While the future is yet to be and the present is the reality of now and the past has grown dim among the electric ghosts of memory, there remain some vivid apparitions that continue to haunt us: people, acts, events and places we seem unable to disown, no matter how we might wish to. For writers, this happens to include at least some of their works.
This is not always unpleasant.
By way of example, let me take you to an evening a few years ago in the seaside city of Santa Monica. The town is somewhat of a Southern Californian enclave for English expatriates who seek proximity to an ocean that has the benefit of something sorely lacking in their island nation—sunshine.
As it happens, I was with a friend at an English pub, a local landmark, purveyor of Watney’s beer on tap, authentic fish with honest-to-God beer batter and chips as crisp as crackers on the outside and as soggy as bread pudding inside, dart boards on the walls and soccer on the telly.
An employee shift ended and a handful of waitresses alighted at the table beside us for a drink. We began to talk, the usual ritual that began with banter and moved to more meaningful conversation. I noticed though that one of the young ladies seemed despondent. Apparently in her mid-twenties, she remained aloof from the increasingly lively conversation, staring into her glass of gin and tonic as if blaming it for her life.
It was death that was on her mind, I discovered.
When I asked the woman beside me what was troubling her friend, she whispered. “Her brother. He just died in a car accident. They were really close.”
Silence and withdrawal is seldom therapeutic, so I leaned over to the woman, whom I shall call Pat, and said, “I heard about your brother. I’m sorry, Pat. It’s a terrible thing to lose someone you love.”
Those simple sentiments unloosed a torrent of words. She told me about the accident, about the promising future that had been cut short, about her love and admiration for her brother. She told me without grief, simply glad of the opportunity to talk about it. Apparently, out of misplaced concern, her friends had been avoiding the subject.
“So how are you feeling about it now?” I asked Pat, when she finished speaking.
She looked at me, then said with a sharp nod, “I’m okay now.”
She gazed down at her glass, hesitated, then said slowly, “About ten years ago, when I was still a kid in England… I read a book that I never forgot. I’ve been thinking about it and it helped me. It was a story about reincarnation. About how people never really die.” Wringing the glass between her fingers she looked up at me, almost defiantly. “I believe it, and I know my brother is all right now.”
“I’m sure he is,” I said. “He’ll soon be running around in diapers, giving his parents a hard time.”
Her eyes lit up. “You believe that?”
“Of course,” I said. “It makes complete sense to me. What was the book you read?”
“A lovely story. Called… called Always.”
It was, as they say, one of those moments.
I am, as my friends will vouch, seldom speechless. But I had no idea what to say. “Oh? I wrote that book,” seemed too direct and, I was afraid, too unbelievable.
“Do you remember the author’s name?” I asked.
She shook her head. “It was… I can’t remember.”
“Was it Trevor Meldal-Johnsen?”
“Yes! The double-barreled surname!” she said, using the English term for a hyphenated last name. Then she asked disbelievingly, “You read the book too?”
I did what seemed to be the only thing to do then: I opened my wallet, took out my driver’s license and laid it on the table in front of her.
“I wrote it,” I said.
While few of the stories about readers of Always were as dramatic, response to this book was overwhelming. Unlike any of the novels I have written since, this story seemed to touch people at the core of their being. The U.S. publisher said he had never received so many letters to an author. They were, I hope, all forwarded to me, for I answered all I received, moved by the readers’ reaction. Letters from readers in other countries were not forwarded, and for that I apologize.
I treasure the letters I received from readers after Always was first published. They were many and varied. There were some who were simply touched by the romance of the story, but there were others—the majority, in fact—who were intrigued and moved by the idea of “past lives,” which was the central theme of the book.
An elderly lady in Sacramento, California, for example, wrote and told me that she had recently lost her husband. Understandably, she had been crippled by the loss. Yet, after reading Always, she said, she had come to peace with his death. “I believe what you say is true. And, that being the case, he has moved on to create a new future, while I have still been fixated on the past. After reading your novel, I feel an almost inexplicable sense of relief. While I still love him, and miss him terribly, I know he would be very disappointed if I allowed that to adversely affect the rest of my life. Thank you.”
A thirty-year-old woman in Florida remarked that she had been living according to the advertising credo that “You only go around once in life.” After reading the book, she said, “The thought that I may come back and have to relive my mistakes of the past has given me a different view of what I do in the here and now.”
Then there was the medical doctor who said he found himself “looking at his patients in a different way.”
There were many more of course.
As I said, some were simply attracted to the romantic aspects of the story, principally the idea that love never dies. But a surprising majority were excited by the idea that they never die, that life is a continuum in which the individual simply moves from one body to the next and that we will be responsible for a long time for that which we do today.
Many asked if that was what I believed, or “Were you just writing a story?”
Yes, it is what I believe. In fact, it is not really a “belief” as such, but more a personal truth based on my own experience.
But whatever your beliefs, thank you for reading my book. I am grateful to have had this opportunity to bring it to an entirely new generation of readers. If you have any thoughts to pass on to me or any questions to ask, feel free to do so. I respect and value your communications and answer them all, whether they reach me by letter, e-mail, or pigeon.
My warmest regards,
Trevor Meldal-Johnsen