Written By Christel Larosière
The premise: Peter Thomas, a retired university professor, has just gone through a divorce. Years ago, when he was a newlywed in New York City, he wanted to attend the première of a movie featuring some of his favourite actors, but was prevented from doing so by his wife, who had read a disastrous review of the film in the New York Times. Thirty years later, he discovers that its cursed history has made it a cult movie for the new generations.
He purchases the video, watches it. It is all blood and guts, perversion and tasteless sex, every bit as bad as the review described it. However, he is astonished by the extraordinary beauty of Samantha Chadwick, the main actress – a complete unknown oddly surrounded by a myriad of international stars. He looks her up, trying to find out why she suddenly popped up on the screen, only to disappear again as quickly as she had emerged. In the process, he slowly uncovers the unique epic of a big-hearted adventuress, shrouded in heartbreak and mystery.
His obsessional quest prompts him to seek an encounter with Samantha (“Sam”), who now lives in Italy. Eventually, they meet in a Milanese café where they both reflect on their past lives and Peter in turn reveals his personal history, full of pathos, trauma and shameful secrets. They both realize the tremendous impact that sex had in their lives, and the fallacies and delusions it created. Digging deeper and deeper into the vagaries of their respective odysseys, they start suspecting that they actually met in the past, and (almost) believing in it.
This is a story of reckoning and atonement, where two individuals take stock of their lives and try to make sense of the events they triggered – a craving for the truth and a desire to find a pattern, a direction in the chaotic events that made them what they are.
It is a story that tackles the smoke and mirrors which blur the boundaries between desire and love.
It is a dialogue between a man and a woman who are, each in their own way, tired of the role that society had them play and craving for the truth, eager to discover the human beings that hide behind the masks. It is a story about passion, obsession and delusion. It is all about weakness and self-indulgence. It is also the saga of an era, of a time forever gone, with its myths, its philosophy, its way of life, its historical figures and its hagiography. It is the snapshot of a few years that were decisive in the history of movies. It is the story of an investigation, the patient piecing together of a biography that was destined for several decades to remain in the darkest recesses of human memory.
It is a moral tale about the passing of time and what it leaves in its wake. It is a story of self-redemption.
This book is all of that, but remarkably, on the emotional level it is also a love story, infinitely romantic and surprisingly youthful. If for no other reason, it should be read and savoured.
Sam’s Orchid, by Daniel Soha. Soon to be offered on Amazon.
Available at Mosaic Press for pre-orders.https://mosaicpress.ca/products/sams-orchid.
