* A Good Conviction … reader comments

Readers have posted comments about “A Good Conviction” on amazon.com.

* Reader Comments (on amazon.com) for “A Good Conviction” 

in addition, the following comments were received from readers of a pre-publication serialized version of “A Good Conviction”

… I am really into this story! I feel so bad for Josh. I love to read books that I feel close to the characters and that’s how I feel with this one!

… I love crime novels and this one doesn’t disappoint. The stark contrast in the opening chapters between Joshua Blake’s, until then, seemingly charmed life and the brutal reality of Sing Sing prison is chilling. You can’t help but think ‘What if that were me?’

… The story is gripping. It keeps you turning the pages with twists and turns to the plot.

… The characters engage you. Watch them develop – not just Josh as he is forced to face unimaginable challenges just to survive in jail, but those who take up the challenge of trying to prove his innocence. What motivates them? Why does NYPD Lieutenant Kerrigan put himself on the line? What drives Darleen to stand by Josh? And look out for Josh’s defence lawyer – he may not inspire confidence to begin with but develops as a quiet force.

… You’ve got me hooked me now! I started reading the 2nd segment last night, and couldn’t put it down until I was done. Are you going to let that poor guy out of jail, or what? (please, don’t answer that) Please send me the next segment !

… More, more, send me more, please. What a teaser this first segment was.

… Well, you’ve got me hook, line and sinker after Segment 1. So…..would you please send me Segment 2 so I can continue this adventure. Thanks for the opportunity!

… I like the style, the way you change back and forth from Joshua being at Sing Sing to his free days and then to his time at Rikers Island. Makes for interesting reading that way.

… I absolutely love this book. I read a lot of mysteries by Michael Connelly (all he has written so far) and James Patterson and Len Deighton and just finished last week a book by Nicholas Evans called The Divide. This book of yours is right up there. I am intrigued by it and once I begin reading, I remain until I have read the final word of the segments you have sent. This should definitely be on the NY Times best reads. I anxiously await more. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.

… I finished the book a few days ago. I very much enjoyed A Good Conviction. You made Josh and Darlene very sympathetic yet real characters. I liked them. You also did a good job of manipulating the tension level in the book so that I was extremely worried that Darlene would get hurt and was quite pleased when she was rescued by Detective Watson. That alone should indicate how well you reached this reader. I abhor ADA Claiborne. You made him into a villain but did it in a way that did not make him a caricature. I cannot think of a character in your book who was not drawn well. The best thing I can say about any book is that I am sorry to see it end. I was sorry to reach the end of your book.

… I am ready for Segment 3! I read Segment 2 the same day I got it.

… Having anxiously awaited this novel after reading The Heretic with our book club in South Jersey, I have been gripped by the story’s reality and intensity. We’d like to think such injustices don’t happen, but recent advances in forensics have proven that many innocents are incarcerated. The old saw about everybody in jail professing innocence is not so humorous today. What’s scary about Josh Blake’s situation is that as it unfolds it strikes you as being entirely plausible. Loved the attention to detail about the story’s New York locations – provided a reality foundation which made the story more startling. I am thoroughly enjoying this serialized email format – keeps the reader on the edge of his/her seat – or should I say, at the edge of his/her keyboard.

… Every page forces me to confront the very real issue in our society of someone who lives the horror of a wrongful conviction and life in the realities of prison.

… Your attention to detail is great — I feel I am in New York with Josh! Next segment please !

… I liked the court room scene and thought it moved quickly in a compelling manner.

… I am ready for the next segment of A Good Conviction. I read it all in one swoop – I could not stop. I found it thoroughly readable with all the “parts” in the right places. Thank you so much; I look forward to my next read.

… I am really enjoying this book. Please send the next part ASAP.

… I just finished Segment 2 and I’m really looking forward to receiving the next segment. Nothing like being kept in suspense. Poor Joshua Blake, he can’t get a break I just know there has to be a point where this poor guy’s luck, or lack of it, has to change! Please send along the next segment as soon as you can. Thank you very much!

… Just want you to know that my eyes were riveted to each sentence in your book. I can’t get to each segment fast enough; my other emails can wait, the book I was reading can wait, I just want to read your story. It just grabs your attention and compels you to read on and on. Thank you so much – I look forward to reading more.

… Wow! That’s some story. I am ready for segment 3.

… Can you send me #3. It’s really good and so scary that this could actually happen!

… I’m back again in search of Segment 5 this time. I really am enjoying the story and all the suspense that it holds.

… It’s scary to think how many like Josh are trapped in our legal system. I’m ready for Segment 5.

… Quick, send me Segment 2, I’m on the edge of my seat.

… Finished segment 2. I am loving it. The poor kid. I feel like I am watching Law & Order where you recognize so many of the places. Can you forward the next installment??

… Time for segment 6. You do tell a good story.

… The tension is increasing. Send me Segment 8.

… My heart is breaking for this kid, but I’m ready for more.

* Richard John Neuhaus on The Heretic … vividly dramatizing the sins that John Paul II has asked Christians to candidly acknowledge

Richard John Neuhaus wrote in First Things, A Journal of Religion, Culture and Public Life

A novel of generations of conversos- Jews who converted to Christianity- during the years leading up to the Spanish Inquisition. The story reflects the conflicted motives that led churchmen to cooperate with the royal effort to “purify” the Spanish nation, vividly dramatizing the sins that John Paul II has asked Christians to candidly acknowledge. The Heretic is a valuable contribution to understanding a tragedy too often debated in the mire of accusation and defensiveness.

Posted at … http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2696

* Tikkun … The Heretic is an engaging and enlightening novel

This multi-generational tale is set in fifteenth-century Spain, in the land that was the heart, and heat, of an inquisition against those who were alleged to be heretics against the Christian faith.

Gabriel Catalan’s Jewish father was forced to convert to Christianity, but Gabriel remains a covertly faithful Jew. He becomes wealthy and influential as an advisor to the throne, and a confidant of Princess Isabel. But he is forced to confront the fanatical friar Ricardo Perez, a Dominican monk determined to rid Spain of Jewish heretics. Friar Perez suspects that Gabriel Catalan is in fact a Jew. 

The Heretic is an engaging and enlightening novel set against a uniquely dark age of religious persecution and cruelty.

Posted at … http://www.tikkun.org/archive/backissues/xtik0101/culture/010162.html

 

* The Jewish Press … The Heretic is a breathtaking tour de force

Aharon ben Anshel reviews the Heretic in the The Jewish Press …

 The Heretic is a history of the early beginnings of the Spanish Inquisition in novelized form – a breathtaking tour de force that is both historically accurate and unusually entertaining, so that one can almost finish the nearly 400 pages in just two or three sittings.

Weinstein’s book has accurately captured the spice and flavor of fifteenth-century Spain and the time of Torquemada, Ferdinand and Isabella.

This success is validated by the foreword written by Msgr. Thomas J. Hartman (of TV’s “The G-d Squad”), who wrote: “The Heretic” was where I turned in order to understand the Inquisition. I knew the outline of Christian atrocities, but Lew’s book taught me about the painful positions many good people were put into in order to survive. It’s not a pretty picture.

The Heretic is a truly exciting page-turner.

Posted at … http://www.jewishpress.com/content.cfm?contentid=15797&sContentid=1

 

* Midwest Book Review … The Heretic is a superbly written debut novel

By  Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews This review is from: Heretic: A Novel (Paperback) The Heretic is a superbly written debut novel of political intrigue by Lewis Weinstein that adds a definitively human touch to the terrible ills of history and religious persecution. Depicting a family of Jews living in Seville on the eve of the Spanish Inquisition of the 15th century, The Heretic is a thoughtful and thought-provoking historical story of the abuse of power and tests of faith that were anything but. The Heretic clear documents Lewis Weinstein as a master storyteller and will leave the reader looking eagerly toward his next literary effort.

 posted at … http://www.amazon.ca/Heretic-Lewis-Weinstein/dp/0967134803

* Rick Steves recommends The Heretic

Rick Steves’ 2008 Tours: Best of Spain & Portugal in 15 Days: Recommended Reading … Spain and Portugal are overwhelmingly rich in history, art and culture. Any preliminary reading, viewing or listening you can do will help you get the most from your trip … 

Fiction (Spain)

Don Quixote — Miguel de Cervantes

Tales of the Alhambra — Washington Irving

The Sun Also Rises: For Whom the Bell Tolls — Ernest Hemingway

The Heretic — Lewis Weinstein

 Stories from Spain — Genevieve Barlow & William Stivers

The Shadow of the Wind — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

 

Posted at … http://tours.ricksteves.com/tours08/SPA/reading.cfm/rurl/code/SPA/

* Curled Up With a Good Book … The Heretic is a dramatic novel set in the bloody upheaval of the Spanish Inquisition

Weinstein sets his dramatic novel in the bloody upheaval of the Spanish Inquisition. The great Dominican purges of 1391 and 1412 have created a large number of conversos, those willing to relinquish their faith and embrace Christianity rather than be burned at the stake as heretics.

After centuries of war with the Moors, Christianity is in its ascendancy, the Church brutal in its treatment of those under suspicion, the finger of doubt enough to send a man to the inquisitor’s torture chambers. Repeatedly the “conversos” are tormented by angry mobs of “old Christians.” The old Christians accuse the reformed Jews of secretly practicing the old religion, flouting the law of the land and the Holy Mother Church.

A successful goldsmith in Seville and a secret follower of the old ways, Gabriel Catalan has been conspiring with others to print copies of important Hebrew texts by means of Gutenberg’s revolutionary printing techniques and in collusion with Moorish royalty. Although the majority of the originals have been destroyed, Catalan is able to print many copies but must invoke the aid of his son, Tomas, to hide the texts from the Christians.

Gabriel aids a local family currently under suspicion as they quietly remove their belongings to a small village, where they will be safe from the daily violence and unprovoked attacks that have become endemic in Seville. Tomas travels with these conversos to their new home and falls in love with the daughter along the way, the whole family intent on seeking a safer life far from Spain, unaware that they are followed from Seville.

Meanwhile, the Catalan family is marked, unable to escape the aggressive principal arm of the Inquisition in Seville, Friar Ricardo Perez. The Inquisitor is the genius behind a trap that is slowly closing on the unsuspecting if careful Gabriel, a trap that will deliver Gabriel to the stake along with his devoted wife, Pilar.

As the principal characters attempt to leave behind a legacy for those who follow, the region is in chaos. The Moors divided, Christian Isabel seizes her opportunity to capture the Spanish throne and marry Ferdinand of Portugal. Their mission is to restore the grandeur of Christianity and subdue the unbelievers by any means necessary, the Inquisition a devastating tool in the success of their enterprise.

Seville in turmoil, suspicion and betrayal everywhere, the infamous Tourquemada joins Perez in pursuit of the Catalan family. Convicted by the messengers of God, the family is tied together and surrounded by burning stakes, yet another pyrrhic victory.

Weinstein reveals the ugly face of intolerance, fanatics demanding blood sacrifice in one of the most brutal periods of history, Jews and conversos scattering before the sword of Christianity. One great religion pitted against another, God watches His children destroyed in His name.

Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com, this review was posted at … http://www.curledup.com/theretic.htm

* a sequel to The Heretic

I’m currently working on an untitled sequel to The Heretic, set in the Renaissance Florence of Lorenzo de Medici.

As soon as I incorporate very useful feedback I received at a workship given by Alan Cheuse in conjunction with the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar, I’ll post the first chapter and encourage your comments.

* purchase A Good Conviction

Purchase a copy of A Good Conviction at … http://www.amazon.com/Good-Conviction-Lewis-M-Weinstein/

* purchase The Heretic

You can purchase The Heretic at … * purchase The Heretic at amazon.com

* The Heretic reviewed by Lady Tess

BOOK REVIEWS FROM LADY TESS

The Heretic, Lewis Weinstein

Set in fifteenth century Spain, The Heretic by Lewis Weinstein tells the story of a converso Christian who rediscovers his Jewish roots, with dire consequences. Steeped in late medieval culture, the novel immerses the reader in a world of religious intolerance and cross-cultural cooperation.

Mr. Weinstein clearly did a wealth of research and manages to weave most of it in skillfully. His characters, both fictional and historical, are vital living beings, well motivated, true-to-life and, more importantly, true to the period. Gabriel Catalan, his wife Pilar, their son Tomas and daughter-in-law Esther, shine through the book, confronting their past and fighting for a future for their family.

Set against the turbulent period in Spanish history just prior to the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition, the story follows Gabriel’s quest to preserve the great works of Judaism using the newly invented printing press. He and his family risk their lives to keep their activities hidden from the Church authorities, most notably from the Dominican monk, Friar Ricardo Perez, a protégé of Torquemada.

The narrative is compelling, sweeping the reader along on a well-paced journey, while the setting comes alive with the sights, sounds and smells of medieval Spain. The history of the relationship between the Jewish people and the Christians is incorporated in a believable way so that readers become acquainted with the historical background behind the rise of the Inquisition.

The writing is uneven at times, some of the dialogue stiff and the prose a little dry, while on occasion some of the descriptions were a little awkward. However the plot is so strong that it more than compensates for those minor technical distractions. I do not hesitate to recommend this book to lovers of historical fiction, especially those who enjoy learning about different cultures as they read.

—–

This review first appeared in the August 2000 issue of The Historical Novels Review. 

http://ladytessbookreview.blogspot.com/2005/02/book-review-heretic-lewis-weinstein.html

* “character” in Executive Power by Vince Flynn

Characters must be given the opportunity to become the object of our emotions. In Executive Power, Vince Flynn gives Mitch Rabb a terrific triumphal scene (p. 319) to match his outsized, outrageous character. Rabb barges into  a meeting of the National Security Council and first berates, then arrests the Assistant Secty of State whose email had caused the failure of an attempted hostage rescue and the deaths of two commandos. Realistic? Probably not, but who cares. The hero has been heroic, and his triumph in Washington is more important, for this reader, than his previous triumph on the battlefield.

* “theme” and “character” in Old Man by William Faulkner

“nobody told them for what or for why”

• this convict does not control his life in any meaningful way; the tragedy is that he clearly could, he has enormous capabilities, but he has no concept that this is possible for him; he is stuck withn an almost feudal sense of his place in the world, unchangeable.

“things had moved too fast for him”

• but he will respond to whatever happens (and much does happen), stolidly plowing on, showing great creativity but only to accomplish the task he has been set, not to improve his own lot in life;

“he thought quietly, with a sort of bemused amazement, Yes, I reckon I had done forgot how good making money was. Being let to make it” … and later … “Then he would retire himself, he would take a last look at the rolled bundle behind the rafter and blow out the lantern and lie down as he was beside his snoring partner, to lie sweating (on his stomach, he could not bear the touch of anything to his back) in the whining ovenlike darkness filled with the forlorn bellowing of alligators, thinking not, They never gave me time to learn but I had forgot how good it is to work”

• among the few times in the story where Faulkner leads the reader to think what might have been for this convict, with all his talents and determination, but for one stupid mistake when he was 19 years old.
• and at the end … 

“Yonder’s your boat, and here’s the woman. But I never did find that bastard on the cottonhouse.”

“All right,” the convict said. “If that’s the rule.” So they gave him ten years more and the Warden gave him the cigar and now he sat, jacknifed backwards into the space between the upper and lower bunks, the unlighted cigar in his hand while the plump convict and the four others listened to him.”

“plot” in Old Man by William Faulkner

the central action of the story introduced by an innocuous question …

“can you fellows paddle a boat?”

* “beginning” in Old Man by William Faulkner

Faulkner takes 4-5 pages to introduce two convicts who are never named; only then does the story begin …

“It was this second convict who, toward the end of April, began to read aloud to the others from the daily newspapers”

* “pace” in Executive Power by Vince Flynn

Flynn has a number of plots boiling simultaneously, with uncertain outcomes in each. He switches among these actions, leaving every scene with a hook.

This is standard fare for a thriller; how will it work for my Heretic sequel?

What makes it a more complicated approach in a historical novel is the number of names and other information (beyond plot), which without great care can confuse and discourage the reader.

* “beginning” in Executive Power by Vince Flynn

I’ve read 32 pages and I’m hooked. Here’s how Flynn did it, scene by scene:

• SCENE 1. special op craft filled with Navy SEALS approaches an island in the Philippines, heavily armed, mission unstated; foreboding hook at end of scene: the mission has been fatally compromised by someone from their own country.
• SCENE 2. Mitch Rapp is enjoying the last day of his honeymoon; he is high-up CIA, they were married in the White House; he leads teams of commandos on secret and dangerous missions; he has scars; no hook at end.
• SCENE 3. back to the SEALS;  mission explained: recue hostage US family; many details as they leave the support boat, rubber launch to the island, deploy; then they are attacked with major force; call in backup and evacuate; lose two men.
• SCENE 4. another boat in Monte Carlo; the assassin named David gos to meet his Arab sponsor, five hours early; insists that the man be awakened.
• SCENE 5. CIA HQ; Dr. Irene Kennedy, Director of CIA and Rabb’s direct boss, is furious that leaks have compromised the mission and caused two deaths; she knows who leaked, and is planning to make this information public; hook: Rabb is the only man in DC who can do the job.

It works for a thriller; can it work for a historical novel?

* “beginning” in Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth

• the prologue is set in 1832, whereas Chapter One is set in 1752-53. In the prologue an old plantaton slave from Carolina (which is where we later learn slaves captured in the settlement were to be taken) talks of a Liverpool ship and his white father (later we know this is Paris) who was a doctor on the ship. I totally forgot about this prologue until I reached the epilogue. So … was it necessary? helpful? distracting? 
• there is, in effect, a second beginning: Book Two on page 397, begins in 1765, a gap of 12 years. This creates a need for extensive flashbacks, which are inserted at different places in the second story. This works very effectively to create suspense and a desire to kniw what happened in the intervening years.

* “don’t do” in The Art of Fiction by John Gardner

• the “dream” the writer creates for the reader must be continuous; avoid interruptions and distractions which force the reader to stop thinking about the story and start thinking about something else

* “don’t do” in Les Miserable by Victor Hugo

• Hugo gives in to the temptation, common in writers of historical fiction (including myself), of “showing off” his research. I studied it, I think it’s interesting, so I’m going to tell you everything I know. This is a serious mistake, certainly for me, but even for Victor Hugo. (see ‘The Year 1817’ p. 119)

* “don’t do” in Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte

• transitions. (185-86) the reader is suddenly transported from Fargas’ home in Portugal to Paris, with no transition. The details of this change of scene are presented later (187-88). Does this work?  I don’t think so. It’s a technique similar to what Tolstoy does repeatedly in Anna Karenina. Ah, crticizing Tolstoy – heresy!
• exposition. long, detailed descriptions and lists of old books, which the reader can’t possibly read and absorb. what is the purpose?

* “don’t do” in Stein on Writing by Sol Stein

• avoid anything that distracts from the reader’s experience even momentarily
• don’t over-characterize a minor character, making the reader think he is more important than he is; select one memorable characteristic that distinguishes this character from the rest of humanity and let it go at that
• don’t present characters who are either all good or all bad. It’s not believeable. show the contrasts. for example … suggest a character’s vulnerability before that character exercises power, or show a character’s strength before that character is hurt physically or emotionally

* writing topics

beginning

characters

conflict

dialogue

don’t do

emotion

ending

goals

great quotes

historical fiction

metaphor +++

pace

plot

POV

process

reading

scenes

setting

surprise

suspense

technique

tension

theme

voice

* novels and books about writing

Asimov, Isaac	Caves of Steel
Camus, Albert	The Stranger
Follett, Ken	Eye of the Needle
Gardner, John	The Art of Fiction
George, Elizabeth	Write Away
Harris, Robert	Archangel
Hugo, Victor	Les Miserables
Kellerman, Faye	Straight into Darkness
Lescroart, John	The Hunt Club
Mailer, Norman	The Spooky Art
Oates, Joyce Carol	The Faith of a Writer
Ohara, John	The Instrument
Perez-Reverte, Arturo	The Club Dumas
Perry, Anne	Silence in Hanover Close
Plimpton, George	The Writer’s Chapbook
Sabatini, Rafael	Scaramouche
Schulberg, Budd	What Makes Sammy Run
Stein, Sol	Stein on Writing
Tolstoy, Leo	Anna Karenina
Unsworth, Barry	Sacred Hunger
Uris, Leon	Trinity
Wilder, Thornton	The Bridge of San Luis Rey

** praise for The Heretic

Elie Wiesel: 

As a story, The Heretic is deeply absorbing – but also helps Jews and Christians better understand their complex and often painful relationship.

Alan M. Dershowitz: 

The historical novel that is both true to the past and relevant to the present is rare indeed. The Heretic helps us to understand why the Pope is correct in insisting that the Catholic Church do much more to seektschuva – forgiveness and redemption – for its monumental sins and crimes against the Jewish people.  The Heretichumanizes the tragic history of religious persecution.

Faye Kellerman: 

The Heretic is a sweeping historical tale of love, honor, justice, religion and morality, meticulously researched and wonderfully exciting.  

Rick Steves’ Spain 2007: 

To get the feel of Spain past and present, check out a few of these books: The Sun Also Rises, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Death in the Afternoon (Ernest Hemingway); Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes);The Heretic (Lewis Weinstein); and Tales of the Alhambra (Washington Irving).

Monsignor Thomas Hartman:

I found The Heretic a compelling read.  I felt the emotion.  I kept wishing it would turn out differently, but of course I knew it wouldn’t.  Unfortunately, the book is historically accurate.  The Church has treated Jews horribly over the years, and we were wrong.  It is important for Catholics to know what was done and the impact it has had, even in this century, if we are to continue Pope John Paul’s initiatives to build a different path to the future. (Father Tom Hartman is the co-host of The God Squad, and the Director of Radio and Television for the Diocese of Rockville Center.)

David A. Harris:  

This book should come with a warning label: don’t start reading it unless you’re prepared to put everything else aside until you finish.  The Heretic is powerful, riveting, and inspiring.  It should be a must read Catholics and Jews.  (Mr. Harris is Executive Director of The American Jewish Committee.)

Midwest Book Review: 

The Heretic is a superbly written debut novel of political intrigue that adds a definitively human touch to the terrible ills of religious persecution. Weinstein is a master storyteller, and The Heretic leaves the reader looking eagerly toward his next literary effort.

The Jewish Press: 

The Heretic is a breathtaking tour de force that is both historically accurate and unusually entertaining. Weinstein’s book has captured the spice and flavor of 15th century Spain. It is a truly exciting page turner.

Jewish Telegraphic Agency: 

The Heretic is a compelling and gripping depiction of the hatred wreaked by religious fanaticism directed at both Jews and “conversos” in 15th century Spain.  The lives, loves and tragedies of the characters, fictional and historical, come alive, inviting the reader to see, feel and share their emotions.  The Heretic is a must read for both Jews and Christians as we engage in dialogue to explore the depths of devastation and destruction unleashed by religious fanaticism, yesterday and today.

John Cardinal O’Connor:  

“The Spanish Inquisition of which you write in The Heretic was just one tragic event out of many in the Jewish-Catholic encounter.  As we freely admit the sins of many of our Catholic brothers and sisters over the centuries, we can move on, hopefully liberated by the truth and reminded by it to challenge hatred and intolerance in our present time. (Cardinal O’Connor was the Archbishop of New York.  He wrote these comments shortly before his death.)

The Jerusalem Post: 

Weinstein portrays his characters as real people living in a very frightening period, bringing to life the fanaticism of the period, highlighting for both Jews and Christians alike the dangers of intolerance.  He has written an exciting, interesting and very readable epic.

Bishop John J. Snyder:  

I found The Heretic an absorbing and challenging story.  From one perspective it was not easy reading since it presents us with a part of the Church’s history that we would rather not face.  However, it brings home to us the reality of our sinfulness and the discrimination and violence that is part of our story.  We can and must seek forgiveness for the past but even more importantly we are challenged not to follow that path in the years to come. My gratitude to you for sharing this important epic with me. (Bishop Snyder is the Bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine and a member of the U.S.Bishops Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.)

Professor Jane S. Gerber: 

I couldn’t put the book down and was thoroughly absorbed in the character development and plot line. The Heretic is the best book I have encountered using Sephardic history as the backdrop.  (Professor Gerber is Professor of History and Director, Institute for Sephardic Studies at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, and the author of The Jews of Spain.) 

Lorraine Gordon:  

When I finished reading your wonderful novel, I wished I had another one just like it.  I thoroughly enjoyed The Heretic.  As a matter of fact, it has the same appeal as Noah’s books have for me … well-drawn characters, interesting history, and an absorbing story.”  (Ms. Gordon is the wife of author Noah Gordon.)

Dr. Eugene J. Fisher: 

My predecessor, Fr. Edward Flannery, used to say that we Christians have torn out of our history books all the pages the Jews remember.  The Heretic may help redress that serious imbalance in historical memory between our two ancient peoples.  If so, you will have done a mitzvah for the Church, and for future generations of Catholics and Jews.  (Dr. Fisher is Associate Director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, National Conference of Catholic Bishops.)

Rabbi Leon Klenicki:  

I want to tell you how much I appreciate The Heretic.  Its historical view, the vividness of portraying characters and situations, surrounded me immediately and made me feel in situ.  I will recommend The Hereticto my Christian friends.  (Rabbi Klenicki was, until recently, the director of the Department of Jewish-Christian Relations of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.)

Rabbi Emanuel Rackman:  

The Heretic is an electrifying work.  (Rabbi Rackman is the Chancellor of Bar-Ilan University.)

The Historical Novels Review: 

Steeped in late medieval culture, immerses the reader in a world of religious intolerance and cross-cultural cooperation. Characters, both fictional and historical, are vital living beings, well motivated, true-to-life and, more importantly, true to the period. The narrative is compelling, sweeping the reader along on a well-paced journey, while the setting comes alive with the sights, sounds and smells of medieval Spain. The history of the relationship between the Jewish people and the Christians is incorporated in a believable way so that readers become acquainted with the historical background behind the rise of the Inquisition.

Curled Up With A Good Book: 

Weinstein sets his dramatic novel in the bloody upheaval of the Spanish Inquisition. The great Dominican purges of 1391 and 1412 have created a large number of conversos, those willing to relinquish their faith and embrace Christianity rather than be burned at the stake as heretics. Weinstein reveals the ugly face of intolerance, fanatics demanding blood sacrifice in one of the most brutal periods of history, Jews and conversos scattering before the sword of Christianity, one great religion pitted against another. God watches His children destroyed in His name.

Jewish Week: 

a stirring novel, much period detail, with fictional as well as actual events and historical figures. Much to say about family, faith and Jewish identity.

First Things, The Journal of Religious and Public Life: 

reflects the conflicted motives that led churchmen to cooperate with the royal effort to “purify” the Spanish nation … vividly dramatizing the sins which John Paul II has asked Christians to candidly acknowledge

Sephardic Image: 

a compelling historical novel (set against) a backdrop of political and religious upheaval. Intriguing portraits of real historical figures, enthralling fictional treatment of a pivotal point in history. A historical novel with a message about the future (and) special relevance for our time.

Midstream: 

The Heretic revives a world of the past. It’s historical reimagining sings. It will captivate you. 

Renaissance Magazine: 

an affirmation of faith, inspirational, vivid and descriptive, breathtaking detail.

San Diego Jewish Times: 

a mesmerizing novel about all those things that make us humane and caring human beings

Detroit Jewish News: 

literary brilliance, exciting action, romance, cinematic action on paper

Hadassah Magazine:  

The Heretic is a captivating first novel. For anyone who wants to know why Jews have long memories regarding tragedies of the past, this well-researched narrative is valuable reading for Jew and non-Jew.  But as much as The Heretic is a story of horror and destruction, it contains, as all Jewish stories must, the kernel of perpetual hope and rebirth. 

** A Good Conviction … blurbs and reader comments

BACK COVER BLURBS …

Judge (ret.) Leslie Crocker Snyder, former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney, first sex crimes prosecutor in the U.S.: A Good Conviction is a well written, well paced, and fascinating tale of prosecutorial abuse in the Manhattan DA’s office. Makes one wonder how many other times something like this has occurred and just how high the abuse is actually sanctioned   

Michael Radelet, one of the authors of In Spite of Innocence, a study of over 400 cases of persons wrongly convicted of crimes carrying the death penalty.: A Good Conviction is an unusually gripping story of an erroneous conviction and the passionate fight to correct that injustice. Weinstein’s account of what a bad prosecutor does to Joshua Blake provides a frightening and realistic parallel to many of the true life cases we documented in our study

Dan Slepian, network producer of many crime and legal news shows: Having spent countless hours working with detectives, courts, attorneys, and wrongly convicted inmates I was most impressed with how well researched and accurate your narrative was. You really nailed it. In addition, it was a great read.

 

READER COMMENTS FROM AMAZON.COM …

 

 

A Scary Thought, September 22, 2007      By  Linda Dixon (New York City) - See all my reviews    Once I started reading, I couldn’t put the book down until it was finished – and that was in the wee hours of the morning! Weinstein allows the reader to feel the same anger, scare and frustration that Josh experiences, as we watch him become a victim of a corrupt DA. At the same time that we root for Josh to get justice, we are brought into the world of incarcerated criminals who fill their days with ways to survive. It’s a wild ride, and a story that I highly recommend.

Great second book, September 3, 2007      By  Bernie Dishler (Elkins Park, PA) - See all my reviews I am amazed at the research that Weinstein has done for both of his books. A Good Conviction, like The Heretic, is a real page turner with a lot of suspense. However, the book is more than just suspenseful. Weinstein illuminates an issue that is very serious and through a fictional account he sensitizes the reader to the plight of the many people who are incarcerated for crimes that they did not commit. I reccommend the book highly and cannot wait for his next book.

A Good Conviction – A Great Read, August 7, 2007      By  Tim Hanahan - See all my reviews What a ride! A scary, yet thoroughly believable, journey through the police and court systems of New York City. Lewis Weinstein captures the tensions and fears of prison life so well, it’s hard to beleve he hasn’t done hard time himself. It certainly makes you wonder how many innocent people are behind bars. Highly recommended!

A GOOD CONVICTION, July 12, 2007      By  Richard B. Klein (Key West, FL USA) - See all my reviews    Strikes home like no other book I have read. It could happen to any of us or those we care about. Takes the phrase “no good deed shall go unpunished” to a whole new level.

Too Close For Comfort, July 1, 2007      By  Joe Peters (NYC) - See all my reviews Having spent two years of a twenty year career with the NYPD transporting prisoners to and from Manhattan Central Booking, I read much of Mr. Weinstein’s book holding my breath. During those long 24 months I never got used to the sound of the cell doors sliding closed with a loud CLANG! Even knowing full well I would be leaving, it induced instant claustrophobia. Well, the scenes in this novel that take part on Riker’s Island brought that sound and more back to me with amazing clarity. If you want a glimpse into the hell that is American prison life, read this book.

Another homerun!!!!, June 18, 2007      By  Kerry M. Lenny (Maryland) - See all my reviews    Anybody who has had the pleasure of reading “The Heretic” knows that Lew Weinstein is a truly gifted writer. With “A Good Conviction” he takes the reader on a completely different journey – one that is terrifyingly realistic and all too common. From the very beginning Weinstein takes the reader on a wild ride into the depths of the U.S. legal system. Fraught with emotion and spot-on depiction of everyone from the lawyers to the hardened criminals, the reader experiences all the perils of life behind bars. With the surety of a jury handing down a life sentence, Weinstein confidently guides the reader through the complicated maze of our legal system and the politics within to a conclusion that is both uplifting and staggering in its depth.I am an avid reader of fiction, especially thrillers, and I can tell you that Weinstein holds his own among his peers including Baldacci, Grisham & Patterson. Do yourself a favor and add “A Good Conviction” and “The Heretic” to your reading list and discover this truly talented writer.

finding strength to perserve inspite of extraordinary obstacles, June 9, 2007      By  Eileen Friedman “The inspired reader” (Fort Lauderdale, FL) - See all my reviews    This book is simply great! i loved it and highly recommend it. It is extremely thought provoking. Each character feels real and the reader does not want to put this book down for one second. Go read it and see. you’ll be glad you did! The author did an awesome job for the reader can empathize and feel apart of this unjust world. Attention to detail made this book come alive and made me feel like i was a true new yorker, a lawyer, a marathon runner, and a friend to Joshua Blake. Kudos to the author! Thank you for creating this moving story that stays with the reader for some time to come. I just loved how the author brought all the main plots and sub plots together. He didn’t miss a thing. Excitement at it’s best! I look forward to more novels from Mr. Weinstein.

Realistic and Frightening, June 7, 2007      By  Dawn M. Mc Dade - See all my reviews    The author depicts the events as realistic as the city of NY. As a criminal justice worker he made me more aware of the trappings of our system. He is an excellent storyteller.

Gripping, May 31, 2007      By  Kevin M. Lenny (Cherry Hill, NJ) - See all my reviews    Not only did I read this with great anticipation, when I finished it, I wanted to read it again! I felt as I knew the characters and even though I am not from NY, I got a real sense of the neighborhood. The detail of the writing is exceptional, Mr. Weinstein is truly a gifted writer.

Book club winner, May 31, 2007      By  Capperroma (Voorhees, NJ) - See all my reviews This would be a great book for a reading group/book club. The characters were real and the circumstances of the main character’s life – from a great future to no future were heart wrenching. I have enjoyed other readings by this author and find this selection demonstrates an attention to detail many other authors gloss over, but which are important to setting the stage for the twists and turns of a fine mystery.

Edge of my seat, May 31, 2007      By  Colleen Small (Cape May, NJ) - See all my reviews    For an avid reader this is one of the few books that I could not put down and always looked forward to the next chapter! So many books have the tendency to be drawn out in the middle, but this one kept you on the edge throughout and you really did get to know every character. I love a book that when I read it I feel like I am living it and that can only be done by a talented writer. Thank You for the experience!

An incredible story, May 30, 2007      By  BEK - See all my reviews This gripping story demonstrates how one’s life can take a 180 degree turn in a moment. Innocent actions can be misinterpreted and unfortunate consequences result. Weinstein is a great story teller and this is a very well crafted story.

Finished the book months ago – still on my mind …….., May 30, 2007      By  Kim Capp (NYC) - See all my reviews The characters and their emotions were so vividly portrayed that I still think about them as if I knew them. Lovers of New York City will walk the streets of the city and visualize “A Good Conviction” happening. You will walk past a certain news-stand and wonder if the owner remembers Josh. When you read a book that you don’t want to end….that is a good book. “A Good Conviction” is a good book.

I love legal mysteries, May 29, 2007      By  Paul L. Rathblott “Paul” (Norwalk, CT United States) - See all my reviews    This is a “page turner” and I loved every minute of it. This author avoids the common fault I find with many mysteries: not having a good ending that leaves you satisfied. The main character is entirely believable and his circumstances are chilling: something that could happen to any one of us. The research behind this book and the author’s familiarity with legal procedures (which are not hard to follow in the book) are evident.

 

in addition, the following comments were received from readers of a pre-publication serialized version of “A Good Conviction”   …

… I am really into this story! I feel so bad for Josh. I love to read books that I feel close to the characters and that’s how I feel with this one!

… I love crime novels and this one doesn’t disappoint. The stark contrast in the opening chapters between Joshua Blake’s, until then, seemingly charmed life and the brutal reality of Sing Sing prison is chilling. You can’t help but think ‘What if that were me?’

… The story is gripping. It keeps you turning the pages with twists and turns to the plot.

… The characters engage you. Watch them develop – not just Josh as he is forced to face unimaginable challenges just to survive in jail, but those who take up the challenge of trying to prove his innocence. What motivates them? Why does NYPD Lieutenant Kerrigan put himself on the line? What drives Darleen to stand by Josh? And look out for Josh’s defence lawyer – he may not inspire confidence to begin with but develops as a quiet force.

… You’ve got me hooked me now! I started reading the 2nd segment last night, and couldn’t put it down until I was done. Are you going to let that poor guy out of jail, or what? (please, don’t answer that) Please send me the next segment !

… More, more, send me more, please. What a teaser this first segment was.… Well, you’ve got me hook, line and sinker after Segment 1. 

… I like the style, the way you change back and forth from Joshua being at Sing Sing to his free days and then to his time at Rikers Island. Makes for interesting reading that way.

… I absolutely love this book. I read a lot of mysteries by Michael Connelly (all he has written so far) and James Patterson and Len Deighton and just finished last week a book by Nicholas Evans called The Divide. This book of yours is right up there. I am intrigued by it and once I begin reading, I remain until I have read the final word of the segments you have sent. This should definitely be on the NY Times best reads. I anxiously await more. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.

… I finished the book a few days ago. I very much enjoyed A Good Conviction. You made Josh and Darlene very sympathetic yet real characters. I liked them. You also did a good job of manipulating the tension level in the book so that I was extremely worried that Darlene would get hurt and was quite pleased when she was rescued by Detective Watson. That alone should indicate how well you reached this reader. I abhor ADA Claiborne. You made him into a villain but did it in a way that did not make him a caricature. I cannot think of a character in your book who was not drawn well. The best thing I can say about any book is that I am sorry to see it end. I was sorry to reach the end of your book.

… I am ready for Segment 3! I read Segment 2 the same day I got it.

… Having anxiously awaited this novel after reading The Heretic with our book club in South Jersey, I have been gripped by the story’s reality and intensity. We’d like to think such injustices don’t happen, but recent advances in forensics have proven that many innocents are incarcerated. The old saw about everybody in jail professing innocence is not so humorous today. What’s scary about Josh Blake’s situation is that as it unfolds it strikes you as being entirely plausible. Loved the attention to detail about the story’s New York locations – provided a reality foundation which made the story more startling. I am thoroughly enjoying this serialized email format – keeps the reader on the edge of his/her seat – or should I say, at the edge of his/her keyboard.

… Every page forces me to confront the very real issue in our society of someone who lives the horror of a wrongful conviction and life in the realities of prison.… Your attention to detail is great — I feel I am in New York with Josh! Next segment please !

… I liked the court room scene and thought it moved quickly in a compelling manner.… I am ready for the next segment of A Good Conviction. I read it all in one swoop – I could not stop. I found it thoroughly readable with all the “parts” in the right places. Thank you so much; I look forward to my next read.

… I am really enjoying this book. Please send the next part ASAP.

… I just finished Segment 2 and I’m really looking forward to receiving the next segment. Nothing like being kept in suspense. Poor Joshua Blake, he can’t get a break I just know there has to be a point where this poor guy’s luck, or lack of it, has to change! Please send along the next segment as soon as you can. Thank you very much!

… Just want you to know that my eyes were riveted to each sentence in your book. I can’t get to each segment fast enough; my other emails can wait, the book I was reading can wait, I just want to read your story. It just grabs your attention and compels you to read on and on. Thank you so much – I look forward to reading more.

… Wow! That’s some story. I am ready for segment 3.

… Can you send me #3. It’s really good and so scary that this could actually happen!

… I’m back again in search of Segment 5 this time. I really am enjoying the story and all the suspense that it holds.

… It’s scary to think how many like Josh are trapped in our legal system. I’m ready for Segment 5.

… Quick, send me Segment 2, I’m on the edge of my seat.

… Finished segment 2. I am loving it. The poor kid. I feel like I am watching Law & Order where you recognize so many of the places. Can you forward the next installment??

… Time for segment 6. You do tell a good story.

… The tension is increasing. Send me Segment 8.

… My heart is breaking for this kid, but I’m ready for more.

** A Good Conviction – prologue

 

Sing Sing Correctional Facility … Wednesday, January 21, 2004 

Disjointed memories haunt me, as they do every night, shattering my once great expectations and leaving me to share a cold clammy cell listening to a guy named Spider jerk off.  

The darkness emits a rumbling undercurrent of sounds, pierced randomly by eerie howls. Inmates yell obscenities to one another, or worse, to no one. Doors clang, footsteps echo and fade away, angry music blares in short bursts. Odors of urine, decaying food, stale smoke, and sweaty unwashed bodies assault the air. Mice and roaches scurry.

The longer I’m here, the harder it is to imagine being anywhere else. Giving in and allowing myself to cry would be suicidal. Others would observe my fear, and act on it. Predatory others. “Hey, white boy, they gonna’ love you’ ass in here.”

How long before I lose my mind? And will that be better or worse? Is it already happening? Every day, the person who was Joshua Blake recedes further from reality. Is this process irreversible? Will there be a point when I can never again be who I was?

There’s a sudden movement close to me and I cringe. I’m going to be hurt. Relief. It’s just my cellmate, stirring in the bunk below me. The fact that his presence is actually comforting shows how much my life has changed. Spider rolls out of his bunk and slides into view.

In the dim light, I make out hairy legs, dark crotch, gray prison shirt. He settles his muscled bulk onto the toilet. More sounds and smells. When he’s done, I roll off the upper bunk, take his place, feel his sweat. I remember what it used to be like in a bathroom with a door and a seat on the toilet.

I climb up, careful not to step on Spider’s arm, crawl under my thin blanket, shiver in the chill. Spider’s bulk shifts in the bunk below me. He settles into a slow steady rhythm which pulses my bunk as well as his. Spider is once again masturbating.

I strain for diversion. A familiar burr grinds at the edges of my mind. I force myself to focus, visualizing each distinct moment of my arrest and trial. I see a look in a man’s eye. I grab for it, but once again it slips away, and  I’m sinking, gasping, a deep eternal coldness filling my body.

Spider finishes with a grunt and a sudden lurch just as I slide into my personal bottomless lake of despair. Deep in the murky water, the man’s face reappears, staring at me intently, a puzzled expression in his eyes.

And – finally – I know the face.

** The Heretic – Prologue

 

       “No. Don’t go out there,” she pleads.   “You stay inside,” he orders.  She shouts to her son. “Run! Get your father. Hurry!”

       She follows her father-in-law to the door, horrified by what she fears will happen.  The old man reaches the street just as the first of them come around the corner. He walks straight at them — they shrink back — the crowd has not yet gained the courage to attack one who is not afraid. They shout.       

       “Jewish pig! … Christ killer! … Devil worshipper!”      

       He raises his hands, and surprisingly, the crowd quiets.  “Why do you call me Jew?” he says softly. “I’m baptized just as you.”      

       “Liar! We know what you converso Jews do. You don’t work on Saturday, and you don’t eat pork. You just pretend to be Christian.”      

       “That’s not true. I gave up the Jewish religion long ago. I wet my head in your baptismal water and I’ve been a good Christian ever since.”      

       He smiles, laughs almost, knowing they are not convinced, that nothing he says will ever change their minds. But he is not afraid. He stands taller. He is eerily calm.  “You say I’m a Jew. Why? I don’t pray to the God of Israel. I go to church and take the sacraments. My son is not circumcised.”   

       He turns away. They follow. He spins to face them. It is time, after so many years. Time to be a Jew.  “Is this what you want?” he thunders.  Deliberately, he places his high crowned hat on his head. He tugs under his cloak and removes a long white scarf, the Jewish prayer shawl, the tallit. He holds it solemnly in front of him, aged eyes straining to see faded words. He prays silently, in Hebrew: “Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us by Thy commandments, and has commanded us to wrap ourselves in tallit.”     

       He raises and twists the tallit. The pure white fabric unfolds, soars majestically and lands gently on his shoulders. He lifts it to cover his head. His face is hidden. He closes his eyes tightly. He is in another place.  He prays, she thinks, for the years he has lost, and perhaps also for the years ahead, though not for him: “O God of Israel Who desires repentance, allow me to repent for the foolishness of my baptism. O God of Israel Who forgives, forgive me for willfully discarding Your commandments. O God of Israel Who redeems His people, accept me, and allow me once again to walk in Your ways.”      

       He raises his voice, knowing the effect the strange sounding Hebrew words will have.  ”Hear O Israel, the Lord our God,the Lord is One.”        

       The crowd gasps. Swords are raised.       

       “Jesus of Nazareth is not God!” he shouts. “There is only one God, and He is the God of Israel!”      

       The first sword explodes against the side of his head, knocking his hat to the ground. A second shining blade slices into his shoulder.

       Bloodied, he does not fall. He says the Hebrew words slowly, powerfully. “Blessed is the Name of His glorious Kingdom for all eternity.”       

       The bloody sword flashes again, and he smiles, the last act of his life.       

       Now they all find courage. They know how to stomp on a dead man. Clubs and stones obliterate his features. Stabs to his chest. His tunic dark red.      

       She hears the horses a split second before the mob looks up. Her husband runs into the square, six armed men behind him. The mob retreats, its anger spent. He wraps the body of his father in his cloak, cradles the corpse gently in his arms, walks slowly into the house.      

       The young boy bends to retrieve his grandfather’s bloody tallit from where it has fallen.  

* sequel to The Heretic

I am currently working on an untitled sequel to The Heretic, set in the Renaissance Florence of Lorenzo de Medici.

“process” in Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

·     Follett: Eye of the Needle was my 11th novel. The first 10 had been received by readers with breathtaking indifference. My agent had sent many perceptive and irritating letters about the shortcomings of my previous books. (LMW: in 2007, Follett could never have published so many lackluster novels)   ·     I had read the nonfiction books (Bodyguard of Lies) about deception during WWII. (I now believe that idle curiosity is indispensable to a novelist.) I was intrigued by the deception plan for the D-Day invasion.    ·     He wrote a 4 line premise for the book: Storm Island, German spy learns of deception, He has a rendezvous with a U-boat to get back to Germany, shipwrecked on an island, he is killed by the inhabitants.    ·     I researched in the library, not the actual locations.    ·     I wrote an outline, dividing the story into 6 parts, each with 6 chapters, the first 5 alternating between the spy, the spycatchers, and Lucy Rose, with the 6th chapter in each part showing the Germans.    ·     Most of the first draft was written in 3 weeks. “It felt like running downhill.”    ·     I had my first draft read by someone old enough to remember the war, and he corrected many anachronisms.    ·     My agent Al Zuckerman, on reading the manuscript, said it was going to be an international bestseller and that I would have tax problems.

“point of view” in Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

·     omniscient narrator, able to show the inner feelings of all the characters   ·     at least once the narrator speaks in his own voice … (beginning of Ch 3) … “Faber … Godliman … two-thirds of a triangle that one day would be crucially completed by … David and Lucy” … the narrator thus provides a foreshadowing, setting the stage and piquing the reader’s interest.

“pace” in Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

·     Follett’s purposeful ping-pong structure alternating between the characters forced him to slow down to show (in his words) “how the protagonists were reacting to each other’s moves,” and to include more enriched attention to “character, landscape and emotion.”

“historical fiction” in Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

·     Follett starts with a one page historical preface about the D-Day deception. He ends the preface … “That much is history. What follows is fiction. Still and all, one suspects something like this must have happened.”   ·     the high stakes of blowing the deception plan are emphasized several times … Godliman: “If one decent Abwehr agent in Britain gets to know about Fortitude … we could lose the fucking war.”    ·     But of course we know that D Day was successful and we didn’t lose the war. Follett creates tension about an event where we know the actual outcome, ie that Faber cannot succeed.   ·     Much like Forsythe in Day of the Jackal (published in the early 1970s, before Eye of the Needle), where we know that De Gaulle was not murdered by a sniper but are carried into great tension anyway.   ·     Perhaps the tension is maintained because we don’t know if Faber will fail, or if he will succeed but Hitler doesn’t act on his knowledge. However, we are told repeatedly, by Hitler himself, that he will be guided by Faber’s report.

“character” in Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

·     Faber is of course the villain. But he is also patriotic, enormously competent, and capable of feelings, which he must repress in order to carry out his mission. He is an wonderful lover, which he could not be if he were truly without feeling, no matter how much he will not allow himself to express it. This complex character must be admired even as we hate and fear him. A remarkable achievement.   ·     Lucy starts out as a dominated young woman, who chooses to escape to her father-in-law’s island rather than live among people. But in her relative solitude, she develops an unexpected resolve, and when facing the ultimate challenge, she rises to it. Is what she does believable? Maybe not, although in wartime people do extraordinary things. In any case, Follett portrays this larger-than-life character in a way that arouses the reader’s emotions as we root for her to succeed against overwhelming odds. The final scenes and epilogue drew tears from this romantic reader, always a sucker for melodrama.   ·     Godliman (what a name! I’d like to know where Follett found it) is the enabler of the story, providing the narrative links that eventually lead Faber to Lucy. But how much better to provide these through an interesting character than through narrative prose. Godliman’s growth from nebbish professor to razor-sharp spycatcher is done a little quickly. We can believe it, but we would like to know more about him. Perhaps as #3 character, he doesn’t warrant more attention.

“beginnings” in Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett

·     Follett starts with a one page historical preface about the D-Day deception. He ends the preface … “That much is history. What follows is fiction. Still and all, one suspects something like this must have happened.”   ·     the first chapter begins with Faber. The first clue to his identity as a spy is … “Faber watched such things – he was considerably more observant than the average railway clerk.”   ·     in the first chapter, Faber kills his landlady, packs his transmitter, and moves on. We now know he is a German spy. The next chapter jumps to Godliman recruited to be a spycatcher.

“setting” in Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

·     there are many outstanding descriptions of places. One of the best, of the villa M. Kercadious’ brother’s villa on the heights of Meudon, is combined with a political statement regarding the excesses of the nobility … “Andre-Louis crossed the threshold of that great room, softly carpeted to the foot, dazzling to the eye … immensely lofty … festooned ceiling … overwhelmingly gilded … what was customary in the dwellings of people of birth and wealth … Never, indeed, was there a time in which so much gold was employed decoratively as in this age when coined gold was almost unprocurable, and paper money had been put into circulation to supply the lack … if these people could only have been induced to put the paper on their walls and the gold into their pockets, the finances of the kingdom might soon have been in better case.”

“suspense & tension” in Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

·     the concluding scenes are full of tension, both political and personal, as Andre-Louis’s life is made clear to him, at age 28, for the very first time. The personal melodrama is fully submerged into the action, and it is the action which reveals it.   ·     who shall appear after the duel? is a question Sabatini uses twice. Andre-Louis’s appearance at the Assembly after his first duel is brilliant … “his place was vacant … very few ever expected to see him again … they saw him enter, calm, composed, and bland … M. le President, my excuses for my late arrival … I have been detained by an engagement of a pressing nature. I bring you also the excuses of M. de Chabrillane. He, unfortunately, will be permanently absent from this Assembly in future.”   ·     the second instance of who shall appear? transforms a dramatic tension into a comedy of errors. Aline, terrified for Andre-Louis, rushes to the scene of the duel with Mme. de Plougastel, sees the Marquis appear first in his carriage, thinks Andre-Louis is dead, and faints. The Marquis stops to help her. Andre-Louis now drives past, incorrectly interprets Aline’s condition to her concern for the Marquis, and angrily keeps on going.

missing “scenes” in Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

·     Some of the most interesting scenes in Scaramouche are the ones that aren’t there.   ·     Sabatini often skips the scene you expect to see. None of the duels, except that with the Marquis, are portrayed. Thus Sabatini avoids what would be repetition and holds the reader’s anticipation of a dueling scene until the last and most important.   ·     Andre-Louis’s entrance into Paris in the midst of chaotic street fighting is also not shown. How did he get past the guards? Did anyone question him? Likewise, the leaving of Paris, first by the Marquis, then by Andre-Louis with Aline and Mme. de Plougastel, become past events, never shown “live.” … Why?   ·     One also looks in vain for a real love scene between Andre-Louis and Aline where either’s emotions are shown rather than merely stated or even hinted at.

“point of view” in Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

·     pov is an omniscient narrator, who sometimes interjects into the story … “nor can I discover …”

“plot” in Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

·     Scaramouche is more driven by plot than by character. It is an exciting adventure story, tracing a vow of revenge from one improbable escapade to another. The pace, usually rapid, is slowed from time to time by philosophical and political ruminations on the changes occurring in France at the time of the 1789 Revolution and its immediate aftermath. This transforms the story, raising its level of importance, since what the characters do impacts these epic historical events.

“theme & premise” in Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

·     Andre-Louis begins as a supporter of Privilege, since this is how he was raised. His initial support for Equality and Freedom is borrowed from his murdered friend, but not believed, and initially, his real-life impassioned political oratory is all an act. Later, as an actor, he surprisingly becomes more real, interjecting purposely provocative lines, which he apparently believes, into the play. As a politician, he comes to believe that a new constitution will indeed save France from the tyranny of Privilege, but then comes to see that the tyranny of the resulting anarchy is even worse. Sabatini, a historian before he became a novelist, has thus woven an evolving historical point of view (his own?) into his adventure story, giving it a higher premise than it would otherwise have.

“historical fiction” in Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

·     The occasional insertion of the narrator’s voice into the story, and the reference to supposed actual documents (Andre-Louis’s Confession, playbills, newspaper articles) add historical credibility to the fictional adventure.   ·     M. La Tour d’Azyr is given the opportunity to explain why he murdered Andre-Louis’s friend, not from passion or anger, but from his perceived sense of political necessity, and he still believes he was correct in that action. “I had no grudge against M. de Vilmorin … I loathed the thing I did … I killed M. de Vilmorin as a matter of duty to my order.” When the Marquis goes on to say “it is impossible to blame any man for anything in this world … we are all of us the sport of destiny” … we can almost forgive him for doing what he had to do.

“conflict” in Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

·     The entire story is a series of obstacles for Andre-Louis to overcome. Every other character exists mainly to create such obstacles.

“character” in Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

·     Andre-Louis is clearly a larger-than-life character. We meet him as an obscure attorney representing Privilege, but, enraged by the murder of his friend, he embarks on a succession of spectacular careers. He becomes a political orator, with a message he does not believe. Forced to go underground, he hides in plain sight as the actor Scaramouche in a traveling cast of players. When his own actions destroy that career, he becomes a fencing master, inventing new techniques that later become the standard. Later, a member of the National Assembly drafting the constitution for the new republic of France.    ·     Through all of his many incarnations, Andre-Louis controls his feelings with an iron determination, and we never really learn what he’s all about. Whatever he is feeling for Aline is never revealed. He is not given to introspection.   ·     M. de Kercadiou, Andre-Louis’s godfather to Andre-Louis: “Why can’t you express yourself in a sensible manner that a plain man can understand without having to think about it?” But Andre-Louis always hides his feelings behind a veil of sarcastic humor and his self-imposed rigid Stoicism, of which he is so proud. he says many times that he is not a man of action, but this is not true. He exists almost solely through his actions, not his thoughts, and surely not his feelings.  

“beginnings” in Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

·     first lines … “He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. And that was all his patrimony. His very paternity was obscure …” … great opening, characterizing Andre-Louis and raising a question not answered until the very end of the book.

“theme & premise” in Silence in Hanover Close by Anne Perry

·     in her 9th novel in the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series, Anne Perry achieved her breakout novel. She did this by raising the stakes, so that the action in the story mattered in a larger sense. From this point on in the series, Inspector Pitt is removed from routine homicide cases and assigned instead to cases of special sensitivity and political import (issues such as Irish independence, anti-Semitism, the Church of England’s crisis over Darwin’s theory of evolution) … taken from Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass   ·     the old case involves “the delicate question of a woman’s reputation, a distinguished victim from a powerful family, and treason” … so we know that this case involves a broader scope than just a detective story … although, as the story develops, the aspect of treason is never presented in a way that I could feel the future of the Empire was at stake, and in the end, there was no treason at all. It seems to me if you’re going to use treason as a hook, it should turn out to be as important as first implied.

“technique” in Silence in Hanover Close by Anne Perry

·     Perry has Charlotte, in her persona as Elizabeth Baranaby, sit quietly listening to conversation and asking herselp a series of questions. This helps the reader keep straight what is known and yet unknown about a complicated plot. Similar to what I did when Detective Watson complied a list of unanswered questions in A Good Conviction.

“suspense & tension” in Silence in Hanover Close by Anne Perry

·     Pitt’s first meeting with Ballarat ends with a high degree of tension. “He (Pitt) went out with his mind seething.” This tension is immedialtely relieved. “Then the cold air hit his face …” The next scene introduces Pitt’s children anticipating Christmas eve.   ·     Veronica and Mrs. York. Veronica: “We too are taking up our lives again.” Mrs. York: “You are.” Mrs. York’s tone was charged with emotion, but … Charlotte could not define it … a warning of some sort? Something is there. We want to know what it is. We want Charlotte to figure it out so she can help Pitt and he won’t be as furious with her as we expect him to be. The reader wants to know something and will keep hooked until it is revealed.   ·     Mrs. York: “Family responsibilities are something one never grows out of, nor is one able to escape them.” … Charlotte had the sudden, intense feeling that the two women disliked each other, perhaps even more than that … Charlotte believed they were speaking of something quite different, and for all the tension between them and the underlying violence, they understood each other perfectly.” But the reader will not understand until almost the last page in the book.   ·     Pitt and Charlotte are conducting separate investigations of the same crime, but not sharing the information. This creates tension in the reader, who wants them to share. I think Perry relieved this tension too soon, allowing them to share their information when it could have been sustained longer.

“surprise” in Silence in Hanover Close by Anne Perry

·     Charlotte asks if Pitt has “any interesting cases.” The expectation is that Pitt will discuss his new case, as it is implied he has done in the past. But instead, he says, “No. An old case that will go nowhere.” Charlotte persists, “Nothing?” Pitt responds, “Nothing.” This is surprising. Why does Pitt pass up the opportunity to discuss his case? Perhaps it suggests that this case is different from the others. We sense that his surprising response will have consequences. And it does. Charlotte eventually drags it out of him, and then she sets off, without telling him, to do her own investigation into his case. Would she have kept this from Pitt if he had not been withholding with her?   ·     It is a huge surprise when Pitt is arrested for the murder of the prostitute. It is even more surprising that Ballarat won’t lift a finger to help him. And it is the most surprising that, while Pitt languishes in prison, Charlotte and Emily solve the case without him.

“setting”in Silence in Hanover Close by Anne Perry

·     “the curtains seemed to be without the usual faded marks which the sun so quickly made in blues, which meant they were not above a season old.” … tells us about the place, the financial circumstances of the owner, and the perception of the viewer, all in one sentence.

“point of view” in Silence in Hanover Close by Anne Perry

·     Perry gets us into the heads of all three of her major characters – Pitt, Charlotte and Emily – and the omniscient narrator POV allows this easily and smoothly.

“plot” in Silence in Hanover Close by Anne Perry

·     having both sisters (Charlotte and Emily) take on different hidden personas was not credible for me. In a “Society” where everybody knows everybody, it seems unlikely that either could get away with it, let alone both. But Perry is such a good story-teller that I allowed a “suspension of belief” and did not allow my incredulity to interfere with the tension that these subterfuges produced.   ·     Perry has Charlotte, in her persona as Elizabeth Baranaby, sit quietly listening to conversation and asking herselp a series of questions. This helps the reader keep straight what is known and yet unknown about a complicated plot. Similar to what I did when Detective Watson complied a list of unanswered questions in A Good Conviction.

“pace” in Silence in Hanover Close by Anne Perry

·     Pitt asks one very short question after another, each one 2-5 words. This not only shows his investigative style, it moves the background process swiftly along.   ·     Perry frequently alternates family scenes with investigative scenes, breaking the tension, showing more of what Pitt cares about

“historical fiction” in Silence in Hanover Close by Anne Perry

·     Perry provides the timing of the story by giving the date of the burglary to be re-investigated – “about three years ago – October seventeenth, 1884, to be precise.”   ·     “star-glazing” is explained … a burglar’s technique … what this does is add verisimilitude, and give the reader confidence that the author knows the period she is describing. this technique can be overdone, if it appears that the author is just showing off her knowledge.   ·     “Pitt knew of many great women … Waterloo … Hindu Kish … Blue Nile …” As I read this, I thought it was overdone   ·     Perry has Emily read real novels published in the time frame of the story. A good way to reinforce that time frame.   ·     Perry explains terms that a modern reader could not be expected to know. “In lavender means …slapbang, lurk, nethersken, flash’ouse, and paddyken … Pitt understood … he was referring to … useful? or excessive?

“endings” in Silence in Hanover Close by Anne Perry

·     the ending, which I will not reveal, is, in my view, too quickly rendered, not quite believeable, and has nothing to do with the aspects of treason which Maass says took this book to a breakout level. It is also, however, a total surprise which ties together all of the unexplained threads that have puzzled the reader, and in Perry’s sure hand it actually works quite well. I’m ready for the next book in the series.

“dialogue” in Silence in Hanover Close by Anne Perry

·     Constable Lowther speaks in a heavy dialect, which is difficult to understand. The only reason this works is that he is a minor character, so you can struggle through. If Pitt spoke that way, it would be a good reason to put the novel down.   ·     Veronica is responding to her mothr-in-law Mrs. York … “Oh, I think the people are quite different also,” Veronica argued. “Argued” is much better than” said,” suggesting the tension between the two women.  

“conflict” in Silence in Hanover Close by Anne Perry

·     “Ballarat disliked Pitt and resented his manner, which he considered insolent.” … we know early on (p3) that Pitt’s boss doesn’t like him, and we sense why. This enmity between the two turns out to be of real significance as the story unfolds.   ·     Mobray was “told … by the powers that be as I should keep to me place …” Pitt will not have a clear path with this investigation. Shortly after, Mobray tells Pitt, “Don’t envy you.” Pitt says to himself … “Damn Ballarat and the Foreign Office.”   ·     “It took him a quarter of an hour to persuade the right officials and finally to reach the department where Robert York had worked until the time of his death.” Pitt overcomes a small obstacle, suggesting that perhaps he will overcome the larger obstacles as well.   ·     Charlotte explains to Radley how she will investigate Pitt’s case. “But will Pitt approve?” … “Thomas won’t have to know.” This is conflict coming big time. However, when Pitt finds out what Charlotte has been doing, he is so appreciative of what she has learned (about the woman in cerise being seen in the Danver house as well as the York) that he expresses no anger. Not realistic.

“character” in Silence in Hanover Close by Anne Perry

·     the characterization of Inspector Pitt begins on the first page, through the eyes of the sergeant … “He did not meet the sergeant’s conception of a senior officer … downright scruffy … the man let the force down. Still, the sergeant had heard Pitt’s name and spoke with some respect.” Is Perry writing for readers who have read the previous books, or for the reader who has not read any of the Pitt series? She must accommodate both.   ·     Pitt feels guilty at taking the case from another man, and uncomfortable with his evasive poking around … we have an immediate (p2) sense that we are dealing with a man of exceptional integrity   ·     “Mobray took a deep breath and sighed slowly. “The elder Mrs. York was a remarkable woman …” This begins the characterization of Mrs. York, who turns out to be a lot more sinister than Mobray’s infatuation would suggest.   ·     Pitt’s interrogation technique changes from simple questions to complex, and he immediately trips up the Foreign Service officer he is questioning. We are impressed that he is a skillful detective.   ·     “Ballarat … was the antithesis of the disheveled Pitt, whose every garment was at odds with another …” … characterization repeated for emphasis. Why did Perry choose this means of describing Pitt? Does his manner of dress play an actual role in his subsequent actions? For all this emphasis, it should, but I don’t recall that it does.   ·     Charlotte is first mentioned on p17. Her first words are “Any interesting cases?” If the reader is familiar with the series, this would be in character with earlier stories. If not, it serves to set her character and an important aspect of their relationship in just 3 words.   ·     Emily, who will be such a major player in this story, is briefly mentioned, but not truly introduced until p29. The initial characterization of her starts out as a description, from Emily’s perspective, of her recently murdered husband George, but evolves in a few sentences into a self-characterization of her feelings for George, her wisdom, her intolerance for injustice, and her evolution into someone more like Charlotte – opinionated, quick to anger, and a fighter against “all she perceived to be wrong” even if “sometimes hasty.” A perfect setup, in one paragraph, for the role Emily will play.   ·     “Jack Radley entered … casually dressed … his tailor was clearly his chief creditor … his smile … those remarkable eyes.” All this from Emily’s pov (which the omniscient narrator knows, tells us about Radley and Emily’s feelings for him. Next page: “his eyelashes still shadowed his cheek.” Another reference to his eyes, his individualizing feature.   ·     Mrs. York. They are discussing the winter art exhibit at the Royal Academy, and Charlotte says she does not paint very well. “I had not supposed you to enter a work, Miss Barnaby, merely to observe.” Nasty! We don’t like Mrs. York.   ·     Pitt’s persistence is shown in his relentless pursuit of leads, even after so many of them turn prove unproductive (at least for now).

“beginnings” in Silence in Hanover Close by Anne Perry

·     first line … “Police station, sir!” takes you right into the story.   ·     the first hook (p2) is the opening of a 3 year old burglary case. why? why now?   ·     the old case involves “the delicate question of a woman’s reputation, a distinguished victim from a powerful family, and treason”   ·     “you’d better speak to Constable Lowther first; he found the body” … this case was introduced as a burglary; now we find out (p3) that it’s a murder as well … the reader’s interest is heightened.

“technique” in The Writer’s Chapbook edited by George Plimpton

  

·     John Steinbeck … say dialogue aloud as you write it. only then will it have the sound of speech.  ·     Tennessee Williams … when I write, everything is visual, as brilliantly as if it were on a lit stage. And I talk out the lines as I write.  ·     Samuel Johnson … read over your composition and, when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.  ·     D.H. Lawrence … they say DHL used to write second drafts and never look at the first  ·     Bernard Malamud … first drafts are for learning what your novel is about. revision is one of the true pleasures of writing.  ·     James Baldwin … painters have often taught writers to see  ·     Francois Mauriac … some writers are greatly preoccupied with technique … they seem to think that a good novel ought to follow certain rules imposed from outside … the great novelist doesn’t depend on anyone but himself … a borrowed style is a bad style  ·     Mark Twain … the difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the same as that between lightning and the lightning bug  ·     Truman Capote … a story can be wrecked by a faulty rhythm in a sentence or a mistake in paragraphing, even punctuation  ·     William Styron … I used to spend a lot of time worrying over word order … then I got more and more interested in people … and story  ·     E.M. Forster … very few of us have the power of observing a variety of life and describing it dispassionately. Tolstoy was one who could.

“scenes” in Les Miserable by Victor Hugo

 

·     Robertson Davies … there can be a 90 page digression about something which happens to interest Hugo. When is he ever going to get on with the story? But the story is so good, and Hugo writes so fascinatingly about his odds and ends that you can’t stop.

“reflections” in The Writer’s Chapbook edited by George Plimpton

·     Ernest Hemingway … I learn as much from painters and composers about how to write as from writers.  ·     Edward Albee … writing has got to be an act of discovery, finding out things about what one is writing about  ·     John Barth … certain barriers cannot be crossed until you get to them … you may not even sense the real shape of the obstacle until you heave in sight of it  ·     Robert Frost … no tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. no surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.  ·     John Gardner … I get great pleasure out of stealing other people’s writings  ·     John Cheever … one never puts down a sentence without the feeling that it has never been put down before in such a way, and that perhaps even the substance of the sentence has never been felt 

 

“process” in The Writer’s Chapbook edited by George Plimpton

·     John Hersey … When the writing is really working, it’s like dreaming, a total involvement in the pictures and sounds that the passage evokes. I’m unaware of my real surroundings.  ·     John Steinbeck … write as freely and rapidly as possible. never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is done. Rewrite in process is usually an excuse for not going on, and it interferes with the flow and rhythm that can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.

“plot” in The Writer’s Chapbook edited by George Plimpton

·     E.L. Doctorow … as the book goes on it becomes inevitable … choices narrow … the thing picks up speed  ·     Truman Capote … what I am trying to achieve is a voice sitting by a fireplace telling you a story on a winter’s evening  ·     Isak Dinesen … I start with a kind of feeling of the story I will write … then come the characters and they take over, they make the story  ·     John Irving … how can you plot a novel if you don’t know the ending first? how can you introduce a character if you don’t know how he ends up?  ·     Norman Mailer …generally, I don’t even have a plot … my characters engage in action, and out of that action little bits of plot sometimes adhere to the narrative (I don’t believe him, he’s just shooting off his mouth)  ·     John Mortimer … the plot and discipline of the crime novel save it from terrible traps of being sensitive and stream-of-consciousness and all that stuff … life is composed of plots  ·     James Thurber … we’ve got all these people (in our story), now what’s going to happen … I don’t know until I start to write and find out … I don’t believe the writer should know too much of where he’s going  ·     William Kennedy … if I knew at the beginning how the book was going to end, I would probably never finish … I knew Legs Diamond was going to die at the end of the book, so I killed him on page one 

 

“pace” The Writer’s Chapbook edited by George Plimpton

 

·     Ernest Hemingway … I have tried to eliminate everything unnecessary to conveying experience to the reader. Anything you know, you can eliminate. But … if you omit something because you don’t know it, there’s a hole in your story.  ·     James Baldwin … the goal is to write a sentence as “clean as a bone”  ·     Georges Simenon … I cut adjectives, adverbs and every word which is there just to make an effect. Every sentence which is there just for the sentence. You have a beautiful sentence – cut it.  ·     Elie Wiesel … I reduce 900 pages to 160 … writing is more like sculpture where you remove … you eliminate in order to make the work visible … there is a difference between a book which is 200 pages from the beginning and a book of 200 pages which began as 800 pages … the pages you remove are really there – only you don’t see them

“historical fiction” in The Writer’s Chapbook edited by George Plimpton

·     John Irving … I begin by telling the truth, by remembering real people … but the people aren’t quite interesting enough … I exaggerate … soon I’m on my way to a lie  ·     Graham Greene … one never knows enough about characters in real life to put them into novels … one must imagine what one does not know, but what is imagined should be consistent enough with what is known so that it is believable to a knowledgeable reader, ie, someone who knows something about Lorenzo and his Florence

“endings” in Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

  

·     One of the most perfect and marvelous endings in literature is the little boy, crying that he’s afraid to go across the moor because there’s a man and woman walking there.

“character” in The Writer’s Chapbook edited by George Plimpton

·     Eudora Welty … You can’t start with how people look and speak and behave and come to know how they feel. You must know exactly what’s in their hearts and minds before they ever set visible foot on the stage. You must know all, then not tell it all, or not tell too much all at once; simply the right thing at the right moment.  ·     Samuel Butler … the Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.  ·     Kurt Vonnegut … make your characters want something – right away  ·     E.M. Forster … human beings have their great chance in the novel  ·     John Gardner … the first thing that makes a reader read a book is the characters  ·     Lillian Hellman … I don’t think characters turn out the way you think they are going to turn out  ·     Aldous Huxley … fictional characters are much less complex than the people one knows  ·     William Kennedy … what moves you forward to the next page is wondering why he or she acted in this particular way … what’s most interesting is not the plot … the character does something new, and then the story begins to percolate  ·     Norman Mailer … what’s exciting is the creative act of allowing your characters to grow … to become more complex … then a character becomes a being, and a being is someone whose nature keeps shifting  ·     Francois Mauriac … you may start with a real person, but he changes … only the secondary characters (undeveloped, the ones who don’t grow) are taken directly from life  ·     William Styron … I try to make all of my characters “round” … it takes a Dickens to make “flat” characters come alive  ·     William Trevor … fiction writers remember tiny little details, some of them quite malicious  ·     Norman Mailer … one’s ignorance is part of one’s creation. If you’re creating a character whose knowledge of a subject is spotty, then perhaps your own spotty knowledge is a plus (I don’t think so).

“beginnings” in The Writer’s Chapbook edited by George Plimpton

 

·     Joan Didion … What’s so hard about the first sentence is that you’re stuck with it.  ·     Gabriel Garcia Marquez … One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph. In the first paragraph, you solve most of the problems with your book. The theme is defined, the style, the tone.  ·     Philip Roth … I often have to write a hundred pages or so before there’s a paragraph that’s alive. That then becomes the first paragraph of the book. Underline all the sentences, phrases, words that are alive. write them on one piece of paper. there’s your first page. the “aliveness” sets the tone.

“historical fiction” in The Scarlet City by Hella Haasse

·     This frustrating historical novel, first published in Holland in 1952, opaquely treats the early 16th century: the machinations of papal and imperial forces have divided all of Italy into scheming factions, and mercenary soldiers gather to sack Rome. ·     Haasse ( In a Dark Wood Wandering ) chooses a nonlinear approach: various historical figures alternately narrate a series of complicated events. This structure bleeds the narrative of its intrinsic drama. ·     critical episodes invariably take place offstage, characters enter and exit abruptly, and the single-minded concerns of the individual protagonists overshadow the central action. ·     Those who don’t know much about this thorny patch of history will be thoroughly adrift; on the other hand, anyone familiar with even a snippet of the works of the figures incarnated here will chafe at Haasse’s shallow and simplistic interpretations. ·     50,000 first printing; BOMC and History Book Club alternates … extracted from a review on amazon.com by Publishers Weekly

As leaders war, intrigue, and shift alliances, the turmoil in Italy is reflected in each of the characters as they seek meaning in their lives. Like Italy itself, they can hope for no solution: at best they succeed in identifying the opposing forces that war within them. A brilliant picture of an uncertain age … extracted from a review on amazon.com by Library Journal

“technique” in Helpless by Barbara Gowdy

 

Gowdy writes as if she’s on a sinking boat and needs to throw out all the dead weight. The only words that survive are the ones that matter: no extraneous evidence of her research, no long-winded descriptions, no self-indulgent frills of characterization. And the result is a page turner that finds tension … from a review by Chelsea Cain, NYT, 4-29-07

“beginnings” in The Day Of The Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

·     opening sentence It is cold at 6:40 in the morning of a March day in Paris, and seems even colder when a man is about to be executed by firing squad.” the precise time convinces the reader of the reality of what’s taking place. By not naming him, the reader wants to know who is being executed. And, since the reason is not given, why … from Stein on Writing

“technique” in The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

·     exaggeration … “tidal waves were continually washing away cities … earthquakes arrived every week … towers fell upon good men and women all the time”  ·     irony … “only the widely read could be said to know they were unhappy.’  ·     irony … “many people would never have fallen in love if they had not heard about it.”  ·     irony … Brother Juniper’s book was declared heretical, and “was ordered to be burned in the square, with its author.” So much for proving that God has a plan.

“suspense” in The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

·     in the first paragaph, it was “unthinkable” that the bridge should break. suggests a hidden reason. I began to think very early on that the bridge did not fall by accident, that perhaps someone cut the ropes. I was looking for a character in the story to commit this act, which didn’t happen, unless God, having a plan for all of us, is ultimately that character. The narrator never openly states his conclusion on this point (which would be ‘preaching’ in the literal sense), but the ending suggests it.  ·     Brother Juniper “knew the answer … there was no element of doubt … he merely wanted to prove it” But we’ve already been told that Br. Juniper did not know everything.  ·     by revealing 3 of the people who perished in the bridge disaster, but not the other two, Wilder creates a tension (who dies?) that is not resolved until well into the book.  ·     the Abbess “had felt not only the breath of old age against her cheek, but also a graver warning” (the lack of a successor) … foreboding establishes tension … will she accomplish her life’s work? This question is never again addressed until the final pages of the story, when it is resolved. 

* “scenes” in The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

·     pages and pages of narrative scenes. Charming in 1924 when written, perhaps not so much now. Very well written but no immediacy.

“point of view” in The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

·     the narrator is omnicsient, knowing things that were not known at the time, not even by Brother Juniper during his six years of investigation. “Yet for all his diligence Brother Juniper never knew … And I, who claim to know so much more, isn’t it possible that even I have missed the very spring within the spring?”  ·     this narrator, who is never introduced to us, gains our trust when he says that what the people of Lima have come to believe about Dona Maria is not true, and “all real knowledge” … also when he corrects Dona Maria’s impressions of the Perichole … “It was … untrue …”  ·     in the conversation (p 24) between Dona Maria and the Perichole, the narrator reveals the inner thoughts of both.  ·     the Abbess has “fallen in love with an idea several centuries before its appointed appearance in the history of civilization.” The idea is the modern role of women, and the way it is disclosed reveals the perspective of the narrator, and places him in the 20th century.

“pace” in The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

·     even though it’s a short novel (117 pages), the story seems to drag, as long narrative scenes regarding Esteban and Uncle Pio are added. What does this all have to do with the collapse of the bridge, and with Brother Juniper, who has totally diappeared from the story?

“theme” in The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

·     Does God have a plan?  ·     Brother Juniper’s efforts to prove this were burned (and we later learn, so was he). Perhaps Br. Juniper’s massive effort to “prove” God’s plan was in itself evidence of his own doubt that such a plan really existed. Why else burn the proof?  ·     Dona Maria reflects the doubt of the theme in her own fears. “God is indifferent.” Then she expresses the hope and re-inforces the tension of the plot. “But soon a belief in the great Perhaps …”  ·     Dona Maria … “I can do no more. What will be, will be … She had a strange sense of having antagonized God by too much prayer.”  This sets up the conclusion, where others (Dona Clara and the one “who had formerly been an actress”) fill Pepita’s intended role.  ·     Manuel “tore open the flesh on his knee,” leading to an infection from which he soon dies. An event, a twist in the plot, which ultimately leads Esteban to the bridge.  ·     the Perichole gets small-pox, her “beauty had passed,” and she had “never realized any love save love as passion.”

“great quotes” in The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

·     “he saw the bridge divide and fling five gesticulating ants into the valley below.”  ·     referring to her heart as “that battered throne”  ·     Dona Maria … “the knowledge that she would never be loved in return acted upon her ideas as the tide acts upon cliffs.’  ·     Dona Maria … “at last, like a general calling together in the rain and by night  the dispersed division of his army she assembled memory and attention and a few other faculties …”  ·     Abbess … “Yet she continued diligently in her task. She resembled the swallow in the fable who once every thousand years transferred a grain of wheat …”  ·     “that city of large-girdled women …”  ·     “… produced miracles as naturally as the charged air of a sultry day produces lightning.” In other words, not miracles, but explainable events if one has sufficient knowledge.

“historical fiction” in The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

·     the specific date (Friday noon, July the 20th, 1714) and number of people who die (5) in the first sentence adds versimmilitude. (Stein)  ·     Wilder chooses to have a 20th century narrator for a story set in 1714. Why? What does this accomplish? Does it makes the story seem true?

“endings” in The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

·     the Abbess “had felt not only the breath of old age against her cheek, but also a graver warning” (the lack of a successor) … foreboding establishes tension … will she accomplish her life’s work? This question never again addressed until the final pages of the story, when it is beautifully resolved. “the search (for a successor) ended with Pepita” who later dies in the gorge, to be replaced, as we are surprised to learn in the last pages, by Perichole and Dona Clara. ·     God’s plan is seen in these new assistants for the Abbess’s worthy efforts, each of them coming to the Abbess because of their own losses in the same accident. Dona Clara lost her mother, Perichole lost Uncle Pio and her son Jaime, and the Abbess lost Pepita and Esteban. Soon we shall all die, we are told, and memory of us “will have left the earth.” But the “love will have been enough,” and all “impulses of love return to the love that made them,” ie to God. ·   last sentence … “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”

“conflict” in The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

·     between Dona Maria and her daughter Dona Clara, who “barely glanced at the letters.”  ·     between the twin brothers Manuel and Esteban over Manuel’s love for the Perichole.  ·     between the Perichole and Uncle Pio, as she grows too much a lady to be seen with the man who had everything to do with her success.

“character” in The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

·     Dona Maria – characterized both by the derision of Perichole and the theater audience, and her own unawareness of what is happening, and then immediately after by her sad (pathetic) letter to her daughter  ·     Pepita – first characterized by her kindness to Dona Maria in the theater  ·     Pepita’s letter, read by Dona Maria, is her first attempt to express herself to the Abbess, “her first stumbling misspelled letter in courage.” Pepita tears up the letter, and soon sets out with Dona Maria for the bridge. The Abbess will never know Pepita’s first steps of growth toward the mature personality the Abbess has worked so hard to create.

“beginnings” in The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

·     first sentence … “On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travellers into the gulf below” … specificity provides versimilitude.  ·     the fact that the “finest bridge” collapsed suggests something out of the ordinary, some unseen hand. (Stein)

comments on “historical fiction” by David Liss

·   Like pretty much everything else in the universe, historical fiction can be divided into two categories. ·   On the one hand are books that use real historical events and people as a springboard for the author’s imagined events and people. ·   On the other hand are novels that limit their scope to characters and events from the archives. ·   I strongly favor books of the first kind and shy away from the second. History — fortunately — tends to make for great history. Reality, however, does not necessarily make for great fiction. ·   Karen Essex’s Leonardo’s Swans fits firmly in the second category of rigidly historical fiction, and while it is in many ways accomplished, it also suffers from almost unavoidable drawbacks. ·   The novel centers on two sisters in late 15th-century Italy: Isabella and Beatrice d’Este of Ferrara … ·   Essex’s adherence to the archival record hinders the book in two principal ways. She sticks closely to known events but seems unwilling to engage with the issue of historical subjectivity. ·   Never do we feel as if we are inside the heads of pre-Enlightenment people. These are not alien women from another time; they are modern women in another time. ·   Similarly, as the novel becomes more focused on the political machinations of the era, it disconnects itself from the experiences of the two protagonists. ·   The historical Isabella and Beatrice may have been proximate to men who shaped some of the major events of Renaissance Italy, but they were rarely witness to them. Despite some excellent writing and archival work, the result feels sometimes like a history play in which characters come on stage to announce births, deaths and the outcomes of far-away battles. ·   Indeed, as Leonardo’s Swans marches along, driven by facts rather than the necessities of storytelling, the novel often takes on a strangely resigned tone, as if it’s just running out the clock.

** Taken from a review of Leonardo’s Swans by Karen Essex by David Liss … on amazon … from The Washington Post’s Book World. Liss is the author of A Conspiracy of Paper and other historical novels.

“conflict” in Write Away by Elizabeth George

·   plots must have conflict  ·   Events occur as the conflict unfolds  ·   Conflict is a form of collision  ·   Conflict can be created by resistance against a character’s desires. Resistance can come from within the character himself, from nature  ·   Conflict adds tension to the novel  ·   The story’s conflicts are reflections of the theme  ·    Put your characters into conflict  ·   Look for subplots (which provide opportunities for conflict) based on character’s strengths and weaknesses  ·   Opening scene either possesses or promises excitement, intrigue, conflict, foreshadows problems; establishes atmosphere, place, some characters (not necessarily the main characters)  ·    Characters are interesting in their conflict, misery, unhappiness, confusion; not their joy and security  ·  What does the character do when under stress?  ·   conflict is what brings characters to life and makes them real for the reader  ·   Put the character to the test by putting him into conflict; he then springs to life, forced to make a decision, to act on that decision  ·    create a situation where the characters are bonded together and are unable to escape being in conflict with each other; then “heat” the situation  ·  conflict is a character’s will in collision with something else  ·   a character’s inner conflict will show that he is real  ·        conflict works best when it is rising conflict, builds over time, reveals more facets of character as incidents occur  ·     start with an idea that contains one of: the primary event, the arc of the story (beginning, middle, end), or an intriguing situation that suggests a cast of characters in conflict  ·     Every scene must have conflict.  Begin at the low point, let the tension rise to a climax, then provide a resolution which propels the entire novel forward.  ·   foreshadow future conflict with the present dialogue  ·   after writing dialogue, evaluate it. does it add tension? does it demonstrate conflict between characters?

“technique” in The Spooky Art by Norman Mailer

·   use of metaphor reveals a writer’s grasp of life  ·   novels go happiest when you discover something you didn’t know, perhaps a metaphor that startles you even as you are setting it down, a truth that used to elude you.

“suspense” in The Instrument by John O’Hara

·     Yank describes Jiggs. “To this man Yank Lucas owed his life, and he suspected that the man was not going to let him forget it. He was afraid of the man, his brutishness, his low-grade guile.” This is a potentially useful thread of suspense, which O’Hara does almost nothing with.  ·     potential suspense is relieved too quickly. “he gave up … he had one play, no job, and $200.00” in the very next paragraph, “he knew what he must do,” and in the paragraph after that, he has done it.  ·     many suspense threads have been started in the first two chapters. Will Yank fuck Zena, and if he does, will it be for PR purposes or something real? (hackneyed plot line now, but maybe not in 1967) How will Jiggs interfere with Yank’s rising success? Will Walton screw Yank, or vice versa? What conflict will emerge between Walton and Payne? between Yank and Payne? Will Zena dump Payne? Will Peggy (the agent) prove a reliable ally for Yank? And, underlying all else, how will Yank change as he becomes famous and rich? Will he remain the “sweet” person that Peggy says he is? Will Zena turn out to be as described? None of these threads are pursued in any suspenseful way.  ·     Ellis to Yank: “already Barry is kind of afraid of you, and he never was of me.” Good setup, but nothing ever done with it.

“scenes” in The Instrument by John O’Hara

·     Ch 3 begins with a long transitional narrative (over 2 pages) telling what has happened in the few months since Ch 2 ended. This is lazy. It would have been more effective to work whatever was essential into the ensuing action.   ·     O’Hara’s abrupt transitions to new immediate action work much better. “They were in Boston.” “The New York opening was an ordeal and a delight.” “The house was at the edge of the village of East Hammond …”

“point of view” in The Instrument by John O’Hara

·     O’Hara uses an omniscient narrator. Had he used 1st person (Yank) he would have been forced to write a far more interesting story.

“plot” in The Instrument by John O’Hara

·     we never get to know what’s actually in either of Yank’s plays. O’Hara provides scant detail, probably because he never thought it through himself. Yank uses the people in his life to feed the characters in his plays, which could have been very interesting, if we had been allowed to see it happening.  ·     BIO NOTE: John O’Hara received high critical acclaim for his short stories, more than 200 of which appeared in The New Yorker. But it was mainly his novels, though mostly of dubious literary merit, that won him the attention of Hollywood. Their focus on ambition, class conflict, money, troubled marriages, and promiscuity was the stuff of film melodrama in mid-20th century America. These plots seem trite and barren today, all surface and no depth.

“technique” in The Instrument by John O’Hara

·     Yank: “Money and I have been strangers all my life.”  effective metaphor, likely to be remembered, and setting the story line of what will happen now that he has money (even though this story line is never effectively developed).  ·     “Somewhat like Byron, he awoke the next morning and found himself famous.” The simile only works if the reader understands the reference, which is not likely.

“endings” in The Instrument by John O’Hara

·     Yank has not grown at all, remaining the same totally self-absorbed (but honest) person he was when the story started. There was never any reason to feel any emotion towards him.  ·     Yank has used other people and when he had gotten what he could from them, he moved on. This began with Jiggs, who saved his life, and continued with the string of women. He ends, after Zena’s suicide, confessing to himself that, without Zena, he would never again write anything as good. ·     LAST LINE: “Unless, of course, he could find someone else.”  ·     So we are left with Yank Lucas, writer of plays, incapable of feeling emotion except in the characters his talent (his “instrument” ?) creates for the stage. Hollow.

“character” in The Instrument by John O’Hara

·     in the dialogue … Jiggs to Yank … “I never saw such a miserable, ungrateful bastard in my whole life.”  ·     O’Hara has characters ask each other questions. Jiggs to Yank: “are you a writer?” Ellis Walton (the producer) to Yank … “Where is your home town?” (Ellis asks this out of nowhere) … “What do your people do?” … “Have you ever been married?” … “What was your wife like?” … “Why did you happen to marry her, if you don’t mind my asking?” (finally, Ellis realizes that his questions are intrusive … but he keeps on asking) … “And what finally broke it up?”  This is a lazy dubious approach to characterization.   ·     New characters are often introduced first in the conversation of other characters. Yank and Ellis Walton discuss (and begin to characterize) Zena Gollum, David Salmon, and Barry Payne before we meet them.  ·     characterization is provided through the eyes of a minor character (only possible with an omniscient narrator) … “The porter sized him up …”  ·     Yank’s self awareness: “I’m a genius now, but ten plays from now I may not even be good.”

“beginnings” in The Instrument by John O’Hara

·     O’Hara’s first two chapters (50 pages) are a nice setup for what (I hope) will follow. Interesting characters are introduced, the primary event takes place (the production of Yank Lucas’ play), and a whole range of expectations of interesting story line are established. There has been no mention of what the “instrument” is. ·     first paragraph … “Yank Lucas fell asleep late one night and left the gas burning on the kitchen range. … when the water boiled over … extinguished the flame … the odor of gas … Jiggs knocked on the door.”  ·     I read The Instrument because Sol Stein quoted this first line in his Stein on Writing. Would that Mr. Stein had commented on the rest of the book.

“surprise” in What Makes Sammy Run by Budd Schulberg

                

·   Were there any significant surprises? No. It was clear in Chapter 1 that Sammy would steal other people’s work and promote himself. That’s what he did until the end of the book. ·    Did Sammy Glick ever do anything out of character? No. The details of what he did, and who he did it to, were of course unknown at the end of Chapter 1, but the path he was to follow was predictable, and there were no deviations from that path. 

“technique” in The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte

·     important characters introduced late in the story … Varo Borja (46); the girl with green eyes (98, 135, 177); man with a scar (173); Victor Fargas (142). This seems to work ok, except for the unresolved plot issues,  although when reading, it seemed disconcerting to me.  ·     explaining technical matters … the Ceniza brothers tell Corso how a book can be forged. I like the way this was done. It went on just long enough but not too long.

“surprise” in The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte

                           

·     two surprises at the same time … “He’s dead,” and that it is the green-eyed girl who tells Corso. However, why this happens as it does is never made clear.

“scenes” in The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte

·     exposition … long, detailed descriptions and lists of old books, which the reader can’t possibly read and absorb. what is the purpose?  ·     transitions … the reader is suddenly transported from Fargas’ home in Portugal to Paris, with no transition. The details of this change of scene are presented later (187-88). Does this work? It’s a technique similar to what Tolstoy does repeatedly in Anna Karenina.