REPEAT PERFORMANCE

A few years ago HARVEST, a novel of mine mostly based in France, was published. It seemed to do well. I put it aside because I had another book and a screenplay caught my imagination.

An email popped up recently on the laptop from my American publisher suggesting he wanted to have the rights to reprint HARVEST.

A very large smile brightened my day. I told him how delighted I was; him picking it up as a reprint when he never published it initially. I could almost hear him chuckling. “What do you think Earnest Hemingway would've done without his books being reprinted?

I’ve looked back at the books I’ve written, ones in the first person. I don’t remember why when I mostly rely on a story being in the third person. Some, I think, work better one way than the other. It’s still a mystery how I chose.

Either way, one must catch a reader’s interest – curiosity? – from the start. Yet written either way shouldn’t make a difference.

HARVEST: ‘Tessa aside, I blame Alice for insisting I plant myself where I could write without being distracted. And see what happened?’

HARM’S WAY: ‘On a brisk Saturday evening Boris Fyodorovich Yevtushenko and his wife, Anna Karlovna arrived at their favorite Moscow restaurant. They enjoyed the Café Troika with its cozy elegance of brass lamps, stained glass windows…”

Author's comment: From both these beginnings, HARM’S WAY leans on the description . Before the end of the first page however we have: ‘Boris staggered to his feet, deafened by the sound of his own blood pounding in his ears. Wallops from the pacemaker…’

My latest book, coming out soon, is in the third person. Don’t ask me why.