Sunday, August 02, 2009

John Connolly's excellent new novel...

...is called The Lovers, and is the latest in the series involving private eye protagonist Charlie Parker. Thoroughly recommended, and unusual in its combination of hard-nosed crime, supernatural nastiness and full-on horror. Not to mention a bit of Irish humour, all backed up with a beautifully realised Maine/NYC setting.

Connolly (no, not Michael Connelly) has a website, which you can find at
http://www.johnconnollybooks.com/. Here's a very funny excerpt from one of his pieces (for Ottakers Magazine) concering what authors may or may not get up to on book tours...


One well-known female American writer requires a small dog to stroke when she makes bookstore appearances, since it is the only way that she can calm her nerves. Any number of writers demand a bottle of wine at their right hand when they sign books, and it's a safe bet that they don't leave very much in the bottle by the end of the night, while one Booker winner asked for a complete chicken dinner before facing an audience. A famous gay American writer visiting Britain insisted on being guided around the clubs used in the TV series "Queer as Folk", despite repeated assurances that the series was filmed in the studio. He greeted each unfamiliar club with a baffled "It sure looked different on TV."

And legendarily, a now-deceased male American writer of "bonkbuster" novels apparently required his publishers to provide a suitably accommodating young lady at the end of every evening on tour. My publishers will stretch to a pint of beer and a packet of crisps, which is not the same thing at all.

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