Derek B. Miller's Blog, page 2

PIETRO HOUDINI receives a Starred Review from Kirkus

Kirkus is one of the main industry trend setters for fiction along with Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist. Getting reviewed is challenging in itself; getting a good review is harder still; and getting a starred view is "one of the most prestigious designations in the book industry," according to Aspiring Author, "Kirkus stars are like diamonds: extremely rare. A starred review is the top of the top, a prestigious, Holy Grail that highlights books of 'exceptional merit'. A starred review represents outstanding writing. Books that gain a starred review are automatically eligible for the annual $50,000 Kirkus Prize."

THE CURSE OF PIETRO HOUDINI is the second of my novels to receive a Kirkus starred review — the other being THE GIRL IN GREEN.

The full review may be found here.

Thank you.

— Derek

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...

25,000 reviews. What have I learned?

Here on Goodreads, my novels have collectively received somewhere around 25,000 ratings and 4,000 reviews.

What have I learned from these as a writer?

I think my answers to that might be interesting to writers and readers alike, if for no other reason than it's a chance to look behind the curtain and see what's happening. Most people here are not novelists and yet comment on them all the time (usually for the benefit of other readers). Getting at least once glimpse of how a novelist reacts could be fun, or enlightening, or infuriating I suppose. I don't agree with the aphorism that "it takes all kinds" but we surely have them.

I don't read all of them. At this stage of my career, I'm also not that interested or that fussed either. I'm found no particular correlation between my success and earnings and opportunities as a writer and what reviews I'm getting. In some ways this is heartbreaking because — rather immodestly, perhaps, but accurately — all my novels have been critically acclaimed. Even poor RADIO LIFE which has not had its day in the sun yet, still received glowing reviews from THE FINANCIAL TIMES and THE SUNDAY TIMES in the UK. My latest, HOW TO FIND YOUR WAY IN THE DARK was a finalist for the NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD and only lost to the book which won the Pulitzer Prize that year, and yet no one read it.

Why? Well … it's hard to say. But one coincidence I can't ignore is that the publisher who published it — Houghton Mifflin Harcourt — was going such a pathetic job at selling its fiction that it's reputation in New York for doing so was so bad that one agent I know refused to sell books to them at all. And next year it was bought out and dismembered by HarperCollins.

So yes, I think I will blame them. Why not?

What this means for writers is that you shouldn't worry too much about the reviews, or the popular reviews. Great ones don't lead to fame and fortune, if they ever did, and bad ones might draw more fun and attention than good ones. In a sense, reviews are what you make them. People read for many reasons, and one compelling reason is to be part of the conversation. The one about society, art, politics, life. Many of us don't read to escape: we read to participate. To join. To become one with something larger than ourselves. How this interpretation lost to the "escape" argument I have no idea.

Why do I read them? The professional ones (NYT, Wall Street Journal, FT, Kirkus, etc.) I do because I have to. The private ones, here, I do to get a broad sense of things and so see whether certain thoughts or observations by readers cluster.

If they do cluster I ask myself one key question: Can I learn something from this to be a better writer? If the answer is yes, I try and learn it. If not — if there's a prevailing opinion that differs from my own? — I shrug it off and move on.

What else?

Most reviews, and readers, are women. At least 70% of my readers are women. After serious consideration I have decided to do nothing different as a result of this. Attracting men seems pointless, and the women are here already, so pandering to what I think they might want makes no sense. My books have both male and female protagonists ranging from 12 year old Sheldon in HOW TO FIND YOUR WAY IN THE DARK and 15 year old Massimo in THE CURSE OF PIETRO HOUDINI through 70 year old Lilly in RADIO LIFE and 82 year old Sheldon again in NORWEGIAN BY NIGHT. Some are American, some French, Italian, Iraqi, Norwegian, Spanish, German, Swedish … on an on. The only ones not included in my novels, thus far, seem to be aliens. Given all the talk about UFOs these days, it might just be a matter of time for them too.

What I've learned more than anything after reading thousands of reviews over the years is that I need to continue to trust my judgement and refine my tastes. Aside from creativity, one of a writer's greatest assets is discernment. There comes a moment in every day of writing when the mind grows tired and the first thing to go is discernment: you just don't know whether something is any good anymore. Once you can't tell, it's time to stop writing.

And if anyone or anything is threatening your own sense of judgement … remove that person or thing from your life. Your ability as a writer to know that your work is improving —not merely changing — is the essence of professionalism and maturity. Young writers don't know whether their work is getting better. Experienced writers do. If reviews put you in doubt of what you know to be the case, stop reading them.

Meanwhile, readers may write anything and as much as they would like.

Best from Barcelona, Spain.
Derek, August 14, 2023

2024 AND BEYOND

Life is changing profoundly for me these days. I don't usually discuss private matters as I'm a private person, but my life is — I will say vaguely — going through some challenging but also hopeful times. Partly in response to them, and partly to lead my way out of them, I'm making choices and being contentious about why and thoughtful about what I think they will lead to. My heart plays a big role, but not without some consultation from my head. I think I'm a bit like Sheldon that way. Though I wish I was more like Irv Wylie who really seems to glide through this world with an ease I wouldn't mind having. Lucky guy.

This year I move formally from Norway to Spain. I have taken a villa there, put the kids in school, and I'm writing up a storm to see if I can keep the life I'm chosen.

THE CURSE OF PIETRO HOUDINI is coming January of 2024. My publishers now see me — as I have always hoped they would — as "top self general fiction." It's where I've always belonged because while some of my books are crime, I've never been a crime writer and I know it. When I'm in the room with the real ones, I can feel that we get excited about different things. Ultimately, you can only succeed if you're true to yourself. Fidelity and integrity can be felt.

I am now waiting TRAMUNTANA which I hope will be my 2025 novel (time will tell). Set on the Spanish coast in 1958, it's a family drama, a political drama, and a dash of Hitchcockian mystery. There are white roses, light houses, and a missing teddy bear.

After that? I wonder.

I'm now with the wonderful Writers House Literary Agency in New York City and Simon Lipskar is my representative. We're pressing ahead with foreign rights and exploring the film and TV worlds, though the understandable strikes are changing the landscape at the moment.

I hope you all stick with me, spread the word, and press my novels into the hands of your friends if you think doing so will bring joy, insight, entertainment or distraction to their lives in a way they'd value.

No readers, no writers. That's how it works.

Warmest wishes from Olivella, Spain in Catalonia.

Derek.

2024 AND BEYOND

Life is changing profoundly for me these days. I don't usually discuss private matters as I'm a private person, but my life is — I will say vaguely — going through some challenging but also hopeful times. Partly in response to them, and partly to lead my way out of them, I'm making choices and being contentious about why and thoughtful about what I think they will lead to. My heart plays a big role, but not without some consultation from my head. I think I'm a bit like Sheldon that way. Though I wish I was more like Irv Wylie who really seems to glide through this world with an ease I wouldn't mind having. Lucky guy.

This year I move formally from Norway to Spain. I have taken a villa there, put the kids in school, and I'm writing up a storm to see if I can keep the life I'm chosen.

THE CURSE OF PIETRO HOUDINI is coming January of 2024. My publishers now see me — as I have always hoped they would — as "top self general fiction." It's where I've always belonged because while some of my books are crime, I've never been a crime writer and I know it. When I'm in the room with the real ones, I can feel that we get excited about different things. Ultimately, you can only succeed if you're true to yourself. Fidelity and integrity can be felt.

I am now waiting TRAMUNTANA which I hope will be my 2025 novel (time will tell). Set on the Spanish coast in 1958, it's a family drama, a political drama, and a dash of Hitchcockian mystery. There are white roses, light houses, and a missing teddy bear.

After that? I wonder.

I'm now with the wonderful Writers House Literary Agency in New York City and Simon Lipskar is my representative. We're pressing ahead with foreign rights and exploring the film and TV worlds, though the understandable strikes are changing the landscape at the moment.

I hope you all stick with me, spread the word, and press my novels into the hands of your friends if you think doing so will bring joy, insight, entertainment or distraction to their lives in a way they'd value.

No readers, no writers. That's how it works.

Warmest wishes from Olivella, Spain in Catalonia.

Derek.

My new novel is available to order

The Curse of Pietro Houdini is forthcoming in January, 2024. I am extremely proud of it. For readers who know my work, Pietro has the depth of personality and character you loved from Sheldon Horowitz, Arwood Hobbes, and Irv Wylie. It has the depth of historical fiction in The Girl in Green and How to Find Your Way in the Dark. And it has expansive drama, philosophy, and intensity you find in all my novels. I have a new agent, a new publisher, and I want to see Pietro bring me to a wider audience. Order early to make the industry happy and please share the news.

Here's the summary:

Before the Americans bombed our abbey at Montecassino in 1944 — the same abbey founded by St. Benedict in AD 529 — I stole three paintings from the Nazis who were stealing them from the monks. I was fourteen years old. The story of how three Tiziano paintings from the Renaissance survived the war is therefore the story of how I survived; and the story of how I survived is the story of Pietro Houdini and his curse.

 So begins the story of Massimo’s war. Or rather, it begins in August 1943 when a man calling himself Pietro Houdini finds an orphaned child in the gutter of a road south of Rome. Pietro is on his way to the famous abbey of Montecassino where he will present himself to the abbot as having been sent to look after the monastery’s art in his capacity as Maestro di restauro e conservazione and confidant of the Vatican. The child – who says his name is Massimo – becomes his assistant. As Nazi officers come and go in the ancient buildings, and the turmoil in Italy grows, Massimo listens to Pietro talk while he supposedly restores the abbey’s ancient frescoes.

But can Massimo believe what Pietro is saying, particularly when Massimo has secrets too? Who is this extraordinary man really? And what are the two of them going to do when it becomes evident that Montecassino is about to become the front line in the war? In the months that follow, Pietro Houdini and Massimo gather friends for a bold escape: a dangerous nurse named Ada, the cafe owner and murderer Bella Bocci, a wounded but chipper German soldier called Harald, and the lovers Dino and Lucia (inseparable from their injured mule Ferrari). Together they will lie, cheat, steal, fight, kill, and sin their way through battlefields to survive, all while smuggling three Renaissance masterpieces and a bag full of ancient Greek gold they have rescued from being removed ‘for safe keeping’ by the Germans.

The Curse of Pietro Houdini is an adventure story, a coming of age epic, and an old-fashioned heist all united by the theme of transformations: of ideas, identities, expectations, assumptions, dreams and possibilities; a war novel set against one of the most enigmatic and morally complex fronts of World War II, where Germans become heroes, Allies become villains, and a child called Massimo has to learn what it means, finally, to become herself again.

AI and Literature: A new Substack

https://drderekbmiller.substack.com

Artificial intelligence has landed. Every technology threatens to “change everything,” and AI is no different, though few technologies threaten to end everything and so AI is also within that more exclusive club with nuclear weapons, nanotechnology, biological weapons, and genetic manipulation.

Until the world ends, however, we will go on living and as we do so we will continue to both create and engage stories. This site is about a form of storytelling called the novel and how the existence of AI will now change how they are created, edited, published, marketed, sold, bought and read.

It is often said, in one form or another, that “Fiction is a lie through which we tell the truth.” Albert Camus said that. Neil Gaiman repeated it, saying “Fiction is a lie that tells the truth,” and Stephen King gave it a twist, “Fiction is a lie. And GOOD fiction is the truth inside the lie,” and Tim O’Brien gave is a thoughtful motive, “Fiction is a lie that is told in the service of truth.”

I’m not so sure.

I think novels are the most complex, nuanced, and sophisticated models of expression ever devised by humanity to represent and communicate the experience of living. A model of expression is not a lie, any more than music is a lie or a dance is a lie.

If this form is now going to be influenced by AI, then our lives — at their beating hearts — will be too. It is time to give this close attention.

Welcome. Subscribe. Don’t miss a moment.

— Derek B. Miller

AI and Literature (1)

I'm starting a new series about AI and Literature: The creation of literature, it's production, and its distribution and sales.

Each week I provide a new observation, interpretation, or new approach to conceptualizing or address both problematics and possibilities at the nexus between literature (i.e. novels) and AI.

I am a reasonably rare breed: I'm both a novelist and a social scientist. My feeling is that peer-reviewed work is going to be years behind this topic and the industry itself (writers, publishers, booksellers, readers) have no time to waste. Diving in with serious thought is better than waiting for the dust to settle because the world as we know it is not beneath the dust storm anymore: it is the dust storm.

Please share this, follow, and otherwise stay tuned. If you care about the future of novels and their impact on the world — and you know you do — this is for you.

— Dr. Derek B. Miller

AI goes Noir

So. I've got this buddy on Twitter, Jim Thomsen. Jim is a copyeditor and a specialist in noir and crime writing. He also has a habit of collecting the very worst lines he comes across. They're hilarious. I asked him to send me 20. I then fed them into ChatGPT — the AI program — and said they were my favorite lines in crime literature and could it please produce 15 more just like them? This is what it came up with. Jim's list is first. AI's list comes after.

If nothing else, it's terrifyingly hilarious:

JIM'S LIST:

• “He thought of his eyes on alcohol, gray coals in a bricklike face, a vicious mouth that lifted flesh from bone like a man field-dressed a deer."
• “Frances Price, a sixty-five-year-old socialite, is infamous among the Manhattan élite for discovering the body of her husband in their bedroom and then going skiing for the weekend.”
• “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”
• "Living in a yurt, he spends his days pondering the transcendent wisdom of tweets by top venture capitalists before apparently being trampled to death by vicuñas."
• "I chose an author I thought managed structure well—Flannery O’Connor—and I read her with the deliberate slowness of someone spooning their way through a fine crème brulee that might hide a razor blade."
• "The cliché about children’s book writers is that they’re sensitive, mewling types — wearers of cardigans, dispensing uplift as if it were Purell hand sanitizer."
• "There are those namby-pamby novelists who write what the critics deem to be 'literature.' They’re the bichons frisés of the writing world— they’re poofy, pretty, and everyone fawns over them. But the moment things get tough, they’re hiding under the kitchen table, making a mess on the floor. Newspaper reporters? We’re the Australian cattle dogs of the writing world. Maybe we don’t look that great. We certainly don’t smell that great. But you can kick us in the head, trample us, stick us out in the rain or heat. Whatever. We’re still going to get the herd home, no excuses."
• "Who knew that you could limit yourself to flat characters, clichéd emotions, and predictable outcomes and still keep the reader’s attention from start to finish? Nicholas Sparks is like a Lego Master Builder who can re-create a Frank Gehry building using only primary-colored plastic blocks."
• "Trying to seduce Alec at all was a waste of time; he came preseduced anyway. Like a microwave entrée. You pressed his buttons, and he got hot."
• “Katsuro moaned as a bulge formed beneath the material of his kimono, a bulge that Miyuki seized, kneaded, massaged, squashed and crushed. With the fondling, Katsuro’s penis and testicles became one single mound that rolled around beneath the grip of her hand. Miyuki felt as though she was manipulating a small monkey that was curling up its paws.”
• “His mouth looked for the oiled berry. Her taste came and went tidally salt and sour in his mouth, as eloquent as weather. When he fell through the sensation and opened his eyes he was surprised to find her there. And he could not hold her close enough. The smell of his armpits was on her shoulders – a flower depositing pollen on a hummingbird’s forehead. They detonated the remains of each other’s orgasms with fingers and tongues, areas of their bodies sticking together with sweat that was like the weak glue that holds segments of an orange together.”
• “Her face and vagina are competing for my attention, so I glance down at the billiard rack of my penis and testicles."
• "Her breasts were wobbly teapots with long, impractical stems."
• "When the captain removes a trapdoor to punch the engine switch and pour oil over the gears like salad dressing, a black heifer of smoke heaves around the guardrails."
• "Grief hurtled toward me, crashing into me and beating inside my chest like a giant, furious animal."
• "The admission scraped like razor blades across my raw, aching throat."
• "Horror stole over me like a mist, uncurling deep within. And then a fiery knot began to burn in my stomach."
• "Fury at my sister ground inside of me. Blame lay heavy as a brick on my heart, festering, ready to be propelled at somebody at the first provocation."
• "The memory was bitter, like vomit in my mouth, but I let it sweep over me."
• "Emmet reminded his son of Harry Dean Stanton. All scrawny and disjointed, like his skeleton had been assembled from leftover parts and not enough screws. The door opened. Emmet was in his boxer shorts, scowling, his legs like hairy chicken bones. For no apparent reason, he was wearing a hideous Hawaiian shirt. It looked like a family of parrots were trying to kill each other."
• "Marlowe didn’t like being here. The room was like a Goodwill store in Dubai."
• "Showbiz folks can smell dejection and failure. They avoid them like gluten, tract houses and commuter hotels."
• "He was breathing like a Pomeranian in Florida."
• "This man is dumber than the dumbest man in Wyoming, and they’ve got an unbeatable selection."
• “I loathe you, Marlowe. If you were a flea I’d kill the dog.”

THE AI REPLY TO MY PROMPT FOR MORE:

Certainly! Here are 15 more lines in a similar style to the ones you provided:
1. "Her laughter was a chorus of broken glass, slicing through the room and leaving shards of unease in its wake."
2. "He wore a grin that could curdle milk, teeth like daggers poised to strike at any moment."
3. "The shadows clung to her like desperate lovers, whispering secrets and painting her skin with a darkness that could never be washed away."
4. "His voice was a rusty hinge, creaking and groaning with the weight of his words."
5. "Time with him felt like walking through quicksand, each step forward accompanied by a sinking feeling of despair."
6. "Her eyes were vacant pools, reflecting a history of shattered dreams and a soul worn thin."
7. "His touch was a cold breeze, leaving goosebumps in its wake and an icy trail down her spine."
8. "Regret clung to him like a second skin, an ever-present reminder of the choices he couldn't undo."
9. "The silence between them grew like a wildfire, consuming everything in its path and leaving only ash and emptiness."
10. "Fear coiled around her heart like a venomous snake, constricting her every thought and paralyzing her with its grip."
11. "His smile was a knife, sharp and gleaming, ready to cut through trust and leave behind a trail of deception."
12. "She wore her past like a crown of thorns, each thorn a painful reminder of the mistakes she couldn't forget."
13. "Loneliness wrapped around him like a heavy cloak, suffocating any flicker of hope and leaving him lost in the abyss of solitude."
14. "The tension in the room crackled like electricity, sparking and snapping with an intensity that could ignite at any moment."
15. "The weight of her secrets pressed against her chest, a burden she carried with every breath, threatening to suffocate her."

AI CONTINUES:
"These lines aim to capture the atmosphere, evoke vivid imagery, and convey a sense of tension or emotion, similar to the style of the lines you provided."

Well … I don't think it can be deliberately funny. But it can be tricked into being hilarious.

Brace for impact, people.

— Derek B. Miller

What happens after submitting the novel?

I recently submitted my seventh novel to my editor at Avid Reader Press at Simon & Schuster. It is called THE CURSE OF PIETRO HOUDINI and will be launched in January of 2024 both in the U.S. and the Commonwealth; the latter through Transworld at Penguin Random House (which still should have been called Random Penguin but no one asked me).

Now that PIETRO is done, and the cover is being designed and it all goes to copyediting … now what?

Part of me feels that writing these kinds of procedural and industry insights has an archival quality because I really do wonder novelists can survive in the future, and perhaps notes of this kind will be quaintly seen someday like the diaries of ice harvesters from Maine discussing their own daily routines.

What … did I just bring up the death of the novel again?

No. I brought up the death of novelists. Now that there are thousands of AI-generated "novels" hitting the market on Amazon and flooding the space, it is clear that something like the novel will survive (in the way that Pringles are something like food), but novelists themselves may die off before the form.

Unless, of course, readers come to realize that AI will never live, never die, never wonder, never decide, never face the consequences of its actions, and will never be able to do more than amalgamate the human experience without ever being able to attend to its particulars; particulars which are, indeed life. After all, no one lives a general life. Every life is authentic. What else?

But, since I'm here and I'm a full-time novelists in a world trying to kill us, I might as well share the next steps.

So PIETRO is submitted. That means I have three things to do at this moment in time (no, I don't count this). The first is to support the publication process. That means answering any questions from the fact checkers or copyeditors and also giving my input on the covers as well as completing the Author Questionaires that my publishers send me. That asks about any contacts I have, anything I want them to know to help sell the book, and more. After that — after the text settles and the cover is designed – it gets pretty quiet before the ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) go out and the elite and elect get a chance to comment on it.

Number is foreign sales. That is handled by the foreign rights team, in my case, at Writers House in New York. They and their sub-agents shop the book at London and Frankfurt, gets book scouts interested, and hopefully those scouts send them to the editors in Germany and France and Japan and the rest of the world with recommendations.

Technically I'm not supposed to get involved. But I do. Because I know some of the editors and I've worked with them before so I write them to say I have a new book and I think (if I do) it might fit their lists. The personal touch matters. It can get a book read, It can never get it sold. These are professionals, and I am doing them a favor letting them know something they might want is available. Whether they do want it will be determined by considerations far beyond my control.

And third … I write another book! I currently have the first draft of my 2025 novel called TRAMUNTANA. So now I press on and hope to have it completed in the autumn for review by my agent who, if he likes it, will sell it onward to my American and British publishers.

So one eye is on the past and another on the future at all times and the work goes on.

Warm wishes from Sitges, Spain, everyone.

Derek B. Miller
PS. Sorry about the typos.

Somalia and transitional justice

I just returned from Nairobi where I was working with a wonderful team of Somali researchers from the Somali Public Agenda (https://somalipublicagenda.org) where I'm a design fellow.

We met for several days where I had lad them through a process of evidence-based strategic design on the topic of transitional justice. They had recently returned from a 14 day research trip to the Somali city of Galkayo. Our task was to turn their workshop and interview transcripts into a transitional justice programme for region of some 250,000 people.

I lead them through a process of research review, cluster analysis of key concepts to isolate "design anchors" of things we'd need to consider in our final plan, goal setting, stakeholder analysis, competing actor interests, identifying the design space (the place where action is possible but the solution remains uncertain), design proposition building, proposition testing, Objective adoption, experience design (for the community), activity design (of what we'd need to do to give the community that experience), Confidence Analysis (how sure are we about things), and risk analysis including conflict sensitivity and gender-sensitivity.

We all think it went rather well!

Nairobi is very, very far away because Africa is REALLY BIG. But I'm now back, rested, and while helping SPA put together their design blueprint, I will be turning my mind back to the edits of my forthcoming novel, THE CURSE OF PIETRO HOUDINI which is forthcoming from Transworld (Penguin Random House) in the UK, and Avid Reader Press at Simon and Schuster in the U.S.

I hope everyone has read HOW TO FIND YOUR WAY IN THE DARK of which I am immensely proud and was a NYT Best Mystery of 2021 and a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards.

(Sorry for any typos … it's a blog and I'm a bit knackered as the Brits say).

— Derek