For the last four years I've been working on a book about the life and death of Mr. Apology - a year of research followed by three years of writing and rewriting. It's been tough going, for a variety of reason, but primarily because the story is so unusual, with twists and turns, several dozen characters and divergent story lines, it's difficult to package it into a single coherent narrative.
Allan Bridge himself spent the better part of the last decade of his life trying to write his own version of the story and ended up with two half-complete manuscripts, neither of which was particularly readable. A good number of other writers, including half a dozen screenwriters, a playwright, a choreographer, a hack novelist, as well as more than a hundred magazine and newspaper journalists -- have all taken a stab at writing about Mr. Apology and none of them, in my opinion, has managed to get close to the real story - the wild creative adventure as Allan lived it
Frankly, I'm not sure I have fared much better, but now I'm ready to find out. That's why I've decided to publish the first part of my book in serial form on Substack. It's called The Birth of the Virtual World and it covers the middle years of Allan's life (which were the early years of Mr. Apology's career) from the inception of the Line in October 1980 through January 1983, when Mr. Apology aired the first of his program tapes. You can read the first two installments here.
I'm publishing on Substack in the hope of getting some feedback from readers like you. So if you're interested in learning more about Allan and his work, I hope you will take time to read my story, and if you do, please let me know what you think, either by making your comments on Substack or by sending me an email (jlampoet@gmail.com). My plan is to publish the story in 6 or 7 installments over the next few months but, if you prefer, I would be glad to send you the manuscript as a single pdf.
Allan Bridge, aka Mr. Apology
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