#a passage i just read in jamie redknapp's book made me think of all this

[longeyelashedtragedy]

it’s been a really powerful year for like mental health acceptance and self confidence building which inevitably means, when you’re as fucked-up as i am, that periods of that always then make you realize how much else is still wrong

at this point i think that as someone with C-PTSD i can’t expect to live a “normal” life in terms of how i interact with other people.  i really...don’t think that will be possible.  this level of acceptance has been my thing this year and it’s really been helpful to defy toxic positivity/disability porn culture and be honest and open with myself about the reality.  it will never happen and that’s that.  so i have to figure out what kind of “normal” i think i can realistically achieve and of course adapt that over time as needed.  but there’s no way i can have what other people have--in offline or online spaces.  and it’s actually sometimes worse to think about the latter because of the common belief that “oh you’re WEIRD you can’t make irl friends but can make Internet Nerd Friends” but to be totally honest i have some of the same problems in both spaces.

i was just reading about how exposure therapy for people who find it impossible to be in successful relationships with others is...duh, nearly impossible when you are triggered by relationships with others 😭 i keep trying to find alternate explanations but i think my actual complex trauma diagnosis kind of covers everything. 

it’s very difficult to be in a social setting when you kind of can’t keep up in a “group” and “group” to you literally means more than one other person.  i like...stop existing.  i feel like this caged spectator.  as the conversation goes on i start losing the capability to try to put a sentence together to get a word in.  like those people who are “locked in” and can only move their eyes.  if this happens the only thing that can kind of end it is if one of the people leaves or someone mercifully brings up something i’m very good at talking about, but i feel hurt after, like i’ve been hit by a bus and am picking myself off the ground.  i used to have these very big, very scary dissociative episodes that were kind of cinematic, and i haven’t had one since 2014 but i’m realizing that i think i have smaller ones all the time. i complain a lot about my work team but we also were weirdly close to the point where i just told my coworker that i have Trauma so if i ever just seem like....weird or off that’s why--sometimes my mind just goes elsewhere and i don’t realize until it eventually returns to me and i realize i’ve been sitting in a room of people staring blankly at a wall for....a LONG time.

(the thing is...my brain doesn’t shut off so...It’s that i’m looking inside my head you know?  the outside world just ceases to exist for a while.)

and like, jesus, everyone in the know agrees i’ve been doing “so much better” socially. this is so much better? i can’t even hold a conversation in a groupchat (unless it’s the deathpond because the deathpond is just. magical.) i’m so deeply afraid of other people.  not afraid of their judgement or something, but like, the crux of it is that Other People in Groups are going to happily watch me die because of something inherently wrong with me that makes me deserve this from them, and i can’t tell people i need help because...i can’t trust Other People in Groups.  by the time i was in pre-K or Kindergarten i knew my parents couldn’t help me with my problems and i lived in a constant state of random fear that would appear out of nowhere, which is pretty developmentally fucked up for a child less than six years old.  i used to want to tell them to please help me--but i was also a disturbingly smart and intuitive kid, and i remember thinking, i can’t tell them because the only thing that will help me is to “take it out of my head.” and they can’t reach in and take it out, so it will just continue. and indeed--that is the only thing that would have helped me!  i wasn’t properly diagnosed with anything till i was 24, and i had been to many therapists before that.

i’m not sure why i’ve written all this out.  i used to write stuff like this on my tumblr but then stopped because of how public it is, but whatever.  i guess i just want people to know.  i want to have good relationships with others and laugh in groups and have fun. but it’s just too hard for me a lot of the time.  sometimes i can handle it but other times it’s not at all possible.  i just have to learn to accept that i won’t fit in. i might truly never be able to. it’s hard to accept.

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

The Counterfeit Candidate by Brian Klein

 Action-packed thrill-ride from beginning to end. This story is one of conspiracy, intrigue, crime, and moves between continents and time periods with facility. Settle in for a great story that will leave you thinking…what if?

 What I liked:

* The plot, writing and story told

* The way it made me think about the past and what could have happened if something like this story had truly happened

* The dark gritty reality of the story

* That it had me doing google searches and reading about various places and characters in the book

* Wondering about what would motivate the various characters

* The police procedural aspect of the story

* Being able to hate the bad guys entirely – saw no redeeming qualities in them

* Thinking about who I would cast in the roles of the characters if this were to be made into a movie

* Wondering about the true relationship between Braun and Hitler

* Stepping into the past without actually having to be there

* Reading a debut novel by a new author

 What I didn’t like:

* Exactly what I was meant NOT to like

 Did I enjoy this book? Yes

Would I read more by this author? Yes

 Thank you to MidasPR for the ARC – this is my honest review.

 5 Stars

  BLURB

 Set between Berlin in 1945 and Buenos Aires and San Francisco in 2012 – the story looks at ‘what if’ Hitler didn’t die in the bunker in 1945 and instead escaped to Buenos Aires – how did the subsequent story unfold?

 Buenos Aires, 8th January, 2012 Three thieves carry out the biggest safe depository heist in Argentine history, escaping with more than one hundred million dollars' worth of valuables. Within hours, an encrypted phone call to America triggers a sinister manhunt as the thieves are tracked down and face the consequences. Meanwhile in San Francisco, 22nd January, 2012 Senator John Franklin, hailed as the "Great Unifier", secures the Republican Presidential nomination and seems destined for the Oval Office.  Despite the sixty-seven-year interval and a span of thirteen thousand miles, these events are indelibly linked.   Chief Inspector Nicolas Vargas of the Buenos Aires Police Department and Lieutenant Troy Hembury of the LAPD are sucked into a dark political conspiracy concealing an incredible historical truth which stretches from the infamous Berlin bunker to Buenos Aires and to Washington and which threatens the very heart and soul of American democracy.

    AUTHOR BIO

 Brian is an award-winning Television Director, with over twenty-five years' experience in the industry. His work regularly appears on Netflix, Amazon Prime, BBC and Sky. Amongst his directing credits are twenty-five seasons of the iconic car show, TOP GEAR and five seasons of A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN ROADTRIP, Sky One's highest rating entertainment show.  He was part of the core team that produced twenty-two series of the controversial car show that became the biggest TV phenomena in the world, with 350 million weekly viewers in 120 countries and  worked extremely closely with TV heavyweights, Jeremy Clarkson and James Corden, high profile comedians, Jack Whitehall, Alan Carr, Tom Allen , Romesh Ranganathan and Micky Flanagan, sports stars turned presenters, Freddie Flintoff, Jamie Redknapp and Ronnie O’Sullivan and TV chefs Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White. He has also directed two feature-length films for BBC Worldwide and five entertainment specials for Netflix. THE COUNTERFEIT CANDIDATE is his debut novel and is to be advertised in The Bookseller shortly. 

 For review copies of ‘The Counterfeit Candidate’ and for further information please contact Sophie Ransom on sophie.ransom@midaspr.co.uk (m) 07714 344482.

    THE COUNTERFEIT CANDIDATE BY BRIAN KLEIN – THE INSPIRATION (IN HIS OWN WORDS)

Trailer: https://f.io/PfYC_WJy

 FROM THE AUTHOR ABOUT THE BOOK

The basic idea for The Counterfeit Candidate had been buried inside my head for over thirty years but, I’d never been brave or confident enough or indeed had the time, to try and write it. In the end, it took the totally unexpected arrival of a pandemic and the first lockdown to turn the idea into a reality. Like millions of people, when the virus struck and the world shut down, I lost all my work and found myself sitting at home wondering what to do. I was a television director, with nothing to direct.

 For the previous thirty years I had directed many of the UK’s most popular and enduring shows, including Top Gear, A League Of Their Own, The Grand Tour, Watchdog and Crimewatch. I was part of the core team that produced twenty-two series of the controversial car show that became the biggest TV phenomena in the world, with 350 million weekly viewers in 120 countries. I worked extremely closely with TV heavyweights, Jeremy Clarkson and James Corden, high profile comedians, Jack Whitehall, Alan Carr, Tom Allen , Romesh Ranganathan and Micky Flanagan, sports stars turned presenters, Freddie Flintoff, Jamie Redknapp and Ronnie O’Sullivan and TV chefs Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White. My diary for March – December 2020 was rammed with new programming involving many of these artists and then Covid closed everything down.

 I sat at home wondering what to do next and then a remarkable event happened. I decided I would try flesh out my idea of the safe deposit robbery, which I knew would be a key element of the story. I thought I would begin my research by finding a real bank in Buenos Aires that housed a vault with a safe depository and I was truly astonished when my initial google search threw up the fact that in January 2011, the Banco Provincia in Buenos Aires, was the victim of one of the biggest safe deposit heists of all time. Thieves tunneled their way in and escaped with an estimated hundred million dollars’ worth of merchandise. It was a bizarre feeling, as I’d had the idea for the robbery twenty years before it happened in real life!

 That was a key moment as it inspired me to begin the writing process and for the following twelve weeks, I worked ten hours a day, seven days a week and became totally obsessed with the project. The end result was a 90,000 word, first draft. No one was more surprised than me or my wife and daughter who witnessed the entire process unfold. My only escape from constant writing was a daily, late night walk with the family dog, Georgie, a gorgeous Frenchador (yes, a Labrador/French Bulldog combo!), who became my thinking companion, when I wanted to explore plot lines.

 I always knew the idea required two timelines, one following Hitler’s secret, post-war life in Argentina and the other, a contemporary setting for the robbery and the 2012 Presidential campaign. I soon appreciated that in effect I was writing two books and the only way I could make that work, was to write them comletely separately. So, the contemporary story came first and then, when that was complete, I set about writing the story of Hitler’s post-war life in Argentina and his outrageous plan for building a Fourth Reich in the United States.

 I have always been fascinated by conspiracy theories. JFK’s assassination, the moon landings, Princess Diana’s car crash, all come to mind. But they don’t come much bigger or more controversial, than the apparent suicides of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun in the Fuhrer’s notorious bunker in war-torn Berlin on 30th April 1945. It’s a highly contentious event that has generated countless books, articles and documentaries and the truth is that, even today, views differ on what really happened.

 It’s well recorded that in July,1945, just three months after Hitler’s supposed death, Stalin met with Churchill and Roosevelt at the Potsdam Conference in Germany, where he cast doubt on the official story of the Fuhrer’s death. He astonished the two western leaders by claiming that Hitler had eluded his Red Army, escaped from Berlin and was hiding somewhere in Patagonia. The genie was well and truly out of the bottle and a new conspiracy theory was born.

 As a student, I studied Hitler and the rise and fall of The Third Reich at Queen Mary College, where I completed a degree in History and Modern Politics. I’ve always had a gut feeling that Hitler wasn’t the kind of man to take his own life, but then again, there is a great deal of compelling evidence, and eye-witness testimony, to suggest he did. However, for the purposes of writing The Counterfeit Candidate, I went with my gut. I couldn’t help wondering, “What if….”

 THE IDEA

 What if Hitler escaped from Berlin at the end of the war and built a new life, using a false identity and perpetuated his dynasty. How would that singular event change the course of history and impact on the lives of millions of people around the world.

 What if, in the present day, Republican Senator John Franklin, an American born citizen on the verge of securing the Presidency, was, in reality, Adolf Hitler’s grandson. A man, groomed from birth by his family to become the most powerful leader in the world.

 The contemporary part of the story is set in January, 2012 and chaos breaks out, when a sensational safe deposit robbery, at a seemingly impregnable bank vault in Buenos Aires, ignites the possibility of exposing this incredible historical truth. The three audacious thieves who carry out the heist, have no idea the contents of Box 1321, one of ninety raided in the robbery, contain original documentation and film that can expose the real identity of the presidential candidate. They are hunted down in a blood-soaked manhunt in pursuit of the explosive materials hidden inside the box.

 For The Counterfeit Candidate, I created a fictional account of Hitler’s escape from Berlin, involving a perilous night-time drive through enemy lines from Berlin to the coastal port of Kiel ,set on the north-west coast of Germany. Then a seven-week sea passage on a dilapidated cargo boat, transports the Fuhrer, Eva Braun and Hitler’s personal secretary, Martin Bormann to the Argentine port of Rio Gallegos. The location I chose for their new life, El Calafate in the province of Santa Cruz, in Patagonia, is a real town.

  I named the farmhouse which became Hitler’s new base, ‘El Blondie,” as I liked the conceit that the name of the Fuher’s new home would be a permanent memorial to his beloved dog, who he had left behind in the bunker. A creature he loved far more than any human.

  The idea of Hitler and Bormann creating and building one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world, seemed plausible to me. It would provide them with a huge multinational vehicle, perfect for laundering the vast sums of money they had taken out of Germany. It would also give them a platform of power and respectability for Hitler’s son, enabling him to set up a new home in the United States, where he could father an heir, who could go on to become a world leader, achieving the ultimate prize of the Presidency.

 Martin Boorman is a key figure in the book and the arch manipulator behind the masterplan to land Hitler’s grandson in the White House.

 I decided it was essential to try and make this part of the story feel as authentic as possible. So, I weaved into the narrative a number of real-life characters. Early on, we meet Hitler’s support team who were living in wretched conditions inside the infamous bunker. His driver, Erich Kempka, personal valet, Hans Linge, private physician, Thomas Morrell and his long-time chef, Constanze Manziarly.

 Later in the story, once Hitler is living In Argentina, we see him interact with two fellow notorious Nazis who we know, really did escape to Patagonia, Josef Mengele and Adolf Eichmann. One of the chapters covers the audacious abduction of Eichmann by the Israeli secret service, Mossad, in 1960, which was a global news event at the time. In my story, Hitler tries in vain to help Eichmann avoid capture but to no avail.

 I also created a number of prominent scenes between the Fuhrer and the iconic couple who ruled Argentina, Juan and Eva Peron. If Hitler did settle in El Calafate, there is no question he would have been supported and protected by the Peron regime, who were openly pro-Nazi supporters

 In one particular encounter, the couple are guests of honour at Hitler’s 60th birthday party, where Maria Callas makes a cameo appearance singing an aria from the Fuhrer’s favourite Wagner opera, Rienzi.

 Lockdown meant I had no choice but to plough the internet for research for many aspects of the story, although fortunately I had prior knowledge of Hitler from my University studies and I had travelled extensively across South America, both for filming and social purposes. When it came to locations, Buenos Aires provided a wonderful, stunning backdrop for so many scenes. One of my favourite locations featured in the book is without doubt the renowned, Recoleta Cemetry, considered by many to be the most beautiful burial ground in the world.

 One of the principal figures in the story, Matias Paz, is a former fascist mercenary whose office happens to be located next to the cemetry. He regularly visits the mausoleum of one of his idols, Argentine boxing legend, Louis Angel Firpo, who was known as the “Wild Bull of the Papas.” Paz holds a number of key meetings with his staff, sitting on a stone bench in front of the giant marble statue of his hero, which provides a stunning backdrop.

   The truth is, when I began the project in Lockdown, I had no idea if I was capable of completing it and trust me, when I say, no one was more surprised than me, that the book finally got written. However, almost as challenging as writing the story was securing a literary agent and subsequently a publisher, but somehow I managed it and here we are !

Eva Braun

Eva & Hitler with their dogs