Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell by Pat Murphy

"
Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell is about the nature of reality and the nature of identity-and some of the confusions of being a writer. "
-Pat Murphy, from her website.
Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell (Buy on Amazon).


This book is just crazy good!
I remember liking it the first time I read it but is even more entertaining now after having met and hung out with Pat a little bit. (This copy was actually a gift from her, given to me at our gamegirls design meeting).

I'm not sure I'll ever again have the experience of reading a book with so many identities, alter egos, pseudonyms, and even characters named directly after the author, all sharing various traits with the author which are very fun to try to puzzle out, during a span of time when I'm actually in communication with the author herself.

In this book we have: a cruise ship, an author on board (Max Merriwell) who writes as two different pseudonyms (Mary Maxwell and Weldon Merrimax). And wait, Pat Murphy (the real one I've met) wrote and published two previous books under these same pseudonyms (Wild Angel by Mary Maxwell and There and Back Again by Max Merriwell).
And even weirder, the pseudonyms appear as real people on the ship as it is passing through the Bermuda Triangle, causing very mysterious events.
There's two women traveling on the ship, Susan, the main protagonist, who is a bit unsure of herself after a divorce and gets a good pep talk on confidence from Mary Maxwell - see below.

Susan is a big fan of both Mary and Max and has some commentary on these books she's reading (She's reading Wild Angel on board), and is traveling with a friend, also named Pat Murphy!
(the fictional Pat Murphy is a young graduate student in physics who is writing the Bad Girls Guide to Physics: and Pat and Susan had met while working at the SF Public Library)

Of course, Pat Murphy (the real author, the one who also works at the Exploratorium and studied biology) actually "collaborated" with the fictional character and put up a real website at the www.badgrrlzguide.com link above. I was really entertained to find this out, I think I didn't bother to check it when I first read the book.
(Apparently the hope was that the Exploratorium would eventually publish a Bad Grrlz Guide to Physics...I'd guess the URL was going to be used for that).

Pat's also provided some entertaining points on differences between real and fictional Pats (fictional is a better pool player, and so on) and includes in the website the recipe for the famous
Flaming Rum Monkey, invented in the novel.

On top of all this, for the price of admission we also get a lot of writing advice (Max is having a writers' workshop on board, saying a few things that I actually remember hearing from Pat when attending a seminar she gave at a conference) plus Clampers and a giant squid!

Here is the conversation between Mary Maxwell and Susan which I am trying to keep in mind when I find I'm losing confidence and/or trust in myself. The other thing that is good to remember at those times is Pat (real Pat) calling me "a force to be reckoned with!"

" Mary was leaning back in her chair, studying Susan's face. 'I think you tell yourself the wrong sort of stories,' Mary said.
'What?' Susan said, startled, but trying to remain relaxed.
'You kick yourself for getting lost. You tell yourself that you don't look good with short hair. You avoid taking the shortcut. Little things, but they all add up. You don't trust yourself at all.'
Susan didn't know what to say. 'I suppose you're right,' she began. 'But...'
Mary held up her hand. 'No buts,' she said firmly. 'You need to learn to trust yourself, to trust your abilities. There are so many possibilities for a woman who knows how to use her imagination.' Mary sipped her drink, still considering Susan.
Susan bit her lip, feeling inadequate. Mary seemed to be taking her on as a sort of project, and Susan wasn't sure how she felt about that. She leaned back in her chair, wondering how she might distract Mary and take her attention off of Susan's shortcomings." (bold type added by me above)

Susan sees Weldon Merrimax at the bar and thus is able to change the subject.
I really see a lot of myself in these comments about Susan. I showed this passage to my therapist because we've been talking a lot about me not being able to take praise very well and being so hard on myself. Also I totally do this same thing when I feel too under the microscope with my therapist, I try to change the subject and start talking about something completely different, even though we're actually there for the express purpose of looking at these kinds of things for me. Must be more than a little frustrating for her.