Sunday, December 08, 2013

Weekend video 1


This post could be headed 'Reading Matters'! Yes, I am all in favour of 'girls who read'... I would go further, I am approving of readers of any imaginable gender, particularly if they actually pick up something that I have written.

We self-publishers need to show solidarity, and I have followed the efforts of Alexander McNabb for longer than I care to remember. Last week I decided to let his latest book fill five evening reading sessions. I spent Monday through Wednesday delighted with the storytelling set in Shemlan, his writing making Beirut then and now come to life in a wonderful way.

I wondered how the story would continue on Thursday!

Continue it did, of course. But I later wondered if McNabb had confronted the same predicament I am now facing in my current manuscript... the need to introduce what the structuralist Robert McKee calls a 'plot spin' to move the narrative towards a satisfactory conclusion.

And so on Thursday it was goodbye Beirut, hello Estonia. Insightful telling of a touching human story in the context of Lebanese intrigue abruptly gave way to something else. My feeling was that the final chapters were comparable with any number of action-and-adventure yarns... well written and assiduously researched but in a way something of a let down. It was as if an organ graft had been attempted, one which more or less worked. 

Summing up, I would have preferred a stand-alone Estonian thriller as a follow-up to a work which remained entirely rooted in the mountains above Beirut. 'Shemlan' was, however, a damn good read and I hope it finds its way into the hands oronto the Kindles of many thriller fans.

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