Return to The Quarry

Bonus Feature: Bizarre, Yet Bonafide Facts

When composing Return to The Quarry, I'll admit I took readers on a rollercoaster of storytelling.  It may come to surprise you that some of the things mentioned in the story, as outlandish as they may seem, are true.  Here are 9 Bizarre, Yet Bonafide Facts from Return to The Quarry:  

1.)  While Isla De Metilo, the island on which Deirdre and Eoin built a hideaway never existed, the Santa Barbara Earthquake of 1925 certainly did. Though it is considered a rare phenomenon, islands have been known to be swallowed up by earthquakes.

2.)  I mention the road on which Hackett's Quarry is situated as being "NY 30".  This highway actually exists, and is the main route that runs through the Catskill region of New York State, all the way up to the US-Canadian border.  Many fans of The Quarry have placed North Kill someplace in the Pacific Northwest, but for several reasons, the Catskill region is the most likely setting.  Also, during an interview, actor Zach Tinker (Jacob) read from the original script and mentioned the characters Max and Laura driving on NY 30.  

3.)  Quarries, especially in areas where winter temperatures went below freezing, did use methyl alcohol for the reasons described in this work.  

4.)  Also, during prohibition, unscrupulous bootleggers were known to cut their products with all sorts of chemical additives, including formaldehyde.  A bar owner in New Orleans once stated that the invention of the "cocktail", mixing liquor with various things to produce different flavors, came about as a way of masking the taste of these awful additives.  Whether or not this is true, a Ken Burns documentary on prohibition claimed that roughly 1,000 people died annually during the 13 year span from drinking tainted alcohol.  

5.)  The diary in which the character Deirdre writes bears the name Fowler Brothers.  This is because Fowler Brothers bookstore and stationery shop was a real place, and was arguably Los Angeles' longest-operating stationary shop.  Operating from 1888 to 1994, ledgers from the shop showed that it was frequented by some of Hollywood's golden age elite, including John Philip Sousa, author Zane Grey, aviator Charles Lindbergh and actors Tom Mix and Douglas Fairbanks. Customers in later years included then-governor and later Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.  On a darker note, Fowler Brothers is believed to be the last place the ill-fated director William Desmond Taylor visited with his friend, actress Mabel Normand, the night before his murder in 1922.   The character Ginny Brown mentions Taylor when trying to decide on a subject for her next book.  

6.)  Throughout the story, the character Abi focuses on architectural aspects of Stone Cutter's Lodge Resort that remind her of the Prairie Style of Frank Lloyd Wright.  When the hotel burns, the ghost of Deirdre warns her not to escape through an obviously unscathed exit by mentioning Taliesin.  What is written in that part, sadly, actually happened.  On August 15, 1914, Wrights home called Taliesin was burned, during which the people trapped inside - Wright's mistress Mamah Borthwick, her 12 year old son and 9 year old daughter, and six of Wright's workers - were attacked with an ax.  During the attack, one of the two surviving workers claimed that he was able to escape through a window on the side of the house that was not burning, but that the butler, Julian Carleton,  struck down others who tried to escape that way.  Some believe that Carleton, widely presumed to be the attacker, was scapegoated, and never actually carried out the attacks.  

7.)  Not many realize that the film industry started in New York City, with Biograph Pictures working out of a Brownstone in Manhattan. It later moved out to California for a variety of reasons, starting out in Culver City.

8.)  Though a far cry from how movie sets look today, the description of the set, operating out of a converted barn, sets being built on orange groves, even tents or canvas dividers being set up for dressing rooms, is actually how they operated when films first began.  

9.)  Some might find it odd that the actors are doing their own makeup and hair on the lot.  This actually was the way it went in the early days of film, as they modeled the working practices for movies on those of live theatres, where actors do such things largely for themselves.  Also, it is mentioned that Deirdre paid her dressmaker to make her costumes for her.  This was common in the early days of film, and as it was contemporary tailors and dressmakers who made the costumes for the actors, even historical ensembles had a "1920s" look to them.  Formal studio costume production evolved from an unexpected source:  westerns.  To encourage stage actors from the East Coast to relocate to Hollywood so that the films had a lot of extras to work with, studios offered to furnish these actors with costumes so that they did not have to purchase them themselves - an attractive option if you were a struggling actor barely able to make your rent.