This list could go on and on, but these are on my mind now…
1. Listen to Hounds of Love by Kate Bush, the finest record of 1985.
2. Reread A Farewell to Arms, because it’s really that good.
3. Turn off all the lights, set aside an evening, and get to know Bach’s St Matthew Passion.
4. Eat right.
5. Treat yourself to a proper drink.
6. Watch this and this and this.
Then catch up on your sleep and you should be all right.
(Originally posted at the Contemporary Nomad)
It seems kind of self-glorifying to bring it up, but I received my second UK review yesterday in The Daily Mail. After describing the plot, they say,
Steinhauer successfully conjures up the grey, dehumanised world of a nascent communist state, which provides a suitably chilling backdrop to his hero’s quest to unearth a secret that threatens to ruin the lives of many.
Unsurprisingly, the ever-knowledgeable Ms Weinman was the first one to let me know that my first UK review had been published—the Guardian’s favorable review of The Confession. Thanks to her for relieving me of the need to google myself to death today.
(Originally posted at the Contemporary Nomad)
Upon returning from Serbia-Montenegro (or Serbija Crna Gorna, as they call it) yesterday, I was pleased for a few reasons. The first is obvious, and the post just below this one: the Barry and Anthony nominations for Bridge of Sighs, which brings that little book to its fourth and fifth award nominations. Second, I’d received my Italian contracts with Neri Pozza Editore, who are publishing my first two books. Third (and most unimpressive) is that after having spotted my books in the dreaded 300,000-tier on Amazon during the trip, they’ve hopped back up into the under-100,000 region (except for the hardback of Bridge, which I’ve also spotted on some sites as a “remaindered” item…geez). What do those numbers mean? I peaked at around 5000 once, which got me quite excited, but I never knew what I was excited about. One opinion of their real-world values is here. The sad fact is that publishers report your actual sales maybe twice a year, so in the meantime writers have nothing else to go by.
Quickly now, as the vacation’s still in effect:
The Bridge of Sighs, as I found out by tracking down a Novi Sad, Serbia, internet connection, has been nominated for both Deadly Pleasures Magazine’s Barry Award for Best First Novel, as well as Bauchercon’s own Anthony Award for Best Historical Novel.
Am I pleased?
You can bet your sweet bobby socks I am.
(Originally posted at the Contemporary Nomad)
A friend recently asked what I was working on now. The next novel? Yes, I answered, but also…
And then I realized that I was working on far too many things. I have a feeling other writers—particularly those who live by their writing—suffer from a similar over-abundance of projects. The tendency, with me at least, is to begin work on, say, six projects, and then, over time, only one or two remain standing. Just for general interest, here’s a list of what’s going on (that is, things I’m at least taking notes for) at this moment:
1. The fourth book in my series, 60pp in.
2. Edits to the third book in the series, in conjunction with my editor.
3. A short video project to be released alongside the third book next year.
4. A film collaboration on what is fast becoming a musical comedy (!).
5. Edits to a film script I wrote last December.
6. A short novel, hopefully to be released between the last 2 of my series, which has nothing to do with my fictional country.
7. An essay on the relationship between crime fiction and “high” literature.
8. Grandiose notes for the fifth book of the series, which requires much preliminary research.
9. A book of autobiographical vignettes, accompanied by photographs.
10. Working with/for my girlfriend on her design projects.
Now, how much time does any one item get? You guessed it—very little. Because this is the danger of too much; it leads to too little for each little thing.
(Originally posted at the Contemporary Nomad)
The freshest word on the street comes from Donna Moore, then sent by very fast pony to me by Ken Bruen:
Mystery Readers International announces the Nominees for the Macavity Awards. Awards are for works published in the US in 2003. Members of Mystery Readers International nominate and vote. The Macavity Awards will be given at Bouchercon, the World Mystery convention, in October in Toronto.
Of special note: Ken’s in place for best novel for The Guards, and I’m in place for best first novel along with my fellow Edgar nominees—James Hime and Rebecca Pawel (who, incidentally, won on that outing).
To all, good luck.
(Originally posted at the Contemporary Nomad)
The French edition of Bridge, Cher Camarade, is out, and the first review is, if I understand it right, quite good. I ran it through Google’s handy translator and learned that lines like
En définitive, le propos de ce roman profondément humain, et puissant, qui éveille au fond de soi de réels bouleversements, n’est pas la résolution d’une intrigue criminelle ni la mise au jour de ses implications politiques - c’est pourtant bien à cela que conduit le récit, et de manière fort habile - mais plutôt de regarder au plus intime les processus qui sous-tendent les relations humaines dans les contextes les plus difficiles.
In the end, the subject of this deeply human and powerful novel, which awakens at the bottom of oneself real [emotional] upheavals, is not the resolution of a criminal intrigue nor the political implications of its setting — however well this is done, and it’s done in an extremely skilful way — but rather to look closely at the processes which underlie human relations in the most difficult contexts.
Despite my profession, I’m not a huge consumer of books. I read very slowly, and often a sentence makes my mind wander to my own work and I find myself at the computer again, scribbling away. But not long ago I made contact with a fellow crime-writer, name of Kevin Wignall, a Brit who’s often confused for a Belgian for some reason. We did a little book-trade, and I was so damn pleased by his debut, People Die, that I had to mention it here. This novel works into your brain like a scalpel and stays with you. The “hero”, a detached hit-man, goes emotionally beyond what you’d ever expect in this sub-genre of crime fiction, and the prose is graceful and well-honed in a way another writer can really appreciate.
Please check him out.
While you do that, I’m getting my sweaty fingers into his second, For the Dogs.
(Originally posted at the Contemporary Nomad)
This is a post I put up earlier in the month on Ms Weinman’s page when I was guest-blogging. It ranged off the usual subjects of that great resource, so I thought I might as well steal it back for my own use.
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During my first full day in New York for the Edgar Awards, I went to the W Hotel’s “underbar” at Union Square. A friend had told me that it was de rigeur if I wanted a very good martini, which I did. (He also gave a soliloquy on the waitresses there, but that’s another subject.) I brought my notebook (later lost, sadly), and sitting at the bar I scribbled notes for the next book, sometimes chatting with the bartender, but generally remaining antisocial. It was afternoon (and these drinks were prepping me for the Partners & Crime Edgars Party, which was a hoot) and the bar was pretty empty. Enter a stocky man, soberly dressed, who joined me at the bar. He seemed to want to chat, but no one (least of all me) was giving him the time of day. So upon ordering my second martini, I finally gave him a smile and we began to chat. His name was Benny. He had an accent, so I asked where he was from.
“From a long way away.”
“Yeah, but where?”
“Europe.”
“Ok, right. Where in Europe?”
He looked at me strangely, then said, “Kosovo.”
Which was a coincidence, because over the previous couple weeks I’d talked a lot with my girlfriend (as mentioned below, a Vojvodina Serb) about Kosovo. I don’t know if the US papers carried it, but there was a spate of violence in that southern ex-Yugoslav province, in which local Serbs were attacked and churches burned to the ground. The provocation? An allegation that six Serbian men with dogs drowned three ethnic Albanian children in a lake in mid-March. The violence that followed killed nearly 30 people and drove 3,200 from their homes. Since then, a UN probe has been unable to find evidence that this actually occurred. (See the UN Mission in Kosovo news page.)
Now, the Balkans are a tough thing to get hold of, so I was interested in discussing it with Benny. But he admitted it was just as hard for him to understand, despite having grown up there. History rules the present in the Balkans, and to say that the violence happened simply because of these six men is just foolishness. In reaction, violence pops up everywhere, even in my girlfriend’s quite liberal hometown of Novi Sad, where ethnic Serbs attacked Hungarian shops. “Why Hungarian shops?” I asked her. Because, she told me, there weren’t any Kosovars around, and at least the Hungarians were “foreign” (despite having lived there all their lives).
The provocation for this recent spate of violence reminded me of an incident cited in the 1990s (which I read about in—shameless plug, I know the guy—Adam LeBor’s Milosevic) as a provocation by Serbs: A 56-year-old farmer was injured by a broken bottle while in his field. The story in the Serb papers was that he’d been attacked by ethnic Albanians, who forced him to use the bottle on himself sexually. Later, though, the farmer, upset by the press, admitted that he’d done it to himself, alone. However, this revised news didn’t make most of the papers.
Benny’s contention is that the UN will never create peace in this region because they refuse to understand that the past cannot be simply cleared away. These grotesque “provocations” are, and have always been, excuses for those who want to see history (or history as they view it) rewritten, to erase a past national shame they feel personally. (And the countries around Hungary feel similar animosity against the long-dead Autro-Hungarian Empire, just as Hungarians proudly point out that back in 15th Century they had “three seas”.) As an American, this kind of logic is beyond me. I’m used to cutting away the past when it suits me, which is probably why I move around so much. It’s also the luxury of affluence to ignore the past. My girlfriend, though, is seldom surprised, though she’s often disappointed, by such outbreaks of Balkan violence. She shrugs and says to me, “What else would you expect them to do?”
And I don’t have an answer for that.
(Originally posted at the Contemporary Nomad)
