“A good novel, especially one that fits, however uncomfortably, into the mystery genre, is like an expensive Swiss watch. My job is to admire it, not overwind it.” – Stephen King, NY TimesAnd admire it he does. For the full review, clickety-click here …
Many of the illicit transactions preceded the 2008 crisis, but continuing turmoil in the banking industry created an opening for organized crime groups, enabling them to enrich themselves and grow in strength. In 2009, Antonio Maria Costa, an Italian economist who then led the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, told the British newspaper The Observer that “in many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks at the height of the crisis. “Interbank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities,” he said. “There were signs that some banks were rescued that way.”For the rest of the piece, which is titled, ‘Where the Mob Keeps Its Money’, clickety-click here …
I’ve never much liked Yann Martel (right), it has to be said. Not sure why. It’s certainly nothing to do with the allegations that he plagiarised whole chunks of THE LIFE OF PI. Possibly it’s the precious irrelevance of the floating zoo.It relates the story of an encounter between a famous writer and a taxidermist who is writing a play that features dialogue between a donkey and a monkey, both imprinted on a shirt.Okay, but can I stop you right there squire? One: you’re no George Orwell. Two, the murder of six million-plus people in an industrialised death machine doesn’t need ‘imaginative takes’. Three, you don’t have a lot of ‘imaginative takes’ on Stalinism, do you? Four, what, if anything, is your ‘imaginative take’ on the Holocaust designed to achieve, exactly?
“I’ve noticed over the years of reading books on the Holocaust and seeing movies that it’s always represented in the same way, which is historical or social realism,” Mr. Martel, 46, said in a telephone interview from his home in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. “I was thinking that it was interesting that you don’t have many imaginative takes on it like George Orwell’s ANIMAL FARM and its take on Stalinism.”
Mr. Martel also declined to discuss his advance, but said, “Frankly, with all the years it took to write this book, if you amortize it out, it’s not as much as one would like it to be.”Given that the floating zoo won the Booker seven years ago, we can presume the donkey-monkey opus took roughly eight years to write. Which works out at about roughly €370,000 per year, when you ‘amortize it out’.
Two interesting pieces for your perusal today, folks, which appear to send mixed messages but actually dovetail depressingly well. First, the Wall Street Journal on why publishers can’t afford to break out of the ‘blockbuster trap’: When a publisher spends an inordinate amount on an acquisition, it will do everything in its power to make that project a market success. Most importantly, this means supporting the book with higher-than-average marketing, advertising and distribution support … With such high stakes and money tied up in a few big projects in the pipeline, the need to score big with a next project becomes more pressing, and the process repeats itself. The result is a spiral of ever-increasing bets on the most promising concepts, creating a “blockbuster trap.”And then there’s the New York Times on ‘the new austerity rippling through the industry’. To wit:
Amid a relentless string of layoffs and pay-freeze announcements, book publishers are clamping down on some of the business’s most glittery and cozy traditions. Austerity measures are rippling throughout the industry as it confronts the worst retailing landscape in memory. “This business was never meant to sustain limousines,” said Amanda Urban, a literary agent who represents Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison, among other authors …
For authors it means the prospect of smaller advances and fewer books being acquired.
The fantastic folk at Fantasy Book Spot bring us the first sighting of Benny Blanco’s THE LEMUR, the follow-up to THE SILVER SWAN, which is currently being serialised in the New York Times on Sundays. The first paragraph, which suggests Blanco has updated the series a tad from 1950’s Ireland, runneth thusly: “The researcher was a very tall, very thin young man with a head too small for his frame and an Adam’s apple the size of a golf ball. He wore rimless spectacles, the lenses of which were almost invisible, the shine of the glass giving an extra lustre to his large, round, slightly bulging black eyes. A spur of blond hair sprouted from his chin, and his brow, high and domed, was pitted with acne scars. His hands were slender and pearly pale, with long, tapering fingers — a girl’s hands, or at least the hands a girl should have. Even though he was sitting down, the crotch of his baggy jeans sagged halfway to his knees. His none-too-clean T-shirt bore the legend “Life Sucks and Then You Die.” He looked about 17 but must be, John Glass guessed, in his late 20s, at least. With that long neck and little head and those big, shiny eyes, he bore a strong resemblance to one of the more exotic rodents, though for the moment Glass could not think which one.”We’re betting it’s Mickey Mouse. For the rest, jump over here …
News comes a-filtering down the liana-style grapevine that Benny Blanco’s third Quirke novel, THE LEMUR, is to be serialised in the New York Times, starting in January and running for 15 weeks. Quirke, the (oh yes!) quirky pathologist from CHRISTINE FALLS and THE SILVER SWAN, returns to investigate the strange case of a homicidal genius who lures his victims to Madagascar, into the jungle, and then gets them to stand under a tree just so – only for his KGB-trained lemur to strike, looping its stripy tail around their necks and strangling them while they gasp, with their final breath, “Lummee! And there was me thinking it was a blummin’ racoon!” Or maybe not. Anyhoo, if anyone hears a whisper of what THE LEMUR might actually be about, feel free to drop us a line. If you don’t, and we discover you knew all along, we’ll send our rabid wallaby around. Don’t say you haven’t been warned … 
