Welcome!

Welcome to The Life We Knew, a story near to my heart. The story, which as of this writing is about 25 percent complete, follows the journey of prominent aristocrat William Edmond Farrister from Southampton, England to New York on the ill-fated RMS Titanic in April 1912. Son of paper industry giant James Farrister, young William is the commercial managing director of the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company in Buffalo, NY.

Farrister faces a life-altering decision. Should he give up his controlling stake in his father's 33-million-dollar company and commit to his career in an infantile and unpredictable industry? Or should he hold on to the sinecure that ensures him a place in the upper echelons of American society? The answers lie with several of Titanic's passengers and a pending business arrangement of unprecedented magnitude.

The Life We Knew closely follows the journey of more than a dozen real-life passengers of the RMS Titanic—a suffragette, a railroad president, a wealthy widow, a streetcar magnate, an architect, and several others. While they might not all have known each other in reality, they are brought together in a story that shows them for who they really were.

Farrister is, in fact, the only fictional character in the entire story. During the lengthy process of writing this novel, I have made every effort to preserve historical accuracy. People's careers, interests, even personalities are written true to life. They live as they truly lived and die as they truly died. Accuracy is, above all else, the goal of this novel.

"But Patrick," you may be asking, "The Titanic genre has been done to death, hasn't it?" Indeed it has. As a longtime Titanic buff, I've been disappointed with how it has been portrayed in film and literature. The stories, while often compelling, are rife with inaccuracy. Embellishments are made, liberties are taken, and what we are often left with is a fantasy involving fictional characters in ludicrous situations. I think it's time that we have a Titanic story that is, at the very least, believable. Thats why I'm writing The Life We Knew. My hope is that it will teach people something about the Gilded Age and the people who truly experienced it.

I hope this blog will be a resource for Titanic buffs, a place to learn about history, and a comfort to writers who face the same challenges I do. In addition to providing updates on the story and the writing process, I plan to update this blog twice a week: once to post a new character profile, and once to post an interesting Titanic tidbit.

I appreciate your feedback, and once again, welcome!