Friends, for too long we’ve had to deal with the frustration of alluding to this mysterious Peter figure without ever actually explaining anything about him. Chapter 31 was the first time you ever learned anything concrete about him, which is just way too late in the going. We recognize this was Bad Writing, and that it failed to generate a whole lot of curiosity from you the readership. Perhaps you understand the difficulty here - a past no one knows about, which the protagonist refuses to even really think about, even when he’s on his own. Well, finally we have stumbled on what will hopefully be a solution to the dilemma.
Here is a batch of letters that Herr Inspektor has been writing to Peter throughout the story. This is arguably a retcon, but you could also think of them as deleted scenes. We have not altered the main text of the story in any way, and these additions stand more or less on their own. They are all pretty short - some extremely short. You can read them all together in this bundle, or you can go back through the archives and reread them along with the main story to see how they affect the overall flow. The choice is yours.
- 1st Letter: 3 October 1929 (prior to Chapter One)
- 2nd Letter: 8 October 1929 (following Chapter Five)
- 3rd Letter: 15 October 1929 (following Chapter Ten)
- 4th Letter: 19 October (mid-Chapter Twelve)
- 5th Letter: 30 October 1929 (following Chapter Eighteen)
- 6th Letter: 1 November (following Chapter Twenty-Five)
- 7th Letter: 4 November (following Chapter Twenty-Seven)
- 8th Letter: 9 November (most recent update, following Chapter 35/Wie Oben, So Unten)
Or, proceed to the Story Archive.
PLEASE NOTE: In the case of Letter 4 and Chapter 12, the letter is being written in the midst of the action, necessitating a split of the chapter itself. It is now in two parts, with the letter in between. We realize this is slightly cumbersome, but that’s just the price one pays when putting an unconventionally structured novel on the internet, particularly on Tumblr.
Some questions you may have! Are these letters being sent? Is Peter receiving them? Does he reply? Have/will there been/be more of them? For those questions, we would like to offer you a beloved panel of a comic by the always brilliant Kate Beaton:
We hope you enjoy these, and would be very grateful for any and all feedback. We’re very curious to know how these go over and whether they improve your appreciation of our sad hero and his mysterious past.
There will be ONE MORE UPDATE before we go on a hiatus, which, we promise you, makes us very sad. But Emily just moved to a new city and is working on this whole “job” thing, and we’re gonna need some rest time to find our feet and get some stuff backlogged so we don’t fall miserably behind.
NEXT UPDATE (JUNE 10th): Back to the main story. As you might have guessed after reading these letters, Herr Inspektor is pretty much at the end of his rope. Chapter 36 contains some consequences.
