Great Pan is Dead

By Eric D. Lehman

From the small-world accidents of finding lost toys and meeting old friends in strange places, to apparent twists of fate that lead to historical events, people continue to find meaning in coincidence. In Great Pan is Dead, author Eric D. Lehman investigates this phenomenon through the lens of his own mysterious stories and ponders how the puzzles of our lives fit together. From a frightening encounter in England’s Lake District to a moment of transcendence in the Sistine Chapel, this insightful memoir will make you see your world in a startling new way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Little Bound Books
• Release date: Sep 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781938846755

Eric D. Lehman

Eric D. Lehman is the author of twelve books of history, travel, and fiction, including The History of Connecticut Food, Literary Connecticut, Homegrown Terror: Benedict Arnold and the Burning of New London, and Becoming Tom Thumb: Charles Stratton, P.T. Barnum, and the Dawn of American Celebrity, which won the Henry Russell Hitchcock Award from the Victorian Society of America and was chosen as one of the American Library Association's outstanding university press books of the year. His 2016 book Shadows of Paris was chosen as novella of the year from the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, earned a silver medal in Romance from the Foreword Review Indie Book Awards, and was a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award. He teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Bridgeport and lives in Hamden with his wife, poet Amy Nawrocki, and their two cats.

Book preview

Nonfiction

Homegrown Terror

Afoot in Connecticut

Becoming Tom Thumb

Insiders’ Guide to Connecticut 

Connecticut Vanguard

Connecticut Town Greens

Fiction

Shadows of Paris

The Foundation of Summer

1

When I was twenty-eight I joined my parents and grandparents on a tour of Italy and Greece. On our second day in Rome, my family shuffled eagerly in the morning sun, waiting to see the fabled Sistine Chapel. I had examined histories, guide books, and The Agony and the Ecstasy. I was ready to see what the imagination of Michelangelo had done for civilization: put a real human face on an unknowable and distant God.

After waiting in the street only briefly, the tour guide rushed us past long lines, up a huge flight of stairs, and into the fortress of the Vatican. We slowed down a little, swallowing the appetizer of a long sculpture gallery. Then, the tour group hurried down stairs and around a corner. At the entrance, the smiling guide told us to take our time in the Chapel itself. I’m not sure if our tour operators bribed the guards or if the hour we were given was a common time limit, but most other tourists I observed were hustled through the barn-shaped temple fairly quickly. My family and the rest of our group were not. We stared at Michelangelo’s ceiling, walking around in circles or sitting on the benches along the walls, heads craned to the painted sky. I tried to absorb the subtleties that make this one of the greatest artistic achievements of all time.

And then I saw him, mingling with the crowd: God. Or close enough. Standing and looking up at the Renaissance masterpiece next to someone I presume was his son, was John DeLancie, the actor from Star Trek who played Q, the omnipotent god-like figure from that fictional universe. I rushed over to my mother and pointed him out. She recognized him, too, not from this iconic role but from the soap opera Days of Our Lives, and urged me to go up to him and say something. But I didn’t want to bother him; he was on vacation with his own family and surely didn’t want the praises of some stranger.

So, after a few minutes, he passed through the gates and into the rest of the Vatican. I continued wandering aimlessly about the Chapel, gazing at the centerpiece, Michelangelo’s version of the Almighty reaching out to touch Adam. In this undeniably holy