The Wager and the Bear (Der Eisbär und die Hoffnung auf morgen). [Posted: 27 April 2023]

So I have a new novel launching in Germany next month. The English title is, ‘The Wager and the Bear,’ and the German title (a little less catchy perhaps) is ‘Der Eisbär und die Hoffnung auf morgen,’ which my google translator tells me means, ‘The Polar Bear and the Hope for Tomorrow.’ It might be a while before an English language edition is published – which is a shame. I’ll try to explain that in a moment – but first let me tell you about ‘The Wager and the Bear.’

The original idea for the story came from my brilliant agent, Stan. I told him I wanted to write a climate-change novel, and he sent me an email in February 2021, outlining a scenario he described as a cross between Not Forgetting the Whale and Local Hero. He called it ‘Not Forgetting the Iceberg.’ I rarely (normally) pick up on story-suggestions people give me but this was a rather compelling idea, and I found myself sitting down and writing an experimental first chapter. Then of course I had to write a second, and a third … and this is how novels get written. Stan wanted the story to be set in Scotland. I wanted it back in Cornwall – in my fictional village of St Piran. Stan saw the iceberg as the central threat. I saw the iceberg as a harbinger of a greater threat. And so I set about ignoring all Stan’s advice, and now not much remains of his original story, alas, except for the iceberg. But the iceberg (as you will see if ever you read the novel) does play a very central part. It is a story still very rooted in St Piran, and both the hero, Tom, and the anti-hero, Monty, are St Piran boys. It is an action story, a love story, a story with real, terrifying jeopardy … and a story with a bear.

The challenge with any story about climate change is to accommodate the long timescales. The climate catastrophe is something that might be almost instantaneous in geological terms, but measured against human lifespans it is ponderously snail-like. (See my last blog post https://notablebrain.blogspot.com/2023/04/climate-change-cats-and-spaghetti-essay.html) So unlike ‘Not Forgetting the Whale’ (Der Wal und das Ende der Welt) this story unravels over a whole human lifetime. And during this lifetime we will come to discover if Tom really is the hero and Monty the anti-hero. Or is it more nuanced?

I do hope, if you can read German, you will discover this book. If you do, please write to let me know your reactions. You can message me through this blog. If, like me, you are limited to reading in English you might have to wait a little longer. I suspect UK publishers want to wait to see how well it does in Europe – and this is because my last novel, ‘The Many Lives of Heloise Starchild’ didn’t sell all that well in Britain. My counter to this is to explain that ‘Heloise’ hit the bookshops in hardback when shops were closed due to Covid, and the paperback launched when bookshops were closed again. It launched with virtually no publicity. There was, I suppose, very little point publicising a book when the shops were all shut. So it goes. It had a beautiful cover – but (in my mind) the title was wrong. My original title was, ‘Katya’s Gift,’ and I can’t shake off the feeling that it would have done better with that title. Heloise is still my favourite novel by the way. And it is still out there if ever you’re looking for something new to read.

Anyway – all that aside, I can’t wait to see ‘The Wager and the Bear’ in print. Here again is that beautiful cover. And thank you once again to the wonderful people at S.Fischer Verlag for having faith in me.  

Please check out my website for more information on my books. https://www.johnironmonger.com