Imagine, please, an island, a small one, not in some pellucid subtropical sea, but in a gray bay, shallow, often cold, Small's Island, in Bolotomy Bay, and on the island imagine an old hotel, Small’s Hotel, where a middle-aged dreamer, Peter Leroy, lives with his beautiful wife, Albertine Gaudet. 

Albertine runs the hotel, and Peter spends much of each day sitting in a room on the second floor, writing the Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy, his life story. 

If you could look over his shoulder and watch him at work, you would be likely to find that he was rewriting an episode from his past, altering it, embellishing it with entertainments, distractions, romance, and history, making of his life a story that it never was, because when he reminisces he finds that he’s as interested in the possibilities as he is in the facts, and also because memory, like an old radio receiver, picks up a lot of static. 

Mark Dorset:
And it’s still true, even though Peter and Albertine are now living on another, larger, island.

A Topical Guide to the Complete Peter Leroy (so far) is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, dialogues, settings, and businesses portrayed in it are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. 

All rights reserved. No part of this guide may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. 

Portions of A Topical Guide to the Complete Peter Leroy (so far) were first published by Voyager, Inc., as part of The Complete Peter Leroy (so far).

The illustration at the top of the page is an adaptation of an illustration by Stewart Rouse that first appeared on the cover of the August 1931 issue of Modern Mechanics and Inventions. The boy at the controls of the aerocycle doesn’t particularly resemble Peter Leroy—except, perhaps, for the smile.