Alex George's Blog, page 14

Death Becomes Me

For all those of you who are contemplating writing a multi-generation saga for your next novel, a word of warning for you.

All of my previous books have taken place over a relatively short time period.  One of the things I wanted to do with my new novel was to expand that rather tired palette (to mix artistic metaphors) and try something altogether bigger in scope and subject matter.  But I hadn't realized until I was well into the book is that there is a severe drawback to writing a story that takes place over an extended period of time (just over a century, in this case): people have to die.  And it is my job to kill 'em off.

Despite the rampant megalomania inherent in the act of making up stories, I've found this to be a surprisingly tough gig.  As you live with characters and watch them grow, it's hard not to become quite fond of them (even the bastards – perhaps especially the bastards.)  And it's only with extreme reluctance that I've consigned them all to their various fates, sorry to see them go.

You can't just have them expire from old age, either.  Most unprofessional, don't you know.  This is a novel, for heaven's sake!  So we've had death by: enemy sniper fire, arson, drowning (twice), hanging (suicide), lynching, heart attack, massive stroke, cycling off the edge of a cliff, Parkinson's disease, and myocardial infarction brought on by a malfunctioning pituitary gland (you'll just have to trust me on that last one.)  The only person who does die of old age is 106.  If you're going to do it, do it properly, I say.

It may be wearisome, this endless trudge of death, but I hope that all those morbid endings contribute to the book's vitality.  After all, a life lived without fear of death is not much of a life at all.

Starting Over – Again

This is an old post from some time ago – eighteen months or so, I think – as will quickly become apparent.  Not only did I not have a publisher for A GOOD AMERICAN at this stage, I didn't even have a title!  Still, it seemed appropriate to re-post today as a counterpoint to my post yesterday about the satisfaction of jumping in and hauling ideas out of my head and on to the page – actually writing , in other words.

Several kind people have expressed an interest in reading a series of posts based on a talk I gave last year to the local writers' guild about finding time to write, and I will get to work on those shortly… watch this space.

As I approach the end of the re-write for the Book With No Name, I find myself thinking more and more about my next effort.

While the manuscript for the new novel was out in the real world, looking for a home, I had several months to flesh out my thoughts for the next one.  The original kernel of the idea has been knocking around in my head for some years, but I've been unsure what to do with it.  I slowly winkled out various elements of plot, characters and theme.  Some parts of the story are clear in my mind, but other elements remain hopelessly out of focus.  It's been refreshing to have hardly thought about it for the past six months, and I'm hoping that the subconscious fermenting of ideas has continued while I've been working on the old text.  With a bit of luck, after this hiatus some of the hazier bits will suddenly ping into focus.  Well, I can hope, can't I?

I love this part of the process, before I have set a single word down on paper.  I know Hemingway was allegedly terrified of the proverbial blank page, but I relish not having begun.  Part of the allure for me (optimist that I am) is the glittering promise of what might be to come.  Right now, before a word has been written, anything could happen.  I haven't written myself into any knotty plot holes.  My characters are yet to jump on to my back and weigh me down.  This, I think as I scribble down ideas in my notebook, could be it.

Writers are burdened by the same dreams as everyone else.  Perhaps we are even more afflicted than others, since when it's just you and the words in your head, there's nobody else you blame (although we might try.)  Every time I begin a new book, I have to hope that it will be the best thing I've ever written.  Otherwise, why would I bother?  Writing, like life, should be an on-going education.  I'm looking forward to learning some more.

Writing for My Life

Look, I know.

This is supposed to be a light-hearted blog.  I'm supposed to serve up wry, self-deprecating posts about me and my writing.  I'm meant to be developing, God help me, a brand, in the hope that you'll all go out and read my novel when it comes out next year.

But light-hearted is a bit tricky right now.

Earlier this year I separated from my wife. I am now living alone, a foreigner in a small town in central Missouri, with only limited access to my children.  The rest of my family is on the other side of the world.  It's all very complicated – more complicated, actually, than you need to know.  I have no idea what the future holds.

My life, in other words, is a bit rough at the moment.  But I am still here, and still doing just fine.  Because I am writing like a maniac.

For the past year I have been reworking A GOOD AMERICAN.  More recently I've been poring over copy edits and responding to proof reader queries, and drafting a miscellany of additional material that goes along with the actual text of the novel.  All this time, my next story has been slowly coalescing and taking shape within me, nagging at me to get out.

I have finally started to write that story.

It's a painful process, watching a first draft materialize, especially at this early stage.  I am still struggling to find the right voice, and waiting for the characters to emerge on the page.  Words don't always come easy, at least not for me.  There is much gnashing of teeth as I work and then rework the same paragraph over and over again.  But as I sit at my desk and tap cautiously away, an exhilarated calm descends on me.  I am writing again.  I can escape the stresses and strains of the real world, and flee into a galaxy of limitless possibilities and promise.  I am thrilled with the story I want to tell.  I'm anxious to discover if I'll be able to do it justice.  I hope I can.

It's been a while since I've had to switch off the alarm clock at five o'clock.  I'm usually awake before then, keen to get downstairs, fire up the espresso machine, and get back to Maine, in the late summer of 1973.

Writing gives me a sense of self. It centers me, and gives me strength.  It reminds me who I am.  Paradoxically, at the same time it liberates me, and offers me a means of escape, a way of forgetting the confusion that I find myself in, at least for a while.

Charades

Since I've been looking after the children on my own in the new place we have instigated a new bedtime tradition: charades.  (Pronounced CHARARDS or CHARAIDS depending on your inclination/country of origin.)

It's a lot of fun, although we discovered pretty quickly that we have a limited repertoire of mutual books/films/songs/etc to draw from.  I am thankfully unfamiliar with the stuff they like to watch on TV, and they are uninterested in my books and music collection (although my son did once try "A Visit From the Goon Squad" because he liked the title.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, neither me nor my 6 year-old daughter got it.)

Ever the pragmatist, my daughter decided to improvise and invent a brand-new category, knotty in both in its vastness and its vagueness: things.

You'll see in the video that in between my giggles I am imploring my daughter to stop talking.  (This is not the only time this has been known to happen.)  I am actually rather delighted by her disregard for the rules… although those are doubtless words that will one day come back to haunt me.  And before you ask, no, I have no clue what it is was she was trying to describe.

I wish I were six again.

When Imagination Meets Reality

As regular readers of this blog (and especially my twitter feed) will know, I have just returned from a quick jaunt down south to New Orleans.  It was a great trip.  New Orleans is one of the few places that managed to live up to my preconceived notions of the place.  I had a blast, ate far too much (the subject of another post), and was pleased to escape Missouri for a little while.  My thanks to my friend Chris for inviting me along for the ride.  Even if it was 12 hours each way.  In a Mini.

One of the reasons I have been so keen to visit New Orleans is that an important, albeit brief, segment of my novel is set there.  It is the port where my protagonists, Frederick and Jette, first set foot on American soil.  That first night, Frederick sets off to explore:

It was murderously humid, even though the sun had long since gone down.  Frederick stood for a moment on the street corner.  He caught the sharp aroma of fresh tar from the nearby docks, then the sweet scent of bougainvillea, drifting by on a languid breeze.  He planted his hat firmly on his head and set off down the street, away from the water: into America.

Trams shuttled past him, bells clanking loudly as they sailed up the wide street, clouds of gravel dust floating in their wake.  On the sides of the tall brick buildings were paintings of giant bars of chocolate and bottles of milk.  Beneath the pale glow of the streetlamps, the sidewalks teamed with life.  Couples walked past arm in arm, their heads close together.  Sharply-dressed men prowled, their hats pulled down over their eyes.  Packs of thin-limbed children scuttled by in the shadows.  Frederick felt their hungry eyes upon him.  As he walked on, the cobbled streets narrowed.  The windows of upstairs apartments were flung open to the night, and the warm air was punctuated by raucous laughter and angry shouts.  Women leaned out of their kitchen windows and gossiped to their neighbors across the street.  He listened to snatches of their crackling, high-pitched conversations, not understanding a word.

After an hour or so, Frederick sat down on a bench and rested.  He was thirsty, and hot.  He wiped his brow and thought about returning to the hotel.  Just then, the sound of a cornet floated through the air.  This was not the sort of dry fugue that echoed through Hanover concert halls.  The instrument had been unshackled: it spiraled upwards, a whirlwind of graceful elision and complex melody.  The music streaked into the night, every note dripping with joy.  He stood up and followed the sound.

Half way down a nearby side street stood a building lit up like a beacon, bathing the sidewalk in its warm glow.  A sign hung over the door: Chez Benny's .  The music spilled out of open windows.  As he approached, Frederick could hear other instruments – clarinets, a trombone, a banjo.  He peered inside and saw a large room crammed with people, some at small tables, some standing, others dancing.  At the far end of the room, six musicians stood on a stage.  The cornet player was at their center, his eyes tightly closed as he blew his horn.  Staccato flurries of notes ripped into the night, ragging the up-tempo tune.  Behind him the other men were swinging in a sweet, scorching counterpoint of rhythm and harmony.  The cornet player bent his knees like a boxer as he delivered each new blistering line of attack.  Hot glissandos shimmered in the air, tearing up the joint.

(For those jazzers among you who hadn't already guessed: yes, the cornet player is Buddy Bolden.)

This sort of passage is tricky to write when you've never visited a place before.  I studied maps of the town, pored over old photographs of Canal Street and the French Quarter, where Frederick discovers the night club.  But none of it is a substitute for actually being there.  So it was with a sense of some trepidation that I went to the docks to see where, in my imagination, Frederick and Jette had landed.  As you might imagine, I was pleased to see this:

Right.  Ferry docking, check.

I had imagined that the hotel where Frederick and Jette stayed was immediately opposite the dock.  Who knows what was there in 1904, but now we have this:

A cheesy casino.  Fabulous.  But that's OK, I think – it could easily have been a hotel way back when.  Frederick's adventure up Canal Street and into the French Quarter was geographically and topographically accurate, to my relief.  It would have been easy for him to go from this:

(note the trolley, still going 107 years later) to this:

The French Quarter was everything I had been hoping for, and a little more.  It was beautiful, seedy, raucous, awful, romantic, smelly, and a whole lot of other things, too.  We spent a Saturday night there, drinking Hurricanes, and here's a little clip of what we heard that evening. Talk about having your expectations met. The cigarette-smoking, wise-cracking dude at the piano in shades and a big hat couldn't have been any more perfect. (And yes, it really was that dark.) More later.

THE BIRD SISTERS by Rebecca Rasmussen

Rebecca Rasmussen came to Columbia to give a reading at PS Gallery at the start of May this year, just after her wonderful debut novel was published.  I had been speaking with Rebecca for some time on twitter and invited her to make the trip down I-70 from St. Louis to visit.  Her reading was exquisite – understated, funny, and full of charm.  I bought a book that evening but only got around to reading it some weeks later.

The novel tells the story of two aging sisters, Milly and Twiss, who live in the small town of Spring Green, Wisconsin, in the house they grew up in.  Much of the story is told in flashback, relating the story of an eventful summer decades previously when the girls' cousin, Bett, comes to stay.  It is a summer that changes the girls' lives for ever.

As a middle-aged male I was probably not the publisher's imagined audience for this novel, and I will be honest – I wasn't sure if the story would be entirely my kind of thing.  But how wrong I was.  I simply adored this book.

For a start, the prose is just exquisite.  The language glows.  Rich, honeyed phrases roll off the page, one after the other, a procession of beautiful sentences.  Rasmussen writes with unflashy brilliance, perfectly capturing the lilting rhythms of a just-bygone age.  It is the sort of book that constantly makes you want to tap the shoulder of your neighbor to share a particularly delicious morsel.

The two principal characters, Milly and Twiss, are drawn with brilliant clarity.  Twiss, the younger, more impulsive and flamboyant of the two, is a joyful whirlwind of youthful exuberance, but I liked Milly more, intrigued by those still waters, and wondering how deep they ran.  Both have stayed with me long after the final page.  The attendant cast of secondary characters are equally memorable, pitch-perfect and rendered with flawless economy – and often hilarious.  I particularly loved their mother, with her French pretentions, and their doomed, golf-pro father.

But, in the end, it's the story the counts.  This one is a heart-breaker.  I won't give anything away, save to say that Rasmussen reels the reader in almost imperceptibly, and then refuses to let go, relentlessly but ever-so-gently ramping up the tension, page after page.  The denouement is perfect.  It left me pondering the nature of love, loss, and sacrifice, and considering what might have been, and how tenuous are the threads that tie our lives together.  It did, in other words, what all good books should do: it made me feel, and it made me think.

So, highly, highly recommended.  My book of the year so far.  Go and a buy a copy.  If you live in Columbia, there are signed copies available at Get Lost Bookshop on 9th Street.

Road Trip!

This afternoon I shall be climbing into a car with my good friend Chris Stevens and we'll be setting off south.  Destination: New Orleans.  We'll be in a Mini Cooper, which doesn't seem very Jack Kerouac to me, but never mind.  It'll probably be more comfortable than a battered old van, I suppose, and we are old men now.  I shall be playing the part of Hunter S. Thompson, although these days my pharmacological repertoire stretches no further than aspirin and the occasional antacid tablet.

I'm excited.  I've never been to the Big Easy before, and cannot wait to visit.  I'm hoping for some great food, good drink, and maybe even a little jazz.  It will be particularly interesting because New Orleans is where my characters in A GOOD AMERICAN first arrive in the United States.  With the help of old photos I have recreated in my head (and hopefully on the page) what the port area looked, felt, and smelled like back in 1904.  It will be fascinating to see how things have changed since then.  I will report back, both here when I return and (oh, technology) on twitter as we go.  If you dare, you can follow me on twitter here and watch the, er, fun.

Hot Desk

There was once an episode of Friends when Ross (I think) both bought an apothecary's cabinet, or some such, from Pottery Barn, and then pretended that he'd picked it up in an auction somewhere.  He was too ashamed to admit where he'd really bought it from (he was, of course, found out, because someone else had bought the same thing.)  Well, I'm not ashamed.  I was in Kansas City a few weeks ago and fell in love with a desk in the Pottery Barn shop there.  Since I've recently moved into new digs I was able to justify buying the thing – and it was delivered yesterday.  Here it is, in situ:

I like it hugely.  It's the perfect height, and you can see there's lots of room to spread out when the need arises.  Yes, it has the Pottery Barn trademark faux aging, but that doesn't bother me.  I have enough genuine antiques/old crap from London to know that authenticity can be over-rated.

My first job sitting at my new post has been to approve the third set of proofreader corrections to the text of A GOOD AMERICAN.  I am in complete awe of the people who do this job.  They are ruthless in their pursuit of dangling modifiers, relentless in their fact-checking, encyclopaedic in their knowledge of arcane grammatical rules and White and Strunk.  I suspect it must take a particular type of person to do that job.  As I type, the thought occurs to me that it wouldn't be a bad profession for a character in a future book…

In other news, this afternoon I am having my author photo taken by my friend Carole Patterson.  Carole is a fabulous photographer, and has a lot of experience snapping writers.  She insisted on reading the book before scheduling the session, which I liked.  I am looking forward to seeing the results – I think.  If anyone can make me look like a proper writer, it's her.  Watch this space.

New York Stories

I love New York.

I like to think I know my way around the town, just a little bit – enough, at any rate, not to want to be seen gawping like a tourist and snapping photos every thirty seconds.  Hence this terrible photo of the Empire State Building, surreptitiously  snapped with my iPhone two evenings ago, as I pretended that I was another world-weary commuter on his way home.

In fact, I was buzzing.  My week away in England got extended by an extra day as Penguin graciously to pick up the tab for me to change my flights so that I could stay overnight in Manhattan, rather than continuing straight on back to Missouri, as I had originally planned.  Better yet, they put me up at the Trump Soho, a marvel of testosterone-heavy, downtown swank, and way too hip for the likes of me.  Even the bloody plumbing defeated me.  I spent ages desperately trying to drain the water from the bath, but nothing I could do would get the plug to move.  In the end I sheepishly left the water where it was, reasoning that someone more sophisticated than me would eventually make the damn thing work.  I was also impressed that there was a telephone installed next to the loo.  Better yet, said telephone knew who I was:

Then there was the bed, which was as big as my first flat in London:

On Wednesday afternoon, I made my way, with some trepidation, to the Penguin offices on Hudson Street.  It would only be the second time I had ever met my editor and publisher, Amy Einhorn – we have spoken for hours on the telephone but our only other meeting was at a launch party for my friend Nancy Woodruff's wonderful novel, My Wife's Affair, that Amy had published just over a year ago.  Back then we had spoken for 10 minutes or so, and I spent most of the time doing my best to act as if it was simply an amazing coincidence that I just happened to find myself in New York on that particular evening, at that particular party, given that we had re-submitted my novel to her a couple of weeks previously.  I mean, what are the chances, eh?

Anyway, Amy was utterly charming and lovely, of course, as was her assistant, Liz, who has been herding me through the publication process with the patience of a saint, watching deadlines sail by with nary a word of admonition, bless her.  I met with Katie and Stephanie from publicity and Kate from marketing, who explained, very slowly and in words of one syllable, about the plans for A GOOD AMERICAN.  Everyone was very excited because we've just received an absolutely killer quote about the book from one of the most brilliant and successful novelists presently working (hint: the film of her New York Times bestselling novel has recently been released, starring that nice young man from the Twilight movies.)  Stunning, front-of-jacket stuff.  There isn't too much I can tell you right now, save that the publication date is scheduled for February 7, 2012.  I battled through my jetlag, doing my best to keep and taking notes when I could.  Some things I am still not sure about.  Did Kate really say they'd be sending out three thousand galley copies prior to publication?!?  We brainstormed various ideas and discussed possible strategies and angles to promote the book.  It was all very interesting and I now have a much clearer idea about what lies ahead in the next few months.  Needless to say, there is still a lot of work to do.

During the course of the meeting various other Penguin people popped their heads in to say hello.  It was particularly good to meet Lance Fitzgerald, rights director, who has done an amazing job selling the foreign rights to the book all over the place – with hopefully more to come.

By the end of the meeting I had been awake for something in excess of 24 hours (having begun the day extremely early in the morning in Reading, England) but I battled uptown for a drink with my wonderful US agent, Emma Sweeney.  After that I walked all the way back to Soho, relishing the familiar excitement of simply being on the streets of Manhattan (which is quite something after eight years in Columbia, MO.)  By the time I had found a nice little Italian place on Spring Street, I was about ready to use my bowl of pasta as a pillow.  No live jazz for me that night.

The following morning (which I think must only have been yesterday) I met Amy for a long breakfast at the hotel and we talked an awful lot about a vast range of things, including my next book – that would be the one I haven't actually begun yet.  One gruyere and sausage omelette later, we were saying goodbye and I was staggering to the airport.  Some hours later I was in my car, stuck in westbound traffic on Interstate 70, wondering if I'd dreamed the whole thing.  I'm writing this late on Friday night, my children asleep upstairs, a day in the office behind me, and New York seems a million miles away.

Oh, the Profanity

When my first book was published, twelve long years ago, my characters cussed and cursed their way through the unlikely adventures I had concocted for them like drunken sailors on shore leave.  Their conversations were veritable cesspits of fruity idiom.  At the time I thought I was being terribly clever.  I believed that this was what writers did when they wanted to be edgy and interesting.

Of course, I was wrong.  Because of its very ubiquity in everyday life, swearing in novels is usually rather tedious, and just serves to slow down the dialogue.  (It has the added disadvantage, I can attest, of making your mother reluctant to brag about your book to her friends.)

I worked all this out somewhere between books 3 and 4.  I realized that swearing was actually a bit boring, and the expletive count plummeted.  It was liberating, this release from the tyranny of profanity, but also challenging – there was no more camouflaging banal conversations behind a wall of expletives.  I like to think my books improved as a result, though.  My characters still swear, of course – just a lot less than they used to.  They do live in the real world, after all.  (Well, you know, sort of.)

I'm curious to know what other people think about this.  Are you put off by bad language in novels?  Do you even notice?  Are there some words that you will tolerate, and others that you won't?  And are there particular authors whose use of profanity makes you want to applaud, or throw the book away?  (I always think Philip Roth swears with splendid panache.)

Personally, I'm all for swearing, if done correctly.  Extensive, not to say excessive, use of the vernacular can work beautifully on occasion – I present, as Exhibit A, Derek and Clive.  To further reinforce the point, the clip below is perfect example of how persistent and filthy language can be utterly hilarious.  Maybe it's just me, but this song gets funnier the more it goes on.  It's all about context.  Enjoy – but please don't play this out loud if there are children or easily offended Christians about.