Starting with a fleeting fascination in the winter of 2021 and then becoming a three-year obsession, first-time author Andrew Harrison takes the reader on a roller coaster ride from an antique desk’s humble beginnings in Hartford, Connecticut in the late 1700s to its current home in rural western Massachusetts with countless stops in between. Along the way, mysteries unfold-from secret lovers, insane killers, sunken ships, drug addictions, weird statues, witches, depression, questionable paternity, missing fingers, to finally eleventh-hour deals that ultimately puts the desk in the author’s home. All the while, the author stumbles from one mystery to the next and in many cases, the truth is far different than his initial perception as it relates to the desk and his ancestral roots. He soon realizes that his own knowledge of his past is as limited as his understanding of that of the Seymour desk. All this is spelled out through the author’s tongue and cheek, self-deprecating style. The first chapter, “I’m an Idiot,” says it all.

Click on the accompanying photos to read excerpts from the book