The 45-year-old virgin.

Happy New Year, everyone! It's the first day of a new calendar, and as such, of course I scurried happily to my computer this morning to see how The Ravenna Evans Series was doing thus far. Had I sold more books? Had I received any reviews?

In fact I did receive an Amazon review overnight, and a negative one at that. Now don't get me wrong: I appreciate any review, good or bad, because everyone is entitled to their opinion, and reviews are meant for potential readers, not authors.

But there were two little things in this review which irked me. I'll explain.

Firstly, it has been said that my heroine, Ravenna, is too virginal for a modern girl in her mid-twenties. Well, allow me to introduce myself: My name is J. Jay Kamp, and I am in fact the world's oldest living virgin at 45 years and counting. When I wrote the character of Ravenna, I was writing from personal experience; it was 1990 or so when I began penning The Last Killiney, and my brushes with boys (or anyone for that matter) had been limited to a handful of kisses and two embarrassing almost-sexual encounters. As a writer, I seek to imbue my work with as much realism and emotion as I can, and Ravenna was based almost entirely upon my own past. So to be told that no one could possibly be as virginal as Ravenna...that hurts. I was. I am. It happens to some girls, believe it or not, that they cannot find a man who rocks their world enough to give up their most precious of possessions: their first intimacy with another person.

The other minor detail mentioned in this review: the reviewer points out that I have committed a spelling error by naming a room in Wolvesfield House "the Saloon." Please understand this was not an error on my part. I did not mean to say "salon." Wolvesfield House was inspired by many English country houses, one of them being the very famous Saltram in Devonshire (now owned by the National Trust). There was a time when "saloon" was the proper term for a large great room (for more, see Life in the English Country House by Mark Girouard). Of course if there really are spelling errors in my books, I would be delighted to hear about them, so I can set the dogs on them and quietly exterminate the bejesus out if them, then re-upload the corrected document so no one else must suffer a novel full of typos. But when an error isn't really an error...that is a creature of a different color entirely.

Your comments -- and reviews -- are enthusiastically welcomed. :)

Johnny Depp, etc.

It's no secret that I adore Johnny Depp. I've been a fan ever since the opening moments of the first Pirates movie, when Jack Sparrow sashayed down the dock with that endearing wobbliness we've all come to know and love. In fact, that's when I began writing The Wager -- on the very night I returned from my first showing of Pirates in July of 2003.

So back in 1986 I had not yet discovered the unique and quirky charms of Mr. Depp. The television show that launched his stardom, 21 Jump Street, had not yet aired, and his movie debut, A Nightmare on Elm Street, was the type of film I avoided. Johnny was completely unknown to me when I made my first trip to England in late 1986, and it was then I began to recall a past life -- a life in which I was the loving wife of a handsome eighteenth-century Irish musician.

You see, much like my character, Ravenna Evans, in The Last Killiney, I remember my past life in Georgian London. I wrote a book about it (The Singer's Wife: The Reincarnation of Mary Carter), so I won't go into detail here, but suffice it to say that I've spent nearly twenty-five years proving to myself that my memories of that past life are real. I've kept notes, drawn pictures, and traveled extensively all over the UK, researching the husband that I remember. His name was Thomas Carter.

What does this have to do with Johnny Depp? Well, just this:


On the left is a poster for Johnny's 2006 movie, The Libertine. On the right is a poor likeness of Thomas Carter (my husband from the past life I remember) which I sketched in 1986. The drawing does not resemble Thomas Carter much, but there are certainly similarities with The Libertine press photo. One has to wonder if part of the reason I'm enamoured of Johnny in the first place is because of some resemblance in the cheekbones between past-life husband and modern inspiration. Thomas Carter's bone structure was pretty nice.

The Morning Walk

The Morning Walk by Thomas Gainsborough

In The Last Killiney, a painting serves as the heroine's wake-up call and cue that she has lived a past life in the eighteenth century:

Hanging in one of the many alcoves of the National Gallery, it had been a life-sized double portrait by John Singleton Copley that had stopped Ravenna dead in her tracks. Like many of its time, it featured a couple in fancy dress walking their dog. Never mind that the woman looked exactly like Ravenna; no, that wasn’t even the most disturbing thing about the picture. It was the husband in the portrait who had jarred her heart most. Just the sight of him had brought out an irrational response, a terrible sadness defying explanation. She’d felt friendship and loathing for him, each emotion as strong as the other. This was not the boy from Disneyland. This was not the Irishman. This new man, with his elegant, careful pose, was someone Ravenna had pitied, not loved.

Resonance, that’s the best way to describe it. It’d been as if there were a bridge between paint and flesh, a portal between that life and this one. Ravenna ached with misery as she read the picture’s title. “Lord and Lady Launceston, or ‘The Evening Walk,’ 1788. Wedding portrait of William and Elizabeth Hallett, donated by the Hallett family of Wolvesfield, Devon, 1840.”

In the original draft of The Last Killiney, this painting had instead been a very famous picture: The Morning Walk by Thomas Gainsborough. This huge double portrait had indeed jarred me during a trek through the National Gallery in one of my earlier vacations in London. It called to me the same way Copley's picture -- which doesn't exist, by the way -- called to Ravenna, alerting her that something about the painting applied to and resonated with her deepest soul. In my case, it reminded me of my past life as Mary Carter, who met her husband, Thomas, in the late 1780s -- the same era in which Gainsborough's portrait was made.

I later changed the picture in the story to a fictional one, with John Singleton Copley as the artist, as it turns out Gainsborough couldn't have painted a portrait in 1793 -- he was dead by then. But the names of the sitters remain in the story: Elizabeth and William Hallett. And, funny enough, the inspiration for William Hallett, or Christian as he's called in The Last Killiney, was the actor James Spader. Can you spot any resemblance between Spader and Hallett's portrait? In my mind, I'm sure they look exactly alike. :)

The Nimpkish River

In July of 1792, when Captain George Vancouver visited what is now called Broughton Strait, he encountered the people of the 'Namgis First Nation:

The next morning showed the village in our neighborhood to be large; and, from the number of our visitors, it appeared to be very populous....

The Ty-eie, or chief of the village, paid us an early visit, and received from me some presents which highly delighted him. I understood his name to be Cheslakees. He acknowledged Maquinna to be a greater chief; as he also did Wicananish; but, so far as I could learn, he did not consider himself to be under the authority of either. On inquiring if Maquinna was at the village, he answered in the negative, saying they seldom visited; and that it was a journey of four days across the land to Nootka sound, which from hence towards the S. S. W. is about twenty leagues distant.

Accompanied by some of the officers, Mr. Menzies, and our new guest Cheslakees, I repaired to the village, and found it pleasantly situated on a sloping hill, above the banks of a fine fresh water rivulet, discharging itself into a small creek or cove. It was exposed to a southern aspect, whilst higher hills beyond, covered with lofty pines, sheltered it completely from the northern winds. The houses, in number thirty-four, were arranged in regular streets; the larger ones were the habitations of the principal people, who had them decorated with paintings and other ornaments, forming various figures, apparently the rude designs of fancy; though it is by no means improbable, they might annex some meaning to the figures they described, too remote, or hieroglyphical, for our comprehension. The house of our leader Cheslakees was distinguished by three rafters of stout timber raised above the roof, according to the architecture of Nootka, though much inferior to those I had there seen in point of size; the whole, from the opposite side of the creek, presented a very picturesque appearance....

At the conclusion of this visit we were entertained at the house of an elderly chief, to whom Cheslakees, and every other person paid much respect, with a song by no means unmelodious, though the performance of it was rendered excessively savage, by the uncouth gestures, and rude actions accompanying it, similar to the representations I had before seen at Nootka. The song being finished, we were each presented with a strip of sea-otter skin; the distributions of which occupied some time. After this ceremony a song from the ladies was expected; and during this interval, I observed in the hands of the numerous tribe that now surrounded us, many spears pointed with iron, clubs, large knives, and other weapons with which they were not furnished on our first approach to the village. I was not altogether satisfied with this change in their appearance, though I had every reason to believe their intentions were of the most inoffensive nature, and that it was most probable they had thus produced their arms to shew their wealth, and impress us with an idea of their consequence; I deemed it, however, most advisable to withdraw; and having distributed the few remaining articles we had reserved, Cheslakees was informed I was about to return; on which he, with his relations who had attended us through the village, accompanied us to the sandy island, whither I went to observe its latitude.

Some few others of the Indians attended us on this occasion, whose behavior being orderly and civil, they were permitted to assemble round me whilst observing. They were excessively amused with the effect of the sun's rays through the reading glass; and the extraordinary quality of the quicksilver used for the purpose of an artificial horizon, afforded them the greatest entertainment, until our business was ended, when they in a very friendly manner took leave, and confirmed me in the opinion, that the martial appearance they had assumed, was purely the effect of ostentation.

- Captain George Vancouver, quoted from Vancouver's Discovery of Puget Sound by Edmond S. Meany, 1907.

In The Last Killiney, Paul is attacked by a First Nations party near the site of Vancouver's meeting with Cheslakees.



The village was called Xwalkw. Its location on the northern shore of the mouth of the Nimpkish River, or Gwa'ni, was along an important overland route between the First Nations groups of the Inside Passage and Nootka Sound, where most Europeans went to trade for sea-otter furs. Because this was a well traveled route, it was not a member of Cheslakees' village that attacked Paul. Instead, men from elsewhere were responsible, probably having heard of Vancouver's ship passing through the area and thinking that Paul was capable of repairing muskets. That's why no one in Xwalkw knew about Paul's death, or appeared hostile in the slightest when Vancouver went ashore.

Here's how the village would have looked when Vancouver visited, as portrayed by Jonathan Sykes, one of the voyage's midshipmen: