Apocrypha-lypso (2)

One day when cleaning your parents’ attic, you discover what appears to be your grandfather’s journal. You pore over it enthusiastically. It’s full of fascinating details you never heard from your parents about Grandpa’s travels, working life and relationship with his siblings.

But something about the journal is fishy. The child who sounds exactly like your father is named Carl rather than Clark, the account makes him out to be a cartographer rather than a stenographer, and the family home is a decaying mansion in New Iberia rather than a turn-of-the-century Boston townhome. Turning to the inside front cover of the journal, you discover what you are reading is actually your grandfather’s long-abandoned attempt at writing a novel.

You might feel something like me, immersed in the Book of Judith. Great story, but the details are all wrong.