Len d'Eon

Hi. Thanks for visiting.

Boston is where I was born and grew up in the streets of Roxbury. A small Catholic German grammar school is where I was introduced to the German language (still don't speak it well). An old Acadian fishing village in Nova Scotia is where I spent my summers on a windy hill overlooking a bay on one side and the Atlantic on the other. French was my language there.

It was in one of those summers, swatting away mosquitoes when one bug bit me. The writing bug.

The stories there were vivid. Living up there on the hill in my grandfather’s house, dory with furled sail tied down at water’s edge was the place to think and dream and sail….and write. Across the way was my great grandfather Cyriac’s home, built in 1777. It was the house where Halifax born pirate Samual Cunard (Yes, the same Sam Cunard who later sailed to London to start the Cunard Steamship line.) ripped off all my great, great, grandfather’s belongings, sailed to his warehouse in Halifax and auctioned the loot... as he did every Saturday morning.

A scholarship to Boston College High School was had by trading off my janitorial skills for a priceless education at probably the greatest Classical High School in America (yes, reading the classics in Latin and Greek). A prize of a scholarship to Boston College was presented to me, won at the New England Festival of Plays at the then new Hancock Hall. A big guy by the name of Orson Wells presented it to me.
I was built to fly, so fly I did. As flying aide de camp for the Commanding General, Massachusetts National Guard, I had to be on call, so I flew my Bell H-13 helicopter to classes while getting my MBA from Babson College in Wellesley.

I flew combat in Asia. Forty two missions. Shot at every time. I learned the difference between fear and fright. I learned how wonderful it feels to inhale and exhale. To breath was an absolute joy. I learned to appreciate the beauty of peace and tranquility and this thing called freedom. Those were horrific, life-altering, learning days.

Flying became my life. Captain and U.S.Army Aviator. U.S. Commercial pilot, fixed wing and helicopter. Guatemalan Commercial pilot. Experimental flight test work. World Altitude record for reciprocating engine aircraft under 12,000 lbs. (broken two weeks later in Mexico City.)

I met my pretty-girl wife, Barbara Trant while she was working in Foggy Bottom for the CIA in Washington, D.C. When we returned from Europe, she started and ran a successful and highly regarded Travel Agency and Tour Operation in Scottsdale. It was a family affair with a pristine reputation. We had four wonderful and talented children, very well traveled and mostly trilingual. Arizona became home. Kids, horses. the works.

Three years flying in and out of Latin America doing fascinating work helped keep the Soviets out.
Moved to Paris, France and Munich, Germany for over five years, operating a major American company’s overseas operations for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Traveled most days. Loved to overnight and dine on the Orient Express.

Came back to the cocoon called America and settled in Paradise Valley, Arizona. Drafted to become President of the newly formed Scottsdale Symphony Orchestra Association. Professor of International Business at Arizona State University. Got into the Real Estate business in the adult communities.

G.P. Putnams published my novel The Cavalier. I first heard about the story of the Chevalier d’Eon when I was a kid growing up in Nova Scotia about one of my forebears. I had to write the story.

Two things came into play…two things that I learned in that one summer. First, that one of my forebears, while he was plenipotentiary or Ambassador to England from France, was made to wear the dress of a woman for the rest of his life. (Of course, there was the constant off-hand remark about Queen Elizabeth being a cousin.) We kept her picture on a wall, not in deference to the Canada’s Queen, but because she was a cousin.

The other thing I learned was that when King George III died, George IV, Prince of Wales, Commander of the Royal Navy for Nova Scotia and the Caribbean, living in the English colony of Nova Scotia in Halifax, sailed to London to take the crown. Of course. He was heir to the throne. What I could not understand was why he was barred from entering England. The Royal family stopped him. Cold. He had to sail back to Nova Scotia, pick up a bunch of Navy ships, soldiers and sailors and fought his way back into London to take his crown. He took it. King George IV. His just due. I didn’t know then what I know now. The reason why he was blocked.

It became clear much later while in London’s British Museum library and in the Bibliotecque National de Paris.

That’s when I found the Amsterdam newspaper proclaiming d’Eon as father to Charlotte’s kids.

An interesting twist... During the vetting of my novel, my editor at Putnam’s called and told me the owner of G.P. Putnam’s building at 200 Madison Avenue was none other than Queen Elizabeth II. That’s why vetting took so long. My book is banned in Britain. It’s not wise to offend the Queen.

And the cover-up goes on.

My next novel is in the works. An airplane story, really. Following a young American aviator. Cold war things that happened in the USSR and Latin America. Pure fiction.

Of course.