So far as the writing went, I tend to compare it to rock climbing (which I don’t actually know much about): you’re not climbing a mountain, you’re moving from handhold to handhold, one at a time. Martin Seay: Well, it never really SEEMED overwhelming. How did you keep going all that time and not give up on it? This Rumpus Book Club interview was edited by Brian Spears.īrian S: The end notes say it took you thirteen years to write and then get this book published. To become a member of the Rumpus Book Club, click here. Every month The Rumpus Book Club hosts a discussion online with the book club members and the author, and we post an edited version online as an interview. This is an edited transcript of the book club discussion. The Rumpus Book Club chats with Martin Seay about his debut novel The Mirror Thief, the Great Work of alchemy, Venice, researching optical prosthetics, and keeping plot lines straight in a 600-page novel.
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Back in LA earlier in the century, the camp’s namesake Charlotte “Charlie” Goodman is growing up under the increasingly tense environment of the Red Scare, dealing with gender identity questions, and trying to live her dream to be a film director. Maren is the main character in the 2015 story, and she’s a reluctant new camper at Goodman’s Theater Camp, dealing with family issues and feeling out of place. There are two story lines – one set at a theatre camp in 2015, and one starting in the 1940s in Los Angeles. Can you introduce us to the main character(s) of Twelfth? It’s a treasure hunt story set at a theatre camp with clues buried in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night to a legendary diamond ring that went missing under mysterious circumstances during a fire in Hollywood 60 years before. Sure thing! My name is Janet, I’m the author of TWELFTH, a middle grade novel that pulled together my love of the theatre, Shakespeare, classic Hollywood, mysteries, and strong women icons from history! How would you describe Twelfth in one sentence? It’s June and that means it’s time for another year of Pride Month spotlights! I’m so excited to spotlight Twelfth by Janet Key and share the interview with the author! INTERVIEW Welcome Janet! Thank you for allowing me to interview you! Can you start off by introducing yourself? It’s the story of Vicky Austin, who discovers an ability to communicate with dolphins while at the same time struggling with the illness and death of a beloved grandfather. It followed Meet the Austins, The Moon by Night, and The Young Unicorns. A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L’Engle(1980) is the fourth book in the series about the fictional the Austin family. Their paths split in their 20s following a fissure that proved too painful to overcome, until a crisis sends Sasha catapulting back into Elizabeth’s orbit. Strong writes of their friendship in exacting detail, illustrating the ferocity with which women can care for one another. She found solace in Sasha, her childhood best friend, who offered the support she so clearly needed. Moving flashbacks reveal a youth spent in Florida, where a quietly self-destructive Elizabeth received little comfort from her wealthy and success-driven parents. Her incredibly smart column for the Guardian lays bare, through her own experience, how precarious life can be even for people. She laments, “My body almost single-handedly bankrupted us.” Lynn Steger Strong is a writer and a teacher who lives in New York. For Elizabeth, desperate to lead a life different from her upbringing, devotion to her academic ambitions and motherhood leave her emotionally, physically and financially drained. In Want, the author interrogates that intensity again through Elizabeth, who is feeling increasingly trapped by her desires. In her debut novel, Hold Still, Strong examined the intensity of love that exists within a familial unit. Groomed for an important role as a high priestess from birth, Hatshepsut, through a combination of good fortune and ruthless strategy, “scaled the mountain to kingship.” Her role ostensibly “decreed by nothing less than a divine revelation” is shrouded in mystery by a limited historical record concerned too frequently with the “supernatural mechanisms of divine authority.” The high points of this ambitious project are to be found in Cooney’s keen sense for the visual elements of Hatshepsut’s gender-defying rule and expert inferences on the psychologies of Hatshepsut and her contemporaries. What it lacked, however, was comprehensive documentation-something UCLA Egyptologist Cooney offers in a narrative biography supplemented by scholarly hypotheses that attempt to flesh out the uncertainties. The life of Hatshepsut, Egypt’s second female pharaoh, was replete with opulent living, complex royal bloodlines, and sexual energy in short, the kind of drama that fuels Ancient Egypt’s enduring appeal. Just 35 years old, he left behind a powerful musical legacy and an endless stream of What Ifs. Instead, it all came to a shocking and sudden end on August 27, 1990, when he was killed in a helicopter crash following a dynamic performance with Eric Clapton. Vaughan seemed poised for a new, limitless chapter of his life and career. His tumultuous marriage was over and he was in a new and healthy romantic relationship. He had fulfilled a lifelong dream by collaborating with his first and greatest musical hero, his brother Jimmie. His last album was his most critically lauded and commercially successful. Just a few years after he almost died from a severe addiction to cocaine and alcohol, a clean and sober Stevie Ray Vaughan was riding high. The definitive biography of guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan, with an epilogue by Jimmie Vaughan, and foreword and afterword by Double Trouble’s Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon. 'This heartwarming, witty, and moving debut is one of the most charming books you'll read this year. I don’t know if I’ve ever rooted so much for a protagonist as I did for Harley – what a gorgeous novel.’ Jennifer Saint, No. ‘I adored Small Joys – a sweet, moving, funny, strikingly open story. 'A beautiful, moving story of love, male intimacy, chosen family and finding self worth.' Paul Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk Tender, thrilling, and honest Small Joys is a beam of light.' Bryan Washington, author of Memorial Mensah's prose makes the intangible deft and tremendous - from the balm of friendship, to the beauty of queerness, and the all-encompassing elixir of community. 'Elvin James Mensah's Small Joys is breathtaking and heartrending, by turns hilarious and devastating and surprising and wild. 'It's as fun as it is thoughtful: a tender and generous novel about finding your people, getting vulnerable, and celebrating every joy - big or small.' Buzzfeed The sensational debut novel about love, friendship and finding happiness in the most unexpected places. All the better because he’s sincere and honourable and doesn’t recognize the true nature of what he’s doing. Over the last few years, his lordship has probably been the single most useful pawn Herr Hitler has had in this country for his propaganda tricks. Well, we’re friends and so I’ll put it to you frankly. ‘ Are you content, Stevens,’ he said finally, ‘to watch his lordship go over the precipice just like that?’ ‘ I’m sorry, sir, I don’t fully understand what it is you’re referring to.’ ‘You don’t understand, Stevens. If Father were alive, he would do something to stop it.’ Mr Cardinal fell silent again and for a moment – perhaps it was to do with his having evoked memories of his late father – he looked extremely melancholy. Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to do something about it. You’ve seen it yourself, haven’t you?’ ‘ I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t say I have.’ ‘You can’t say you have. More than 200 million subscribers, how many people is that? All at one time. “It’s also really exciting for me, and the talent involved, that on one day, the series drops all eight episodes in 190 countries. I thought it would be a cool opportunity, to do a Netflix Spain show, Netflix France show, Netflix UK show, Netflix US show,” he told online Hollywood news site Deadline. “I sell more internationally than I do in the USA. The storyline revolves around Anna and Michal’s family, whose son Adam goes through a troubled time after the death of his best friend, Igor. (Photo: Michael Loccisano/Getty) What are the other novels could be adapted for Netflix?Īmong those that could appear on Netflix include: The Polish original mystery thriller series ‘Hold Tight’ (‘Zachowaj spokj’) is an alluring concoction of mystery, social commentary, and the depiction of a youth subculture increasingly cut-off from their elders. Harlan Coben struck the deal with Netflix in 2018. As well as these you can watch, The Five (English) which was created by Coben and written by Danny Brocklehurst ( Shameless) as was Safe (English). Tshepo is an idealist, a sensitive dreamer, and has endured childhood trauma due to his father's criminal dealings. Reading about Tshepo's struggle with depression is particularly poignant in that light. The author took his own life in 2005 when he was thirty. The language is plain, almost like direct speech, and reads like multiple diaries because each chapter is first person POV.Ī key part of the early sections of novel deal with Tshepo's struggle with mental illness and the horrible system that underlies "treatment". The main character here is Tshepo but the narrative is made up of alternating points of view of his friends and people he meets along the way at the psychiatric institution, his home, and work. Set in Cape Town, this book is looks at post-apartheid society through the lens of sex, desire, and race. My review cannot begin to cover the complexity of this novel’s six-hundred pages. |