Wednesday, 24 May 2017
Letters to Strabo by David Smith
Release Date: 28th January 2017
Publisher: Matador
Publisher: Matador
Genres: Fiction
BEHIND EVERY GREAT LOVE IS AN EPIC STORY WAITING TO BE TOLD
Adam Finnegan Black, or 'Finn', an innocent young American who is insatiably curious about life, made a promise to his mother before she died: To find out what really happened to his father...
His ambition is to be a travel writer, like his heroes: Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and the ancient Greek 'father of geography', Strabo. His journey of discovery takes him through the radiant literary, cultural and picturesque landscape of the Mediterranean.
Following his heart and inspired by Letters to Strabo, written by his long-distance pen-pal Eve, Finn gradually learns more about himself but also about the woman he hopes will one day become his wife.
Funny, provocative, disarmingly honest, Finn's story captures the excitement and mistakes of youthful energy and proves ultimately life-affirming in the emergence of new hope from personal tragedy.
Quite simply one of the best coming-of-age novels you will ever read: Letters to Strabo will appeal to lovers of literary fiction, good travel writing and the classic works of Ernest Hemingway.
Adam Finnegan Black, or 'Finn', an innocent young American who is insatiably curious about life, made a promise to his mother before she died: To find out what really happened to his father...
His ambition is to be a travel writer, like his heroes: Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and the ancient Greek 'father of geography', Strabo. His journey of discovery takes him through the radiant literary, cultural and picturesque landscape of the Mediterranean.
Following his heart and inspired by Letters to Strabo, written by his long-distance pen-pal Eve, Finn gradually learns more about himself but also about the woman he hopes will one day become his wife.
Funny, provocative, disarmingly honest, Finn's story captures the excitement and mistakes of youthful energy and proves ultimately life-affirming in the emergence of new hope from personal tragedy.
Quite simply one of the best coming-of-age novels you will ever read: Letters to Strabo will appeal to lovers of literary fiction, good travel writing and the classic works of Ernest Hemingway.
David Smith guest
blog
Publicity Interview
at Shakespeare and Company, a bookshop in Paris, with best-selling author Adam
Finnegan Black for his latest novel Letters
to Strabo
(with apologies to Before Sunset)
Bookstore Manager: So
Adam Black, welcome back to Shakespeare and Company, it’s been almost thirty
years, hasn’t it?
Adam Black: It
has indeed, but it’s great to be back. I see you still have the famous sign
upstairs.
Manager: “Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest
they be angels in disguise?” Yes, of course. Now, tell me about the title of your
latest novel Letters to Strabo, well
my first question is: who is Strabo?
Adam: Strabo was
a Greek scholar, writing at the time of Tiberius. He wrote the most
comprehensive geography of the Roman world, but it was hardly used until
translations in the fifteenth century. I came across it by accident when
researching the opening of my book which is set in Olana, the amazing house of
the American painter Frederick Church in the Catskills. His wife gave him a
copy in 1879 and they named their house Olana after a location cited in the
book.
Manager: And I
see you replicated both Strabo’s chapter structure but also a similar journey
Mark Twain made for his own travel book: The
Innocents Abroad.
Adam: Yes, Twain
was a friend of the Churches and a great travel writer too. There are some fascinating
stories about him and his daughters that I’ve weaved into the plot.
Manager: Any why
did you call your protagonist Finn, exactly?
Adam: Well, my
middle name’s Finnegan and it sort of has a Mark Twain link with Huckleberry Finn and to James Joyce too
with Finnegan’s Wake. Strabo often
referred to Homer and The Odyssey,
which is the inspiration for Joyce’s other masterpiece Ulysses.
Manager: I see,
so is it actually a travel book or a book about literature?
Adam: Well,
partly both, but it’s mainly a romance, a sort of coming-of-age story. Finn
falls for Eve, the archivist at Olana and they correspond throughout his journey
round Europe. He has quite a lot of adventures along the way and relates them more
or less faithfully to Eve. Her replies are the Letters to Strabo, in which she gradually reveals more about
herself. Some of it increasingly disturbing I’m afraid, but you’ll have to read
it to find out more about that. I don’t want to spoil it for you.
After some more background, the bookshop manager opens the
floor up to questions.
French Journalist 1: So
do you consider the book to be autobiographical in any way?
Adam: Well I
guess everything is autobiographical in a way. There are bits of me in there,
but bits of a lot of other people I’ve met too.
French Journalist 1: And
the section set here in Paris, in this very bookstore. Was that about you?
Adam: Well, I was
here about the same time as Finn visited yes, but the events are of course completely
fictional…
French journalist 2: So
there was never a girl called Françoise that you met in Spain and travelled
with by train to Paris?
Adam: Well,
that’s not important; it’s just a story after all
French Journalist 1: Do
you think they ever met again after they split up in Venice? In real life I
mean?
Adam: No. I’m
afraid that I don’t think they ever did, sorry would have done.
French Journalist 2: Maybe
a subject for your next book?
Adam: Maybe.
At the back of the room he notices a face in the crowd, a
beautiful woman wearing dark glasses. He leans over to the bookshop manager and
whispers.
Adam: Look, I’m
terribly sorry but I will have to leave now. I have a plane to catch and still
have to shop for my wife.
Manager: No
problem…Well thank you Adam, we really appreciate you coming here today. I hope
you won’t leave it so long next time!
Adam gets up, talks to one or two admirers and then goes
over to the woman waiting patiently.
Adam: Françoise?
The woman: I said
you’d include me in one of your books one day.
Adam: And I said
I wouldn’t ever do that
The woman: Menteur, I think you already did. Do you
want to go for coffee somewhere?
Adam: I think I’m
gonna miss that plane.
Author’s bio
David Smith is a British author who has now published four
works under the Troubador imprint. His
first novel Searching For Amber has
been described as "A powerful and notably memorable debut" with a
review describing it as "masterly and confident" and another as
"Extraordinary, poetic, enchanting, sublime". In addition to writing, he is
currently CFO of a blue chip UK public company and lives near the South Coast
in England with his wife and three teenage children.
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