I scarcely know how to begin, not something a reviewer should admit publically, I suppose. This wonderfully realized and written novel is a first class literary mystery. It deals with a three-week period in l941 that marks the end of a troubled life, the life of Virginia Woolf. It is serendipitous that this novel comes to my hand at a time that epitomizes a good deal of what she was all about. In a word, independence. Independence for women and independence for writers.
Virginia Woolf was an English writer, essayist and literary critic of the early Twentieth Century. Her parents did not send her to school. She was entirely self-taught and apparently randomly tutored by her literary critic father. She was a major influence on the kind of novels being written today, yet she was always, always, self-published. Hogarth Press, established by Woolf and her husband, Leonard, a political theorist of that era, in their kitchen, published Virginia’s writings along with those of E.M. Forester, and Sigmund Freud, among many others. Growing up she knew people like Henry James, Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, and George Eliot. Her father, Leslie Stephen's, first wife was the daughter of the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray.
In addition to her literary credentials as an accomplished novelist, she was a prolific essayist who published over 500 essays. Virginia Wolf helped coalesce the famous (or infamous) Bloomsbury Group, a collection of social, political and economic theorists of varying stripes, including artists, critics, philosophers and writers who wrote, debated, loved, married and argued life throughout the first half of the Twentieth Century.
Woolf was sexually abused by a relative as a child, and clearly had mental problems during her lifetime. Her companions through life, including relatives, were mostly liberated intellectuals who ignored social constraints. On March 28, 1941, she disappeared from her home. Three weeks later, her body was discovered in the nearby river Ouse which had already been extensively searched. Her body was promptly cremated and there was no funeral ceremony, public or private.
Which brings us to this novel. Sixty years after Woolf’s death, master garden and landscape designer, Jo Bellamy arrives in England. She is doing research for a wealthy client who wants her to recreate a famous garden of white flowers and plants at his Long Island Estate. Jo is trying to recover from her grandfather’s sudden suicide. The celebrated White Garden of the title is located at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent. It was created by Woolf’s friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West.
What Bellamy discovers at Sissinghurst has the potential to set decades of literary analysis and speculation on its collective ear. Whilst grubbing about in some boxes in one of the garden sheds, Jo comes upon a diary which appears to have been written by Virginia Woolf. Well and good, the problem is the first entry is dated the day after Virginia Woolf is supposed to have drowned herself. Moreover, there appears to be a connection between the castle, the garden, Woolf and Jo’s dead grandfather. Shocked and amid a growing desire to learn more about her grandfather’s youth in Kent, Jo Bellamy sets out on a cross-country odyssey to try to authenticate the diary and uncover her grandfather’s connection to one of the most famous feminists and literary icons of the past century.
The novel is wonderfully written and mostly moves at an ever-increasing pace as Bellamy encounters an array of character who are far more interested in their own aggrandizement than in helping Jo. The diary is stolen, Jo has help from several people with questionable motives and engages in some pretty far-fetched antics in order to follow some tantalizingly obscure clues.
Ultimately of course, some of the questions surrounding the diary and the last three weeks of Virginia Woolf’s life are resolved, but not all. The author, skillfully evoking a past era of English letters and philosophical thought, has provided a rich and thought-provoking experience.
The novel is written with grace and is rich in atmosphere and history. It is presented as a carefully wrought piece that could be true, and that climaxes in a stunning and most satisfying conclusion.
Showing posts with label mystery writer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mystery writer. Show all posts
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Author Peter May
Peter May is a mystery writer with journalism training that supports his passion for writing. He has extensive contacts inside the law enforcement community, including China, amply reflected in his novels. Although he lives in France with his award-winning wife, Janice, he travels extensively in the U.S. When he comes your way, don’t miss an encounter with this charming Scot. I am pleased to present his answers to my questions.
When someone asks you what kind of books do you write? What’s your answer?
Good ones
When did you know you were going to be a mystery writer?
When my publisher told me I would have to change my name to write in another genre.
Tell us a little bit about your family background.
My Great Aunt Belle was a direct descendant of the famous Scottish outlaw, Rob Roy Macgregor; my father's great, great uncle was a disinherited earl; my parents have both gone to the great library in the sky (where, I am sure, they still cast a critical eye over my latest offerings); my wife is the award-winning playwright and screenwriter, Janice Hally; and my daughter insists I will never be a grandfather.
What is your educational background?
I got kicked out of school, and after a year selling cars in the university of life, studied journalism in Edinburgh.
What did you read as a child?
When I was eleven, my uncle's wife committed suicide and he came to stay at our house, displacing me from my bedroom. I slept on the sofa in the living room, and woke up each morning to look at all the books on the shelf beside it - Ernest Hemingway, Aldous Huxley, Raymond Chandler, Earl Stanley Gardner, Walter Scott, John Steinbeck, Lewis Grassic Gibbon. Strange names, and even stranger titles - Eyeless in Gaza, The Grapes of Wrath, The Case of the Black-Eyed Blond, Sunset Song, For Whom The Bell Tolls... Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me and I started reading them, working my way along the shelf. I was far too young for them, of course, but since I didn't know that I had no preconceptions. And in a way, these books shaped the rest of my life.
What’s your daily routine when you aren’t touring?
Research reading, cooking, wine-tasting, relaxing in the garden.
How much touring do you do?
I tour the States once a year these days. But since I live in France, and my books are published here, I get invited to book fairs all over the country, and usually do ten to twelve events a year.
What surprised you most about the writing community once you became a part of it?
The camaraderie, I guess. That shared sense of vulnerability and isolation.
What’s the hardest thing about being an author?
The next book.
Do you blog? How frequently? Is your blog a group or single effort?
I have a blog, but generally only keep it up to date when I am touring in the US - partly to keep a record for myself, and partly to keep friends and family (and readers) in touch with where I am and what is happening.
How frequently do you organize or participate in book tours?
My wife organises my annual book tours in the States. She is brilliant at it, producing a "book" with a daily itinerary, all our travel tickets and arrangements, car rental, hotels etc. She now knows the US hub airports by heart and most of the booksellers, and can plan a mean tour.
What kind of events or signings do you do?
In the States I talk to readers at as many independent mystery stores as I can fit into my itinerary - which can be as many as twenty. In France, almost every town has its own annual book fair. Authors are invited to attend, and all expenses are paid from the public purse. These events usually consist of contributing to one or more round table discussions in front of an audience, and sitting at tables piled high with your books to sign for readers. The biggest events can attract as many as a quarter of a million people over the course of a weekend. In Paris it is nearly half a million over four days.
In a typical year, how many times did you appear for your book?
Anywhere between 30 and 40 times.
How many fan conferences such as Bouchercon will you typically attend in a year?
Living in France, it is a very expensive business going to these events, so I try to arrange my US tours to coincide with one of the fan conferences - usually Left Coast Crime, although I have also been to Bouchercon.
Do you like to travel?
I love to experience different places around the world, although I hate the actual mechanics of travelling.
What surprised you the most when you became a published author?
How little promotion and support a writer receives from his publisher. My first book was published more than 30 years ago. I was very excited, waiting to hear from my publisher what my promotional itinerary would be, what newspaper and radio interviews I would do, and what papers I would be reviewed in. But when the book actually appeared, it seemed to vanish into a black hole. It had very few reviews, there was virtually no promotion, and I did one single radio interview. I quickly learned that if you wanted to achieve a profile for yourself and your books, you were going to have to do it yourself.
Do you think you’ll change direction or spread out a bit? Write a different kind of crime novel? If so, what kind?
I think it is quite hard to change direction as a writer, once you are establish in a genre. Publishers, and readers, always want more of the same. However, I have recently written two very different types of crime book - one set in a virtual world, the other a slow-burn psychological thriller set on a remote Scottish island. I found the latter very hard to sell in the UK, but my French publisher has snapped it up, buying world rights, and it will be published in French even before it appears in English.
Especially since 9/11, how do you respond to the accusation that you are trying to make money on a phenomenon in society we call murder? Or heinous crime?
I have always enjoyed reading crime books and thrillers, as well as movies of the same genre - something I have in common with many other people around the world. I write what I enjoy reading, and fortunately a lot of other people enjoy reading what I write. So I make no apologies for that. But, in the end, a crime story is only ever a vehicle for an exploration of the human condition. Which is what writers have always written about. An interesting coda to this is that one of my China Thrillers, "Snakehead" won a French literary award where the judges were panels of prisoners in French penitentiaries. I felt it was quite an accolade for a crime writer to get the thumbs up from criminals.
If you could be anything else in the world, have any other career, what would it be?
A professional musician.
What career would you least like to do, if writing was to become impossible?
I once worked as a civil servant in the UK, calculating the interest in the bank books of investors in the Department of National Savings. I sat in a huge shed, with hundreds of other people, having to achieve a target of ten bank books an hour, monitored by eagle-eyed senior functionaries. I had to ask to go to the toilet. After three months, I stood up one morning and simply walked out, never to return. I find it hard to imagine a worse job.
Have you ever collaborated on a novel? Would you consider it?
No, and no. As a script writer and story editor on TV series and serials, I worked as part of a team. Which was stimulating, and fun. But, for me, novel writing is a singularly solo occupation.
Who are the authors who you feel have had the most influence on your writing career.
The four most influential writers who shaped my style and ambition were Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, H. E. Bates, and J. P. Donleavy.
Tell us one or two authors or books you absolutely universally recommend.
The most inspirational book, I think, that a writer can read is Ernest Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast". The only book I was ever moved to read twice was J.P. Donleavy's "The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B" - which made me both laugh out loud and weep copious tears.
Who is your favorite mystery author?
I think one of the best mystery writers around today is William Kent Krueger - simply for his marvelous characterisation, sensitivity, and observation of the human condition. These are qualities I rarely find in many contemporary mysteries and thrillers.
Where do you want your career to go?
I spent twenty years writing for television before turning to writing books full time. I would love now, to see some of my books adapted for the screen - big or small. I am fortunate in that the first of my China Thrillers series, "The Firemaker", is to be made into a movie - a French/Chinese co-production made in English for the international market, and directed by award-winning Chinese director Wang Chao. The third of my Enzo Files series, "Blacklight Blue", is currently being developed as a TV movie.
Who is your publisher? What’s your current book?
My US publisher is Poisoned Pen Press. My current books are "Blacklight Blue" (the Enzo Files), and "Snakehead" (the China Thrillers). The second of the China Thrillers, "The Fourth Sacrifice", is also just out in paperback. The fourth Enzo book, and my virtual thriller will both come out early next year.
Are you agented?
I have literary agents in New York and London.
What’s your take on the rise of electronic publishing?
An interesting development that could ultimately free the writer from being tied to a publisher.
What’s your favorite word?
"Smirr". It's a Scottish word meaning rain so fine that it is almost a mist (the Scots have more words for rain than anyone else in the world, I think). The reason I love it is that it always confuses the hell out of my English editors.
What’s your least favorite word?
"But" - particularly when following the phrase, "I loved your book".
If you could change one thing about the world what would that be?
While adjusting my bikini and freshening my lipstick, I'd put in my tuppenceworth for world peace.
Tell us about your upcoming book or other project.
The fifth book in the Enzo files is in the early stages of development. I have also been commissioned by a French publisher to write a short story of around 12,000 words using only the Latin-based vocabulary of the English language in an attempt to create something written in English that can be read by the French. It is an interesting idea, and I am going to use it as a vehicle for revisiting my characters from the China Thrillers series, Li Yan and Margaret Campbell.
Thank you for an interesting and insightful interview.
When someone asks you what kind of books do you write? What’s your answer?
Good ones
When did you know you were going to be a mystery writer?
When my publisher told me I would have to change my name to write in another genre.
Tell us a little bit about your family background.
My Great Aunt Belle was a direct descendant of the famous Scottish outlaw, Rob Roy Macgregor; my father's great, great uncle was a disinherited earl; my parents have both gone to the great library in the sky (where, I am sure, they still cast a critical eye over my latest offerings); my wife is the award-winning playwright and screenwriter, Janice Hally; and my daughter insists I will never be a grandfather.
What is your educational background?
I got kicked out of school, and after a year selling cars in the university of life, studied journalism in Edinburgh.
What did you read as a child?
When I was eleven, my uncle's wife committed suicide and he came to stay at our house, displacing me from my bedroom. I slept on the sofa in the living room, and woke up each morning to look at all the books on the shelf beside it - Ernest Hemingway, Aldous Huxley, Raymond Chandler, Earl Stanley Gardner, Walter Scott, John Steinbeck, Lewis Grassic Gibbon. Strange names, and even stranger titles - Eyeless in Gaza, The Grapes of Wrath, The Case of the Black-Eyed Blond, Sunset Song, For Whom The Bell Tolls... Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me and I started reading them, working my way along the shelf. I was far too young for them, of course, but since I didn't know that I had no preconceptions. And in a way, these books shaped the rest of my life.
What’s your daily routine when you aren’t touring?
Research reading, cooking, wine-tasting, relaxing in the garden.
How much touring do you do?
I tour the States once a year these days. But since I live in France, and my books are published here, I get invited to book fairs all over the country, and usually do ten to twelve events a year.
What surprised you most about the writing community once you became a part of it?
The camaraderie, I guess. That shared sense of vulnerability and isolation.
What’s the hardest thing about being an author?
The next book.
Do you blog? How frequently? Is your blog a group or single effort?
I have a blog, but generally only keep it up to date when I am touring in the US - partly to keep a record for myself, and partly to keep friends and family (and readers) in touch with where I am and what is happening.
How frequently do you organize or participate in book tours?
My wife organises my annual book tours in the States. She is brilliant at it, producing a "book" with a daily itinerary, all our travel tickets and arrangements, car rental, hotels etc. She now knows the US hub airports by heart and most of the booksellers, and can plan a mean tour.
What kind of events or signings do you do?
In the States I talk to readers at as many independent mystery stores as I can fit into my itinerary - which can be as many as twenty. In France, almost every town has its own annual book fair. Authors are invited to attend, and all expenses are paid from the public purse. These events usually consist of contributing to one or more round table discussions in front of an audience, and sitting at tables piled high with your books to sign for readers. The biggest events can attract as many as a quarter of a million people over the course of a weekend. In Paris it is nearly half a million over four days.
In a typical year, how many times did you appear for your book?
Anywhere between 30 and 40 times.
How many fan conferences such as Bouchercon will you typically attend in a year?
Living in France, it is a very expensive business going to these events, so I try to arrange my US tours to coincide with one of the fan conferences - usually Left Coast Crime, although I have also been to Bouchercon.
Do you like to travel?
I love to experience different places around the world, although I hate the actual mechanics of travelling.
What surprised you the most when you became a published author?
How little promotion and support a writer receives from his publisher. My first book was published more than 30 years ago. I was very excited, waiting to hear from my publisher what my promotional itinerary would be, what newspaper and radio interviews I would do, and what papers I would be reviewed in. But when the book actually appeared, it seemed to vanish into a black hole. It had very few reviews, there was virtually no promotion, and I did one single radio interview. I quickly learned that if you wanted to achieve a profile for yourself and your books, you were going to have to do it yourself.
Do you think you’ll change direction or spread out a bit? Write a different kind of crime novel? If so, what kind?
I think it is quite hard to change direction as a writer, once you are establish in a genre. Publishers, and readers, always want more of the same. However, I have recently written two very different types of crime book - one set in a virtual world, the other a slow-burn psychological thriller set on a remote Scottish island. I found the latter very hard to sell in the UK, but my French publisher has snapped it up, buying world rights, and it will be published in French even before it appears in English.
Especially since 9/11, how do you respond to the accusation that you are trying to make money on a phenomenon in society we call murder? Or heinous crime?
I have always enjoyed reading crime books and thrillers, as well as movies of the same genre - something I have in common with many other people around the world. I write what I enjoy reading, and fortunately a lot of other people enjoy reading what I write. So I make no apologies for that. But, in the end, a crime story is only ever a vehicle for an exploration of the human condition. Which is what writers have always written about. An interesting coda to this is that one of my China Thrillers, "Snakehead" won a French literary award where the judges were panels of prisoners in French penitentiaries. I felt it was quite an accolade for a crime writer to get the thumbs up from criminals.
If you could be anything else in the world, have any other career, what would it be?
A professional musician.
What career would you least like to do, if writing was to become impossible?
I once worked as a civil servant in the UK, calculating the interest in the bank books of investors in the Department of National Savings. I sat in a huge shed, with hundreds of other people, having to achieve a target of ten bank books an hour, monitored by eagle-eyed senior functionaries. I had to ask to go to the toilet. After three months, I stood up one morning and simply walked out, never to return. I find it hard to imagine a worse job.
Have you ever collaborated on a novel? Would you consider it?
No, and no. As a script writer and story editor on TV series and serials, I worked as part of a team. Which was stimulating, and fun. But, for me, novel writing is a singularly solo occupation.
Who are the authors who you feel have had the most influence on your writing career.
The four most influential writers who shaped my style and ambition were Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, H. E. Bates, and J. P. Donleavy.
Tell us one or two authors or books you absolutely universally recommend.
The most inspirational book, I think, that a writer can read is Ernest Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast". The only book I was ever moved to read twice was J.P. Donleavy's "The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B" - which made me both laugh out loud and weep copious tears.
Who is your favorite mystery author?
I think one of the best mystery writers around today is William Kent Krueger - simply for his marvelous characterisation, sensitivity, and observation of the human condition. These are qualities I rarely find in many contemporary mysteries and thrillers.
Where do you want your career to go?
I spent twenty years writing for television before turning to writing books full time. I would love now, to see some of my books adapted for the screen - big or small. I am fortunate in that the first of my China Thrillers series, "The Firemaker", is to be made into a movie - a French/Chinese co-production made in English for the international market, and directed by award-winning Chinese director Wang Chao. The third of my Enzo Files series, "Blacklight Blue", is currently being developed as a TV movie.
Who is your publisher? What’s your current book?
My US publisher is Poisoned Pen Press. My current books are "Blacklight Blue" (the Enzo Files), and "Snakehead" (the China Thrillers). The second of the China Thrillers, "The Fourth Sacrifice", is also just out in paperback. The fourth Enzo book, and my virtual thriller will both come out early next year.
Are you agented?
I have literary agents in New York and London.
What’s your take on the rise of electronic publishing?
An interesting development that could ultimately free the writer from being tied to a publisher.
What’s your favorite word?
"Smirr". It's a Scottish word meaning rain so fine that it is almost a mist (the Scots have more words for rain than anyone else in the world, I think). The reason I love it is that it always confuses the hell out of my English editors.
What’s your least favorite word?
"But" - particularly when following the phrase, "I loved your book".
If you could change one thing about the world what would that be?
While adjusting my bikini and freshening my lipstick, I'd put in my tuppenceworth for world peace.
Tell us about your upcoming book or other project.
The fifth book in the Enzo files is in the early stages of development. I have also been commissioned by a French publisher to write a short story of around 12,000 words using only the Latin-based vocabulary of the English language in an attempt to create something written in English that can be read by the French. It is an interesting idea, and I am going to use it as a vehicle for revisiting my characters from the China Thrillers series, Li Yan and Margaret Campbell.
Thank you for an interesting and insightful interview.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Janice Halley Interview
This one is a reverse. She interviewed me
here's the link
http://research-writing-techniques.suite101.com/article.cfm/writers_rituals_carl_brookins
here's the link
http://research-writing-techniques.suite101.com/article.cfm/writers_rituals_carl_brookins
Saturday, March 22, 2008
JESS LOUREY TALKS TO THE MINNESOTA CRIME WAVE
MCW You’ve set your mysteries in a small, west-central
JL The fictional
I have had a couple Battle Lake-ians ask me how I could get away writing about the former mayor like that, or the police chief, or the guy who lives in the blue house on
On the whole, the people from
MCW Mira James is a woman in search of many things, not the least of which is a normal relationship with a man. Her quest for romance has often gone awry and provided readers with some hilarious moments. Any truth in any of Mira’s escapades? Where do you find inspiration for the mishaps?
JL I see through your flimsy ruse to get me to reveal the pitiful details of my dating experiences. J Mira’s escapades are 34% the product of my wicked imagination, 33% inspiration provided by the relationships of friends and family and other outside influences, and 33% ripped from the headlines of my own life. For example, I force myself to try online dating every spring, and every time I do it, I somehow end up with the guy who thinks it’s okay to pee on the 17th hole of the (mini)golf course, or the man who reveals on our second date that he was actually born a woman, and can he share some hairstyling tips with me? That’s enough to put me in dating hibernation until the next spring, when I try it again.
But straight reality rarely flies in fiction. It’s too unbelievable. So authors tone it down and add creative twists to make it work. That’s why in May Day, the first book in the series, readers see Mira’s “friend” sign her up for an online dating service. Mira winds up on a date with a mild-mannered professor who turns out to be in the midst of a sex change. Because readers have identified with Mira, I hope, and see her as the type of character who has these ridiculous encounters in her life, a toned-down version of what really happened to me works for her.
Of course, anything truly shocking you read in the series is entirely fictional and never happened to anyone I know and especially not to me.
JL I was at a signing in
“Everyone says that, but it’s not true. She’s not me,” Jen said, shaking her head.
That’s the answer we all give, right? And it’s true, as far as that goes. Our protagonist is never us, because we would never be that honest, or brave, or passionate, or horrible. The other side of the coin, however, is that our protagonist is more us than we could ever be because s/he is entirely our own creation, with all our fears and hopes amplified for the world to see.
When you write a book, even if it’s a humorous mystery like I write, you lay yourself bare, and it feels necessary sometimes to hide behind the fact that we are not our protagonists, even though that’s not the whole truth. That’s why I like how you phrased this question—I am not my protagonist, but she is a reflection of me. Actually, all the characters in my books are a reflection of me because, if nothing else, I thought they were worth including.
MCW The connection of the titles—all with a relationship to a particular month—is a clever idea. How’d you happen on it?
Thank you. I’m a fan of Sue Grafton’s alphabet mysteries and was the world’s biggest fan of Janet Evanovich’s number series before she started phoning them in. Those two inspired me to come up with my own schtick, so I took a survey of what was out there—the numbers and the letters were taken, somebody else had the astrological signs, there was a herbal series and a color series, what’s left for me? Months. I had the titles May Day and June Bug chosen before I wrote the first word of either book.
Though I initially chose it because I liked the gimmick, it’s turned out to be a good way to create a plot arc because you’re following the characters through a real-time year, with each book focusing on some mystery they need to solve that month.
MCW Of all the kinds of stories you might write, you’ve chosen mysteries. Why?JL Actually,
MCW Tell us a little about your journey to publication.
JL My journey to publication is painful, so I’ll keep it short. May Day was rejected over 400 times before it found an agent, and then another dozen times before it found a publisher. I didn’t give up, and now I’m being interviewed by one of my favorite authors. Life is funny, isn’t it?
MCW You’ve taught writing at the collegiate level. How would you grade yourself on your own writing? And does your sensibility as a teacher spill over into your work as an author?
JL I do make my living teaching English and sociology at a two-year college, and I’m a hard grader. I’d give my early writing a C+ and my mysteries a B+. I’d always like to develop and improve as a writer.
I don’t find my teaching spilling over into my writing as much as I find my writing spilling over into my teaching. My writing makes me more reflective, more able to see the big picture, and more patient with human mistakes. The exception is that I do use my writing as therapy to “fix” bad students. Those who are whiny and entitled often find themselves as awful characters in future novels, but all mystery writers work through their stress that way, right?
MCW
JL Initially, I think it was long winters with poor TV reception. You either learned to ice fish, took up quilting, picked up a pen, or started collecting human skulls in the pig barn. Now, I think it’s just peer pressure.
I intend to write twelve books in the Murder by Month series. In fact, I have September Mourn all planned out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)