When Fiction Becomes Fact

By Jack Engelhard

My latest paperback novel, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” is a work of fiction. It’s about a hot love affair that gets interrupted when a third party intrudes with the intent of doing damage. It’s true that I based the female lead on someone I knew, and knew warmly, in Cincinnati, back in the days of my youth. That would be Stephanie Eaton, as I have her in the novel – high-born and high-class. She is so rich and so beautiful that she feels that nothing can ever go wrong. (Life is full of surprises.)

From there, however, the resemblance ends with the real person – I made up all the rest. In fact, I made up Stephanie Eaton strictly from my imagination, though surely there are many women who can say that they are the prototype for MP (those are the initials of the girl I originally had in mind, but that I changed for the sake of fiction).

I do not know what happened to MP. Is she still in Cincinnati? (All this was so many years ago.) Is she a mother, a grandmother? Is she married? How many different men did she marry? Is she – and I hate to ask this – is she still alive? The prototype for Maishe (my dear friend Moishe, whom I also fictionalized) – turned up gone for good when I accidentally found a listing along the Web. This was a sad discovery.

All this is by way of saying that since the novel came up on Amazon I’ve been asked by several readers where the truth ends and where the fiction begins. The answer is –I don’t know. I mean, even fiction has roots in reality. Sure, I invented most of it, but Stephanie Eaton is such a strong feature in the novel that I must admit that I’ve lost my place – and some readers have even suggested that they knew the real woman that I had in mind; and they’re glad and grateful (and flattered) that I brought her “back to life,” speaking of MP.

But MP (all right, I’ll give away her first name – Melanie) was fantasy when I wrote about her as Stephanie, and she was fantasy even during our Cincinnati romance.

As every novelist knows, you may start off with a real person in mind, but then literature happens; a new person emerges straight from your subconscious.

Yes, Melanie made this novel happen. I wrote this novel before I wrote anything else and kept rewriting it over the decades, which is another reason why I can’t be sure where the truth ends and where the fiction begins. There have been quite a few revisions. As I say in the book itself, in my Note from the Author: “Over the years (decades actually) I kept polishing it, nursing it, and nourishing it, always mindful that I mustn’t tamper too much, otherwise I’d lose the innocence, the youthfulness and even the heartbreak in which it was first written.”

Heartbreak is the key word here – heartbreak for the youth and beauty that happens only once and never comes round again. We only get one chance at this.

So I don’t know where Melanie is, but I do know that Stephanie Eaton is alive, very much alive, in these pages.

Fiction is often truer than life itself and in this instance Stephanie doubles for nobody. She is a woman all her own.

If Melanie were to come back, in the flesh, she’d have to compete with Stephanie, in the book, as to which was real, which was invented.

Both, however, are equally dear to me.

Novelist Jack Engelhard is the author of the international bestseller (and later, movie) “Indecent Proposal” and “The Bathsheba Deadline.” His latest novel, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” is available exclusively on Amazon. He can be reached at his website www.jackengelhard.com

Now on Amazon: "The Girls of Cincinnati"

Jack Engelhard’s new novel, The Girls of Cincinnati, is now available in paperback exclusively on Amazon. This love-story/thriller was published by an Amazon subsidiary.

What’s It About?

Eli Brilliant, young and handsome, is back home in Cincinnati after failing to make it in New York as an actor. Now he’s employed as manager of a phone soliciting operation for Harry’s Carpet City. The pits! He’s in retail, for gosh sakes. Only one person can save him from utter despair, the girl, the debutante, he left behind, Stephanie Eaton – or did she leave him? They’re in love, but something always happens to prevent them from making it click – and now, something truly menacing appears in the form of a woman who claims to have psychic powers and is out to get Stephanie. She threatens Stephanie (and thereby Eli) with a fate worse than death. Can Stephanie recover? Can Eli still love a woman after what happened?

A Review From Vince Mahoney

FANTASTIC FICTION

What a performance! This is another Engelhard gem. I admit it, I’m a fan largely through reading two of his other novels, The Bathsheba Deadline and that other classic that Hollywood turned into a blockbuster movie, Indecent Proposal. In this one, The Girls of Cincinnati, he’s given us something I never thought possible, a coming-of-age saga that’s also a thriller.

The plot here is riveting, as is usual in any Engelhard novel, and the characterizations are right-on, also as usual in an Engelhard novel. The dialogue sparkles. What’s it about? It’s about life. Anyone who’s been in love – especially love that appears to be out of reach -- will understand what’s going on between Engelhard’s two heroes, Eli Brilliant and Stephanie Eaton. Anyone who feels the approach of menace will understand what these two must endure when a crazed woman appears on the scene, threatening them both with “a fate worse than death.”

Anyone who works at a dead-end job will be right there with Eli, who ends up working for Harry’s Carpet City in Cincinnati, Ohio. Eli is back home in the Midwest after he failed to make it in New York as an actor. So that’s one dream down the drain. But now that he’s back in Cincinnati, he’s got Stephanie Eaton – or does he? Something always goes wrong between them, and this time, terribly wrong.

Engelhard gives us the heartland of America as it’s rarely been given to us before in literature. He gives us an unvarnished view inside the world of Sales and he gives us a broken-down old salesman that’s the equal of anything produced by Arthur Miller and David Mamet. Engelhard is most precious in his asides, his quick-cut commentaries.

In Eli Brilliant, Engelhard gives us a character, though young and handsome, that we can all identify with – especially when we find Eli always reaching for the unattainable. Yes, he’s a lover, a chick magnet – hence the title – but don’t be fooled. This character, and this novel, goes much deeper.

From start to finish, The Girls of Cincinnati is a triumph. – Vince Mahoney

(See John W. Cassell’s review on Engelhard’s Amazon product page for The Girls of Cincinnati.)

A Note from the author

This – The Girls of Cincinnati – is the first novel I ever wrote and I kept it in reserve all these years because first love comes around only once. I finally decided to let it go when it became obvious that I wasn’t getting any younger. Once your work gets published it’s no longer your secret. Over the years (decades actually) I kept polishing it, nursing it and nourishing it, always mindful that I mustn’t tamper too much, otherwise I’d lose the innocence, the youthfulness and even the heartbreak in which it was first written. We never want to get too sophisticated. I began writing it in New Jersey after departing Cincinnati for good, and leaving behind so many people that I knew, and one or two that I even loved.


About the Author

Jack Engelhard wrote the international bestselling novel Indecent Proposal that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. He has since enlarged his moral dilemma performance with The Bathsheba Deadline, which critic Letha Hadady has termed “a towering literary achievement.” His themes have been called “powerfully seductive” by The New York Times and his writing style has been acclaimed as “vivid, cool and muscular” by The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit his website www.jackengelhard.com