tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79330439016672643312024-03-05T10:23:49.720-08:00Inspector Pekkala Website BlogSam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-15873061625412118792015-04-27T13:11:00.003-07:002015-04-27T13:11:45.329-07:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16pt;">I have waited far too long to post another entry, and for that I
hope you will forgive me. For the past few months, every time I have thought
about what I might write next - and this sort of public diary does not come naturally
to me, any more than it would to Pekkala - I have reminded myself, or perhaps
it would be better to say that my characters have reminded me, that there was
other work still to be done. But this weekend I finally put the lid on the
latest Inspector Pekkala book. This is #7 and is titled <u>BERLIN RED</u>. It takes
place during the final days of the Third Reich against the backdrop of the
final showdown between the Red Army and the remnants of the once mighty
Wehrmacht. Here is the official description - </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">The
year is 1945.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">East
of Berlin, the Red Army stands poised to unleash its final assault upon the
ruined capital of Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">To
the north, at a lonely outpost near the Baltic sea, German scientists perfect a
guidance system for the mighty V2 rocket, which has already caused massive
damage the cities of London and Antwerp. This device, known only by the
codename <u>Diamondstream</u>, will allow the rocket to arrive at its target
with pin-point accuracy. So devastating is the potential of this newly-mastered
technology that Hitler’s promise to the German people of a ‘miracle weapon’
that will turn the tide of the war might actually come true.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">When
a radio message sent to Hitler’s Headquarters, heralding the success of
Diamondstream, is intercepted by an English listening station, British
Intelligence orders one of its last agents operating in Berlin to acquire the
plans for the device, Desperate to evacuate their agent from the doomed city
before the Red Army swarms through its streets, British Special Operations
turns to the Kremlin for help. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">They
ask for one man in particular – Inspector Pekkala.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Anxious
to acquire the plans for himself, Stalin readily agrees to risk his finest
investigator on what appears to be a suicide mission. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">But
when Pekkala learns the reason that the British have singled him out, he knows
that he must make the journey, no matter what the outcome might be. The agent
he must rescue is the woman he had planned to marry, before the Revolution tore
them apart, sending her to Paris as a refugee and Pekkala to a gulag in
Siberia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">This
time, for Pekkala, it is personal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I hope that sounds appealing. It took a lot of research, and rocket technology is not my forte! One great help to me was a book titled The Bunker, by James P. O'Donnell, who was one of the first American soldiers to enter Hitler's underground complex in Berlin after the cease of hostilities. He went on to interview many of the participants in the final Gotterdammerung, which saw Hitler wedded to his mistress Eva Braun, their suicide soon afterwards and the desperate attempts, some successful and some not, of the Bunker entourage to escape from the battle which was raging all around them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I am pleased with the way it turned out. Now that I am on the other side, it feels very strange to have spent the better part of a year lost in that concrete labyrinth, wearing that Kabuki theater of masks which make up the characters of Pekkala, Kirov, Stalin as well a a few new faces, such as the German detective, Oskar Hunyadi, and rocket scientist General Professor Hagemann, both of whom I grew quite fond as I tapped out their lives while outside the snows of this past winter were piling up against my windows.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I was so deep down in the mines of writing it that I barely had time to reflect on the release, earlier this month, of The Red Icon, #6 in the series, which was published by Faber & Faber, as all the others have been. I am very grateful for the many kind messages you have sent about the latest book - from all over the world - for your thoughtful suggestions and your encouragement. I cannot tell you how restorative it is to find in my inbox, at the end of a long stint of writing, some friendly words to finish up my day. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I am particularly grateful to those of you who are reading the books in translations of languages so foreign to me that I can scarcely make out what they are, and yet who write to me in English, some of it less polished than others, but all of it more than I could possibly manage in your own languages. The thought that these stories have found an audience in so many different tongues - I think the number is 24 or 25 - is something for which I will always be grateful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 18.6666660308838px;">As I have mentioned before, the character of Pekkala is based, at least in part, on my grandfather, who served in the Metropolitan Police in London from the 1930's-50's. I finally stumbled upon his discharge certificate, as well as a picture if him in his very early days of service, when he was working towards his police driving certificate. I have posted those along with this entry. I wish I knew more about him, but he died when I was very young and my own father, from whom I might have learned a great deal, did not survive much longer after that. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 18.6666660308838px;">I will catch by breath now, for a day or two, before I head back into the mines. If I'm not writing every day, I feel as if I'm only half here. But for now I am going to shut down my computer and put my feet up on my desk and watch the clouds go by. </span></span></div>
Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-67371604409748624452015-04-27T12:41:00.003-07:002015-04-27T12:41:53.731-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-57615828493250822142014-10-15T07:08:00.000-07:002014-10-15T07:08:17.978-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I promised myself that, once I reached page 100 of the latest Inspector Pekkala book, I would add another page to the blog. I hit that mark two days ago and now feel that particular sense of relief which comes from knowing that a new book is somehow anchored to the world, instead of just floating around inside my head. This is #7 of the series and it takes place during the Battle of Berlin in the spring of 1945. Compared to some of the other research projects I had to undertake in order to be complete the other books, this one has been relatively easy so far, since there is so much written about this final battle for the Third Reich. Most of the time, it is a question of piecing together parts of many different books, since none of them alone can provide me with what I need to know. Every once in a while, I manage to come across a book that is entirely relevant to my research. This has been one of those times, and I will forever be grateful to James p. O'Donnell for his book 'The Bunker', which chronicles Hitler's final days in his underground fortress beneath the Reichschancellery in Berlin. </div>
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The autumn has been so beautiful these past few weeks - the red maples and the poison ivy and the squadrons of Canada geese flying overhead - that I find it hard to put in the usual amount of time at my desk. Soon enough, the winter will clamp down on this place like the hatch on a submarine and it will be easier to install myself at my desk every morning, in the dreary half light, turn on my desk lamp while I wait for the sun to come up and start writing on my bomb-proof Getac B300, which I bought, rather than something more elegant and svelte, because during the summer my desk is quite often a rock or a tree stump out in the woods, instead of the black cherry desk which was made for me many years ago by a company in the American midwest called Arhaus.</div>
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I have done a lot of traveling since I last posted a blog. In the winter, I was up in Maine quite a bit - there's a picture in this posting which I took of myself just before I set off across a frozen lake. I was wearing 1930's gear as an experiment - research, really - you can't google what it feels like to walk across a frozen lake in the 1920's (When you read the new Pekkala Book, #6, The Red Icon, which is due out in 2015 - you'll see where I put that research to use).</div>
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In the spring, I was down in Mexico doing research for a new book which I am writing under my own name, my real name that is - Paul Watkins - as opposed to the alter-ego of Sam Eastland, which has otherwise taken over my writing life. I was also up in Maine again for the summer, and I have posted a picture of the little hut in my garden, where I do a lot of my writing these days. My daughter has largely taken over my hut, decorating it with flashing Christmas lights and other things I find distracting.</div>
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Back in new Jersey, where I spent the majority of the academic year, I have just begun my 26th year of teaching at the Peddie School. So much time. I don't know whether to be proud or to burst into tears, Much to my own surprise, I still enjoy the work as much as ever and the school has been very kind to me and to my family over the years. One of the great perks of a writer's life is that you can live anywhere - in the early days, I had all kinds of places marked out on the map - Waimea on the island of Kauaii, Tulum down on the Yucatan Peninsula, Lipari in the Eolian Islands, Essaouira in Morocco, Trondheim up in Norway. New Jersey was not on the list. The fact that I am here, and enjoying it, it a testament to the loyalty I feel to Peddie. </div>
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I have a new American publisher, Opus Books, and have very much enjoyed getting to know its founder and director, Glenn Young. It is almost scary how much we have in common.</div>
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Over in London, I continue to work with my editor at Faber & Faber, Walter Donohue, who I have now known more than half my life.</div>
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My agent, Deborah Rogers, passed away suddenly this year. I would meet with her in a little Italian restaurant near the Portobello Road every autumn as I passed through London on my way to wales to visit relatives. Some people you just can't imagine ever not being there, and Deborah was one of those. I still hear her voice in my head. I am going over to London again in a couple of weeks and I have tried, and failed, to imagine how it will be to walk into to the agency, which is tucked away on a side street on the edge of Ladbroke Grove, and to have her not be there. She had the messiest office I have ever seen. I wonder what it looks like now. </div>
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Apart from that, this has been a very good year for me. I am 50 now and time has made me easier to live with than I used to be. I am more patient. I am a better listener. I was always good at pretending to listen, but now I actually do. I still run as many miles each week as I did when I was 25. I think that the person I needed to be to get started as a writer is not the same person I need to be to make a life of this discipline. I probably could have written that a little more clearly. Late, perhaps, I will figure out some better words. But you know what I mean. </div>
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Thank you for reading the Inspector Pekkala books. You can write to me through the website and I am pretty good about responding. I always enjoy hearing from you.</div>
Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-78849966032937078182014-01-05T10:00:00.001-08:002014-01-05T10:00:34.715-08:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I don’t write this blog often
enough. Most of the time, when I sit down to write it, I think to myself – you could
be doing your book – and I end up writing that instead. It is not in my nature to tell people I don’t
know about myself, and to need them to know what I’m doing. The way I interface
with the world is mostly through the books and I imagine it will stay that way.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">But I wanted to write now and
thank those of you who have written in to say you enjoyed, or are still enjoying
since it only just came out, the new Inspector Pekkala book. Even though the
book was only published a week or so ago, I have had more messages from more
kind people than I received altogether for the first book in the series. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I know it is a horrible cliché
to say that something warms the heart, but it literally does to read such
thoughtful and enthusiastic messages. There are a lot of days when things aren’t
going smoothly with the writing – too many interruptions or a piece of the plot
which I have to take apart and put back together, as brutal an operation as
breaking a bone which has set incorrectly – and I start to lose faith in what I
am doing. This is not one of those jobs in which you get regular and consistent
feedback, as you might in a sports game for example. With the writing, weeks
and months go by when you are so far down in the mines that you can’t even
remember the way out, let alone keep track of what you are ultimately trying to
create. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The publications of the
books, both the Eastland series and those I have written under my own name
(Paul Watkins) used to be a huge event for me.
It was inevitably disorienting, whether things went well or not. Good
news is as diverting as bad news when what you really need to be doing is
sitting at your desk and writing. I had to work very hard not to be run off the
rails by publicity work, reviews and the pressure to keep up momentum. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">A strange thing happened to
me a couple of years ago which, although it was a little traumatic at the time,
actually helped me to gain some distance. I used to read all the reviews, good
or bad, and did my best not only to be grateful to those people who had taken
the time to write them no matter what they said, but also, if possible, to
learn from them with an eye towards writing in the future. Then I started to
notice that I was getting identical reviews on various websites – and by
identical, I mean word for word the same – but apparently written by different
people. The other strange thing about these reviews, all of which were horrible
by the way, was that they appeared to be generic. They could have applied to
any book at all. I knew something was fishy but wasn’t sure there was anything
I could do about it. Then I received word that I had even targeted by another
author, named RJ Ellory, who also wrote crime fiction. Apparently, he had
created a number of accounts on Amazon and was using these accounts, all of
them listed under different names, to undermine the work of people he believed
to be the competition. He was also writing rave reviews for himself under these
same names, which I thought was just funny. He got caught eventually, and his various fake
accounts were made known, which is how I found out about it. I hadn’t lost any
sleep over it – if you are kind-hearted enough about humanity to think that
there aren’t people out there who will do everything they can to wreck you,
particularly if they can hide behind a mask while they are doing it, just
because they can – they this is the wrong line of work to be in. But I thought it was so sad and desperate and
so cheapening of his own talent that RJ Ellory had taken it upon himself to do
this, that I quite reading reviews altogether.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">But I do read the messages
that people send to me through the Inspector Pekkala website, and I am pretty
good about writing back to everyone, although sometimes it takes me a couple of
weeks. I very much appreciate those of you who have take the time to write,
particularly over the past couple of weeks. I’m glad you are enjoying the new
book – The Beast in the Red Forest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> It was a real pleasure creating a nemesis for
Pekkala. The challenge was to avoid
making someone who was simply his opposite. You have to give them a reason for
being who they are, no matter how twisted that is. And the thing about people
who are twisted is that what makes sense to them isn’t necessarily going to
make sense to the rest of us. The logic by which they pursue their goals, and
the goals themselves, necessitates a departure from what normal people would
consider reality. What are you going to do if you go after someone for a crime
you think they committed and then you find out that the person you were hunting
is innocent? A normal person would simply admit they were wrong and call a halt
to their private crusade. But what if the need for vengeance has become so much
a part of who you are that it is the only thing that makes sense to you
anymore? What kind of lies do we tell ourselves in order to justify the things
we do, even when we know they are lies? These were the kind of questions I had
to answer as I was piecing together the Frankenstein monster that Pekkala must
face in this book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I am just finishing up the
next book in the series. My desk is strewn with post-it notes and red-lined manuscript.
It will be out this time next year, and I hope you will enjoy that one as well.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">But I promise to write more of
this blog before then.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-16779820141485891692013-06-19T07:12:00.002-07:002013-06-19T07:12:40.682-07:00A quick update to let you know that Book # 5 is now finished and will be published in February of 2014. It is titled 'The Beast in the Red Forest' and follows the disappearance of Inspector Pekkala at the end of Book 4 (The Red Moth). I am now hard at work on Book 6. As I have mentioned before, these days I seem to spending more time with people I have invented than with people who are real, although that is not always a bad thing. The number of foreign translations of the Pekkala series continues to grow. I believe the number is up to 23 now, with more expected very soon. I apologize to my American readers for the fact that The Red Moth did not appear in hard back, although it is readily available through Kindle (or any other e-book form) as well as Amazon.uk. Hard back printing of the series should begin again very soon in the US.<br />
I continue to enjoy the work very much. After the initial strangeness of writing a series, as well as working under a pseudonym, wore off, I find that the effect of working so concentratedly and for such extended periods of time in one head space is of inhabiting two parallel worlds, the world of the fiction and the world in which I actually live. When I am deep down in the mines of a new book, it seems as if every conscious thought is matched by details of the world I am creating on the computer screen. By the way, I use a Getac B300. Somebody asked me about that the other day. Whenever I am sitting quietly, in meetings or on trains or taxi cabs, my mind drifts away into this alternate universe. I am constantly transcribing these details into a small, leather bound notebook made by a company called Arte e Cuoio, which I bought at the airport in Brussels years ago and have managed, through sheer luck, not to lose. Written on the leather inside of the notebook are places I have been with that notebook - everywhere from Honolulu, to Narvik to Tulum to Cardiff station.<br />
After finishing Book 5, I tried to take some time off from writing, but I found it very difficult and quite depressing. For me, not working is much harder than working and I am very glad to be chipping away at the rock face of another book. Without that anchoring to my days, that method of escape, my brain flutters around in my head like a bird trapped in a cage.<br />
As I write this, I am sitting in my study in New Jersey, getting ready to head up to my summer place in northern Maine. I don't know how easy it will be for me to write over the summer. The internet where I live up there is very patchy.<br />
I'm sorry I haven't written more in this blog over the past few months. I have been so busy with finishing one book and beginning another, not to mention teaching my class at the Peddie School, which one of the great pleasures of my life, that I haven't had the inclination to sit down and write.<br />
I am very happy with the way the latest book turned out, and I hope you will be too.Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-21349561308401875952013-01-15T09:36:00.000-08:002013-01-15T09:36:12.640-08:00This is from an interview I did recently with a newspaper in Finland -<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 49.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -27.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="color: #500050; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">1.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: #500050; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Inspector Pekkala is
quite a fascinating character. Was it easy to create him? What kind of research
you did? How many real-life Finns do you know?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Inspector Pekkala is based on two people.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The first is a man named AT Vassileyev,
who was the last serving director of the Tsar’s Okhrana prior to the
Revolution. He escaped from Russia and made his way to Paris, where he lived in
poverty until his death in the mid 1930’s. During this time, he wrote a book
about his experiences, which was titled, simply, The Okhrana. The book was
translated into English in 1932, I think, and very few copies were printed. I
stumbled upon the book in an antique shop in Princeton, New Jersey, which is
where I live and work. The book was in very bad condition. The pages were
crumbling in my hands as I turned them. but it was as if Vassileyev himself was
speaking the words inside my head. I was shocked at how many things he
predicted for the future of Russia. Some of them appeared so outrageous that
the translator felt obliged to write, in her foreword to the book, that these
were obviously the ramblings of an unstable mind. But every one of them had
come true by the time I read the book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">The second person is my grandfather,
who served as a detective with the London Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard)
from the 1930’s until the late 1950’s. He ran away from his home in Wales at
the age of 16 and joined the police in London. One day, when he was chasing
down a criminal, the suspect’s dog attacked him. He was taken to the hospital
and ended up marrying the nurse who treated him that day. From my father, I heard
many stories of my grandfather’s adventures in Scotland Yard. I was always very
nervous around my grandfather. He was a tall man – 6’6” – and I do not remember
him smiling very much. I still have the truncheon he carried during his early
days in the police and also the whistle, with its distinctive sound, carried by
all policemen in those days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 22.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I suppose I should include a third
person, and that is myself. As a writer, you cannot escape writing about
yourself, no matter how many masks you wear. The way Pekkala speaks, the way he
acts, the things he thinks about – that is all me – for better or worse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
<br />
2. The biggest question for Finnish readers is: Why does
Pekkala stay in Russia?<br />
<br />
(There were a lot of Finns in Czar Nicholas’s service, but the majority of them
returned to homeland after our declaration of Independence, December 6th 1917.
Just the hard-lined Finnish communists / bolseviks stayed – and most of them
were excecuted in Stalin´s purges at late Thirties.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">Initially,
Pekkala does try to leave Russia. He sends his fiancé to Paris, with a promise
to meet her there as soon as he can. Later, as he tries to escape through
Finland, he is arrested by Red Militia at the border. From there, he is
transported back to Russia and eventually sent to the notorious gulag known as
Borodok. There, against all odds, he manages to survive until Stalin himself
recalls him to duty. The question which Pekkala (and I as well) must grapple
with is – why would he work for a man like Stalin? Why would he serve someone
who condemned him to a slow death in the gulag? Equally, one could ask – why would
Stalin choose to work with a man who was once the favorite of the Tsar? The
answer is that, in spite of their differences, these two men have one thing in
common, which is to ensure the survival of their country. The result is an
uneasy truce between Stalin and Pekkala. I love writing about this. The complex
equation of their loyalty to each other, and to Russia, comes into a different
perspective with every book. When I am writing, and trying to understand this
character I have created, I ask myself – What does a good man do when his
country is governed by a tyrant? Does he simply run away, or does he find some
way to continue doing what he believes is right? This is why Pekkala does not
leave.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
<br />
<br />
3. What kind of future will Pekkala have?<br />
<br />
</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I am
just finishing up the fifth book in the series, which takes place in the year
1944. I will be handing it to my editor in London and then will immediately
begin work on the sixth book. These days, I think, I send more time with
Inspector Pekkala than I do with anyone else, living or not. Stalin is
constantly losing his temper with Pekkala and threatening him with all kinds of
punishments. But he needs Pekkala. No one else can do what he does. In spite of
his frustration with the Inspector, Stalin is in awe of Pekkala, just as
theTsar once was, and that is one of the main reasons why Pekkala stays alive.
For anyone who is interested, details of the books can be found on the website –
Inspectorpekkala.com<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As for
Pekkala’s future, I think he will have a long and colorful career.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> <br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">4.
What kind of CV do you have? And as a successful writer –
how did you end up writing this kind of quality-crime-fiction?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">As some people have
discovered by now, my real name is not Sam Eastland. It’s Paul Watkins, and I
have been writing under my real name for many years now. I attended the Dragon
School and Eton, both in England, and then went to America, to study at Yale
University. I live in the United States now, and divide my time between
Princeton, which is just outside New York City, and my cabin in the forest of
northern Maine. I published my first book when I was 22 and have been writing
ever since. For anyone who is interested, there is a website devoted to the
books I have written under my own name – paulwatkins.com<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 14pt;">I never intended to write under a
pseudonym! The way it came about was that I had written a book in which the
main character just happened to be a detective – Inspector Pekkala. My British
editor convinced me to turn it into a series and, so that it did not disrupt my
career as a ‘literary’ author, encouraged me to write the series under a
different name. I almost didn’t do it. I didn’t know whether I would enjoy
writing about the same characters and the same time in history in multiple
books. But I’m very glad I did. I have grown to know the characters so well,
the good and the bad, that they seem completely alive to me. It has also been
very gratifying to see how well the books have done. The series has been
translated into more than 20 languages now, but I was particularly pleased when
I learned that the stories would be translated into Finnish! I have traveled
quite a bit in Finland, from the southern island of Korpo, north to Rovaniemi
and to Lappeenranta in the east. I am a huge fan of your beautiful country,
your history and your people.</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-58223399182436966262012-10-24T05:50:00.000-07:002012-10-24T05:50:14.674-07:00I try not to think about the last scenes of the book until the time comes to actually write them. The reason for this is that the finale of the story is always slightly different than the one I imagined when I sat down to begin the novel. If I keep too strictly to the plot I laid out in the beginning, the natural flow of the story is hobbled. It's much better to keep things maleable until as late in the game as possible. When the time comes to set those scenes, they all seem to fall into place at the same time, and usually at really inconvenient moments. I have a note book. It is made by an Italian company called 'Arte e Cuoio' and I purchased it at the airport in Brussels after I had written a story for the London Times about traveling through the Ardennes Forest. It has been with me on my travels ever since, and I have written down the places on the inside of the leather cover - Tulum, Fishguard, Krossbu, Drake Bay, Vik, l'Anse aux Meadows. But I can't always carry it, and sometimes, when the ideas come in, my notebook is tucked away some place where I can't get to it. I was once at a funeral when I figured out exactly how a book should end. I wrote the scenes down on the memorial card we had been given at the start of the service. I have scenes written down on Moroccan Dirham notes, scribbled down one night as I sat in the windowsill of my room at the Hotel Smara in Essaouira, having run out of writing paper earlier in the evening. But this most recent episode beats all the others. It happened this past Sunday, when I was out bicycling in the farmland south of the town where I live. I ride about on a bicycle called a Guv'nor, which is made by the British company Pashley. It only has one speed and I love the simplicity of its design. The crops are being harvested now - soybeans and corn left to harden on the stalk, which is used to feed cattle in the winter. I was cycling behind one truck which was completely filled with dried corn. Thousands of kernels were flying out of the back of the truck, crackling off my helmet and striking my arms like bee stings. In the middle of this, I suddenly realized exactly how the latest book should end. But I had nothing with which to write or anything to write on. The trouble with these sudden influx of ideas is that they completely fill up your mind all at the same time. It feels a little like when your computer is suddenly inundated with pop-up screens. You can't keep them all in perfect focus in your mind and if you are't careful, some of them will disappear if you don't write them down immediately. I managed to find the stub of a pencil on the side of the road, which solved half of the problem. But I still had nothing on which to write. Eventually, I walked out into a recently harvested corn field and picked up a few dried corn husks. And I wrote the scenes down on them . My cycling jersey has three pockets built into the back and this is the first time I have ever used them. As soon as I got home, I transcribed everything onto a nice clean sheet of white paper. but I pinned the corn husk on my wall to remind myself never to leave home without pencil and paper, no matter where I'm going. <img src="http://www.pashley.co.uk/cms/products/lifestyle_46.jpeg" />Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-56681080782635791442012-10-01T05:27:00.001-07:002012-10-01T05:27:33.186-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWzvnq9iWlyR440rtRuIrLrRt7MxiwPZmFEvvLpFRmhriivGmxomFQgjGSgFC0a43oUlcqcBdcZrgOmt7eaX5dZ975UXGSGRC-j3ruo2qT8zZ-vJUiNsyyK6r5NMmV6u0IAiusXf2WYV8/s1600/Grandfather+004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWzvnq9iWlyR440rtRuIrLrRt7MxiwPZmFEvvLpFRmhriivGmxomFQgjGSgFC0a43oUlcqcBdcZrgOmt7eaX5dZ975UXGSGRC-j3ruo2qT8zZ-vJUiNsyyK6r5NMmV6u0IAiusXf2WYV8/s1600/Grandfather+004.jpg" /></a></div>
Here's another picture of my grandfather. This photo was taken in the 1930's, when he was a young police officer in the London Metropolitan Police. For the last couple of days, I had been wandering around in a haze of indecision about the last quarter of the book I'm working on now, which is the 5th in the Inspector Pekkala series. The 4th, which is called The Red Moth, is already finished and due out early in 2013. In the 5th book, Stalin gives Major Kirov, Pekkala's assistant, the task of tracking down Pekkala, who has gone missing behind the German lines just after the invasion of Russia in 1941. As with the other books, there always seems to be a moment when I am faced either with a multitude of possibilities about how things could go. The writing grinds to a halt as I try to figure out which path is best. It is very disorienting, and I have learned that the only cure is to get away from my desk for a while. Having built up momentum over months of working on a project, it is actually harder not to write than it is to sit down and write every morning. I look out my window and see people heading off to work. I heard the rumble of cars in the distance as people commute into New York City. This is during the school year. For the rest of the time, I am up in Maine and the most I am likely to hear are chainsaws buzzing somewhere in the forest. And not to be working, when everybody else is working, feels strange and sad. The most logical thing to do when I am stuck is to keep writing and to figure out the problem on the page, but I have learned the hard way that this takes a huge amount of time and energy and is less efficient than doing nothing. How can doing nothing be efficient? It sounds like a Zen koan. But I have learned to trust my head to work things out by itself, if only I can step back far enough from the story to let myself see it from a different angle. The answer always appears. And when it does, it seems so simple that my first reaction is to think - how is it possible that I didn't figure this out right at the beginning? The things which appear simplest in the final product are often the most difficult to create while the process is still ongoing. To work by not working has been one of the most complex challenges I have ever faced as a writer.Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-56609599191999749932012-09-25T07:09:00.001-07:002012-09-25T07:09:27.981-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnjl8ll4IsFp6RLawR7ugag2Pj0J-xh8T7jmxmWWbLDyMh1axAFcf9C_Eh6_RC0U4G5EQ-rTxZGvzW4mL5d42tLBvaVyL8qyE60TuLXSPEwcDbfFMS_Ay_rxUN5mhRl6T8b_D2y-bVENo/s1600/Grandfather+006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnjl8ll4IsFp6RLawR7ugag2Pj0J-xh8T7jmxmWWbLDyMh1axAFcf9C_Eh6_RC0U4G5EQ-rTxZGvzW4mL5d42tLBvaVyL8qyE60TuLXSPEwcDbfFMS_Ay_rxUN5mhRl6T8b_D2y-bVENo/s1600/Grandfather+006.jpg" /></a></div>
Here is a picture of my grandfather, who was a detective sergeant with the London Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard). The other people in the picture are my grandmother and my father.Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-2910702433196711382012-09-25T07:07:00.001-07:002012-09-25T07:07:57.797-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXr5wLaIFVQYmzspP09KPbp8lYn-yNIcrN94RvWhiCPK6j6ZB9redND4kkL3ZULj4HGnR7UiqzPBcy6I3SaEWhi-pSvRENHsrGXub_qmT7pbnQ_7qVTwprrhBI8wCpiLTFqk7q6Cf-co0/s1600/IMG_0626.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXr5wLaIFVQYmzspP09KPbp8lYn-yNIcrN94RvWhiCPK6j6ZB9redND4kkL3ZULj4HGnR7UiqzPBcy6I3SaEWhi-pSvRENHsrGXub_qmT7pbnQ_7qVTwprrhBI8wCpiLTFqk7q6Cf-co0/s320/IMG_0626.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-54649974483509424232012-09-25T07:06:00.003-07:002012-09-25T07:06:51.398-07:00I have a cabin up in Maine, which is where I spend my summers and as much of each winter as I can. It's where I get most of my thinking done. The rest of the year, I teach at a private high school down in New Jersey. I only teach one class a term, which gives me plenty of time for writing, but living in the chaos of central New Jersey is not conducive to the kind of thinking that allows me to map out a book. The Pekkala books, perhaps because they are part of the genre of detective thrillers, need to be planned almost completely even before the first word is written. When I first started writing under my real name, Paul Watkins, my approach was just to have a vague idea in my head and then to attack the blank page, hour after hour, and see what came of it. It was a very energetic way of writing. At the beginning of each day, I rarely knew where I was going to end up. I look back fondly on those times, with the same kind of affection as I look back on my first car, which was always falling apart and required an incredible amount of faith and tinkering to stay in motion. But that form of writing, passionate though it may have been, was very wasteful. I threw away almost as much as I wrote. Now I am more surgical in my approach. I remember a scientist explaining to me once that the great Apex Predators of the world - the Great White, the Grizzly, the Orca - expend a minimum of effort catching their prey, but that when they do strike, they do so with such incredible ferocity that the first attack is nearly always fatal. Now I try to write the way a Great White hunts. Which means I spend a lot of time swimming around in my head, making sure I have everything right before my fingers even touch the keyboard. Some of my friends down here in Jersey ask how I can handle the solitude of living up in the mountains of north western Maine. This thing is, it doesn't feel lonely or solitary, even though there are very few people around and the only ones I see regularly aside from my family are the guy at the gas station or the bear hunters who have camps up the road. When I am plotting out a book, I spend so much time with the characters that it actually starts to feel crowded.<br />
I wasn't able to write much on the blog this summer because the place where I live has no regular internet connection. On the one hand, I am glad not to have the distraction. On the other hand, I feel bad about the time gap in this blog. This blogging does not come naturally to me. One of the reasons I started writing was so that I could keep the world at arm's length, as that I could live between the cracks of the world. That freedom to make my own hours and work at my own pace and go where I want when I want is the great wealth of any writer, I believe. Writing under a pseudonym only increases that distance, which i found very disorienting at first but which I have learned to value greatly in the past few years. The Blog connects me to that world in a way not entirely comfortable to me. At least, right now. Maybe I will get used to it. In the meantime, I hope what I am writing is interesting. If you have any questions, you can contact me via the Inspectorpekkala.com website, and I would be happy to answer them on the blog. I receive a lot of messages through the site from all over the world and always reply to them as quickly as I can.<br />
I'll post a picture of the place where I live, and where I do my thinking. In my next post, I will write an update of the latest Pekkala book, which is due out early next year, and also the one I'm just finishing up now. I am pleased to report that the series continues to do well, and has now been translated into more than 20 languages, most recently Soviet Georgian and Macedonian.Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-57422052390303043792012-06-09T04:53:00.000-07:002012-06-09T04:53:52.315-07:00Here is an excerpt from a book I have just written under my own name, Paul Watkins. The working title is, 'On The Moon Tide'<br />
<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There is a time, on the coast of New England, when you can almost feel the Gulf Stream flowing northwards, past the lighthouses of Cape Hatteras, the Ferris Wheel at Asbury Park, past the fishing huts of Shinnecock, the dunes of Montauk and on into Block Island Sound.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Spring has ended but summer has not yet begun. The air is cool and soft, smelling of seaweed and honeysuckle, and the neon-pink buds of beach roses glow strangely in the mist. Each morning, you hear the sound of flip flops on the sidewalk and the clink of jewelry against the hollow metal legs of collapsible chairs as people from inland make their way down to the water. With your windows open at night, the sound of the waves is so loud that you dream they’re crashing through the room.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>These are the days when teenagers, just loosed from the classroom, go looking for jobs. They have licenses but no cars, so they ride the bus beside old ladies with plastic rain hats and men in torn lumberjack shirts whose fingers twitch because they can’t smoke on public transport anymore. The students fill out forms which ask if they have ever been convicted of a Federal offense and smile at the lousy jokes of their maybe future bosses. They pray their friends won’t see the stupid uniforms they have to wear and wonder if they’ll carry on their skin, like a tattoo, the reek of fish guts, rancid ice cream or swimming pool chlorine. They worry about getting fired to make way for somebody’s cousin who got fired from some other job and if their paychecks will show up on time and if it’s always going to be like this.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the summer of 1982, one of those teenagers was me.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I grew up in Rhode Island, on the shores of Narragansett Bay.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The place where I lived was called Plum Beach, named after a thicket of brambles in which there were, in fact, a few plum trees planted by the Conanicut Indians, long before white men ever set sail up the bay.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It was a small community, half empty in the winter time, with one gas station and a little restaurant next door. It stood next to the Jamestown Bridge and few of those who drove their cars across bothered to glance back at the gray sand beach littered with mounds of shells from which the Indians once carved their wampum beads.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But this place once marked the center of my universe. Blinded, I could have found my way from rock to rock and through the bristling spartina grass as well as if my eyes could see.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My father and I moved to Plum Beach right after my mom died.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I was 10 years old at the time.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On one side of us was an ancient woman named Mrs. Gilpin, who never came out of her house except to sit on her porch dressed in red rubber boots and a Panama hat.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> On the other side was a family called Dalton. They had one son, named Adam, who eventually became my friend.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Adam Dalton was starvation thin, with skin that sagged in a way that reminded me of one of those rare breeds of cat which have no hair. His nose was curved like a hawk’s beak and dripped constantly, so that he began his sentences with a loud liquidy snort. His permanently hard nipples showed through the green Del’s lemonade T-shirt he wore all the time. Like most boys in the neighborhood, he had a flat-top haircut, the righteousness of which was judged by whether a phone book could be laid on top and not fall off.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>During my first month in Plum Beach that kid never said a word to me, even though we shared the same bus stop for school.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The first time he made out like I even existed was the day we went on a class field trip to Quantrell Farm.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Quantrell Farm was one of the oldest buildings in our neighborhood and the site of a battle during the Revolutionary War. It stood on a rise overlooking the bay, surrounded by a field planted with corn and another field in which two horses wandered lazily from one clump of grass to another.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The tour guide wore Colonial clothes - white breeches, a thick vest and a tailcoat made from rough brown cloth. His long gray hair was pulled back in a pony tail and he had little round glasses which, I noticed, did not have lenses in them.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The twelve of us in the class shuffled after him, going from room to room in the cramped farm house. The place smelled of beeswax. The floorboards creaked. The windows were made of ripply glass, which made the world outside look drunk. The old Colonial furniture looked impossibly fragile - as if all you had to do was touch one of the spindle-backed rocking chairs by the fireplace, or the copper pans hanging from iron hooks in the kitchen and the whole place would come crashing down on top of you.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Our teacher, Mrs. Halley, accompanied the guide. She had long dark hair, parted down the middle, and freckles on her nose. She quizzed the guide about what they ate back then, how they cleaned their clothes and where kids went to school. The trip to Quantrell Farm was an annual event for my grade, and Mrs. Halley had been leading it for years. I wondered if she asked the same questions every time.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I listened, but not very closely. Instead, I stared out of the wobble-glass windows at the corn, the stalks grown taller than a man, and horses in their stone-walled paddock and the woods beyond, like a green tidal wave flecked with red and yellow maple leaves. I felt a kind of trembling inside, which made me want to run from the house and vanish in that wilderness.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At the end of the tour, the guide gathered us together in front of the big fireplace. From the mantelpiece, he took a long-stemmed clay pipe and packed it with tobacco from a leather pouch he kept in his pocket. After he had lit the pipe, sending a tiny mushroom cloud of smoke towards the ceiling, he smiled at us as much as if to say he knew we were bored out of our minds and, what’s more, he didn’t care.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I noticed you were studying the cornfield,” he said, and it took me a second to realize he was talking to me.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I felt the blood rush to my face. Oh, God, I thought. What kind of trouble am I in?<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“They didn’t eat that corn, you know,” said the guide. “Not usually. Not all of it. Most of their corn was left to dry out in the fields and wouldn’t be harvested until the first frost. Then it would be fed to the animals during the winter.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Mrs. Halley nodded, a stern look on her face as if to show she knew how hard life was for the colonials.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“You know,” the man continued, “out there is where the battle took place, right out where that corn is standing now.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I wondered why he hadn’t begun the tour by talking about the battle, instead of going about corn, which he must have known, if he had given the<br />
tour even once to a bunch of school kids, was of no use to us whatsoever. “What battle was it?” I asked.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“If you’ll wait a minute, Sam,” snapped Mrs. Halley, “I’m sure you’re about to be told.” She turned to the guide. “Sam is new here,” she said, as if that might explain my interruption.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“On the morning of August 17th, 1775,” began the guide, “a British ship on its way down from Providence dropped anchor, just out there in the bay.” He aimed the curved stem of his pipe towards the water. “A party of Redcoats rowed ashore, looking for fresh water, which they knew they could probably find if someone had built a farm here. What they didn’t know was that a group of colonial militia were staying here in this very building. A fight broke out. Two of the British soldiers became separated from their comrades and were chased all the way to Plum Beach before being shot and killed by the militia. Those men were buried right in back of the old Wardell House, where a member of the Wardell family still resides.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“But why would they kill the British soldiers?” asked a girl named Beth Kidder, who had blue eyes the color of a swimming pool. “All they wanted was a drink.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“It’s hard to say why they were killed,” replied the man. “Perhaps they refused to surrender. Perhaps the Colonials misunderstood the British intentions. In war there is always confusion.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I don’t think they should have killed those British soldiers,” said Beth. “I would have given them water.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The guide smiled. “And that is a very kind thought, but…”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“That’s not the real story,” said a voice.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For a moment, there was total silence. All the students in the class turned to see who had spoken.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It was Adam. He stood against the wall with his arms folded, looking like he was ready for a fight.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Adam,” said Mrs. Halley.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“The Redcoats were burying gold,” continued Adam.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Adam!” barked Mrs. Halley.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“No, that’s all right.” The guide spoke in a soothing voice. “I know the legend he’s referring to. It represents a common misconception. What all the stories do agree upon, however, that the British ship which stopped just out there in the Bay was called the HMS Rose, and it had departed earlier that day from the city of Providence, up at the north end of the bay, which is about twelve miles from here. HMS Rose was transporting the soldiers who became involved in the fight with the militia here at Quantrell Farm. But soldiers weren’t the only cargo on that ship. HMS Rose was also transporting a strong box filled with wages for the British Army of Northern New England. And do you know,” he asked the class, “what British soldiers were paid in back then?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Corn?” suggested Beth.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Gold,” said the man. “Golden guineas.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Why was the gold on that ship?” asked Beth.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“The answer is that a Colonial Army was advancing on Providence, and the captain of HMS Rose, a man named Ponsonby, had been given the task of moving that strong box to a place of safety. When the Colonials captured the city a few days later, they would also have captured the gold if the British hadn’t first removed it.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“How much gold was there?” I asked.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Ah!” He poked the air with the stem of his pipe. “That is a question we historians have been asking ourselves for many years. The truth is, we don’t know. What we do know is that the Army of Northern New England, which numbered approximately 5000 men under the command of General Packard, had not been paid in quite some time. It was the cause of considerable friction between ordinary British soldiers and their commanding officers. When soldiers fight, they expect to get paid, and on time. It is possible that the strong box contained upwards of twenty thousand guineas, although we may never be sure.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“How much would that be worth today, sir?” asked Mrs. Halley.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“A quarter of a million dollars, easily.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A quiet moan of approval came from the people listening.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“But it might as well be a million dollars,” continued the man, “and it might as well be nothing, because no one has ever been able to find that strong box. The reason is quite simple. The HMS Rose was attacked and sunk by a Colonial war ship called The Ranger, under the command of John Paul Jones, not five miles from the mouth of Narragansett Bay. The box went down with the ship and, in spite of several searches over the years, the exact site of the wreck has never been located.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“The gold did not go down with the ship,” said Adam.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Mrs. Halley whirled around to face him. “Adam, what is wrong with you today?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“It’s all right, Mrs. Halley,” said the guide. “This young man is just confusing fact with fiction. The story he has no doubt heard is part of a local legend here in South County, that the Redcoats came ashore in order to bury that gold.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“But why would they do that when they could simply sail away with it?” asked Mrs. Halley, casting an exasperated look at Adam.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Because they knew that the Ranger was waiting for them out beyond the Bay,” replied Adam. “They buried that gold because they knew they might get sunk.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“It’s a charming anecdote,” the guide interrupted, “but it’s just not supported by the facts. There’s even a story that the gold has already been found, by some crazy old man who lives in the woods not far from here. They say,” the professor snorted out a laugh, “they say he has it hidden under his house. Now I think if I had thirty thousand guineas, I wouldn’t be living in some shack in the woods. Would you?” He grinned at his audience.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“That old man is my grandfather,” said Adam.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The guide’s smile slid off his face. “Well, as I say, it’s just a story. It’s not true about the gold being landed here, any more than I imagine it’s true that your grandfather is crazy. I was narrating…”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“He is crazy,” said Adam. “He got blown up by the Japanese in World War Two.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Yes, I see,” the guide said quickly. He breathed in deeply and addressed the class again. “Well, what we do know is that the Redcoats and the Militia fought an honest to God battle here. And do you know how we know?” He paused and looked out at us, his eyes big and shiny.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We waited in silence for his answer.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Slowly, he moved the stem of his pipe to a mark in the wall above the mantelpiece. It was about the size of a thumb print and had been filled in and painted over. “That,” he said, “is the mark of a British bullet.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We all moved forward, as if drawn in by a magnet towards the little smudge.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Now step back,” said Mrs. Halley, holding out her little hands. “Step back all of you!”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Through the blurred glass window, I saw the corn swaying in the breeze, and I imagined the Redcoats crashing through the stalks, muskets held out, charging towards the farmhouse.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“They came here to bury that gold,” said Adam, refusing to drop the subject.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Everybody turned and stared at him again.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I felt my stomach cramp, wondering if Adam might be missing that natural instinct of knowing when grownups want him to keep his mouth shut. I had known kids like this before, back at my other school. I dreaded having them in my class. When they opened their mouths, one way or another, everybody paid for it.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Excuse me?” asked the guide. The slippery tone of false patience had gone out of his voice. He was smiling but he didn’t look happy any more.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And all of a sudden, it occurred to me how ridiculous he looked in his costume.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“They didn’t need water,” continued Adam. “They had just left Providence and there’s plenty of water up there. Why else would they have stopped except to bury the strong box?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The guide’s cheeks began to turn red.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Mrs. Halley was staring at Adam, her lips pressed tight and her mouth as straight as a knife cut. If she had been the only grown up in the room, she probably would have just told Adam to keep quiet and that would have been the end of it, but since there was another grown up, and since that grown up was technically the one in charge, it made things difficult, because if she butted in and took over, that would have seemed disrespectful. And since that other grown up was a stranger to us, he kind of had to mind his manners. Otherwise, it would have looked disrespectful to the teacher if he just told Adam to shut up, which was most definitely what he seemed to want to do.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The guide set the end of the pipe in his mouth. It made a clicking sound when his teeth clamped down on the stem. Thoughtfully, he puffed at it, as if to show he did not care. “You seem to have given this a great deal of thought, young man.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Some.” Adam was starting to realize there was no way out of this for him. Now, when he spoke, his voice was hesitant, and his gaze began to wander around the room, as if looking for an escape route, just like those Colonials must have been doing when the Redcoats were shooting at them.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The guide breathed a cloud of smoke over our heads. “And I wonder who told you this marvelous story?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“My grandpa,” said Adam.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now a different kind of smile, more cruel than amused, appeared on the guide’s face. “The man you say is crazy. Well, fascinating as that story is, I’m afraid you won’t find it in any of the history books. I know because I wrote those history books!” He paused and grinned at Mrs. Halley before turning back to Adam.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>He looked like a man I once saw in a boxing match on TV, who had knocked his opponent to the mat. And while the injured fighter struggled to get back on his feet, this man strutted around the ring, raising his gloved fists to the crowd.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I happen to be a college professor,” continued the guide. “Is your grandfather, by any chance, a college professor?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Nope,” replied Adam. “My grandpa didn’t go to college.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“He didn’t attend?” The guide pretended to look shocked. “Oh, my word, that is a shame. Well, you’ll find as you grow older that people in his position do tend to embellish the truth when they aren’t aware of the facts.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> “Do you know what ‘embellishing’ means, Adam?” asked Mrs. Halley.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I think it means he’s calling my grandpa a liar.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“All right class!” Mrs. Halley clapped her hands. “Why don’t you all go out and have your lunch?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Somebody opened the heavy wooden door leading out into the farm yard and we began to flee the building.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Adam,” said Mrs. Halley, “why don’t you and I have a little talk?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I sat on the wall, eating a tuna fish sandwich out of my metal lunch box and thinking how it would smell like tuna fish for the next week at least. In the doorway of the farm house, I could see Mrs. Halley talking to Adam. She was bent down, hands on her knees and her head tilted back so she could talk with Adam face-to-face.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Except Adam wasn’t looking at her. He had his head turned to one side and was scowling.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Mrs. Halley touched one finger to his chin and swiveled his head around until they were looking each other in the eye.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Adam’s chin sank down against his chest.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The guide walked out from behind the house. He was no longer wearing his Colonial outfit. Now he had on a plaid sports jacket and a tie. He got in his car and drove through the farmyard, heading for the main road. He didn’t look at us as he went past.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At the end of the field trip, Adam and I got off at our bus stop.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I started walking down my driveway.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“He was lying!” shouted Adam.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I spun around. ‘What?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“You don’t believe me, do you?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I didn’t say that.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“But you’re thinking it! And those two dead Redcoats he talked about, they’re buried right across the road in the yard of Mr. Wardell’s house!” He pointed to the house opposite from where I lived. “Mr. Wardell can tell us what really happened.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I don’t care,” I said. “Really, I don’t.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“It’s too late now,” replied Adam. “You’re coming with me.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I went along, partly because I wanted Adam to like me, but mostly because I was scared of him.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We knocked at Mr. Wardell’s door but no one answered. Then we went around back, in case he was in his garden.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“There,” said Adam, nodding at two slabs of slate propped up against the garden wall. There was some kind of carving on them but so worn away that I could barely read what it said.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“How come they’re just resting there like that?” I asked.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“They must have dug up the bodies when they built the house.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then the back door opened and Mr. Wardell came out, wearing worn-out chino pants done up with a piece of string and some slippers that looked like old lady shoes to me. Mr. Wardell used to be a teacher at Hamilton Elementary, and it seemed like after years of schooling kids like me and Adam, he now wanted nothing to do with children for the rest of his life. “What do you want?” he shouted.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“We came to ask about the Redcoats,” said Adam.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Rain coats?” shouted Mr. Wardell. “What is this? Some kind of fund raiser?”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“No,” I tried to explain. “Not rain coats. Redcoats.”<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“I already have a rain coat!” he yelled at us and shut the door in our faces.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“It doesn’t matter,” said Adam, as we walked back across the road. “I’m telling you the truth is all.”<br />
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<br />Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-11340716798560027172012-05-01T05:09:00.001-07:002012-05-01T05:09:11.791-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Here are a few pictures of me when I was doing research in arctic Norway for Archive 17/Siberian Red.<br />Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-16839624211530422922012-05-01T05:05:00.001-07:002012-05-01T05:05:22.067-07:00Here are two questions I enjoyed answering in a recent on-line piece, even though I didn't exactly answer the questions...<br />
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<i><span style="color: #222222;">The book I’ve written which I feel has come closest to what I wanted to achieve was...</span><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That's like trying to choose between my children! Each book evolves in its own way, adding layers and eccentricities to characters who have already appeared in the series. At the same time, the continued presence of those characters, and the consistency of the world they inhabit, provides a kind of gyroscopic balance which I find very comforting as I sit down to write each day. But each book represents an evolution. If I honestly thought that any book was less effective than the one before it, I would never allow it to go to print.</span> </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: small;">The writers who have inspired me include...</span><span style="color: #990000; font-size: medium;">For fiction, I grew up reading Tolstoy, Chekov, Conrad, Koestler and St Exupery. These days, I have to read so much for research that I have very little time for fiction any more, and no time at all to read crime fiction. When you work with it all day, every day, reading the same genre is like jogging all day and then going out for a jog to relax. Whenever there is a crime show on the television and I happen to be watching it with my kids, they get very annoyed that I can always figure out what's going to happen in the first few minutes of the show. I have friends in the film industry who say the same thing. It's like having unwanted x-ray vision.You can't surrender the disbelief. </span></i><span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="color: #990000;">You become too aware of the artifice.</span></i><i><span style="color: #990000;">The books I get caught up in now are most often obscure memoirs, most of them long out of print, written by people who were actually doing the things I want to write about. Trolling through those dusty, fragile pages (the one I'm reading right now was published, just once, in 1933 - the pages come loose in my hands as I turn them) is like panning for gold. And finding it. </span></i></span></div>Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-2080062956673697972012-04-17T05:08:00.002-07:002012-04-17T05:08:43.304-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Here's a picture of me when I was working on the boats.<br />Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-63217671796894355282012-04-17T05:04:00.001-07:002012-04-17T05:04:18.994-07:00Every summer and winter, during the years I was at university, I worked on deep sea fishing boats off the coast of New England. Shortly afterwards, I wrote a book about it called 'Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn'. The book was originally published by Houghton Mifflin in the US and by Hutchinson in the UK. Later, it came out in paperback with Faber & Faber in London and St Martin's Press in New York. About five or six years after the book first appeared, it was turned into a film by Hallmark Hall of Fame and starred Peter Facinelli, Kate Nelligan and Michael Moriarty. Recently, the British publisher Daunt picked up the rights to the novel and are due to re-release it in tandem with the next Sam Eastland book in February of 2013. Daunt asked me to write a short piece about how it feels now to be looking back on those years as a fisherman. I thought about that for a while, and then decided to write the story of the last fishing trip I ever took, which was probably the closest I ever came to getting killed on the deep sea boats.<br />
I was very happy to hear that Daunt will be releasing the book. They have been great to work with.<br />
Here's the story -<br />
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When I wrote Calm at Sunset Calm at Dawn, I had only just finished working on the<br />
deep sea boats. A lot of the wounds I had suffered in the previous years were still<br />
healing, and I was still awakened several nights a week by dreams of sharks and<br />
shipwrecks – mostly things which almost happened but didn’t – that now played out like<br />
a film projected against the inside of my skull.<br />
I was 24 years old, and had no real sense of whether those experiences had<br />
made me into someone different than I’d been before I went to sea.<br />
They did change me. I know that now. But the nature of those changes was<br />
something I could never have predicted at the time.<br />
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One of the hardest parts about working on the boats was returning to university at the<br />
end of the fishing season. Following months of discomfort and danger, I found it hard to<br />
take seriously the wagging fingers of my professors and the men on my hall who wept<br />
when they received A- grades instead of A’s.<br />
Out on the ocean, the stakes were huge. Lose your footing and be washed<br />
overboard or vanish in a storm when a rogue wave swamps your vessel. Back on<br />
land, my friends wrangled over things so trivial that, for a long time after getting back<br />
to school, I would feel a wall between us, isolating me from the obsessions which<br />
governed their minds. Eventually, I would slide back into the rhythm of student life<br />
and the fretting of my classmates would become my anxieties as well. Until that<br />
transformation was complete, however, the sense of separation seemed a heavy price<br />
to pay for the time I’d spent away from land.<br />
It wasn’t until my final voyage that I began to realise this might be, in fact, a gift,<br />
rather than some kind of penalty, and one more valuable than any of the wages I had<br />
earned.<br />
On the day after Christmas, I shipped out of Parascondolo’s Dock in Newport,<br />
Rhode Island. The boat was an old scallop dragger with a bad reputation for accidents<br />
and fights breaking out among the crew. It was the kind of ship that fishermen refer<br />
to as a ‘slab’, but it was the only boat with an empty berth and so I had to take it. The<br />
weather had been rough that winter. As I stood on the ice-covered dock with my duffle<br />
bag slung over my shoulder, waiting to climb on board, I had a bad feeling about it, but I<br />
was hoping that this one trip would earn enough to see me through to graduation, which<br />
was only a few months away. So I went against my instincts, a thing I have never done<br />
since.<br />
About sixty miles off the coast, we were hit by the worst storm I’d ever been<br />
in. It is the sounds I remember more clearly than anything else. The terrible shriek of<br />
the props as they cleared the waves. The incessant and demented moaning of the<br />
wind through the steel cables of the rigging. The clang of the metal baseball bat we<br />
used night and day to knock away the ice that built up on the surface of the boat. In<br />
the pitching sea, the winch men would often misjudge the precise moment when the<br />
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dredges, each one as big as a car, would be hoisted on board. Instead of coming down<br />
smoothly, they would skid across the plates, smashing into the metal apron on the other<br />
side. For a deck hand like me, there was no place to hide. All you could do was try not<br />
to be in the way.<br />
Down in the crew’s quarters, we strapped ourselves into our bunks, listening to<br />
the sucking gasp of the bow as it rose from the water and feeling the shudder, all along<br />
the keel, as we charged into the next roller.<br />
I wondered how much more of this the boat could take. I knew that if we<br />
foundered, I would never get out of the boat before we sank. And even if I did get out,<br />
I had no survival suit and would only last a few minutes in the waters of the Labrador<br />
current.<br />
After two days of this, the mate and two senior crewmen did something I had<br />
never seen happen before. They asked the captain to go in. I remember how quiet it<br />
became in the galley, even with the storm outside.<br />
The captain refused, in language so exotically obscene that I, who thought he<br />
had heard everything, was left stunned when he got up from the galley table and locked<br />
himself in the wheelhouse. In the days that followed, while the storm grew worse and<br />
worse, he remained by the wheel, sleeping on the floor beside it even when the mate<br />
stood his watch, as if he was afraid that we might mutiny.<br />
Which, eventually, we did.<br />
I didn’t find out until the plan was already underway. The first I saw of it was<br />
when the captain burst out of the wheelhouse, staggered through the galley and out<br />
onto the deck, where he leaned over the side and vomited. For a long time, he hung<br />
there, gripping the cables while he roared his guts into the waves. Within an hour, he<br />
was back on the floor of the wheelhouse, too sick to stay on his feet.<br />
The cook had poisoned the captain’s food, not enough to kill him, but enough to<br />
make him think he might be dying. Finally, he gave the order to come about and head<br />
for port.<br />
By then, it was New Year’s Eve. I sat in the galley with the rest of the crew,<br />
watching the festivities on a little television set. We were tuned into a Connecticut<br />
station, which was covering a party taking place among ice sculptures on the New<br />
Haven Green. There, through a haze of poor reception, I saw classmates of mine from<br />
Yale, wearing tuxedoes and dancing in a conga line. I knew that within a few days, I<br />
would be back in class among them.<br />
Nobody else on the boat knew where I went to university, or even that I was in<br />
school. I kept that to myself and no one asked. The only past you ever learned about<br />
the fishermen with whom you worked was what they chose to tell you.<br />
We reached Newport at three in morning on New Year’s Day. The snow was<br />
knee-deep in the streets. After carrying the captain to his bunk, the rest of us took a<br />
walk down Thames Street, through the pooled and yellow light of street lamps. We<br />
<br />
peered into shop windows, threw snowballs at each other and lay in the middle of the<br />
road, sweeping our arms and legs back and forth to make snow angels.<br />
Everything I saw and touched and smelled that night seemed conjured out of<br />
some fantastic dream. There was even a moment when I wondered if it really was an<br />
illusion, and whether, at this very moment, I might be drowning at the bottom of the sea.<br />
Later that day, after unloading the catch, I collected my pay and went home<br />
on the bus. As we rode over the Newport Bridge, I wiped away the condensation on<br />
the window and stared out at the gray sea in the distance. In that moment, I suddenly<br />
realised that I’d made my last trip. I had used up all the luck I had coming to me as a<br />
crewman on a deep sea boat.<br />
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Now I am exactly twice the age I was when I sat down to write Calm at Sunset.<br />
If I look at my hands, I can see the white lines of old knife cuts from those times<br />
when I misjudged the butchering of Monk Fish out on Block Island Sound. Running my<br />
tongue over my back teeth, I feel the porcelain and gold which took the place of the<br />
molars which got smashed when I was hit by the dredge while climbing out of the ice<br />
room hatch during my first summer as a fisherman.<br />
Those are the physical things I will always carry with me.<br />
But there are also memories.<br />
I still have dreams of being on the ocean, but none of them are as clear to me as<br />
the recollection of that night I walked down Thames Street in the snow. Everything that’s<br />
happened to me in all the years since then has been balanced against that memory.<br />
I no longer worry about the little things, the way I often did before that night. Of the<br />
changes I have undergone as a result of those years as a fisherman, that is the one<br />
which matters to me most.<br />
Once you become aware of the luxury of drawing in breath, even the most<br />
ordinary day becomes a miracle.<br />Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-7294001581109246412012-04-02T04:57:00.001-07:002012-04-02T04:57:42.919-07:00Here are some more questions and answers from a recent interview -<br />
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1. Describe yourself with three words.</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;"> Restless. Loyal. </span><span style="color: #990000;">Stubborn.</span></div>
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2. What puts you in a bad mood? <span style="color: #990000;">Traffic</span>. And what puts you in a good mood? <span style="color: #990000;">Swimming in the ocean</span></div>
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3. If you could take breakfast, lunch and dinner at three different places in the</div>
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world - where would you go? </div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">Breakfast -</span> <span style="color: #990000;">Krossbu Lodge, Jotunheimein Mountains, Norway.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">Lunch - Cafe de France, Essaouira, Morocco</span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">Dinner - Maya Tulum, Yucatan, Mexico.</span></div>
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4. Tea or coffee? <span style="color: #990000;">Tea</span></div>
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5. What makes a day a perfect day? <span style="color: #990000;">Write for 6 hours. Jog 3 miles. Take a nap.</span> </div>
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6. How do you come up with ideas for your novels? <span style="color: #990000;">Each book begins with an anecdote I have heard or some small detail I have read. Then it grows in my head like a pearl inside an oyster. Eventually, my head becomes so full with ideas that I have to start writing or I will go crazy. The writing itself becomes like an exorcism of the phantoms who have taken up residence in my mind. </span></div>
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7. Do you work as a full-time writer – and if so, what would have been an</div>
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alternative to writing? <span style="color: #990000;">I write most of the time, but I also teach at a school just outside New York City. I only teach one class for each of the three terms - The First World War, The Second World War and the History of Exploration. I teach at the High School level and enjoy the work very much. I don't think it's a good idea for a writer to spend all his time writing. You end up spending too much time with people you have invented and not enough with people who are real.</span></div>
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8. Do you have a favourite author? If so: Who and why?</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">I don't read much for pleasure anymore. That is not to say I don't read. I read all the time, but mostly it has to do with research on the books I am writing. What this means is that I don't often focus on a single author but I do focus on specific topics. When I was younger, I read a lot of Conrad, Chekov, Tolstoy, Grass, Boll and St. Exupery. </span></div>
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9. Which book did you read lately?</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">Right now I am reading the memoir of Anatoli Sudoplatov, which is titled 'Special Tasks'. Sudoplatov was a Soviet Intelligence officer during the Stalinist period. </span></div>
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10. Which book would you recommend to everybody?</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">Blood Meridien by Cormac McCarthy</span></div>
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11. Which person from a novel, a film or the public life would you like to meet?</div>
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And what would you say to them?</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">I would like to meet Professor Moriarty, the nemesis of Sherlock Holmes. I would like to know about his early life and what it was that made him the villain he turned out to be. </span></div>
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12. Which historical event would you like to have witnessed?</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">Last year, I drove across America, following the trail of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. They set out from the East in 1802 and traveled, by boat and on foot, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. They were gone for three years and covered thousands of miles. I would have liked to have been on that expedition, to have seen so many things that no European had ever seen before.</span></div>
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13. If you had those famous three wishes - what would you wish?</div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">1. When I was 7 years old, my parents sent me away to boarding school in England. I attended the Dragon School in Oxford and then Eton. The schools were very strict and I think that a lot of who I am now, for better or worse, was formed during those years. For one of my wishes, I would like to know how I would have turned out if I had not left home so young.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">2. I spent several years working on deep sea fishing boats off the coast of New England. On one voyage, I was struck in the face by a chain which had snapped loose. It broke some of my teeth and my jaw and the injuries still cause me problems, even though it was a long time ago. For my second wish, I wish I could have ducked and have the chain sail harmlessly above my head!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #990000;">3. For my last wish, I would like to go back in time and meet with myself at the age of 16, which is when I started writing. I would like to tell my younger self not to work so hard. I worked all the time! I know it probably helped my career as a writer, which began when I published my first book at the age of 21, but I think I might have enjoyed myself more if I had not been so impatient. Now I am much more calm when I sit down to work every day. I know how much of my life is beyond my control. I am happy now, and content, and I wish it had not taken me so long to become this way.</span></div>Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-53188235636372314612012-03-16T06:38:00.000-07:002012-03-16T06:38:04.890-07:00Writing a series has turned out to be one of the great pleasures of my career, although not for the reasons I had imagined before I began. I was apprehensive about it, at first. I didn't like the idea that I was writing within a specific genre, which was not something I had done with the books I wrote under my own name (you can see those on this website - paulwatkins.com). I thought it would be too confining, too formulaic. I didn't know how it would be to live with the same character in my head for years on end. Sometimes, in my other books, characters did reappear, more or less as cameos, but the story, and most of the people who inhabited it, became entombed within that one particular novel. When I started a new book, I walked out into a huge, empty space, which then needed to be filled with all the details of whatever historical period it occupied. Then new characters had to be invented. For the first few weeks of writing, they would lurch about like Frankensteins, stitched together from people I knew or had known or had read about. Only in time would those scars fade away, leaving me with fully formed companions for the long journey of seeing the book through to its close. Getting to that point, however, was always exhausting. I would read dozens of books, some of them decades out of print, trolling for details I could use. It also meant a lot of travel, and not always to places that were particularly safe or easy to visit.<br />
The first book of the Inspector Pekkala series was no exception. Russian history, in particular, has so many different versions and involves so much speculation, because the facts were either never known or else have been denied or even fabricated, that you really have to learn several different histories at once. You have to know what kind of person would believe which version. You have to know what even the most fanatical follower of the Soviet system might secretly doubt, although they'd never dare to question it.<br />
The Romanovs, who occupied a considerable portion of this study, seem to be either adored or despised by those who follow their story. I soon discovered that there was very little middle ground. After the book came out, one reviewer slammed the book because I showed the Tsar as human. She wrote that she would personally have liked to shoot the Tsar and his whole family, daughters and son included. Other people wrote to thank me for portraying him humanely. The same was true for Stalin. I had emails thanking me for not making him into a monster and others criticizing me for not making him into a monster.<br />
The intensity of that debate was not something I had expected or encountered in the books I had done under my own name.<br />
It wasn't until I began writing the second book that the real enjoyment of working on a series became clear to me. Now, instead of walking out into an empty space when it came time to begin a new novel, I walked into a world which was fully furnished with the people, places and objects I had worked so hard to create in the first book. Writing about characters with whom you are already acquainted becomes more challenging, but it is also more rewarding, I have found. You get to wander off into the eccentricities that really bring them to life. You become protective of them, villains and heroes alike.<br />
It is a dreary, rainy morning in March of 2012. I can hear wet tires out on the highway, its sound like a river in the distance. These are the days when it is hard to sit alone in my study and type for hours on end, but once I have begun, the writing becomes an escape. Slipping away into the world of Inspector Pekkala feels like jumping out of an aeroplane and daring yourself, as you fall, to wait as long as you can before pulling the ripcord and your chute finally deploys, bringing you back to the real world.<br />
<br />
<br />Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-34603840660155873812012-03-05T04:58:00.000-08:002012-03-05T04:58:27.369-08:00Sam Eastland is not my real name. My real name is Paul Watkins and I have published 9 books under my real name. If you are interested, you can find details of those books on the website paulwatkins.com<br />
So why the pseudonym?<br />
A few years ago, I wrote a book set in Stalinist Russia, in which the main character just happened to be a detective. My publisher in the UK, Faber & Faber, told me that the book should really be part of a series, rather than just a one-off, as all of my previous books had been. They suggested that I adopt a pseudonym for the series. The reason for this is that, if you create a series of books with the same kind of setting and characters, but intersperse that series with other books having nothing to do with the series, it tends to throw off readers whose reading habits are devoted to the particular genre in which the series is set.<br />
I liked the idea of a pseudonym, and also of expanding the book I had written into what has now become the Inspector Pekkala series.<br />
Choosing the pseudonym turned out to be more difficult than I had expected. I kept going back and forth with Faber about various names. They were really picky! I ended up choosing the name Sam because of Sam Watkins, a soldier from Tennessee who fought in the American Civil War. The book he wrote about his experiences, titled Company H, was quoted many times in that fantastic documentary about the Civil War made by Ken Burns. The way the narrator spoke the name of Sam Watkins was so beautiful than it made me wish my own name had been Sam, instead of Paul. I chose Eastland for a last name because the the main character of the first book I had published, Night Over Day Over Night, was named Westland.<br />
There are some practical reasons for why Faber approved the name. The first is that the name Sam is universally pronouncable. The second is that Eastland, beginning with the letter E, is usually displayed in the center mass of book shelves, which tends to be the first part of the book shelf people see when they go into a book shop.<br />
Of course, I hoped the series would do well, but I had no idea it would do as well as it has done. It is now in more than 15 translations, and I spent at least a portion of each day answering messages from all over the world. I am very grateful for those messages! It means a lot to me that people take the time to write and it provides a real and meaningful link with the outside world, which really matters when I spend so much of my time hunched over the keyboard. I have joked with people that I spend more time with people I've invented than with people who are real, but it's actually not far from the truth.<br />
There has been only one disadvantage. Writing the Sam Eastland books has kept me so busy that, for several years, I had to stop writing books under my own name.<br />
At first, that felt a little depressing. It bothered me that people thought I had stopped writing altogether, especially since, in the beginning, I was not allowed to tell people about the Sam Eastland project. But those feelings didn't last. I was having too much fun to worry about what name went on the books.<br />
Next week, I will write about the experience of bringing Inspector Pekkala to life.Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-25477119588183598872012-02-21T06:04:00.000-08:002012-02-21T06:04:07.351-08:00<span style="font-size: large;">Here are some questions and answers from a recent on-line interview - </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;"><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">What's
the best piece of writing advice</span></u><u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></u><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">you've ever been given (and do</span></u><u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></u><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">you</span></u><u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></u></span><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;">follow it)?</span><o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">
Always leave some part of your writing unfinished at the end of the day,
even if it is just the last few lines of a scene. When you sit down at your
desk again, knowing your first writing task is a good way to set up momentum
for the work that lies ahead. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;"><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></u></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 47.25pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;"><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Which authors do</span></u><u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></u><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">you</span></u><u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></u><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">find most inspiring as</span></u><u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></u><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">a</span></u><u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></u></span><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;">writer?</span><o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The
writers I admire most are those who have made a good balance between their work
and the lives they lead outside the worlds they must create inside their heads.
I have watched a lot of young authors burn out because they lose track of the
line between those worlds. You must draw on your own life to create the fiction
you write, but you can’t become your own fiction and expect to last long in
this line of work.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 47.25pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: red;"><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Do</span></u><u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></u><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">you</span></u><u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></u><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">have an audience in mind when
writing, or do</span></u><u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></u><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">you</span></u><u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></u></span><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;">just write for yourself?</span><o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I get a
lot of emails on the website (inspectorpekkala.com) devoted to the series, and
this has given me a glimpse into the kind of people who are reading the books.
I suppose I could say that I was writing for them before I even knew who they
were, but now that I do now, I have a better sense of who my audience really
is.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 47.25pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="color: red;"><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Where do</span></u><u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></u><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">you</span></u><u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></u></span><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;">write, and why?</span><o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I divide
my time between the US and the UK. In each of these places, I have little
hideaways where I get my writing done. Now, for example, I am up in my cabin in
the woods of Maine. The floors have old Navajo rugs on them and the walls are
hung with old black and white pictures, snow shoes, my rucksack and a bamboo
fishing pole. I write in different places because I do other work besides
writing and this sometimes means I have to move around.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;"> Kirov outranks Pekkala and is more socially adept, but Pekkala
is far more worldly wise. Do you see Kirov as a sidekick figure, or is their
relationship one between equals?</span><o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">They did not begin as equals, but I find as I
write (I’ve just begun writing the 5<sup>th</sup> book) that they are becoming that way.
Kirov needs Pekkala’s expertise to solve the tasks they are given by Stalin,
but Pekkala needs Kirov in order to be able to navigate through the world of
Soviet Russia. Kirov is part caretaker, part translator of the past into the
present, and part bodyguard. Pekkala’s skills are such that he has been
absolved from having to fit in to the world around him. In fact, he has never
fitted in and never could. That is why the Tsar chose him to be his personal
investigator, because Nicholas II (who also never fitted in, either among his
own people or in his role as Tsar) saw a part of himself in Pekkala. The same
is true for Stalin, although Pekkala’s relationship with the dictator is more
complex and dangerous. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;">Are there plans to release your books in Russia?
And what do you think a Russian audience would make of them?</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I believe there are plans to release the books
in Russia. I have been both pleased and a little overwhelmed by how many
countries have picked up the books for translation. I’ve had a number of emails
from Russians. Most of them are very friendly, but I have had a few people
quibbling over things as obscure as the colour of boiler suits. On the same
day, once, I had someone write to complain that Stalin was not portrayed
sympathetically enough and another message from a different person complaining
that he had not been portrayed as enough of a monster. My experience from
reading Russian history is that there is very little consensus among the
Russians themselves about the details of their past. This is, I know, the long
term result of a regime which practiced such profound disinformation, not only
on the rest of the world but also on its own people, that people continue not
to trust what they are told. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;"> <u> Pekkala is a Finn; was it easier for you, writing as an outsider, to have an
outsider as your protagonist, or were there other reasons behind Pekkala's
nationality?</u></span><u><o:p></o:p></u></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">It was definitely easier to write from the point
of view of an outsider. At the age of 7, I was sent from America, where my
parents were living at the time (although they were British), to boarding
school in England. I did this for so many years that I ended up feeling like a
foreigner in both countries. Although it made life difficult at times, I think
it gave me the chance to see two separate cultures in a way that was different
from those around me. You reach this point where you just stop trying to fit
in. At first, it is frightening, but it’s something you have to do if you want
to stay sane. I suppose there is a lot of this in Pekkala. He found, as I did,
that by not trying to fit in and to become something you aren’t, you find more
acceptance from those around you than you would if you attempted to be one of
them. The reason I chose a Finn as a main protagonist is that the Russians have
a particular fascination with the Finns. Even though Finland is dwarfed by the
vastness of Russia, the Russians have a healthy respect for the Finns, in no
small measure due to what the Finns did to the Russians in the Russo-Finnish
war of 1940. But it goes deeper than that. In many Russian fairytales, you will
find a Finn performing some magic or other. For the Russians, the Finnish
culture holds a certain supernatural quality that I found very useful when writing
about Pekkala.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
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<u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;">There must have been a temptation to paint
Stalin as nothing more than a monster, but instead you made him a human being.
How did you go about researching his character?</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">There are a number of fantastic books about
Stalin, the best of which were written in the late 1990’s, when the Russians
released tons of material which had previously been classified. This opened a
window into Soviet culture, and also into the life of Joseph Stalin, that had
previously been impossible. Sadly, and yet somehow typical of the ebb and flow
of Russian culture, many of those files have now been re-classified as secret.
The window has closed. I doubt it will open again in my lifetime.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> <span style="color: red; text-decoration: underline;">Several times you mention the will to self-destruction in the Russian psyche.
Do you think this is a Russian twist on something universal, or is there
something uniquely self-destructive about the Russian national character?</span></span><u><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br clear="all" />
</span><o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></span></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I do think there is something
peculiarly self-destructive about Russian culture. One of my old history
teachers once said – Nobody defeats the Russians except the Russians. What he
meant by this, I think, was that the Russian capacity for violence against its
own people is so extraordinary that it becomes difficult for people to grasp.
As Stalin himself once said – One death is a tragedy. One million is a
statistic. We simply can’t grasp the magnitude of what Russia has endured, at
its own hands and at the hands of others. That is what makes it possible. </span></div>Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7933043901667264331.post-55865708374553832892012-02-14T15:25:00.001-08:002012-02-14T15:25:00.467-08:00<br />
Beginning February 15th of 2012, I will write something for it every week.<br />
<br />
I hope you enjoy the blog. Please write and let me know what you think, by clicking<br />
<br />
on the ‘Contact Author’ icon on the website. If you have questions, I will do my best to<br />
<br />
answer them.<br />
<br />
The question I’ve been asked most often since I began writing the series is how I came<br />
<br />
up with the idea for Inspector Pekkala.<br />
<br />
Here is the story –<br />
<br />
During the mid 1990’s, a friend of mine was present at a construction site in Russia<br />
<br />
when a backhoe unearthed the body of a soldier. The dead man was laying spread<br />
<br />
eagled on the carcass of a horse which had been buried at the same time. The man<br />
<br />
was wearing a long greatcoat, tall boots and had a thick leather belt across his middle.<br />
<br />
The clothing and the body had been preserved by the soil so that the man appeared to<br />
<br />
be partially mummified. Upon examination of the corpse, it became clear that the rider<br />
<br />
had been buried around the time of the First World War. It also seemed clear, from the<br />
<br />
fact that he had been laid to rest along with his horse, that the man had probably been<br />
<br />
buried on the same spot where he had been killed. The man’s belt buckle, which clearly<br />
<br />
showed the double-headed eagle of the Romanovs, identified him as a soldier of the<br />
<br />
Tsar’s Army. However, because of the location, which was not on what would have<br />
<br />
been the front lines during the Great War, the man must have been buried after, not<br />
<br />
during, the war. This would have placed the soldier’s death at some time in the early<br />
<br />
days of the Revolution, when soldiers still loyal to the Tsar, known as the Whites, fought<br />
<br />
pitched battles with the Bolsheviks, who became known as the Reds.<br />
<br />
During the course of the construction, several other bodies were discovered, all of<br />
<br />
whom were similarly dressed and, presumably, had been killed during the same battle.<br />
<br />
After the bodies had been re-interred, my friend was given one of the belt buckles as a<br />
<br />
souvenir. He then passed it on to me, and I still have it.<br />
<br />
For every book, there is always some unexpected catalyst that sets everything in<br />
<br />
motion. Waiting for these catalysts to take hold is like standing in the path of a gently<br />
<br />
falling meteor shower. Ideas will come hurtling past, but they don’t hit you, so eventually<br />
<br />
you forget them. But then some image or some anecdote will strike you right between<br />
<br />
the eyes. From that point on, the formation of the book becomes like the making of a<br />
<br />
pearl inside an oyster. The grain of sand embeds itself inside the oyster. The oyster is<br />
<br />
not trying to produce a thing of beauty. It is trying to survive. The pearl is the product of<br />
<br />
pain. It is the same with these stories. Once they have snagged like a fishhook in your<br />
<br />
brain, you have to find a way to work them loose.<br />
<br />
Holding that buckle in my hand made me think of the tens of thousands of people who<br />
<br />
were swallowed up in that revolution whose stories have never been told. Russian<br />
<br />
history, perhaps more than any other country, is layered with so many lies, denials,<br />
<br />
discreditations and rehabilitations that there is no one version of that country’s past. The<br />
<br />
only reliable stance to take is that nothing about it is reliable. And yet you know that the<br />
<br />
truth is in there somewhere, woven into the fabric of these deceptions.<br />
<br />
For months after I began writing The Eye of the Red Tsar, the first book in eth series,<br />
<br />
that rider galloped through my dreams. It became an act of self-preservation to conjure<br />
<br />
back to life the story of that buckle, and of the man who wore it to his death.<br />Sam Eastlandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06882397212353693779noreply@blogger.com0