Writers, like footballers, are known for being fairly special when it comes to egos. Like most readers, if I love a book, I will root around for information about the writer’s life. All too often, the results chime with the ‘Never meet your heroes’ mantra – volcanic tempers, dumped spouses, neglected children. Not always, of course, and the exceptions – even though DH Lawrence (perhaps understandably in his case) urged that we should ‘Never trust the teller, trust the tale’ – tend to make one feel even more inclined to love their work.
One area, as a writer, in which I know that my ego comes muscling irrationally to the surface, is that of world events. Vast geopolitical goings-on that affect millions, but – because they have a minute bearing on my books – suddenly take on an importance that overshadows the bigger picture.
A first example is to do with the first Spike Sanguinetti novel, ‘Shadow of the Rock’. A relatively unimportant – but to me, vital – aspect of the story was that the King of Morocco retained political sway over his country. The book was published during the maelstrom of the Arab Spring, an event of vast political complexity which will be studied by historians in a hundred years’ time. My wife was delighted to see me taking such a keen interest in the upheavals, vaguely aware that I was focussing mainly on what was happening in Morocco. When she pressed me further, she found I was specifically checking the likelihood of King Mohammed VI continuing to hold the exact same level of power he had had previously enjoyed. When she pressed even further, she found out that this was linked purely to whether the events occurring in the book would remain plausible. A country of 30 million people, and all I was worrying about was whether a few strands of a minor crime novel would hold up.
Cut to the present day. The fourth book in the Spike Sanguinetti series, ‘Sleeping Dogs’, is set in Albania. During an extraordinary and hair-raising research trip, my wife (she can’t escape this, you see) and I came across Lazarat, a mountain village in the south of the country notorious for the vast amount of cannabis it grew and supplied to the Mediterranean region. The most extraordinary aspect of Lazarat, it seemed to me, was how flagrant its agricultural production was: everyone knew about it, even a drive-past on the main road revealed a colossal sweep of terraced fields laden with healthy, gleaming marijuana plans. Research trip over, the book was written, and submitted, and then days later, the international news was full of a major Albania story. Lazarat had been raided by Albanian Special Forces. The entire crop had been burnt, the growers arrested, a permanent police post established in the village (with the price of marijuana in Europe skyrocketing as a result). The unstated but fairly clear reason behind this was that, for Albania to be given official Candidate Status to join the EU, the Lazarat problem had to be sorted. A good thing for the country (population – 3 million). For me, once again, head in hands. The ego had landed.
So… read about Lazarat (as it was) in ‘Sleeping Dogs’, when it’s released on April 9 this year. And never underestimate the ego of the author…
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