Open Can, Insert Book

Two days ago, I bit the bullet and finally emailed my agent the complete unexpurgated version of The Tourist, the espionage novel that’s been driving me crazy for pretty much a year. Despite all the second-guessing and innumerable revamps, I think the result just might be worth all the grief. It turned out to be a (for me) lengthy book—135,000 words, or 475 manuscript pages (I usually peter out at 100,000).

The inevitable revisions are still to come, and I’ll be working with my agent on her concerns (whatever they might be) before sending it off to my editor to work with her thoughts.

Despite having begun the project (over a year ago) with an eye toward writing a lighter kind of series, something quick and snappy, with a jazzy 60s feel, this proved difficult and I ended up with what might be my bleakest book since The Confession. That is, it begins with bleakness (the opening sentence takes us into the main character’s thoughts of suicide) and ends six years later with the suggestion that he’s soon to return to such thoughts.

In between, there are certainly light points and a fair amount of action, but when you begin and end a book in this manner, you know that’s what the reader’s going to go away with. It’s the book that, in the end, I wanted to write, but I do wonder if I’m condemning myself to obscurity with it, particularly as I’ve already started the opening scene to the sequel, which starts with the main character, a year later being…if not suicidal, at least seriously depressed.

Which is ironic, since I’m actually rather chipper these days…

The New Bond

New 007 Novel Due in ’08

Fans of James Bond can look forward to a new novel, “Devil May Care,” to be published on May 28, 2008, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ian Fleming, the creator of 007. The book, to be published in the United States by Doubleday and in Britain by Penguin, publisher of all 14 of Fleming’s Bond adventures, will be the work of the English writer Sebastian Faulks, whose novels include “The Girl at the Lion d’Or,” “Birdsong” and “Charlotte Gray.” (Other authorized Bond novels have been written by Kingsley Amis, John Gardner and Raymond Benson.) Doubleday said, “ ‘Devil May Care’ is set in the cold war, and the action is played out across two continents, exotic locations and several of the world’s most glamorous cities.” Mr. Faulks, who said he was asked by the Fleming estate to carry out the commission, said: “In his house in Jamaica, Ian Fleming used to write 1,000 words in the morning, then go snorkeling, have a cocktail, lunch on the terrace, more diving, another 1,000 words in late afternoon, then more martinis and glamorous women. In my house in London, I followed this routine exactly, apart from the cocktails, the lunch and the snorkeling.”

Personally, I follow the same routine, minus the words and the diving. Really, I drink cocktails and eat with glamorous women. Well, one glamorous woman, at least.

Faulks does seem like a curious choice (and if I remember right, others refused before him, including Lee Child), as he tries to lean toward the literary side of the spectrum…but then again, so did Kingsley Amis. But what’s most interesting to me is the decision to set it during the Cold War, a narrative choice that I thought my own career had already marked as a poor financial move.

But in a way it could be the most inspired decision, since moving that Cold War spy into the post-Cold War world has always been somewhat awkward.

Flashback to July 2006’s Galleycat, when Sarah Weinman asked me, Barry Eisler, and Lee Child what we would do were we to be asked to write one of the Bonds. I’m clearly the odd man in the group, partly from being in the shadow of these fine writers, but also because I took the question rather too seriously, even boring readers with a numbered list. Crimey! What was I thinking?

** Look Ma! Two Stars!

With the last two prepub reviews in, I’ve suddenly gotten two stars (which, yes, does feel a bit like elementary school). Strangely, Library Journal (my editor tells me) gave me a star while not actually reviewing the book—they just summarized the story.



However, Booklist got very enthusiastic, and have left me feeling very giddy all over.

*Starred Review* In the fifth and final installment of Steinhauer’s masterful Eastern European series, the story is once again told by Emil Brod. In The Bridge of Sighs (2003), it was 1948 and he was an inexperienced 22-year-old inspector in the People’s Militia; now, in 1989, hes a tired 64 and its chief. Like Brod, his unnamed country has grown old. And over the course of six days, as Brod’s final case leads him back to his first, the government will fall and the fight for the future may be over before its begun. If previous books upped the narrative ante, depicting the trials of crime solving in an iron curtain country, this one goes all in: Brod must find out why his own name is on a hit list while dodging riots, road closures, and sniper fire. This is remarkable storytelling, exploring the life cycle of a state through the eyes of political idealists, government informants, and good cops like Brod who just want to solve crimes. Steinhauer also offers a convincing portrait of the psychological shock that accompanies the downfall of even a hated dictator. Totalitarianism may have been intolerable, but as we see today in the countries of the former Soviet bloc, uncertain times can make citizens nostalgic for known evils.

— Keir Graff

Copyright 2007 Booklist Reviews.

Models Colliding

As I sit on a terrace in Novi Sad, Serbia, slowly hacking out the final unwritten scenes in my next book, the end now fully in sight, I have a little time to reflect on what, really, I want this book to do. I want it to be interesting, entertaining and thoughtful, of course, but I also want it to have a practical effect on my career, to slingshot it out into the oft-mentioned but seldom-reached “next level.” That is, I want to sell lots and lots of books.



The only way I know to do this is to do something “big” with this book.



One of the reasons this book has taken so long to write is that I began with a schizophrenic idea of where I wanted to end up. Part of me wanted to write slim, snappy spy thrillers, Bond-influenced, with a light, sometimes humorous tone. The other part of me remained tied to my espionage-literature influences: namely, John le Carre’s Smiley novels and the later, more brooding Bernard Samson novels by Len Deighton.



So for months I floundered, these two models pulling me back and forth. What I wanted was some hybrid of the two, which sounds great on paper, but is incredibly hard to pull off.



It was in New York, for the Edgars, that my head finally cleared. I had a good talk with my then-new agent, Stephanie Cabot, who said, “We should be marketing you as the new John le Carre.”



I said, “Oh. Really?”



She said yes.



So that night, in my Grand Hyatt room, I realized I’d been fighting it too long. Those old Cold War thrillers really did match the tone that I wanted for my contemporary spy novel, and by the time I’d returned home to Budapest I had a far clearer notion of where I was going.



But even so, it hasn’t been simple. I’d already set myself up with a pretty complex story that I had enormous trouble even structuring (and no, I didn’t stick with that structure either), and even now that it’s almost in the bag, I wonder if I’ve done it right or wrong—because, as anyone will tell you, the spy novel just hasn’t reached the heights that it achieved during the Cold War.



In a timely (for me) fashion, over at the International Thriller Writers’ site, in their newsletter “The Big Thrill,” writer Humphrey Hawksley recently took a look at this.

The post-Nine Eleven landscape stays on the cusp of promise, but hasn’t yet produced a magic ingredient that weaves fiction around Islamic intrigue, the Patriot Act and suicide bombers. So, six years on, there’s yet to be created a universal figure to succeed James Bond, George Smiley, Modesty Blaise, or – for the tail end of the Cold War — Jack Ryan.

A great hero is only as interesting as his antagonist and, essentially, most readers do not empathize with Islamic terrorists and what they want to achieve. Nor do they think they will win. While in its competitive genesis the Soviet Union created Sputnik 1, the first man-made object to orbit Earth, Al Qaeda has failed even to make its own explosives or the vehicles it uses as weapons. Its motivation is one of the self-made victim out for revenge. The goal is to destroy. The result is poverty, random killing and mindless slogans.

The Day of the JackalThe Odessa File



OASODESSAJackal

Heading out, and story idea...

20 beheaded bodies found in Iraq

BAGHDAD - Twenty beheaded bodies were discovered Thursday on the banks of the Tigris River southeast of Baghdad, while a parked car bomb killed another 20 people in one of the capital’s busy outdoor bus stations, police said.



The beheaded remains were found in the Sunni Muslim village of Um al-Abeed, near the city of Salman Pak, which lies 14 miles southeast of Baghdad.



The bodies — all men aged 20 to 40 years old — had their hands and legs bound, and some of the heads were found next to the bodies, two officers said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19528165/

The Two "I"s: Italy and Israel

Two notes on some fellow-travelers:



A Camera, a Laptop, and a Dream



First, we here at the Nomad are pleased to learn that, as of last Thursday, Robin has officially survived France. His route will bring him back, briefly, to this treacherous land, but for now he’s in Italy, having safely crossed the EU non-border. Given the amount of interesting cultural reflection, anecdotes, media talk and photography he’s been pumping out over the last month, all of it great fun, I’m surprised there have been so few comments. So do take a moment to visit Betwixt, read a little, and give Robin some feedback. He’s flying solo, after all.



The Hope



And over at the NYT, the same place that so kindly praised his book, Budapest transplant Adam LeBor has his say on the editing of Israel’s national anthem—“Hatikvah”.

(Originally posted at the Contemporary Nomad)

NYT's Golden Age of Book Ads, 1962-1973

This slide show of the way books used to be marketed is certainly worth checking out, if only to see a young, cheeky-looking Cormac McCarthy’s mug, to gander Edna O’Brien’s “smokin” picture, or to decide which Tom Wolfe bestseller to read first.



Think about it: These days, how often do you see an author’s face plastered across the mainstream newspapers? Not often. Maybe we’ve just gotten uglier, but I’d love to see my round head trimmed from my body like Cormac here, looking like I’m about ready to hurl a smart-assed insult at you.



(Hat tip: Keir Graff)

(Originally posted at the Contemporary Nomad)

First [and second] Review

[Since I ran across Kirkus tonight, I’m adding it below…]



Since it’s that time of year (two months before the release date of my next book), in my spare moments I’ve been checking and rechecking the prepub mags for reviews of Victory Square. A couple minutes ago my persistence was rewarded by Publishers Weekly.



It’s a great review, and I’d be a bit of a baby if I wished aloud that they’d given it one of their hallowed stars, so I won’t complain. That would be childish.



They say:

At the start of Edgar-finalist Steinhauer’s fine fifth and final entry in his series set in an unnamed Eastern European Communist country (after 2006’s Liberation Movements), homicide inspector Emil Brod, now chief of police and three days from retirement, reluctantly investigates the death of Lt. Gen. Yuri Kolev. Though Kolev apparently died of a heart attack, the coroner finds deadly levels of cocaine and heroin in his blood, and a flier in Kolev’s car suggests he may have been murdered by members of an underground prodemocracy group. Soon Brod uncovers a wide-ranging plot involving old friends and enemies, all of whom are frantic to take advantage of the situation when their fellow citizens, inspired by the recent fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of governments in neighboring countries, rise up to overthrow their Communist leaders. Employing an intricate story, characters both sympathetic and despicable as well as a remarkable sense of place, Steinhauer subtly illuminates an unforgettable historical moment. (Aug.)

Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretaryhere

In the almost brilliant conclusion of his ambitious Eastern European series (Liberation Movements, 2006, etc.), Steinhauer focuses on what happens to moral codes in a collapsing country. It’s a tumultuous period. To Emil Brod, Chief of the People’s Militia in his hard-pressed (unnamed) little country, it’s as if “time was snapping in half.” With the economy in shambles, rations and tempers are growing short, and the long-ruling Pankov government is in much more trouble than it thinks.



Brod — met first as an idealistic 22-year-old cop at the onset of his career — is now 63, about to retire, and glad of it. He works his cases, yes, but that’s because he’s a man to whom persistence has always amounted to a matter of honor. In company with almost everyone around him, however — in particular his tough-minded, sharply observant wife — he senses that the center will not hold, and that a flight plan might be advisable. At this point, almost by accident, he comes upon certain unsettling information: a list, six names, among them his. Two of those named have already been killed in circumstances undeniably suspicious, and there’s every reason to believe that the power behind the deaths is highly placed and highly motivated. Brod looks for a common thread and finds it. Forty years ago, he helped jail Jerzy Michalec, a Nazi war criminal. All the people on the list were involved to some degree too. For his own sake, and for the sake of those he cares deeply about, Brod must now figure out why they’ve suddenly become targets. He needs answers, and he gets them — but by the time he does, he’s no longer quite the good man he was. A Kafka-like evocation that loses some of its chill when the research begins to show. Still, the first 200 pages are masterful.

Another link, more writerly

A Boston Globe piece points to this section of writer Errol Lincoln Uys’s site. Uys worked with James Michener during the writing of The Covenant, and supplies, as a kind of virtual archive, a record of the outlining, researching and writing of that book. Some nice details emerge, and if nothing else, it gives some insight into just how one sits down to write a 1,400-page opus. Rule #1: Hire a research assistant.



Read “Working With Michener”.

(Originally posted at the Contemporary Nomad)

Just a link

…but an interesting thing, given the stories I’m no longer writing:

A 65-year-old railwayman who fell into a coma following an accident in communist Poland regained consciousness 19 years later to find democracy and a market economy, Polish media reported on Saturday.

here

“Now I see people on the streets with cell phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin.”

this movie