The Mystery Of S.

A new blog has appeared, but what's it all about ?

If I said we don't know I'd be lying, but only slightly !

I'll try and explain what is happening from the information that is available, mostly gathered by other people admittedly, but hopefully we can use this blog as a forum to search for new clues and updates as they appear.

What we are talking about is a novel conceived and written by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst, more than just a novel though that hopefully you will see by reading on.

So as far as I can tell the timeline for this starts back in 2011, an article on the New York Times Arts Beat section announces a new novel that will be created by JJ Abrams and written by Doug Dorst, planned for an autumn 2012 release.

Well that deadline came and went, so we'll fast forward to May 2013 and a Huffington Post article. During the Book Bloggers Conference in Book Expo America, Joshua Kendell of publisher Little Brown started talking about the project again.

We now get a title for the novel, or at least a clue to the title, it is simply "S." the article also mentions "20 to 22 pieces of ephemera in the 'real world'"

So from those two pieces of information you can hopefully see where our blog title comes from !

The novel is described on the Mulholland books website as -

"At the core of this multilayered literary puzzle of love and adventure is a book of mysterious provenance. In the margins, another tale unfolds—through the hand-scribbled notes, questions, and confrontations of two readers. Between the pages, online, and in the real world, you’ll find evidence of their interaction, ephemera that bring this tale vividly to life"

The Mulholland books website also now gives us a date for publication of the 29th of October, plus a link to places where you can pre-order the book - Other Retailers

At the event detailed in the Huffington Post article, as well as the promotional poster displayed, which is the first image above, there was also a postcard handed out you can see the images of the postcard here, but these are from the Huffington Post article.

The front is obviously of Brazil, and the real appears to confirm this as it says it is Rio De Janeiro.

The text of the card, all in uppercase letters, says this -

19 APRIL
-----------
IBIRAPITANGA

FELLOW BIRDERS:

SOUTH THRU SMALL COASTAL TOWNS.
THE LOCALS HAVE LESS ENGLISH + I HAVE MY SAME PORTUGESE. MY HOSTS TONIGHT:
A FAMILY WHO OPENED THEIR HOME TO ME.
I TOLD THEM ABOUT THE BOOK WE ARE WRITING TOGETHER. THEY SAID (I THINK) THERE IS A VERY OLD NIGHTINGALE NEAR MARAU + PEOPLE ARE VERY PROTECTIVE OF HER. THEY UNDERSTAND MY GOOD INTENTIONS (I THINK) + OFFERED TO TAKE ME THERE TOMORROW + TRY TO MAKE INTRODUCTIONS. I WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO SLEEP EVEN IF I HADN'T HAD THE COFFEE.

I WISH YOU WERE HERE - THOUGH IN A WAY, YOU ARE.

xO.
E-

I'm not sure if we can infer or learn anything too startling from this, but it may become important later on.

One thing that is possibly significant is that the place name mentioned in the hand written note "IBIRAPITANGA" is in Brazil but it is around 1300 miles away from Rio. It could just be a general tourist postcard of course, and as someone once said don't mistake coincidence for fate.

If you have any news or updates for us please let us know, either in the comments below or why not send us a tweet and follow us of course - @SFiles22