The picture opposite, taken at a French pavement café is of a thirsty moi. We have just returned from a hot walk to the Sanctuary of Notre-Dame-de-Payragude which is perched on a crest (in the Celtic language a penn). The little hilltop village of Penne-d’Agenais harbours souvenirs of a particularly violent history.

Under the shadow of the solemn angel on the cathedral prow a centuries old cemetery, teeming with vast granite and marble tombstones inscribed with long-forgotten noble deeds and poignant messages of sorrow, overlooks the timeless Lot valley that stretches to the far horizon. For a moment, as the camera captures me looking elsewhere, I am still sitting on a low stone wall watching local men and women fill watering cans at an antiquated copper tap to water the flowering blooms planted in the graveyard where their dead lie, as generations before them have done.

THE GOOD CEMETERY GUIDE took shape out of moments like these. It is an entirely fictional tale of transformation, perhaps even metamorphosis. From lonely uncomfortable boy saddled with ‘the burden of history’ as a third generation undertaker-in-waiting to man with a mission, Anthony Loxton, Funeral Director extraordinaire by day and extreme accoustic guitarist by night, redefines his destiny with a little help from his friends, dead and alive and made of non fire-proof paper.

I grew to feel deep affection for the characters that drifted in from the salt-laden ether of of Kalk Bay (visited only in passing), as if I knew them personally and had not invented them. At a certain stage when the book seemed quagmired forever a voice spoke to me (was it from the great collective unconscious embedded in an electro-spiritual universe?) serenely instructing: “Listen To Your Characters”.

I let the idea of a web-site designed around the philosophy of THE GOOD CEMETERY GUIDE as embodied by Anthony Loxton slip away while I concentrated on writing my next book. But the idea that Anthony Loxton could reach out to people in another forum tugged at me, not letting go; so finally, while I waited for editorial feedback on the first draft of a second novel, I gave in to the wanton impulse and began work on a GOOD CEMETERY GUIDE web-site.

Consuelo Roland is a writer of narrative fiction with a passion for stories, films, photographs, animals, gardens and the world of nature. She is married, has a son at university, 3 dogs, a cat and a parrot.

My writing career is my second career. After many years in the Information Technology (IT) field I embarked on a long delayed lifetime dream; to become a published writer. My breakthrough came when I was accepted onto the University of Cape Town (UCT) Masters in Creative Writing program. A short story called BLACK MOON RISING, about an undertaker who moonlighted as a guitar player in the music bars of Kalk Bay by night, formed part of the application portfolio. This story became the basis for the novel THE GOOD CEMETERY GUIDE.

I have been crazy about books ever since I can remember. As a child I was always disappearing to read and being hauled out to play. My earliest recollection of a state of complete satisfaction is of going with my father to the waste paper dump at the paper mill where he worked, and being allowed to take a boxful of comics and books home. My first writing attempts were made in a diary with its own little key, an eleventh birthday present.

During the years I worked in the corporate sector, poetry became something of a compulsion; poems were scribbled down while stopped at robots, waiting at airports, sitting on aeroplanes, whenever free moments presented themselves. I believe it was the poems that stopped the writing muscle from atrophying completely.

A work colleague mentioned the UCT creative writing program which a friend of hers had enrolled on. At a certain stage, everything fell into place, as if the external world were conspiring to help me become a writer; if I wanted it enough.

On My Bedside Table

Free Poem

Downriver – Consuelo Roland