|
A John Harvey/Charlie Resnick Newsletter
Return to the Mellotone archive
If you would like to receive the 'In a Mellotone' newsletter by post, please email me your details and I will add you to the list.
A belated happy new year | What else? | Work for radio continues | "they're all dying Charlie"
A belated Happy New Year! top
This is being written, the first part anyway, amongst the galumphery of the Christmas season (old movies and mince pies, train sets and lingering cake with icing and marzipan), a few quiet mornings out here in the shed with the little heater on and everyone else indoors sleeping.
Looking back, it was a busy autumn.
The new novel, In a True Light, was duly published by William Heinemann in October and was generally well-received (more of this later). My radio dramatisation of Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter, starring Charles Dance and Harriet Walter, was broadcast in the same month, pretty much to the sound of one hand clapping, although it is due to be issued on audio cassette by BBC Worldwide in the first part of this new year. Also in October, Cheryl, a sixty minute radio play based on one of the Resnick short stories, and featuring Keith Baron as Charlie and Gwen Taylor as the lady in question, was given an early repeat.
In a True Light was launched into the world at London's Crime in Store, to the accompaniment of some fine jazz from the Tony Burns Trio. Liz Simcock sang a couple of songs from her new (and excellent) CD, Seven Sisters Road and a reading from the novel was mostly undertaken by the redoubtable Stella Duffy, with only a few interjections by yours truly.
Set in the late 50s and the recent present, In a True Light moves between New York and London, with a couple of side trips to Italy. Sloane, the central character, is an unsuccessful painter and - until he was sent to prison - a successful forger, who, just short of his sixtieth birthday, learns that he has a daughter, Connie, whom he has never seen. Connie, a singer, was last heard of in Manhattan, and when Sloane, uncertain of either his feelings or his motives, sets out to find her, his search crosses paths with that of two New York police detectives who are tracking down the killer of an unidentified woman.
As I suggested, reviewers - as, indeed, they normally are - have been kind. Peter Guttridge in The Observer and Philip Oakes in Literary Review, found elements of the crime plot less than wholly satisfactory, while responding well to the other elements of the novel.
“A thoughtful thriller about the art world, father-daughter ties and the reality of violence,” wrote Maxim Jakubowski in The Guardian. “This engrossing read balances intellectual rigour with strong, realistic dialogue.”
And in a quite long and sympathetic piece in The Spectator, Michael Carlson said: “Harvey is more concerned with the thrills of emotional rebirth than the frisson of violence ... Because this is really a novel about family. Across three continents, the story keeps coming back to wives and children. It is as if Harvey finally answers the essential loneliness of Charlie Resnick, when Sloane grasps this lifeline late in life.”
I'm sure you will judge for yourselves. The UK hardcover from William Heinemann is, as I say, available now, with the Arrow paperback following in October. In the States, In a True Light will be published as an Otto Penzler Book from Carroll and Graf - no clear date yet, but in all probability, late summer, early fall.
*
What else? top
Random House (UK) - home of both Heinemann & Arrow - have been hard at work on a paperback reissue programme for all ten Resnick novels, which means that for the first time they will be available in a uniform look and style. Michael Mascaro has done a terrific job designing new covers and I can honestly say the books look great! Although they are not being re-released in sequence, the books will all available within a year. Off Minor and Still Water were published in October, 2001, with Cutting Edge, Living Proof and Easy Meat following this January. Lonely Hearts and Wasted Years follow in April, Rough Treatment and Cold Light in July and finally and appropriately, Last Rites in October. That makes the full set.
As I've suggested, the paperback of In a True Light, decked out in similar style, is set for October publication. And to make the picture complete, also in October there will be a new Arrow edition of Now's the Time, the collection of Resnick short stories originally published in a limited edition by Slow Dancer Press. This will include a new Resnick story, specially written for this edition and called 'Billie's Blues.'
'Now's the Time,' the title story from the collection, and the first short story about Resnick to have been written, has seen a new lease of life recently in the States. Lawrence Block selected it for his anthology, Opening Shots, which was published in the States in a handsome volume by Cumberland House, and Robert Randisi included it in a collection called First Cases, published by NAL early this year.
*
Those of you who have been logging on to this web site will be aware that I’ve been having fun with a new character, Jack Kiley, currently a private detective based in north London, formerly a police officer in the Met and, in his spare time - and relative youth - a soccer player with a sweet right foot.
The first Kiley story, 'Promise', will appear in Murder is My Racquet, a collection of tennis-based stories, edited by Otto Penzler for New Millennium Press and due out in April of this year.
And then (just in case you think I've been idle over the past months) there's yet another new character about whom I'm pretty excited, a police detective named Frank Elder, already the subject of one, as yet unpublished, short story and very much at the centre of plans for a new novel.
I can't say a great deal more at the moment about where and when the story might appear, or about the prospective novel, but anyone who's interested to find out and frustrated by the irregular appearances of this newsletter, should check out the web site, where details are updated with reasonable frequency.
*
Work for radio continues. top
For producer David Hunter, I've written a one-hour Resnick script, based on the short story, 'Bird of Paradise' ? a favourite of mine, this, since it also features not only gentleman-burglar Jerzy Grabianski, but a beautiful nun. This is due to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on the afternoon of Saturday 13th April.
In addition, I've been working for what seems a very long time on a thirty-part dramatisation of four novels by A. S. Byatt - the sequence which begins with The Virgin in the Garden and continues with Still Life, Babel Tower and the still-to-be-published A Whistling Woman.
The books follow a Yorkshire-born young woman, Frederica, and her family and friends through the mid-50s and 60s, with strong story lines set amidst a wealth of period and cultural detail. The problem, of course, is fitting such richness into the scale and size available; the pleasure is having the opportunity to work with such stimulating material.
Casting is in progress as I write this, recording will begin in early March, and the first fifteen episodes will start on Monday, 6th May, again on BBC Radio 4, and continue for three weeks. Transmission is at 10.45 each morning, repeated at 7.45 each evening, Monday to Friday. The final fifteen episodes are scheduled to begin on Monday, 9th September.
*
“They're all dying, Charlie.” top
“Who?”
“Every bugger!”
Thus down-at-heels jazz musician Ed Silver to Resnick in Cutting Edge, and, indeed, the obituary columns these days are sadly peppered with the names and faces of the familiar as well as the famous.
Spike Robinson died last year, on October 29th, from a heart attack. He was 71. A jazz saxophonist whose sound harked back, via be-bop and the cool 50s, to Lester Young, Spike was a player with a rare melodic gift and a knack of picking out tunes that had lain too long forgotten.
Born in Wisconsin, he first came to this country in the late 40s, a member of the US Navy; he played with the likes of Ronnie Scott before returning to the States and studying mechanical engineering. For the following thirty years, he worked in the aerospace industry in Denver and played only locally. He did not record an album until 1981.
As a result of this, though, he began to tour the UK again, eventually taking early retirement from the day job and, with a new agent, Susan May, devoted his energies to playing jazz. When Spike and Sue married, he based himself in England, gigged frequently, and made some fine recordings, my own personal favourite of which is The Gershwin Collection, (HEP CD 2042) cut in 1987 and released a year later. All have a rhythm section sparked by Alan Ganley on drums and featuring some elegant and swinging piano by Brian Lemon; on some tracks a string section is added, playing arrangements by the Scottish jazz trumpeter, Jimmy Deuchar. If it's been deleted, it's worth a little time tracking down.
When, in 'Now's the Time', I rounded off the story of Ed Silver by having Resnick go to London to attend his funeral, I decided it would be fitting to have him visit Ronnie Scott's jazz club at the day's end.
The ma'tre d' at Ronnie Scott's had trouble seating Resnick because he was stubbornly on his own; finally he slipped him into one of the raised tables at the side, next to a woman who was drinking copious amounts of mineral water and doing her knitting. Spike Robinson was on the stand, stooped and somewhat fragile-looking, Ed Silver's contemporary, more or less. A little bit of Stan Getz, a lot of Lester Young, Robinson had been one of Resnick's favourite tenor players for quite a while. There was an album of Gershwin tunes that found its way onto his record player quite a lot.
Now Resnick ate spaghetti and measured out his beer and listened as Robinson took the tune of 'I Should Care' between his teeth and worried at it like a terrier with a favourite ball. At the end of the number, he stepped back to the microphone. 'I'd like to dedicate this final tune of the set to the memory of Ed Silver, a very fine jazz musician who this week passed away. Charlie Parker's 'Now's the Time'.'I sent Spike a copy of the story and he replied with grace and good humour, pointing out that stooped and fragile-looking were not words he would automatically use to describe himself.
When, in October 1998, we had a highly successful launch party for the Slow Dancer Press fiction list at London's 100 Club (far more successful, sadly, than the fate of the list itself), I was thrilled to have Spike as our special guest. It was lovely to hear his playing at such close quarters, lovely to meet him and shake his hand.
I hope when he and Ed Silver get on the stand together they blow up a storm.
*
Anyone in the vicinity of the East Midlands, Derby more specifically, on the evening of Saturday, February 2nd, could do worse than to make their way to the Derby Dance Centre, where I will be reading some jazz-based poems and a few appropriate extracts from In a True Light and the Resnick novels. All this to the accompaniment of the jazz quartet, Second Nature.
We've been doing this off and on for quite a few years now, sometimes (Edinburgh Book Festival; University of Nottingham) with great success, sometimes (no names, no pack drill) less so. But Derby's virtually home ground, our last gig was, in all honesty, a stinker, so be assured we're going to be in stonking good form.
The Dance Centre is on Chapel Street and the number for reservations is 01332 370911.
*
A number of you have asked about receiving In a Mellotone via the internet, and we're currently exploring this.
It would be useful if those of you who have access to the net could contact us with your email addresses and let us know what you think about this. Whatever happens about the newsletter, email addresses would allow us to keep you up to date with news of publications, readings and the like.
|
