“So, what’s your book about?”
“Uhhhhhhh . . . .”
Thieves’ Quarry,
volume II in the Thieftaker Chronicles, my series of stand-alone historical
urban fantasies, comes out from Tor Books on July 2. It is a murder mystery,
set against the backdrop of the British occupation of Boston as it began in
September and October 1768. My lead character, Ethan Kaille, a thieftaker and
conjurer, investigates the murder by magick of nearly one hundred men aboard a
British naval vessel. Along the way, he stumbles across a fight among thieves
over a cache of smuggled pearls.
So I suppose you can say that the book
is about conjurings, murder, smuggling, and Colonial era politics. And that
actually sounds pretty interesting. I could sell a few books answering the
“What’s your book about?” question that way.
But I find that what my books are about
for me, and what they are about to my readers, are not always the same things.
This is not at all a knock on my readers -- we all read books for different
reasons, and I know that I take from the books I read different things than the
author might have intended. Reading is an interactive endeavor. I know it
doesn’t seem that way, but it is. As readers, we each bring a different life
experience to the books we read, and so we cannot help but take something
unique from the narrative experience.
Sure, every person who reads Thieves’
Quarry is going to find a story about murder, magic, and politics.
They’ll follow Ethan as he tracks the killer, grapples with his rival in
thieftaking, Sephira Pryce, and interacts with the other characters I first
introduced in Thieftaker.
But, if they wish to, they will also
find themes of loyalty and betrayal, of duty and sacrifice. They will see
portraits of frayed and broken families. They will follow my hero as he
struggles with echoes of his past, some of them distant and thought-provoking,
others immediate, visceral, and terrifying. That last is probably the most
important part of the book for me. As far as I am concerned, at root, Thieves’
Quarry is about Ethan revisiting episodes from his past and being
forced to acknowledge the consequences of the poor decisions he made in his
youth.
Put another way, it is about a man who
is slipping into middle age and thinking about where his life has taken him.
Let me pause here to offer a very brief
anecdote that you all might find a bit odd: My wife is a biologist, and she has
a colleague who studies birds. At the very beginning of his career he studied
sexual response in a certain species. He was a young man at the time, he was
courting the woman who would become his wife, and with whom he would soon start
a family. Now, thirty-plus years later, as he nears the end of his career, he
studies aging in the same species. So, for all you amateur (and professional)
psychologists out there, why would I be so interested in writing novels about a
middle-aged thieftaker who is coming to grips with the decisions he made in his
youth? (Hint: It’s not because I’m a thieftaker.)
I love the all the stuff relating to my
plot -- the mysteries, the magic system, the blending of fiction and history.
Coming up with the storylines for the Thieftaker books is tremendous fun, and
when I am able to piece it all together to create a mystery that confounds and
twists and ultimately satisfies, it is remarkably gratifying. Which I suppose
is another way of saying that if you read the Thieftaker books because you
really enjoy the stories, or because you find yourself fascinated by the
historical setting, or because you like the voice and the character, that’s
great.
When I’m writing, though, I’m thinking
about all those things and then some. I am delving into the emotions and minds
of my characters, exploring themes that are important to me not only because
they relate to my narrative, but also for reasons that might have nothing at
all to do with Ethan Kaille or Colonial Boston. I would never say that Ethan is
anything like me. He’s not. He’s braver than I am, he’s led a life filled with
ill fortune and sadness, he’s a loner. None of those things is true of me.
Aside from our advancing middle age, we have precious little in common. But I
relate to him as I would a close friend, and when I write his scenes I focus on
his emotions in ways that most of my readers probably don’t. (In fact, if they
did, I would be worried about them.)
This is why I really hate the question
that appears at the beginning of this post. “So, what’s your book about?”
Sometimes I want to answer, “It’s about
life and death, the human condition, the meaning of friendship and enmity, the
transformative power of love and the devastating impact of loss. You know:
stuff like that.” Because that would probably be the most honest answer I could
give. The problem is it would tell the person asking almost nothing about the
book. At least nothing that they really want to know.
So instead I say, “It’s about murder
and magic in Colonial America. Oh, and there are thieves and smugglers, too.
Sounds cool, doesn’t it?” That’s also an honest answer. And it sells more
books.
*****
D.B. Jackson is also David B. Coe, the
award-winning author of more than a dozen fantasy novels. His first book as
D.B. Jackson, the Revolutionary War era urban fantasy, Thieftaker,
volume I of the Thieftaker Chronicles, came out in 2012 and will soon be
available in paperback. The second volume, Thieves’
Quarry, will be released on July 2, just in time for the July 4th
holiday. D.B. lives on the Cumberland Plateau with his wife and two teenaged
daughters. They’re all smarter and prettier than he is, but they keep him
around because he makes a mean vegetarian fajita. When he’s not writing he
likes to hike, play guitar, and stalk the perfect image with his camera.
http://www.dbjackson-author.com
http://www.dbjackson-author.com/blog
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http://www.goodreads.com/dbjackson
http://amazon.com/author/dbjackson
