My Favorite Book Character... A Peek into the Inspiration Behind my Moniker

The awesome @fendit has asked us to write about our favorite book character. This is a special topic for me, and as we proceed, you will get to understand why.

Growing up, I was surrounded by two things - computers, and books. My dad worked as a printer, and he ran a small printing/publishing company in the heart of Port-Harcourt city, Nigeria. As a result, my siblings and I had access to all sort of books and computers from a very young age.

It was me however, who first picked up interest in my dad's book shelf. There were many books, and looking back I realize now that my style of fiction and poetry probably stemmed from the kind of books dad had, and what I read back then.

He had a collection of James Hadley Chase novels, Roots by Alex Haley, Novels by the late Ken Saro Wiwa, other random authors, and a long pile of vintage magazines and newspapers. I remember being punished several times because i kept on going back to scatter his book shelf.

Anyways, to the main story now... My favorite book character.

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Image by Roberto Lee Cortes from Pixabay

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For me, the books that had the most effect on me where those of James Hadley Chase. They were thriller novels, and one character in one of the books impressed me the most.

The character was Chet Sladen in the 1954 thriller Safer Dead

I know you are beginning to see the significance the book and this character has had for me, but let us not digress yet.

The character Chet Sladen was an investigative journalist who investigated the sudden disappearance of a young night club dancer. He had to struggle through corrupt police officers, hired killers, and deceptive friends before he could unravel the mystery surrounding the death of the lady in question. He ended up finding her body covered in a barrel of cement and dumped in a lake. The story was an amazing read, and Chet Sladen was superb throughout.

My best line in the book was when the character said "No one kicks a Sladen in the a** and goes scot free".

So, it was after reading that book back then that I had adopted the pen name Chet Sladen. After a while, I changed it to csladen, the C being a short for Chet. Later on, I realized that it would look much better if I converted the C to "See", and that was exactly what I did.

Now you know, who is my favorite book character. And more than 20 years after I first read that book Safer Dead, I still remember that character everytime I see my profile handles across almost all my social platforms.

And of course the hashtags too...

#SladenSpeaks
#IfWordsWereNudes

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Special shoutout to @fendit and @belenguerra for this awesome community and this contest.

I have not been able to write for a couple of days now because I had to go do some traditional rites, which I wrote about in my most recent post.

I am back fully now however, and will hope to bless you with more content in the coming days.

Cheers!

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