Bitter Drink
Page 12
Most of the characters in this story existed; they did and said what’s written here. Sometimes reality surpasses fiction. It’s up to every reader to discover how much of this is true and how much is the product of my imagination.
Like all good cocktails, this novel features several ingredients. The main one was Bernardo Fernández’s insistence that I write it. His support and years of teaching have made me less of a hack. There’s also the encouragement I received from Francisco Ruiz Velazco, Bachan, and Edgar Clement.
I genetically inherited a taste for martinis from my grandfather, journalist Eduardo Correa. He wanted one of his grandchildren to be a writer. Unfortunately, I wasn’t on the top of his list. I hope he takes it philosophically. Wherever he may be, I’m sure they prepare the best martinis.
I’d like to thank the Reeds for the information and anecdotes about old Vallarta, and also Scott Cherrin, for giving me a copy of John Huston, King Rebel. My thanks to Pepe Quintero for inspiring his character, to the entire city of Puerto Vallarta for assimilating a strange beast like me, and to Sonia Diego and Tanya Huntington because they made this a better book. And, of course, to my accomplice in life and my harshest critic: Lillian. I love her even more since she decided we should leave the Condesa neighborhood in Mexico City and go live in Vallarta, and later, in Tehuacán. Since then, my life hasn’t gotten any easier, but it’s a lot more fun.
Salud!
F. G. Haghenbeck
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico City, Los Angeles, 2005–6
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photograph © Lillyan Funes, 2009
F. G. Haghenbeck was born in Mexico City. He’s been an architect, museum designer, freelance editor, and TV producer. He’s also the comic book writer of Crimson and Alternation, as well as a Superman series for DC Comics. John Huston biographer William Reed encouraged Haghenbeck to transition into writing crime novels, and the result is Bitter Drink, which has already won the Turn of the Screw Crime Novel Award in Mexico.
Haghenbeck currently works full time writing novels and editing historical and pop-culture books. He loves eating his wife’s gourmet food, drinking cocktails, reading the noir novels of Raymond Chandler and Paco Ignacio Taibo II, and watching cartoons with his daughter, Arantza.