Two Girls In A Hammock

SYNOPSIS

B.Traven is the subject of my recently completed novel.
Traven was the most mysterious writer of the last 100 years and one of the most successful. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre won 3 Oscars; Bridge in the Jungle was made into a film starring John Huston; 35 million copies of his books have sold; many of his works have been made into movies in Mexico and adapted to TV in Germany. Traven has been translated into 35 languages. And at least 12 books have been written about the mysterious identity of B.Traven.
As a supplementary disc which accompanies the Treasure of the Sierra Madre DVD, we see Robert Mitchum, John Huston, Lauren Bacall and Evelyn Keyes talking about the mysterious Traven (the name Traven was a pseudonym).

Six years ago I inadvertently discovered the true identity of B. Traven. My resultant essay was read by 12 prominent university professors all of whom agreed with my conclusion. Now I have written a novel on the subject. My initial essay was 35 pages. A second version of 65 pages was written as other material became available. Finally I wrote the novel, which I revised over several months in Amalfi earlier this year and stands at 185 pages.

The book begins in Montecito, Ca. in 1977; the unfolding story then takes the reader to southern Mexico and New Orleans around 1950. It deals with the HUAC and the black listing of screen writers, the Traven mystery, and the repatriation of a stolen Mayan codex.

The California author Jonah Raskin, famous as a chronicler of the Beat Generation, but also author of 'My Seach for B.Traven' (Methuen, 1980) has this to say of my novel:

"I love your story; great setting and terrific characters and definitely fun and entertaining to read – kept me alert and turning pages wanting to know where the tale would take me and how the threads would or wouldn't come together. I like the way you move through time and across continent. It's also tres sexy."

The man who I think was the author of the Traven books was the Danish archaeologist and Tulane department head, Frans Blom. Blom made many expeditions to the Mayan jungle for Tulane and spent the last years of his life in his fabulous house in San Cristobal de las Casas, in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Combining his fascinating life with Traven, creates a new and important persona in 20th century letters almost equal to that of E.M. Hemingway himself.