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ex. Betrayal. Adultery. Drugs. Murder. All the ills of modern life were there, in April, 1895, when Julia Curtis, a 22 year old, Old Mission Peninsula girl went out to pick arbutus and was later found dead in the woods near East Bay.

MURDER ON OLD MISSION by Stephen Lewis, is the novel based on the murder of Julia Curtis (Margaret Cutter in the novel), a young girl found to be pregnant at the time of her death, a young girl involved with a much older man, Woodruff Parmelee (Sam Logan in the novel). Woodruff Parmelee was the son of a wealthy, Old Mission land owner. He already had three sons by two marriages and no desire to marry again. Soon Woodruff was arrested for Julia’s murder, tried, and convicted. He was later released and lived out his life in Traverse City. He died in 1942.

Because this is a novel and not a history of a tragic event, the names have been changed; the peninsula shortened by some 12 miles, and perhaps a few liberties taken with fact. The salient facts and the outcome are, however, as they occurred back in 1895. The few liberties taken serve the author well here. This is no pot-boiler, no overly dramatized melodrama. Lewis has gone out of his way to write a fine story of people who lived and breathed, who were fallible—and more. People who lived out sorry fates on a stage still very familiar to all local readers.

Sam Logan is a man of appetites and little will power. He has become ensnarled in a torrid affair with young Margaret Cutter who has just told him she is pregnant. Although Sam is twice divorced, he is now free and could marry Margaret—should he be so inclined. Sam, unfortunately, isn’t so inclined. When confronted by Margaret’s father, the ever wily Sam comes up with a solution which will make no one happy and possibly bring about Margaret’s death.

Entwined in his father’s mess, is Sam’s son, Isaiah. Isaiah is close to Margaret’s age and thinks himself in love with her, though he knows of his father’s dalliance. All of the characters have flaws. Margaret’s mother is unloving, having lost her heart when her young son drowned. Margaret’s father will make a deal, offering his daughter as payment for a loan. Everyone is slightly sordid. Every one is very human. In this book local history isn’t quite as glorious as we might like it to be.

Margaret is found dead. One hired Black man decides it’s best he get as far away as possible since Black men are always easy targets, he will be brought back for Sam’s trial but won’t change the outcome. Another hired man tries to turn a little bit of information into money for a ticket far away. Isaiah has information too, a note in his pocket from Margaret to Sam, asking him to meet her the day she was murdered.

The story slowly evolves as characters excuse themselves, get angry, guilty, ashamed, and most of all--suffer. The father and son have always been at odds, and yet the bond is strong, requiring more of the son than he is capable of giving until a final test sets his path in life.

Most mysteries begin with the murder. Here, Lewis has chosen to begin with the characters and the land. Isaiah, Sam’s son, has just had a confrontation with his father. He leaves their home, out Center Road, and sets “out in long, deliberate strides that carried him to the crest of a hill a half mile north of his farm. He looked down at the tops of the fruit trees, all green, but not yet flaunting flowers, at the rows of corn just rising from the ground, at the lower foliage in the potato fields, everywhere the earth renewing itself and giving forth life energy. And then he gazed beyond the land to his right and to his left to the waters of the east and west arms of Grand Traverse Bay and the impenetrable surface in shades of blue ranging from turquoise near the shore to shimmering silver in the distance.”

Somehow, passing that same sight everyday makes these people more real than they might have been. And more tragic. When Margaret’s dead body is found the poignancy is real and immediate. She might have been found yesterday, “She was lying as though asleep, her arms crossed on her chest. One crushed pink arbutus blossom poked out of her hair near her right ear.”

Roman a clef stories are always fascinating. We wonder about characters we know really lived. In this book we have old George Parmelee, a tyrant, and an autocrat. We can visit his grave marker in Lakeside Cemetery and find it not as silent as it once was. The Old Mission Inn is where a detective from Chicago stays. He is brought into the story by old George, attempting to clear his son (and his own name) of the murder charge by any means possible. People walk the paths we are familiar with—on Old Mission Peninsula and in Traverse City. Novels such as MURDER ON OLD MISSION become alive in ways others can’t.

Lewis, Professor of English Emeritus, Suffolk County Community College, Long Island, New York, and now a resident of the Old Mission Peninsula, was led to the book by his father-in-law who thought he would simply write the history of the murder and trial. Lewis, however, found that fiction, rather than history, served the story better. When asked “Don’t you think this would make a good story just the way it is?” Lewis recalled thinking “No, it won’t. It needs to be shaped. The challenge in writing such a book is to remember that in the pull between what actually happened and the imagined story, the demands of the fictional narrative must prevail. . . .I knew I was writing a novel, and I had to find the focus that would organize my telling of the story. Once I found that focus, I used the facts that fit and changed or discarded the ones that didn’t. Still, I understand it might interest the reader to know what those facts are, as best they can be determined, and then consider how successfully the novel has risen above them.”

In the prefacing author’s note, Lewis gives the story of the murder which is probably the fairest way to treat all involved. Imagination tends to range far afield once the art of fiction is applied. Lewis, however, wasn’t tempted to sensationalize the story. Instead what he’s achieved here works as history, as a good story, and as a narrative of sad people trapped within themselves, their sad dreams, and worst nightmares.

-- Elizabeth Buzzelli, Traverse City Record Eagle