Too Much Blood and Guts?

Readers of this alas too infrequent blog will know that I have decided to make a temporary departure from the adventures of Simon Fonthill & Co in the Victorian wars of the late nineteenth century to write a different novel, set against the background of the first world war.

Much of the action will take place in the killing field that lay to the east of the little Belgian town of Ypres. For four years it was known simply as The Salient as the Allies (mainly British) faced - uphill - superior German forces. In an area of probably no more than six square miles, the shells rained down as first one side, then the other, gained territorial supremacy.

The result was that the battleground became a quagmire, with, often, the British front line consisting only of a series of water-filled craters linked only by a few yards of deep mud. The misery of fighting in these conditions was compounded by constant rifle and machine gun fire, of course, but the main horror was caused by the constant shell fire that fell from the heights held by the Germans.

My reading of eye witness accounts of these events has produced some terrifying anecdotes that seem to be almost beyond belief. An advancing Tommy, for instance, saw his comrade sliced horizontally in half by a razor sharp shell fragment and watched in terror as the disembodied legs of his pal continued to march on for at least five paces before folding and falling to the ground. Even more disturbing was the experience of a section, also advancing across No Man's Land, who skirted a shell-hole at the bottom of which was a British infantryman caught up to his waist in mud. As they watched, he struggled to free himself only to sink further into the slime. The tried and failed to rescue him and, as the mud advanced up his body, he pleaded with them to shoot him. But no-one could bring himself to do so and eventually, heads down, they were forced to leave him, his screams sounding even above the gun fire as they trudged away.

To include or reject these horror stories? I have always believed in basing stories of combat on fact, but this sort of fact does seem beyond belief and one doesn't want to be accused of over-writing - of pouring on the agony - something of which even that splendid writer Bernard Cornwell can be accused (his Agincourt made me wince).

Yet war has to be portrayed in all its inglory if a writer is true to himself and the period about which he writes. So these and other, similar incidents, are going in. What do you think?

THANKS

Can I (mis)use my blog to thank those blog followers who have sent in messages of support, not only for these ramblings but also for the novels and who have not attached their e-mail addresses, thus preventing me from replying directly. So: cheers to Thomas Baxter, John Lister, Allan and Bruce Bisbery.

SIGN HERE PLEASE

'A book signed is a book sold,' my publishers told me in the early days. Probably not true, just a bit of bull**** that was given out to new authors to get 'em to get out there and help sell their books. Anyway, I believed them and have always dutifully trotted along whenever asked to bookshops to sign my latest.

At first I dreaded it. What if nobody turned up? How would it be to sit there like a lemon under a large poster alongside a pile of hardbacks, only to be ignored (and probably pitied) by shoppers who hurried by on their way to purchase the latest Robert Harris?

Well, it did feel embarrassing, I must confess. But let me also confess - now I don't mind a bit.

The reasons are two fold. Firstly, now that I have become more established, there actually are dear, sweet readers who make a special journey just to buy the latest Fonthill and have me give a dedication under the title. So, usually, I no longer sit there on my own like some indoor version of those strange folk who paint themselves gold and stand all day stock still on street corners. I have company.

But even if I fail to move many books, I find myself enjoying the experience. And that's because people are SO friendly. Perhaps the British are losing some of their reserve, but I do find now that folk like to come and chat about books, even if they don't buy. As a result, I am able to bridge to some extent that awful gap that exists between the lonely author, bashing away at the computer on his own, and the punters out there who love books.

I have learned some, at least, of the likes, dislikes, prejudices and loyalties of readers and, while it might be going too far to say that this has influenced my work, I do feel that my outlook on writing has been informed.

So, if you do see me in Waterstones one day, sitting at the door like the proverbial lemon, do come and pass the time of day, even if you call me Mr Harris.

Mud and Bravery

My novels in the Simon Fonthill series have all been set in the last quarter of the nineteenth century but I must confess that it is the first world war that has always haunted me. It was, perhaps, too vast a setting and also too well tramelled by other writers for me to venture into it. Yet that bloody conflict has hung over me and my family for as long as I can remember and left too many ghosts, all of them inviting me to step onto the capes that they trail in the mud.



Ghosts like my Uncle Alfred, who won the Victoria Cross near Armentieres; Uncle Ernest, an acting Regimental Sergeant Major at nineteen "because there was nobody else left," who was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal; and Uncle Bernard, who lost an eye and gained the Military Medal. My own father, Leonard Wilcox, went over the top as an infantry sergeant on the first morning of the Battle of the Somme and eventually died in 1945 of the wounds sustained that day. (Vanity always compels me to explain that although I am old I an not that ancient in that my father fought as a very young man but was comparatively old when I was born.)



So the time has come, I feel, to leave the red coats and pith helmets of "Queen Victoria's Little Wars" and accept the challenge of World War I. As a result, I leave at the end of the month for Belgium to tread the soil of what was, with Verdun, probably the most fought-over killing field in the whole of the war.



Of the million men killed in the Western Front in the Great War, a quarter of a million perished in the few square miles just to the east of the charming little textile town of Ypres, just across the border from France. The front line there bulged out and deflated regularly as counter attack followed attack for nearly four years. That bulge was commanded by the German guns on the ridges to the east of the town and there was no shelter nor escape from their shells. "The Salient," as it became known, became a graveyard and under its present day farms and woods lie the undiscovered bodies of some 40,000 men who fell and who died - many of them by drowning - in the mud.



The conflict seemed unending and included three major battles. The third of them, in 1917. was called Passchendaele. It was fought in rain that turned the trenches, shell holes and no-man's-land into a quagmire that sucked to their deaths men, mules and horses.



So it against this remarkable background that I intend to set my next novel - perhaps to lay
those family ghosts and, if I'm good enough, to pay them proper tribute. Fonthill and Co I must leave for a while as they cross the Zambesi into Matabeleland. I hope they will be back (the Boxer Rebellion maybe and then the second and best remembered Boer War?), but for the present it's a long long way to Passchendaele.

Ghosts at Christmas

A huge gap since the last post. Sorry, but I've been busy on the day job: writing novels. But I have been impelled to return to blogging by the joyous news that Sarah Palin will have a new book out for Christmas. You remember Sarah? Aw come on, of course you do. She was the raunchy, moose-shooting Alaskan governor who ran as the Republican candidate for Vice President a year ago and was one of the main reasons why Obama walked into the White House so easily.

She resigned her governership and her book - "Going Rogue: an American Life," for which she trousered an advance of $1.25 million - will be published later this month. I read that it is already listed as No 1 on Amazon com. even before publication. Being a candidate for one of the most intellectually demanding jobs in America (and therefore the world), she wrote it herself, of course...? Hell no! It was ghosted. Presumably Sarah was too busy hunting moose.

All of this has drawn me into the great debate which is consuming the great and the good of the British publishing industry just now. Its subject can be summed up like this: why oh why is it that the best sellers lists at Christmas - and at other times in the year, for that matter - are topped by books carrying the names of celebrities who usually have not written them and even sometimes have not even read them?

I look forward with trepidation to Sarah being joined at the top of our best sellers this year by Jordan's new "novel," The Price of Silicone," and Wayne Rooney's "How to be a Father."
Like Palin's effort, of course, they will have been written by professional ghost writers, because the "authors" are not capable of telling their own story. As writers, they can't write.

Does it matter if this is what the public wants? That is the defence entered by the publishers who make money on these publications, of course. They have to give the reading public what it desires, they say, even if this involves a mild deception in that, despite the name of the "ghost" being carried on the cover, the readers may well believe that it is the celebrity herself who is putting the words and the opinions together.

But it does matter, particularly at this time of recession with publishers laying off writers in the middle and bottom of their earning lists. There is only so much money that can be given to authors in terms of advances, royalties and share of publishers' promotional budgets and with the celebrities demanding huge sums for books they don't write, it is the less well-known writers tenaciously building a following who will suffer.

The additional point being made by well established authors, good pro's at the top of their game who are not themselves in danger, is that publishers have a professional and sociological duty to maintain excellence in their lists and publishing these shallow reminiscences and even "novels" is certainly not doing that. It is going to be even more difficult for the next J.K. Rowlings to break through and tell their wonderful tales when publishers' already pressurised time and budgets are dominated by ghosted rubbish.

Sour grapes? You betchya! With seven novels and three books of non-fiction under my belt I reckon I have a right to be annoyed when amateurs jump the bread line queue. In fact, I am thinking of standing as a vice presidential candidate in the next US elections.

SELLING BOOKS

To Cambridge last night to take part in a signingfest for some 6O authors at Heffers Bookshop. This event is organised annually by the dynamic Richard Reynolds, who runs the shop and who calls the evening "Bodies in the Bookshop."

This is obviously a play on words in that the joint is certainly heaving with people - from the trade (first edition dealers looking to buy) but also members of the public, happy to purchase and talk to their favourite authors. The title, however, also reflects the growing importance to the shop of crime fiction, where once academic works predominated on the shelves.

This year Cambridge is celebrating the 800 anniversary of the founding of the university. For much of that time (or so it seems) Heffers has been serving the dons and students of that venerable institution. Reynolds, however, has liberalised the buying policy of the shop and opened its shelves to contemporary, popular fiction. Why, the blessed man is even stocking a good selection of historical adventure novels, including the Simon Fonthill series!

More to the point, however, it was refreshing to talk to a retailer who did not bewail the effect on the traditional trade of Amazon and who is shrugging off the recession. "We are doing well," he says.

Last night saw the nineteenth "Bodies in the Bookshop" event and Reynolds now also stages a series of mini events during the year to stimulate business. The trade could do with more booksellers like him.

Dreams

Psychiatrists wallow in them, introverts analyse them endlessly and creative people are supposed sometimes to gain inspiration from them ("Last night I dreamed that I went again to Manderley"). Yet my dreams are useless. No help at all.

You might expect that, when body and brain are at rest but that the old grey matter, at least, is receptive, then something, some little scrap, might be salvaged from the polycromatic adventures that it gets up to when on nocturnal walkabout that would help to free the writer's block. Some little touch that might suggest a plot twist.

Yet what am I to make of me being at the bottom of a deep canyon with, in the far distance, a speck-like aeroplane approaching and me being able to hear the conversation between pilot and co-pilot quite clearly, but unable to understand a word because it is conducted in gobbledegook? See what I mean? My dreams are no help at all. Never have been.

Perhaps a late night, large brandy. What do you think?