Ivan Obolensky

I grew up in an environment that was decidedly different from the majority of my peers. There were cooks, maids, butlers, and chauffeurs. Both my parents were socially prominent. I, however, was neither prominent nor innately social.

Academically, I was mediocre and tended towards the sciences, particularly physics, because I could do physics with a minimum of effort. I could write fairly well from an early age, but it was not my concentration. What I did like to do was read. I read everything, and if there is one factor that I can isolate as key to my education, it is that. Eventually, one knows good writing when one reads it. I also accumulated an extraordinary number of facts on a vast number of subjects.

As with most families, there are many stories told about the past. Ours was no exception. When I was a teenager my father told me that my grandmother had died while reading the "Egyptian Book of the Dead" and that she had been an Egyptologist. This was news to me as I had always considered her more a socialite and philanthropist. I also learned that she was fascinated by the occult and was a friend of Aldous Huxley.

Years later, I picked up the "W" magazine and an article about her speculated that she had been murdered. This, too, was news. I sincerely doubted that but it got me thinking about what would have happened if she had been, and why?

Not long after, I was asked by my wife to write articles on current events, economics, language, and other subjects to showcase the translation skills of her company. I would write a two-thousand-word piece, and then it would be translated into Spanish. It was the translation process that followed that made me a much better writer. The constant back and forth of queries forced me to write clearly in spite of the complexity of the subject matter that I took up.

I suppose I always wanted to write a novel, but novels, like my mind, can wander all over the place. I gave myself several constraints to ensure I focused on the story, which I hadn’t yet figured out. I restricted the action to five days, the length of a long weekend, and that the action should take place at Marienruh, the name of our family house in Rhinebeck, N.Y. I had heard many stories about it being haunted and decided that those elements should be included. Once I had the constraints in place, I wrote Chapter One at the top of the page and started in. What followed became "Eye of the Moon".

Following that award-winning novel, I decided to write a sequel as there were many fans clamoring for more. Since some loose ends existed in the first novel, I took the opportunity to tie them up and expand on certain themes. This effort became Book Two, "Shadow of the Son".