A good majority of the scenes within the novel take place at the Hutchins & Young Funeral Home. It’s a location I’m still trying to breath life into, and I’m more than open to suggestions, and especially criticism at this stage of the game. The following is an excerpt from Chapter 1, and is part of a series of posts aimed at introducing you to the locations and characters of The Funeral Diaries.

If you’d like to get in touch just email me: jasonevangelho@mac.com

#

The Hutchins & Young Funeral Home was a sprawling, three-story Victorian mansion, originally designed and built by J.C. Hutchins in 1899. The odd thing was, you couldn’t escape the feeling that, like the late English architect Richard Norman Shaw, he set out to build a simple Olde-English style cottage, and just kept expanding vertically and horizontally, with unlimited funds and a bold imagination. 

Sharply inclined rooftops of varying heights and unusual geometric shapes jutted skyward over almost every room on the third story. Ornate lattice railings enveloped seven separate porches. A circular tower with golden trim spiraled upward from the first floor. It had, in fact, been mistaken for a lighthouse on more than one occasion.

Inside the house, every room flaunted pastel colored walls and different paint textures. Chandeliers hung from 15 foot chains in the taller rooms with vaulted ceilings, and some rooms were lit by nondescript electric torches on the walls. The floors ranged from cobblestone, to emerald marble, to lush shag carpet, to simple linoleum. It was as if J.C. Hutchins designed each room of the house to fit a wildly broad spectrum of moods and emotions. 

The exterior color was a simple creamy white, in stark contrast to the intricate stained glass windows that stretched almost floor to ceiling in every room. The designs on said windows ranged from religious to cryptic. What was now the Chapel had solemn images of the Virgin Mary in shiny pastel robes, holding a baby Jesus atop a puffy white cloud and surrounded by reverent onlookers with beards and offerings. One of the windows depicted nothing more than a wooden goblet, underscored by the words “This is My Body.” 

The most peculiar stained-glass design, however, belonged to the window on the front of the Hutchins & Young property. It sat thickly embedded in the upper half of the fifteen foot high majestic oak doors. A simple scene, with a dark maroon background. Seemingly floating in the center, slightly tilted, was a faded brass urn. Engraved on the lower half of the urn was a strange circular symbol that pointed counterclockwise. Underneath the urn were pieces of wheat, gathered together by an imaginary wind, that formed the Latin phrase “ad vitam aeternam.” Translated into English - “To Life Eternal.” 

This first call is nothing like that! It’s a glimpse into my first novel, born of inspiration from working within this industry, a bit of imagination, and the end of a ten-year writer’s block which has finally been beat into submission. You can call it pre-release hype (I certainly will) but you can also view it as my own incentive to keep writing, keep producing, and keep trudging forward. I’ve announced it on Twitter, and Jasper (our main character) even has his own Twitter account. He’ll be giving you insights into the funeral industry as well as slices of the storyline.

So, the pages are getting filled, and the wheels are moving. 

But the question you have is “What is this book about, man!?” It all began in 1909, when J.C. Hutchins (thanks JC!) & Donald Young founded the Hutchins & Young Funeral Home in a quiet beach town called Moonstone, California. Both of them were wildly successful, and both of them harbored some extremely well kept secrets. Secrets that were, literally, cremated and buried with them. 

Flash to the present tense. Jasper Sorensen has just finished a four-year Funeral Director apprenticeship, becoming the first Director not carrying the founder’s surnames. While arranging a memorial service for his former boss, mentor, and grandson of the late Donald Young, Jasper unearths a series of cryptic clues from beyond the grave. Clues that lead to the discovery of that well kept secret. (And that secret? For now, let’s just say it’s life-altering. And potentially very bad for business.) After a series of unusually tragic deaths, Jasper decides to grudgingly take what he’s discovered for a test drive…

#

With that said, I’m grappling with whether or not to disclose the “main ingredient” of the novel. It’s a doozy, and reading a synopsis that spelled it out would hook you, but it would take away much of the suspense and surprise within. And without it, the summary seems rather “meh.” So, until this baby is finished, bear with me while I wrestle with that perfect “back cover” copy. Currently, I realize, it’s poopy crap!

And hey, thanks for showing up. In the coming weeks I’ll be revealing more of the characters, snippets of the novel itself, as well as some fun activities for us all to engage in. 

Stick around. Spread the word. 

http://feeds.feedburner.com/thefuneraldiaries