Dedicated, smart, fearless readers looking for a new take on the modern novel, which, you must admit, has steadily become as stodgy, dull, and milquetoast as a Henry James drawing room drama.
What is this obsession with writing HISTORICAL NOVELS? This is unimaginative laziness on an epic scale. Research some span of world history that you fancy, make up a few contemporary characters, insert them into said time frame, add a dash of drama and the inability to discriminate when to story TELL and story SHOW and poof! you have just written an 800 page historical novel. Speaking of historical novels: I am proud to report I never “cracked†The Da Vinci Code. However, I did have the displeasure of wading through Angels and Demons. I admittedly write absurdist material that tenuously takes place in reality. Vonnegut did as well. All writers should try it. It’s liberating. Here’s the catch: you don’t get to have it both ways. If you branch into absurd territory, there you are. You cannot back track to “reality†whenever you feel like. Otherwise, it reads like an “ABC Movie of the Week:†involving a boarding house, Satan and Gidget. So when Dan Brown throws the utterly fake antimatter science crap at the hapless reader, which in this case was me, the reaction is incredulity followed by slight nausea and the urge to slap or toss a drink in the author’s face, which ever is appropriate and least injurious to the wall-to-wall carpeting. The only interesting thing in A & D is the Catholic Church’s long and bloody history of misogyny. So I stopped in the middle of Brown’s Bataan Death March narrative and dug up more dirt on the Catholic Church and the Vatican, which, by the way, has never been almost blown up by an antimatter device, which is absurd, which is mine and Vonnegut’s turf, which is not for the dilettante absurdist, being Dan Brown. Stick to reality, Danny. Feel free to twist and bend it within the limits of believability. Or take a walk on the wild side and let your freakishly absurd flag fly. Here’s an idea: make the pope a cross dressing Nazi who is hell bent on taking over Disney’s theme park franchise and raises an army of undead Holocaust victims to man the concession stands, operate the rides and don the mascot uniforms, which is totally absurd, which is why all of it is destined for my third book.
Also: everyone please SAY NO TO THESE VACUOUS SERIAL MYSTERY NOVELS. How many permutations of private detectives grilling suspect about a criminal investigation are there? They cooperate with the gumshoe, do not cooperate, pretend to cooperate, are missing or found dead. That’s five. Reading the label on a depilatory is more exciting and challenging than fanning through obvious dialogue chocked full of an inordinate amount of stage direction and emotional cues. I guess I should be happy you are reading something. But please, for your next literary endeavor, try challenging your mind, just a skosh.