Lars Hellmont: From A Businessman to An Author
In his mid-fifties, Lars Hellmont, a Texas based businessman and investor, for the first time has set foot into the sphere of writing. Hellmont was born in Tyreso, located in the province of Sodermanland in Sweden. Most of his early years were spent in Sweden where he also attended high school at Frans Schartaus Gymnasium, which is located in Stockholm. Later in his early adulthood, Hellmont moved to the United States for further studies. He went on to major in Finance and Accounting from the University of Texas.
This is Lars Hellmont’s first attempt at trying his hand at authorship and he has come up with the mind-boggling idea of a novel which features an ensemble of characters and where the actions take place in multiple locations throughout the continents of Europe, Asia and Oceania. Mig, Gordo and Fiona are the central characters who start their journey in the novel from Guam, Paris and Stockholm. Three different people from different walks of life and from different corners of the world find themselves in situations unimagined. The novel traces both the personal and professional lives of these characters who have their own demons to fight in order to survive. As fate would have it, these characters cross paths owing to the one unifying purpose.
The first character the novel introduces to the reader is that of Mig, a Texan, who undergoes rigorous training for the job of an underwater cable expert and is later hired by a ruthless cable firm which also happens to be one of the largest cable and Telco firms. His job required Mig to supervise a secret undersea cable layout from Asia to the American territorial island of Guam. The second character in the novel is Gordo, a rich heir who inherits all his family’s fortune when his parents mysteriously disappear from a hot-air balloon in Montana. With all the money in hand, Gordo looks for alternative investment ideas in the watchmaking market and chooses a Parisian Watchmaker who has been in the game even before the Swiss or the Japanese overtook. Gordo is a wealthy brat who prefers to live his life surrounded by all sorts of luxurious indulgences. And at last but not the least, there is the character of Fiona, an army officer who goes undercover as a Swedish envoy to bust an illegal drug trafficking ring in the middle of the Mediterranian.
Lars Hellmont probably came up with this striking idea as he himself is well travelled. The locations he uses in his novel are the locations he himself has been to. So the novel stands as the testament to the first-hand experiences of these places. The locations that form the backdrop to the novel are Stockholm, Guam, Lapland, Italian Ponza Island, Hong Kong and Micronesia, all of which can be seen through the eyes of the characters of Mig, Gordo and Fiona. These characters, again, bear Hellmont’s personal touch and even go on to reflect different aspects of Hellmont’s tastes and even his own persona. As a reader, one can see Hellmont’s art of characterisation as the characters of Mig, Gordo and Fiona are multifaceted which makes them more life-like. The plot of the novel is quite thrilling and engaging not only because it has multiple locations but also because it traces the not-so-simple lives of the characters and their unique professions. Such a masterpiece can only be a brainchild of a brilliant and impactful personality, which Lars Hellmont is an embodiment of.
Currently Lars Hellmont is settled in California with his wife Virginia Hellmont. Before he moved there, he had worked with Europe-based stores, like Ikea and H&M. He also used to work as an internal auditor for ITT Corp. based in New York. Hellmont has also served on the boards of companies like Stan Lee Media and CIBA Assurances. This successful person is also the co-owner of the Fujita Property Guam Inc. and co-founder of the South North Entities. All these companies are California based. The list of Hellmont’s achievement can go on and on. Hellmont has established himself as an affluent person given the fact that he has always put his heart into any work that he has taken up. His companies are proof of his hard work and dedication. Apart from being the successful business typhoon that he is, Lars Hellmont is also quite a philanthropist. Hellmont and his companies provide continuous support organisations that seek to bring a change. Some of the organisations that Hellmont supports are: the Boy Scouts, the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Guam, Salvation Army, Via Trust and the Special Olympics Guam.
All the strong and impressive qualities that Hellmont possesses make him stand out as a person. These are also the qualities that a good author should possess. The novel is a work in progression and comes across as a very heartening read. The fact that Hellmont chose the plot to be pan-continental and multi-character for his debut novel shows the openness and boldness of Hellmont as an author. The novel also appears to be one of the most promising projects in Kickstarter. Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. For budding authors like Lars Hellmont, Kickstarter is a great platform which provides funding to get their piece of work published. Every person who “backs” or invests in a book on Kickstarter will receive a copy of the book. The more one invests in these projects the more are the rewards. For Hellmonts’s project itself, the minimum one can invest is $1. However, if the amount is as high as $20, the reward one would receive will be the e-book of the novel and a travel log written by Hellmont himself. Again, an investment of $50 or above would be rewarded with an e-book and the digitally photographs of the locations mentioned in the novel. And if one can invest $100 and above, Hellmont will be offering the limited first run printing editions to the first 100 contributors.
