Authors Electric

My mother died 3 weeks ago. At nearly 98, this could hardly come as a surprise but it did. Stouthearted, resilient, refusing to be beaten by her increasing physical limitations, she seemed indomitable.  A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor Then, barely two months into her move into a residential home, she had a stroke. Over the next few days the carers looked after her beautifully until she gently faded away. I couldn’t have wished for a more peaceful death for her, though I did feel sad that it happened just as she was starting to enjoy herself. The best moment to go, perhaps. I’d already begun to clear out her flat, and chanced upon a book in her shelves that intrigued me. My mother had never been a great reader, unless of theology or gardening; so how did a novel I’d never heard of, by a writer I admire, Elizabeth Taylor (no, not that Elizabeth Taylor), end up in her collection? Of course I had to read it, and for the first 100 pages or so of A Wreath of Roses I was none the ...

Veni, vidi...Wiki! Not long ago I had the all-time greatest Great Idea: one, born of total ignorance, that nearly tanked a novel. As you may have guessed from my opening line, my subject is Julius Caesar. But you might not have guessed from the title that my Great Idea entailed his being reborn as a penis. Don't laugh, please, I beg you. I saw no way around this, even though showing JC as a 'dick' might lead some to think that I've written a spoof. In fact, it's a serious thriller. Without giving the plot away, I can say this: I needed JC's ghost, today, remembering his nights with Cleopatra on her fabled golden barge. There  was the heart of my book--a ghost trying for 2000 years to relive that lost boogie with Liz. And I'd begun to run with this when my memory corrected me: Mark Anthony, not JC, was on the barge with Cleo. And this was after JC's death. What the hell was I to do, lacking the good sense to check memory's 'facts...