The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: 06 Jan 2013 03:31 AM PST Beyond the electrifying momentum, Conspiracy 365 is really a coming-of-age tale about family. IT'S ironic that Australia's first lady of crime fiction, Gabrielle Lord, should find the occupational hazards of being a crime writer lurking within the confines of a publisher's office rather than out in the field when she's researching psychotic killers with detectives and forensic anthropologists. "Publishers keep wanting more of the same, whereas writers often want to develop other aspects of their craft and move out of the 'marketing box' they're put in," says the Sydney-born author in an e-mail interview. She has never bowed to those pressures though, choosing to stake her stories on a variety of criminal subjects that correspond with the current zeitgeist instead of sticking to a generic storyline that works. Since she started writing professionally at the age of 30, Lord has tackled plots about a school kidnapping (Fortress), an iconic star caught in a big scandal (Spiking The Girl) and a series of murders by a modern day "vampire" (Death By Beauty), just to name a few. Pushing 66 now, the grandmother of two has decided to bring her brand of crime thriller to a new generation of young readers with Conspiracy 365, a unique series of 12 novels published in 12 months. "The series was born when Andrew Berkut, the publisher at Scholastic, met me at a café and put a proposition to me: would I be interested in writing a 12-book thriller for Young Adult readers with a book coming out monthly. I thought it was a marvelous, original idea and said 'yes!' almost on the spot," Lord shares. Conspiracy 365 revolves around 15-year-old Callum "Cal" Ormond who is forced to become a fugitive as he tries to uncover the truth behind the death of a family member. Cal's father had fallen gravely ill while he was researching his family's history in Ireland the previous year. Before his death, he wrote his son a letter and sent him some mysterious drawings. As the first book January opens, our young hero is told by an anonymous psychiatric patient that his father was murdered because he had uncovered the secret of the "Ormond Singularity". The man also warned Cal that he must go into hiding for exactly a year, or he will be killed. Set in a fictional Australian city, the series kicks off on New Year's Eve and counts down, month by month, as Cal is hurled into a life on the run. With its fast-paced plot and narratives that almost always carried from one minute to another, Conspiracy 365 has been likened to being a teenage version of the hit television series 24. However, writing a series of 12 books that chronicled one whole month each proved to be no easy feat for Lord. "It took almost four years of my life! The biggest challenge was to make a story so thrilling that it didn't 'sag in the middle' because the action of most thrillers is contained within a few days. "In my adult novels, I only have to build to one denouement. With the series, I had to create 12 of them, each one building towards the final dramatic action in Book 12 of the series," says Lord who lists Charles Dickens, Alistair MacLean and Alfred Hitchcock as literary inspirations. The page numbers of each volume in the series count down in reverse numerical order with the chapter headings indicating the days left before the end of the year, an ingenious adrenaline-pumping device that serves to remind readers of Cal's potential bleak fate. Another approach that Lord took to sustain the electrifying momentum in the series was through extensive research, something which the author is notorious for. She dipped into the huge data base of her past research and travelled to Ireland to chase up the story concerning the Virgin Queen and her cousin, Black Tom Butler, the 10th Earl of Ormond. Coincidentally, one of the subjects of her research is a family member. "Black Tom Butler was actually a very distant relative. I was a Butler before I married Mr Lord," she reveals. Strip away all the thrill and action in the series, Conspiracy 365 is really a coming-of-age tale about family. "Underneath the fast-moving action is the real, soul story of a boy leaving his mother's house and facing dangerous challenges so that he emerges as a young man at the end of the series. It is really a rites of passage story disguised as an action thriller," says Lord. The multi-layered theme of the series has clearly resonated well with many young readers. In Lord's native Australia, the books have sold over a million copies and have been adapted into an epic 12-part drama series. "I was thrilled with it.The producer was very kind and invited me to watch some of the scenes being shot in Victoria. To see my characters come to life in the forms of brilliant young and not-so-young actors was very exciting," she says. Lord is currently working on a trilogy involving the same characters in Conspiracy 365 because she enjoys writing about "younger people having extraordinary adventures". Ultimately though, her heart will always remain within the crime thriller genre. "I love the way crime thrillers move. A crime catalyses all other action and allows characters to emerge under duress so that more is revealed about them and the crime together. Justice is done, which is satisfying as that is often not the case in the real world." |
| Posted: 06 Jan 2013 03:15 AM PST A heart recognises the truth of another heart as keenly as a book lover discerns a writer's craft. TODAY is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one." – Brad Paisley, an American singer/songwriter and musician. Indeed. At least that is what we hope for on the first day of a new year. But when I reached into the jar and read the 365 little vignettes I had scribbled unfailingly each day in 2012, I was not impressed. When put together, they will not make a great story mainly because I, the writer, was not true to myself. That is paradoxical. From hindsight, how can one not be true to oneself when one is the one who knows oneself best? When I scrutinised the notes as a book reviewer might, searching deeply for the author's tone in attempt to find her soul at the moment of her writing – and I realised I sounded self-serving. Excuses were often made for problems, and every troubled entry felt as though it was always a battle between my heart and my mind, and the latter tended to win. In one instance: at the airport departure gate, before flying back to Sydney from Kuala Lumpur, I wanted to hug my mother. She stood quietly, but I perceived (or rather, my mind perceived) her as expressionless and emotionless. My embrace was not reciprocated; her hands dangled downward as much as, I suspected, her eyes were downcast. My mind thought her cold but my heart understood only too well her yearning for my love. My mind scorned, but my heart helped me discern, in that fleeting moment, my own hesitation in embracing her. My mind rebuked; my heart nudged me at my own lack of warmth. My mind won, and I came home heart-wrenched and vehement. My heart coiled as I made the day's entry. It was page 273 of the book I now call 2012, which, if published, would be a mind-boggling book. My mind boggles at my heart, always placing it at a crossroads, easily pained and misled. When the heart tries to reveal the mind's shrewdness, it falls, pulling down the main thread that governs my composure and humanism. Who wouldn't love their children? My heart emerged once again and decisively asked at page 280, a week after that heartbreaking airport fiasco. So you will read on page 281 that I called her. Then I wrote about the long chat I had with her on pages 282, 283, 284, 285.... At last, the entry in which I muse about flying home to see her this month on her birthday emerged on pages 300, 301 and so on. My heart stood guard against the nefariously sneaky, suspicious and insecure mind. It prevailed, and its prose was fluid and soothing as it engaged with heartfelt retrospectives and perspectives. My heart was writing, and in its words there was no sign of contradictions – until.... On page 362, the anxious mind snubbed the content heart, creeping out from behind bars to stir trouble and gloat over its power. In its most vicious attempt, it unleashed inexplicable angst, distressing friends and family. The mind remained uncomfortably triumphant for a few days. So, on page 362, and in place of a celebratory birthday, was a heartbreaking episode, all because the writer's feeble heart – my heart – was unable to speak the truth. And so the writer wrote in language foiled by anger and with excuses and denunciations most self-serving. The mind, with its hideous power cumulating on page 362, thundered on with self-centred righteousness, not caring to describe the feelings of others. The entry that day was truculent, spurious and unbearably painful to read. The details I must spare you, as advised by my heart while writing this week's Book Nook. At least the heart did prevail with a little enlightenment from Daisaku Ikeda who says in his book entitled Human Revolution, "Become the master of your mind rather than let your mind master you." My next book, 2013, will be better – I promise. It will be written in crystal clear prose revolutionised by my serene, forgiving, compromising, loving and unjudgemental heart. The story will be sublime, as it will be woven with 365 uplifting vignettes. The heart, from now on no longer timorous, will steer and guide each entry, including this one on page two, where the mind is a glitch banished by my realisation that I want to write a marvellous year-long story. Fakery, bombast, exaggeration and self-serving biases are inevitable in our lives. It is good to write one page a day, literally, to document our ever-changing life conditions and to reflect upon the same of others. The entrenched mind will always be judgemental, but it is the heart that speaks the truth. If I am asked to describe my mother, my heart speaks only of her kindness, endurance, wisdom and perseverance, for the truth lies in the hearts of all mothers. A heart sees another heart as keenly as a book lover discerns a writer's craft. n Abby Wong begins 2013 with this thought: 'To shift one's thinking and see from another perspective is the first step to changing both oneself and one's environment.' – Daisaku Ikeda, author, poet and president of Soka Gakkai International, a movement that promotes peace worldwide. |
| Posted: 05 Jan 2013 03:39 PM PST FOR the week ending Dec 30, 2012: Non-fiction 1. Syed Mokhtar Albukhary: A Biography by Premilla Mohanlall 2. Creating A Purposeful Life by Richard Fox 3. Unstoppable: The Incredible Power Of Faith In Action by Nick Vujicic 4. 1D: The One Direction Story by Danny White 5. The Wisdom And Teachings Of Stephen R. Covey by Stephen R. Covey 6. A Stolen Life: A Memoir by Jaycee Dugard 7. Achieve Your Goals by Infinite Ideas 8. Justin Bieber: Just Getting Started by Justin Bieber 9. The Lost Empire Of Atlantis by Gavin Menzies 10. The Power Of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy Fiction 1. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 2. Life Of Pi by Yann Martel 3. The Hobbit (movie tie-in) by J.R.R. Tolkien 4. Jack Reacher: One Shot (movie tie-in) by Lee Child 5. Fifty Shades Of Grey by E.L. James 6. Les Miserables (movie tie-in) by Victor Hugo 7. The Sins Of The Father by Jeffrey Archer 8. The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling 9. The Garden Of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng 10. The Perfect Present by Karen Swan > Weekly list compiled by MPH Mid Valley Megamall, Kuala Lumpur; mphonline.com. |
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