"Prodigal Logic" Themes - Floating Homes

For a fictional amateur sleuth who happens to be a graduate student, the positioning of the houseboat community is convenient. An easy kayak trip across Portage Bay deposits you onto the University of Washington campus, a hotbed of sinister activity. And it's just a short jog to both downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods that make up Seattle: Ravenna, Wallingford, Belltown, Leschi, Fremont, Ballard - all places with their own quirky personalities.

Forget about the signature elements of the Northwest - the unrelenting rain, the canopy of fir trees, the individualism. What makes the area rife with mystery authors is the flavor, flair and thriving subcultures of these interlocking neighborhoods. Within their confines can be found gargoyle stores, poetry slams, coffeehouses, streets with monikers like Candy Cane Lane, cement trolls under bridges, a vacated labyrinth of interconnecting underground passageways, garage bands, academic presentations, esoteric lectures.

It all gives you a certain feeling - not exactly sinister, but subterranean. The feeling that things aren't what they seem, that there are thoughts radiating under the radar screen, that if you scratch below the surface of the typical smile on the face of the typically friendly native Washingtonian, you'll discover something other than deeper layers of friendliness. What fertile ground for mystery!

The floating home community is a true microcosm of greater Seattle, and is fantastic as a site for sin, being unassuming, enigmatic, and also full of quirky characters. Paradox is revealed in the very choice of a home that floats on timbers. Consider two features of their environment: their plumbing and their exposure to the outside world.

The first of these points reveals houses whose septic system and electricity connect to the land via hoses, sump pumps, and wires stapled to narrow gangplanks. On the one hand, you might argue that it takes a certain amount of courage to go to sleep at night knowing that all it would take is a particularly heavy wind or the destruction of the Ballard Locks to wake up floating (or not) in the middle of bay. On the other hand, the fragility of their home's connection to earth suggests that their psychological connection to earth is equally tenuous. Wasn't it Jung who argued that a person's home symbolically represents his psychological make-up? Or was that Martha Stewart?

And then there is the fact that they live in glass houses, an open invitation to gawking by kayakers and motor boaters. Paying customers on tour boats typically pass by, pointing. Ray Gabriel has more than once been caught with his pants down by these people. Oops, that was actually the author.

Anyway, the point is that anyone who seemingly has so little to hide must have a lot to hide. The color for Seattle is gray, and the personality is quirky and secretive. What are they all hiding? Author Paul Petrucci has vowed to find out, even if it takes two dozen critically successful novels.

 

To find out more about floating homes around the country, your first stop should be the Floating Home Association sites. There are associations in Seattle, Sausalito, Delta B.C., and New Jersey.

For the floating home scene in Seattle, here are some sites: