Two New Books in 2012
Marshlands
My new novel Marshlands, which owes a lot to J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians, will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the winter of 2012. Marshlands is an austere meditation on tribes, assimilation, military occupation, and the possibilities of personal redemption. The story is told backwards in time. In the first section, we meet the protagonist, Gus, as a disgraced old man, wandering the streets of his childhood city like a ghost. The second section takes us to the remote marshes of an unnamed occupied country, where Gus is serving as the administrator of a military field hospital. In the final section, Gus is a young ambitious doctor at the beginning of his medical career. The story is driven forward by the mystery of his disgrace, which is much deeper than anyone suspects.
New for Young Readers
The Boxer Lalouche
As soon as I saw Sophie Blackall's artwork (www.sophieblackall.com), I knew that I wanted to write a story for her to illustrate. So I sneakily asked her what kinds of things she was interested in. She mentioned that she liked to collect very old pictures of boxers, especially extremely skinny ones with big billowing boxing trunks.
I'd had the idea for a story about a boxer who mysteriously couldn't be defeated in the ring. As soon as Sophie mentioned her old pictures, the Boxer Lalouche leaped into my imagination.
In order to write the story, I learned a lot about boxing in Paris in the late 19th century. I never knew, for instance, that French boxers were allowed to use their feet to kick their opponents, in addition to pummeling them with their fists!
Boxing and wrestling were both hugely popular sports in France back then. Their style of boxing favored speed and agility over brute strength. In other words, a quick little boxer stood a decent chance of winning, even against much bigger and stronger men.
I like to look at old pictures to help me visualize the world I'm writing about. In reading about Paris in the 1880s and 1890s, I came across cool pictures of electric cars like the one at right.
I don't drive an electric car, but I know people who do. In the very early days of the automobile (which, by the way, is a word we get from the French), electric cars were much more successful than gasoline powered ones. They were quieter and faster. France embraced the electric car. Early drivers were popular heroes. In 1899, Camille Jenatzy, a Belgian known as the "Red Devil" on account of his bright red beard, set a world speed record in an electric car called "La Jamais Contente (The Never Satisfied)." He's the man in the torpedo-shaped car above.
It's possible that the French postal service used electric cars back then, but I can't confirm it. I just imagined a whole fleet of electric cars gone wrong!
I've been asked, "Why did you make Lalouche a postman?" It's a good question, and one I don't have a very good answer for. While it's true that the postal service in France has a long and proud tradition, going back to the time of Julius Caesar, and a colorful history including horses, carriages, pigeons, kings, and at least one escape from prison by a postmaster disguised in his wife's clothes, the real reason that Lalouche is a postman is because that's how he first appeared to me. There he was, a humble little fellow in a postal uniform who loved his moustache, his job, and, above all, his finch.
Who was I to argue?
