The Greengage Summer
02 October 2009
"Read the Greengage Summer" said my friend Elinor. "It's your sort of book. The sort you'd love to read and the sort you are trying to write." So I did. And Elinor was right.
In New York last week I spent a lot of time with a good writer friend. What do writers talk about when they get together? Well, it's not potato crops. "One of the things we have to do," said Lucie, "if we really want to hone our craft, is to read a lot of books by really, really good authors." "And not get jealous," I added. "Precisely," said Lucie. Reading Rumer Godden was like one delicious but highly instructive tutorial. The book is deceptively simple. The construction just complex enough to create tension and interest, but not so much that it detracts from the immediacy of the story. Her use of dialogue is masterful and a shining example of how it can be used to "show not tell". The final line, completely inoccuous out of context, utterly devastating. A master craftsman.
2 October, and I believe SOME OTHER EDEN must be "live in Tesco". But I promised myself I wouldn't look. If I go online I will want to read reviews, and if I read reviews I will get upset. And if I go into the stores, I will crumble before the sight of the competition. What a lot of amazing books have come out this autumn! So I will quietly get on with what writers do and let the book trade do its thing. I currently have two clueless teenagers falling in love, a battle-hardened soldier with a bad head injury, and a lot of freshly learned lessons to apply.
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