J. Mark Bertrand's Blog, page 2

Things You Must Not Do, #1: Respond to Critics

One of the lessons drilled into me during grad school: a writer doesn't respond to critics. Let your work speak for itself. Once you start trying to explain it, you've lost. To explain is to demystify. To explain is to do the reader's job for him. And so on. In writing workshops, we were never allowed to join the conversation about our work. "Just listen and learn." I remember people sitting on their hands, putting the silent finger over their lips, anything to stop the words from flowing. A good discipline. 

There's a certain loftiness to this rule that seems incompatible with our age of author accessiblity. To my ears, it sounds a bit like an eighteenth century country lord admonishing his offspring. "A gentleman does not engage in trade." Even so, there are plenty of examples from recent history to reinforce the point, authors engaging their critics only to make themselves objects of ridicule. For the most part, responding to critics seems to be a self-defeating strategy. 

And yet, it's so tempting. With the proliferation of customer reviews and book bloggers, airing your opinion about a book is easier than ever. That's great for writers, who tend to be publicity starved, but it's a two-edged sword. Noboby has spent more time thinking about your book than you. Nobody wants to talk about it more. But you can't. Not in that venue.

Answer the critics on the page and let the words speak for themselves. 

 

Alone in a Room With the Rest of the World

Writers develop strange work habits. Maybe it's the isolation, all those hours alone with no structure to the work day apart from what you provide on your own. One of my eccentricities kicks in whenever I begin a new book: I can't get started until I've re-arranged my office space. Sometimes the change is minor -- clearing the surfaces, moving old reference material out to make room for the new stuff. This time it involved moving my desk to face a different direction and piling the desktop high with a bookcase and shelf. 

The re-decorating is all done, so it's time to write.

Review: Daniel Woodrell's The Outlaw Album

Earlier this month, Books & Culture published my review of Daniel Woodrell's short story collection The Outlaw Album. The fiction review is a form unto itself, a genre I greatly admire. When I have the opportunity to write one, I try to make it count, focusing on books that awe me as a writer, authors who have taught me something. Woodrell is one of them. Here's an excerpt:

The Outlaw Album is full of such men, in thrall not so much to moral dilemmas as to brooding existential preoccupations—hard experience has knocked them loose from a fringe existence that was dislocated to begin with .... What makes these people interesting isn't their otherness. It's the way they combine what we once were with what we have become. And their stories illustrate how crime fiction has changed, concerned more now with the consequences of the mystery than its solution.

Follow the link for more: The Outlaw Album . For more reviews and other nonfiction, check out the Published Elsewhere list in the righthand column.

Publisher's Weekly Gives Starred Review to Back on Murder Audiobook

This is exciting. Publisher's Weekly gave the audiobook edition of my novel Back on Murder, read by Mel Foster, a starred review this week:

The review reads:

Mel Foster delivers winning narration in this audio edition of Bertrand's mystery novel about burned-out Houston police detective Roland March's quest to solve two seemingly unrelated cases: the disappearance of the teenage daughter of deceased mega-church pastor and a gang shooting on the wrong side of the tracks. As he works the two cases, March must also confronts his own emotional baggage and work to rebuild both his career and his marriage. Foster perfectly captures the author's larger-than-life world: gritty law enforcement digs, mean streets, affluent suburban enclaves, evangelical congregations. Foster's attention to character traits and dialect makes for an across-the-board satisfying listening experience; he manages to evoke place and identity without descending into stock caricatures. Several depictions stand out in particular, including the charming but steely female head of the city's missing persons unit and the gruff, chain-smoking local medical examiner, who happens to be March's brother-in-law. Foster also provides an especially effective rendering of a devoted--if sometimes overly eager -- youth pastor who joins March's investigation.

Congratulations, Mel! Mel narrates the second book in the series, Pattern of Wounds, too. I'm thrilled with how well received the audiobooks have been!

 

 

Read the Book That Doesn't Exist

If you've read my Roland March novels, you're familiar with The Kingwood Killing. It's a 2003 true crime book by journalist Brad Templeton, covering March's most famous early case. The problem is, even though characters in Back on Murder and Pattern of Wounds refer to the book often, it doesn't really exist (any more than Templeton does), which means you can't read it.

Until now, that is. Here's the story: during the writing of Pattern of Wounds, in order to keep everything straight, I found that I needed to write The Kingwood Killing, too. Not in its entirety, thank goodness -- just thirty-odd pages' worth of excerpts, enough to tell the story. Now I have posted these excerpts online at the new www.jmarkbertrand.com.

Will reading this add to your appreciation of the books? Absolutely. There are some hidden nuggets in the excerpt that will fill in some blanks. Also, you'll get to read the transcript of a key moment in Donald Fauk's confession to March on September 11, 2001. This will add some layers to their conversation at the end of Pattern of Wounds. Enjoy: THE KINGWOOD KILLING.

Inside the Series

With the release of the third Roland March mystery, Nothing to Hide, just two weeks away, I've posted the mother-of-all-interviews on my new site www.jmarkbertrand.com. It's a round-up of all kinds of questions I've been asked about the books, along with much more detailed answers than I usually give (since I'm one of those writers who prefers to let the story speak for itself). 

Is this a series or a trilogy? When do the novels take place? What are the real events that inspired some of the storylines? All these questions and more are answered "Inside the Series."

New Site, New Ad

There's a new web-sized ad to promote Nothing to Hide (see above). If you're inclined to help promote the book, feel free to post it everywhere and link back to my site www.jmarkbertrand.com. Speaking of which, in honor of the book's imminent release, www.jmarkbertrand.com has also been made over, with lots of new goodies added. It looks cool, too, so check it out.

A little bait: if you're one of the many readers stumped by the ending of Pattern of Wounds -- and you don't mind a spoiler or two -- you can read both the original and printed endings of the story.

Crime Scene Investigation Infographic

I love infographics. I love criminology. So this guide to crime scene science warms my heart. Need to lift fingerprints or extimate time of death? It's all here. (Via Lee Lofland's excellent blog The Graveyard Shift). 

(Click to enlarge)

Source: eLocalLawyers.com

RT Book Reviews: Nothing to Hide is a "stellar novel"

There's not a romantic bone in the novel -- nor, some would argue, in the author himself -- but when I read the RT Book Reviews notice about Nothing to Hide, my bodice just about ripped. You see, the RT stands for Romantic Times, which reviews a variety of genres including mystery. Here's what they had to say about my book:

Bertrand’s third police procedural featuring homicide detective Roland March is intricately plotted and thoroughly engaging. The action starts on the first page and doesn’t let up until the last. The cast of characters is large, but Bertrand does a great job keeping their identities clear-cut and easy to follow. Reading the first two books in the series is helpful, but not crucial, for the enjoyment of this stellar novel.

This is the first print review of the book I've seen. Now I can stop holding my breath and let the feeling return to my extremities. (I've got to stop joking about this bodice thing.) Plus, I have a new respect for the word stellar. Expect me to use it often from now on.

Bond. James Bond.

I grew up reading Ian Fleming's novels and watching all the James Bond movies, though I had the misfortune to come of age during the safari-suited Roger Moore era and subsequently didn't get the appeal of the Connery films until I'd grown up. After seeing Daniel Craig in Sword of Honour and Layer Cake, he almost seemed too cool and too good for Bond. However, I love what he's brought to the role ... something akin to what we thought Timothy Dalton was doing (but realize in hindsight he wasn't, because it just wasn't possible back then, not for Bond).

After seeing Casino Royale four or five times, I found Quantum of Solace a disappointment. It was fine for what it was, but felt a bit like a return to form. Now that the trailer for Skyfall is out, I'm curious to see which of the two earlier films it most resembles. We've waited long enough, so hopefully it's good. 

My taste in spy thrillers tends to be more cerebral than action-oriented. Given my love of John le Carré and The Sandbaggers, a bunch of explosions and gadgets really aren't my thing. But James Bond gets grandfathered in on account of those afternoons when, as a twelve-year-old, I found my dad's old hardcover copy of The Man With The Golden Gun and was hooked.