book, “Tan”, a man on the run from the law. Wanted by the police in Ireland he fled to Liverpool, where he meets up with Ernie, a soldier friend of his who has plans to go to France to locate the gold lost somewhere on the battlefields in France, asked for help in this matter by the dubious Sabine Durer.
The relationship between Sabine and Liam is complex as they once had an affair that he ended but Sabine needs the soldiers to find her locate the treasure.
This part of the novel is my favourite part, as Lawlor describes in great detail and with a lot of knowledge the aftermath of the war: the recovery of corpses, made difficult by the likely presence of unexploded mines and explosives. It is an interesting aspect of war that is lesser known and handled in literature.
It is made all the more real and emotional by the fact that the soldiers now digging once were on these battle fields and every corpse they find could be one of their old mates. As they are literally and metaphorically digging the relationships, both between the group and with other people in the area become more tense and filled with distrust. If the gold is discovered, who will have their share in it?
Lawlor is a formidable historian who knows and writes well about the weaponry and the way we would have to imagine the battle fields so soon after the war but he also has created a set of intriguing characters that can drive the plot forward easily and at the same time keep the suspense. I found myself quite drawn into the unfolding events and turns, some obvious and others more unexpected.
Having read and enjoyed “Tan”, the first instalment of this series, I found this book a great sequel in that it built cleverly on Liam’s past but took us into an unexpected direction. Lawlor’s command of English is immaculate, resulting in great and realistic dialogue and a descriptive style that brings the scene to the eye like a movie script, in fact, I could easily see this book being made into a very successful film.
This book is great entertainment as a thriller as well as a piece of history and if you like a good treasure hunt or enjoy novels set in the past then this is a must read. It is hugely enjoyable.

Cracking yarn, hits all the right notes: characters, action, intrigue, setting, April 29, 2013

By

Scott Whitmore

This review is from: The Golden Grave (A Liam Mannion Story) (Kindle Edition)

Review is based on a copy of the novel provided by the author for that purpose.
What would it take to convince a group of British ex-servicemen to return to the killing fields of Flanders after the Great War? The very location where, just two years earlier, they had endured a hellish, kill-or-be-killed existence in the trenches, knee-deep in stinking mud, senses assaulted by the pounding of artillery, and surrounded by the dead — many whose bodies were violently torn apart by shells and bullets, taking part in futile mass charges into spitting machine guns, choking on mustard gas.
What would it take? Why, gold of course. Enough of the precious metal to set a man up for a lifetime of luxury, enough to make him forget the horrors he experienced — and continues to live through in heart-stopping nightmares — in the very same clay he’ll have to dig through to recover that gold.
In “The Golden Grave,” David Lawlor (@LawlorDavid) has once again written a cracking yarn set during the post-war period, filled with exciting action, intrigue and well-drawn characters led by Liam Mannion, the protagonist of the author’s debut novel, “Tan” (see my review).
Liam, who is on the run from the British after his actions as a member of the Irish Republican Army, and his mates embark on the adventure at the behest of Sabine, a stunning temptress who ran a bar behind the lines where British soldiers would go to enjoy a brief respite from the mayhem of the front. Many a man had his eye on Sabine, and she was more than happy to encourage their interest while selling them beer and cigarettes.
Sabine’s a survivor who just happens to know about a shipment of gold that went missing in the aftermath of the British offensive on Messines Ridge, which has been called “the greatest mining attack” in history. Nineteen large mines were detonated within seconds of each other along a narrow front, temporarily collapsing German resistance as well as the bunker hiding the gold.

There are several sub-plots in play and Mr. Lawlor does an exceptional job keeping the reader in suspense, never giving too much away while at the same time letting us know things are not what they seem. Although the pace of the story moves smoothly, the truth is revealed slowly, to great effect, and there are more than a few surprises in store right up to the end.

The author sets a wonderful scene, especially in the ruined battlefield. Two years after the war life is returning to normal, but the scars are never far from view: flowers bloom around shell holes and livestock graze in fields lined by trenches choking with skeletal bodies and discarded war equipment. The war also left indelible marks on the men who fought it, from the aforementioned nightmares to other, more serious behaviors. As he did in “Tan,” Mr. Lawlor explores the emotional cost of the Great War, which for many men was both the greatest and most exciting undertaking of their lives and the most horrible.

“The Golden Grave” is a deeply satisfying story that hits all the right marks: action, adventure, plot twists and surprises, great setting, a bit of romance and memorable characters. I loved it and recommend it wholeheartedly. I became a fan of Mr. Lawlor after reading “Tan,” and hope he keeps writing stories like that and “The Golden Grave.” For more from him, check out his blog, HistoryWithATwist.wordpress.com.

TAN SYNOPSIS:

Peelers have a knack for hitting you where it hurts; broken nose, bruised ribs, a few loosened teeth...no more than a rapist deserved, Sergeant Coveney and District Inspector Webber had said. Proper order, too - except the lad was no rapist, and Webber knew it.’

It’s 1914 and Liam Mannion is forced into exile for a crime he didn’t commit. He flees Balbriggan, the only home he has ever known and travels to England, where he enlists and endures the torment of trench warfare in France. Five years later he’s back in England, a changed man, living in the shadow of his battlefield memories. Liam finds work in a Manchester cotton mill but prejudice and illness soon see him destitute. Starving and desperate, he enlists in a new military force heading to Ireland - the Black and Tans - and is posted to the very town he fled as a youth.

While he has been away Liam’s childhood friends have joined the republican cause, while his brother has allied himself to the Crown forces. Liam must wrestle with his own conflicted feelings about duty to the ruthless Tans and loyalty to his friends. The potent combination of ambition, patriotism and betrayal collide, forcing him to act as he comes face to face with the man who spread lies about him all those years before.

http://goo.gl/KMyXo

Link to reviews for Tan http://goo.gl/FWcsy )

THE GOLDEN GRAVE SYNOPSIS: 
1920 – Former British soldier turned republican fighter Liam Mannion is on the run with a price on his head. He looks up with old comrade Ernie Wood, who is being lured back to the battlefields on the Western Front in search of lost gold.
The source of the story is Liam’s former lover, Sabine Durer, who ran a soldier's bar close to the frontline. Blinded by thoughts of her and buried treasure, Ernie and Liam enlist three other ex-soldiers to find it.
. What starts out as a simple excavation soon becomes much more. Wartime memories and old rivalries are resurrected. The men discover that Sabine has not told them the whole story and that their lives are in danger, but who can you rely on when greed and lust cloud your judgment beneath Flanders' fields?

http://goo.gl/guwml

Link to reviews for The Golden Grave http://goo.gl/rktAZ )

 

Twitter: @LawlorDavid

Website: historywithatwist.wordpress.com

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