NOTES ON THE LITERARY LAPSES

I'm hearing a lot about confusion in the relationship between the dead man and his coroner.  Should I have put more emphasis on their physical resemblance without giving away the plot? Like, yeah . . .

I think I got the all-important  feeling of "place" right, painting a tableau  of San Francisco's Inner Mission District, but fell short in placing the story in a time frame that defines  the action. I got the phases of the moon precisely correct but left it to the reader to figure what year it was. Duh!

Here's a big mistake: You don't hear about Barlow's abandoned  novel until the very end of the book. Even a hint or a minor mention of it would help foreshadow the denouement, particularly where the medical examiner's office is concerned. My bad.

Gee, I left out the giant Ikea store on the northern rise of the Grapevine, a landmark of realism and orientation.

The "fugue."  I didn't give the reader a chance to think about that as an explanation for the dead man's state of mind. Darn!

Consider the novel. Under Construction.