A Garfield Road Trip
There Is Pain Here has gotten some high praise from some very kind readers so far, on Amazon, for which I am very grateful. I hope that you will consider buying a copy to enjoy yourself, for which I will also be very grateful.
I am also grateful to James Garfield himself, in a way. I’ve never written a novel with a true historical figure before. And though There Is Pain Here is by no means historical in and of itself, much of what happens in it, and what i tried to convey through it leans heavily on aspects of a real, verifiable historical person.
To that end, later this week I’ll be taking a little road trip with some friends of mine to the James Garfield tomb. No mere tombstone, it is quite an ornate building, which artifacts and artwork inside honoring the 20th president of the United States. Going to visit it will, in a sense, complete a circle for me in the creation of this novel.
Not that I feel any intense pressure to do this. The tomb is in Cleveland, which from my home is about a six hour drive. Had it been in California, for example, I don’t see that I’d have been able to afford the trip, in money or time. I don’t think the spirit of James Garfield would expect that of me.
Nor indeed do I feel he “expects” even this trip. But if the man on whom I based a fantasy fiction can in any way detect a sort of nod of appreciation from me, wherever he now is, for letting me borrow certain aspects of his existence, it’s worth the ride and the one night stay in a hotel, I think.
My hope is to take some pictures of the trip, which I’ll post probably most often on my Instagram, but I may put a few here on the website as well.
Ty Unglebower 