The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
A MISSION TO WRITE
Litchfield County native publishes novel based on travel to Peru
TORRINGTON — A story idea that began in Peru in 2003 is now an awardwinning novel by Litchfield County native Lynn F. Monahan.
His debut novel, “Pistaco, A Tale of Love in the Andes,” will interest readers who enjoy “suspense stories set in exotic places,” a review by Publishers Weekly noted.
Monahan grew up in Thomaston and attended the now-closed St. Thomas School. After working in the state for about two decades as a journalist, including at the former Winsted paper, he applied in 1990 to join the lay ministry of Maryknoll, a nonprofit Catholic mission organization.
His assignment was in Lima, Peru. “It was very, very tough time. The violence was really alarming,” Monahan said Friday during an interview at the Torrington Library. Since the 1980s, Monahan said, urban violence meted about by the insurgent Shining Path militants had displaced hundreds of residents who had been forced to find safety in shanty towns in Lima called “Pueblo Jóvenes,” or young villages.
While serving as a missionary for Maryknoll, Monahan also continued his journalism career. He worked as a translator and editor for the Latin American Press and then at the Lima bureau of the Associated Press.
“So many stories started collecting in my head.”
Lynn F. Monahan
“So many stories started collecting in my head,” Monahan said.
He returned to the United States in 1991, and again turned to a career in journalism. But his memories of Peru brought him back to the country in 2003. While there, Monahan wrote two short stories. “I got out to villages for the setting,” he said.
Upon returning, he said, “I told a friend ‘I wrote my first chapter of my novel.’” Monahan then enrolled at Manhattanville College, where he earned a masters degree in writing. By 2004, he had finished his book.
The novel’s protagonists are an American priest and Peruvian teacher. The priest was assigned to the Archdiocese of Hartford before he was sent on a mission to Peru. The teacher, who is handicapped, accepts a job in a village because, Monahan said, she walks with a limp and the schools in Lima won’t hire her.
“’Pistaco’” is a compelling story of love, war, faith and superstition in the remote Peruvian highlands,” a review on the book jacket reads. “Repeated encounters throw the unlikely couple together,” writes Michael Leach, the former publisher of Orbis Books and the Crossroad Publishing Co.
Author Judith Valente noted that the book is “Reminiscent of the finest Graham Greene novels.”
The positive reviews don’t negate that the path to publication took more than a decade.
“I worked really hard to get publishers, (to read the book),” Monahan said.
He sent the manuscript to about 100 publishers without any responses. “The fiction market is very tough,” he said
Monahan soon began a second round of manuscript submissions, but this time he was guided by Writer’s Relief, an author’s submission service. He said the company provides the names of 25 agents at a time, up to a certain point. “I finally ran out of agents,” Monahan said. “But, I didn’t give up.”
In 2015, he contacted Leach with a question. “Should I burn it or selfpublish?” he asked. Leach sent on the manuscript to a colleague — and a couple of months later, the breakthrough came.
“Pistaco,” which is the name of a legendary Peruvian monster, was launched in the spring of 2017 with a reception in Manhattan. Monahan said since then, he’s received a modest amount of royalties from book sales.
Now, more than a year after publication, Monahan said he realized, “You really have to reach out to people.” In the past, publishers would market their author’s books, he noted, “but now you have to do it yourself.”