The Story of my Book

In about a year, my first novel, The Girl with a Clock for a Heart, will be published by William Morrow. It's a thriller about a man that reunites with his college girlfriend twenty years after she disappeared. She comes back into his life to ask for a favor, and he winds up involved in a heist, several murders, and a rekindled romance.

I know that I'm always interested in the behind-the-scenes stories of books, so here is mine, a long-winded post for those of you who might be interested.

The Girl with a Clock for a Heart began life as a short story that quickly became a novella. I had just finished writing a complicated novel that involved multiple timelines and characters. Before revising that novel, and preparing to send it out to agents (I did, and no one was remotely interested), I decided to work on a story idea I'd had for a while. The spark of the story was, and this is the usual case with me, one of those "What if" questions. In this case, the "What if" question was: What if you were a high school student who had gotten into college, and didn't want to go? What if someone else went in your place? First of all, I thought that it could never happen nowadays. Too many Facebook pages, and cellphones, and digital histories. But when I went to college--back in the 1980s--kids just showed up and matriculated, and no one knew anything about anyone. It was a completely fresh start. And I thought that it could be done, that two seniors in high school could switch identities so that one could go to college, and one wouldn't have to.

If I were a different type of writer, this might have turned into a love story (well, it kind of is), or a comedy, or a piece of literary fiction about the temporal nature of identity, but I turned it into a thriller. I was partly inspired by the movie Brick, written and directed by Rian Johnson, in which a noir sensibility is fused with a story of high school students. I wanted my novella to feel like pulp fiction, but with college freshman in 1986.

I wrote it relatively fast (for me). As William Shakespeare famously said, "This shit writes itself." It turned out to be about fifteen thousand words, which is a terrible length. Not long enough to even consider padding into a book, and too long for most short story markets. I knew, however, that Mysterical-E accepted novella-length stories, so I sent it there. To my eternal gratitude, and surprise, Joe DeMarco published it.

About a year after it was published, I received an email from Nat Sobel, an agent at Sobel Weber Associates. He had read "The Girl" because it had been nominated for a Spinetingler Award, which was news to me. Nat told me how much he liked my story and asked me if I had an agent. After googling Nat and discovering that he was an actual, successful New York agent (and not a Nigerian prince looking for a bank account), I told him that I'd love to work with him. I sent him some of the novels I'd previously written, and he liked some and didn't like others (one thing about Nat is that he will always tell you exactly what he thinks), but what he was really excited about was the possibility of turning "The Girl" into a novel. I told him that I'd thought about it, but I didn't think there was enough "story" there. Nat agreed, but wondered what would happen if my two characters, George and Liana, met again twenty years later. I gave it some thought, and came up with an idea, and that was how the novel version was born.

It took me about a year and a half to write the book, bouncing ideas back and forth with Nat, and it was hard-going. At one point, after delivering a full manuscript, Nat suggested I change from first person to third person, and restructure the time frame of the whole novel. It was this particular revision that was the hardest to do but the most productive. The novel began to work in a way it hadn't before. By late summer of 2012, there was a manuscript in place that Nat was considering bringing with him to The Frankfurt Book Fair. I was thrilled, but I was also cautious. I had been trying to get published for over ten years and had gotten very used to disappointment.

That September, my wife Charlene and I went to Bermuda for a week. Just before leaving, Nat told me to check my email while I was there because he might have some news for me. I don't usually bring my laptop with me on vacations but I brought mine along. We had rented an apartment in St. Georges, and internet was spotty, but one afternoon I got an email asking me to call Nat right away. When I called him, he told me that I had a two-book deal with William Morrow. It took me a while but finally I believed him. That night we celebrated (Dark 'n Stormy's were involved), and Charlene and I felt like we had suddenly entered an alternate reality. We hadn't taken a trip in two years for financial reasons, and suddenly we were on this beautiful island, and celebrating a book deal. It didn't feel like our real lives.

Since then, Nat and his partner Judith Weber have sold the book to several overseas publishers. As of now, The Girl will be published in the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, The Netherlands, Japan, and China. And since then I've been working with my amazing editor, David Highfill, on getting The Girl ready for publication, and I've been working on my new novel, tentatively titled "The Lonely Lives of Murderers."

Oh, and all of this is a long preamble to explain why I don't blog as much as I used to. I just don't have time, even though I'm watching as many movies, and reading as many books as I used to. This blog might change a little, become more of a writer's blog and less of a critic's blog. It's a trade-off I'm happy to make.

Joyland Cover Art

I love that Stephen King publishes on the side with Hard Case Crime, a paperback publisher that replicates the pulp novels of sixty years ago. They publish new authors, but also reprints. Their cover art looks like it comes from another era. Here's the artwork for King's second book with them.

It comes out in June but I wish I had it right now. That cover is first-rate. King's first book with them, The Colorado Kid, was ultimately disappointing. It was essentially a meta-take on storytelling and legend, which is kind of the opposite of pulp. Pulp is about bad things happening to bad people (good people as well), but most importantly, shit happens. Heists go wrong. Guns get fired. People die.

Let's hope Joyland lives up to that cover art.

Film Frames Friday

Downton Withdrawal

There's plenty of winter left and no more Downton Abbey. Here are some viewing recommendations for surviving the coming months.

A Room With a View (1985)

For your Maggie Smith fix. She plays Charlotte Bartlett, chaperon to the young, and inappropriately-in-love Helena Bonham Carter. She begins as a purely comic creation that ends up being slightly tragic. Judi Dench is also excellent as a know-it-all novelist, and Daniel Day Lewis has an early role as a silly fop.

Rebecca (1940)

Mrs. Danvers, of course, has to be the prototype of O'Brien. This is upstairs/downstairs drama as a horror story, and one of the greatest Hitchcock films.

Monarch of the Glen (2000 - 2005)

This BBC series is not quite at the level of Downton Abbey, but it's a cute look at a modern day heir trying to keep his estate viable in Scotland. Downton creator Julian Fellowes has an acting role in this, and recently deceased Richard Briers (in picture) is worth seeing in anything.

My Man Godfrey (1936)

The Brits aren't the only ones with butlers. In this timeless screwball comedy, Carole Lombard plays an American aristocrat, and William Powell is the hobo (or is he?) that she turns into her butler.

The Rules of the Game (1939)

The original upstairs/downstairs creation. This French film, that takes place at a country-house weekend, is about everything: love, death, sex, and rabbit hunting.

Brideshead Revisited (1981)

Don't bother with the recent movie-version. This miniseries is arguably the greatest miniseries in television history. It shares many themes of Downton, as Charles Rider (Jeremy Irons) becomes embroiled with a troubled aristocratic family, and their beautiful country home.

Gosford Park (2001)

This Robert Altman film was penned by Julian Fellowes. In some ways it is remarkably like Downton (Maggie Smith as a very similar character) but in some ways it's an opposite, darker version, one that explores the more sordid side of the upstairs/downstairs relationship. This film grows on me every year--a late Altman masterpiece.

Film Frames Friday

Happy Birthday ...

to Kim Novak, 80 years old today ...

Ten Best Films of 2013

10. Perfect Sense

For being the most terrifying apocalyptic film I've seen, coupled with a strange romance, and a beautiful score by Max Richter.

9. Lincoln

For Tony Kushner's brilliant script and Daniel Day Lewis' towering performance.

8. The Deep Blue Sea

For Rachel Weisz, giving the best performance of the year as a woman made psychotic by love.

7. Pitch Perfect

For being consistently funny, and for having great music, and for not degenerating into a mean girls bitch fight.

6. Zero Dark Thirty

For those last thirty minutes, and for Bigelow's direction, resisting action-film cliches, and big emotional moments.

5. Moonrise Kingdom

For the two in the above picture, living the pain of nostalgia while it's happening.

4. Haywire

For being the closest thing to a great Modesty Blaise adaptation I'll ever get, and for Gina Carano's thighs.

3. Looper

For taking chances--emotional, structural--in a sci-fi actioner, and for Rian Johnson's whipsmart camera moves.

2. The Cabin in the Woods

For being the best time I had in a theater this year. Funny, scary, and surprising up until the very end.

1. Django Unchained

For Tarantino, who makes every movie as though it's his only one.