My Map Pins (27): Lake Victoria (posted April 2021)

When I was eleven years old, I took a holiday with my mother on Lake Victoria. It was a sort of cruise, although the ship, the SS Usoga, was not, by any stretch of imagination, a cruise liner; it was a smelly, oily merchant ship on an endless tour around the lake. It did, however, have two passenger cabins. My mother and I had one. The other was occupied by a honeymooning couple from Ireland called Lynam. According to the East African Railways website - on Sundays the Usoga sailed clockwise from Kisumu: on Wednesdays, anti-clockwise. The overnight passage from Kisumu to Port Bell took twelve hours. After a two to three hour stop for cargo handling, the ship left Port Bell for the two hour passage to Entebbe. Entebbe was a short (one hour) stop, and from there it was an eight and a half hour passage to Bukoba in Tanzania. From Bukoba the ship sailed overnight to Mwanza where it arrived around dawn. Leaving Mwanza at 1030, Musoma was reached at 1900 from where, after a two hour stop, the final night passage brought the ship back to Kisumu at 0700. We must have sailed on a Sunday because we set sail from Kisumu and sailed the other way around.

In a perfect world Lake Victoria would be one of the great holiday destinations on the planet. The PR men would need no imagination. It’s a huge body of freshwater - the size of Ireland. When you’re sailing you spend much of the time out of sight of land. It’s an ocean really; a freshwater ocean. It heaves and groans like an ocean. Yet all around are the dark mysterious hills and jungles of Livingstone’s Africa. There’s a hint of the unexplored - the unexplorable - about the place. Ancient peoples live all around it; people who have made their living from the great beneficent lake for countless generations. Our most ancient ancestors of all probably hung out here for a few millennia, feeding off the very fine fish, luxuriating beneath the cool forest trees that overhang the bank, wading in the thousand little bays and eddies. Lake Victoria is as African as it gets. Wildlife abounds. Hippos swim languidly. Crocodiles bask menacingly. Antelope come fleetingly down to the shores to drink. Great birds flock. Tiny birds flick over the water seeking flies. Insects throng and swarm and buzz incessantly.

Halfway through the cruise, my mother fell ill.  She was pregnant at the time (with my sister, Sally). When we got to Bukoba she was taken off the Usoga to a hospital in the town. I wasn’t allowed to go along. But I escaped the ship. I scrambled down a mooring rope and found my way to the hospital. I still feel quite proud of this feat, all these years later.

I wrote about this trip in my first published novel, ‘The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder.’ In the novel, Max and his friend Adam, travel on the Usoga with Max’s mother O. In Bukoba O falls ill and is taken to hospital. Max escapes the Usoga by sliding down a mooring rope, concealed within a cloud of lake flies.

I have no photographs of the trip. The photos are of my  visit with my son Jon at the dockside in Ggaba near Kampala in 2011.  The What3words will take you here.

What3words: kite.amphibian.liquids

what3words /// The simplest way to talk about location

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

My Map Pins (1) Nairobi, Kenya (Posted February 2021)

 

I haven't been to Nairobi since I was seventeen. That was in 1971. So the photograph here (not my picture by the way) is from around that time, This is Nairobi bus station as I remember it. When I went into town (which I did a lot), this is where I would often go to catch the bus home.

I've been doing that thing on Google Maps where you create a map of your life; you drop a pin into all the places you've been, and before long you have a world map dotted with your memories. No use to anyone of course, except as a rather fun exercise; but I had this idea to turn a few of my pins into blog posts. After all, I have been a rubbish blogger, and it is time I posted some more. So here we are, and I'm starting with Nairobi. This is where I was born - at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital (now the Kenyatta National Hospital). My dad was a civil servant, and we moved around a lot, but the house I remember most was the one Dad built - the home I grew up in. The address used to be Westfield Close, Lavington which is a terribly British address. Today it is Naushad Merali Drive. (See the What3Words link below). I used to know every inch of this neighbourhood. I explored it on my bike, and on foot with my best friend Bruce Bulley. In those days it was on the very edge of town, and you could set off on the Kikuyu paths into wild Kenya - watching out for snakes - and we regularly did. In my novel, 'The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder', this is where the early chapters are set. Adam Last, the voice of the book, lives conveniently in the very house where I did, and he explores the same paths.

I still miss Nairobi. To me it still feels like home. I still hope, one day, to go back

what3words /// The simplest way to talk about location

What3words: dusters.pitch.cowboy

 

Lost in translation ...

A couple of weeks ago I received three books through the post. The parcel came as a surprise. It's 'Maximilian Ponderin Muteber Benyi' - the Turkish translation of 'The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder.' I knew that this was out and about in Turkey because of the generous tweets and messages I've received from readers, but it was still a huge pleasure to have copies to put on my shelf. I rather like the shredded paper on the cover; I know it bears no relation whatsoever to the contents of the book, but in a curiously existential way it manages to evoke the shredding of memories, which is ultimately what happens to Max. I look forward to the day (highly unlikely, alas) when we welcome Turkish visitors to our home, and I can pull them down a copy. Maybe they could translate some of it back to me.

It's an odd feeling seeing your book in translation. I'm sure that the translator (whom I don't know) has done an excellent job. I should love to meet him (or her) so that I could shake his (or her) hand and say thank you. It is odd to think that someone, whom I never met, spent weeks in the close company of Maximilian Ponder. I hope they grew to like him. Although, after translating 120,000 words, perhaps they hated him. 

I've tried copying an extract quoted on a Turkish website into 'Google Translate.' Here is Google's version of what the paragraph says:

In a way, I'm sure Max used to say, do not start in the middle. Only the Big Bang, the laws of nature emerged rastlantılarıyla awesome, non-stop expanding universe, the planets and the universe cooled in the atmospheres and conditions of primordial soup and, ultimately, as a result of natural selection does not mind you coming presence, I opened and closed walnuts on the table, and there's probably dead, lying dead Max Ponder as well. Here's the story, it did not bother him etmezmiş detail as if Max would say. Whereas was. Head broke the details.

That's probably better than my original. I shouldn't complain!

I don't understand a word of Turkish (to my shame), and  I've only ever visited the country twice - both times for dull business meetings. So if anyone from Turkey wants to visit us here in Market Drayton, we should be delighted to see you. I may even have an interesting book for you to read. (Even better, please invite us to Turkey and I'll bring the book along.)

The last I heard, 'The Coincidence Authority' is to be translated into French and German. 'Would the French enjoy a novel with a very English hero?' I asked my editor. 'They love the philosophy,' she told me

 

 

January and Editing Editing Editing.

January brings the snow, makes your feet and fingers glow. That's according to Flanders and Swan. But here in Shropshire it has bought cold slushy rain, following swiftly on the heels of a whole year of rain, and the little hamlet of Colehurst is awash with mud. Seriously though, don't you feel that January is always ... I don't know ... a little anti-climactic? We cheer the month in with a load of fireworks and communal singing, and then, well, it's back to work and the mornings are still dark and we're all spent out of cash.

Max Ponder is out in paperback. That cheered me up. I love the cover, and I do have to say that, for an author, walking into WHSmith's and seeing your book on the chart wall is a very guilty pleasure. Even if it is only at number 76. The Costa First Novel Award went to The Innocents by Francesca Segal. It is thoroughly well deserved for a beautifully written book. I've read all the shortlisted books, and quite frankly, I'd have been pushed to choose between them. Snake Ropes by Jessica Richards is delightfully quirky with a deliciously original voice, and The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood is a sinister and very erudite story of a damaged personality. I'm looking forward to meeting all three authors (I hope) at the awards bash on 29th Jan. I'll be cheering on Francesca. Of course. But if it has to be Hilary Mantel ... well I love Bring up the Bodies too.

I'm deep into edits for The Coincidence Authority right now. This is a humbling task. I can't believe the  number of elementary mistakes that my very brilliant editor, Kirsty, has spotted, and I groan as I turn each page to face a host of embarrassing bloopers on the next, every one clearly marked in black pen.  The writer Heinrich Heine wrote that, 'no author is a man of genius to his publisher.' Isn't that the truth. Still, you learn a lot about your bad writing habits in the editing process. I've discovered that I make far too much use of the dash - like that, and even, oddly ... the elipse. Most of these get converted to commas by my editor. She's right of course.  I'm addicted to unnecessary detail ('this isn't Max Ponder,' my editor writes in the margin, 'you don't need all this.' Right again.) And I'm blind to my own repetitions.  Worst of all, I tend to let my prose run away. It gets baggy. 'Tighten this!' Kirsty writes. 'Tighten' is now my mantra. It often seems that the passages my editor wants to strike out are the very ones that I was proudest of; I delete them with a heavy heart. 'These are only suggestions,' she has told me. 'Ignore them if you want.'  So sometimes I do. But there is an unexpected catharsis to taking editorial advice. I re-read each page with the changes complete, and damnit, the whole thing really does sound better. Now how did that happen?  Editors, I have decided, are the great unsung heroes (and heroines) of literature. I am lucky to have such a good one. But I still wish the process wasn't so painful. 

The Costa Shortlist

My phone rang when I was on a train. ‘I’m in a quiet carriage,’ I whispered, expecting heads all around to turn accusingly.

The caller was my wife Sue. ‘You need to phone Kirsty,’ she said, urgently. ‘She has exciting news.’ (Kirsty is my editor at Orion. Her news is always exciting. But what could this news be?)

‘What kind of ….?’ I began, but I barely had time for those three words before the train disobligingly plunged into a signal-free zone. There’s a stretch of the West Coast mainline up through the Lake District where you can normally guarantee blissful freedom from telephone disturbance for half an hour or more.  But could there be a less convenient stretch of the rail network, when you know there’s exciting news, but have no hint to suggest what that news might be?

I phoned Kirsty an age later when the train pulled into Carlisle. I had very few nerves left. ‘What’s the news?’ I asked.

‘Ahh well … it’s very exciting ….,’ she said. She was toying with me.

‘Please,’ I begged. ‘In twenty seconds, I’ll be on the long stretch of line to Beattock Summit and I don’t think cell phones have ever made it this far north.’

‘You’ve made the shortlist for The Costa.’

I have now discovered the reason why they have quiet carriages on trains. It was only the threat of opprobrium from my fellow passengers that prevented me from leaping onto the table and whooping.  Actually, of course, that last bit isn’t true. We British don’t go in for whooping much, do we? Especially not on trains. That would be an American response. So instead I said something very polite; ‘Oh gosh, how splendid,’ or words to that effect.

One week later and I’m still trying to come to terms with the news. It seemed (and still does seem) faintly unreal. Even sipping champagne with Kirsty and Sophie from Orion in Jamie’s Italian to celebrate, didn’t altogether dispel the feeling that I’m somehow occupying a dream that rightly belongs to someone else. I’m quite prepared for the letter that reads, ‘due to an unfortunate error your book was mistakenly placed in the wrong list, please accept our apologies…’ 

The truth is, I suppose, that book prizes do matter. They shouldn’t. But they do. I’ve recently emerged, scathed, from the ordeal that was the Guardian’s ‘Not the Booker Prize,’ from which contest Max Ponder managed to stumble home in third place. It’s a well-meaning attempt by the Guardian to democratise the book award circus, and to introduce a level of X-Factor voting into the mix. But it ended, this year, with a nasty squabble between the winner and the Guardian, and an unseemly email campaign for votes. So the news that Max Ponder had made the final four for the Costa First Novel Award was especially gratifying.

The other three books look impressive, and a little scary. I’m going to try to read them all before the announcement of the category winners on January 3^rd so that I can nod enthusiastically and say, ‘well deserved,’ when the decision is announced. The reviewer on ‘Front Row’ referred to us collectively as ‘young authors,’ which was kind.  The other three deserve the adjective, but I shall enjoy the association all the same. And I am looking forward to the announcement. That is true. It would be fantastic to win, but it’s great simply to be recognised. So I’m not thinking about winning. Well. I’m trying not to. I’ve got three more chapters of Book Three to finish, and a whole set of edits for The Coincidence Authority coming my way very soon, and a day job that actively consumes my time, and a Christmas calendar that is filling up fast, and those three novels to read, and a cryptic crossword to complete every day, and a five year old retriever that needs walking, and Christmas shopping to start thinking about, and a running machine that beckons from the conservatory every time I look out of the kitchen window. So let’s put all thought of the Costa aside – for the next six weeks at least. And if anyone confronts me, as they sometimes do, with, ‘OMG you made the Costa Shortlist!’ I shall smile like an Englishman and say, ‘yes, isn’t it splendid?’ Or words to that effect.

My 'Not the Booker Prize' Blog

I hadn’t even heard of the Guardian’s ‘Not The Booker Prize’ before the email arrived from my editor.  I was still getting over the disappointment of failing to make the Man Booker Prize last month, so any email with ‘Booker’ in the title line looked promising.  And so the whole thing started.

The idea is pretty simple. The Man Booker Prize (so the argument goes) is a sclerotic institution with its head up its own fundament and prizes like this should be put back into the hands of the people. Democracy should reign. (This overlooks the unfortunate point that democracy has plenty of say in book sales, and if it were to be equitably applied, then Shades of Grey would win every prize going. But moving swiftly on … ).  First someone has to go online to nominate your book. That’s easy enough (actually it was fiendishly complex – but the principle is easy). Then the great reading public are invited to vote. But here’s the twist; they have to accompany their vote with a 100 word review of the book. This will prove that the voting is honest, and weed out all but the most determined sock puppets. This process resulted in a couple of hundred titles, many much more likely to attract widespread public attention than Max Ponder could hope to do. And now a serious flaw in the democratic process became apparent. With only a few dozen votes separating the winners from the also-rans, the winner wasn’t really going to be selected by public vote at all. There would be some genuine votes cast, but the balance that would swing the day would be determined by the friends and family of the authors, their facebook contacts, and the employees of the publishing house. Oh dear.

My confession, dear reader, is that I willing and complicity engaged in this scam. I whipped up my friends, I tweeted, I posted on LinkedIn, and through the enormous generosity of a whole set of friends, I earned myself a third place. Which I’m happy with. But in the process I learned some things. First I learned not to do this again. If I enter another book prize I’ll be more than happy to leave it to judges to tell me how good or how bad my book is. But I also learned what a great set of friends I have. The 100 word reviews they posted were so full of warmth, I was genuinely touched. I didn’t know everyone who voted – of the fifty or so votes that got me on the shortlist, I think I know around half of the people. Finishing in third place makes me feel that I let them down. But I still feel very blessed that I know so many wonderful people, and that so many of them liked my book.

In the end I’m not really critical of the format of NTBP. It is what it is. If you enter, you have to recognise the way it works. I don’t think it is a prize that suits a debut novelist … because the more established writers have a loyal readership that they can mine for votes. But I’m not sorry that I entered. Sam Jordison wrote a very moving Guardian review (I happen to think that his review of Max Ponder was the best review of any of the seven shortlisted books). And the exposure was helpful. All exposure is.

As I write this I’m still not sure who won. It was either Ewan Morrison (Tales from the Mall) or Ben Myers (Pig Iron). Well done guys. And well done mobilising your vote. I will read the winning book. I hope you read mine. The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder will be out in Paperback on 3^rd January. That’s a plug. Thank you.

Forgetting the Whale (20th December 2011)

The 'Trade Paperback' version of Maximilian arrived through the post this week. This is an exciting moment for an author. It's the first time you get to lovingly flip through the pages of your book - or at least something that looks very much like it. The cover design is so seductive and clever. I know I've seen the cover artwork before, but I'd never thought what the back cover might look like. The artist has added a dramatic label that reads, 'DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME'. I didn't know he (or probably she) was going to do that - but I love it. It captures the reckless and futile essence of Max's project perfectly.


I hadn't appreciated the long, drawn-out process of publishing, and what this means to an author. By the time you send your manuscript off to the publisher, you've probably read and re-read it a dozen or more times. The early chapters you'll have read so often you can almost recite them. But then months pass. In my case, I sent Max away in May 2010. You start writing the next novel, and eventually, off that goes too. Your head is in a very different universe, grappling with a very different story. (By the time Maximilian reaches the bookstands in paperback, I should be in the middle of writing Book Four if I stay on timetable.) So you start to lose touch with Novel One. 


A couple of months ago, therefore, I re-read Maximilian. I thought I ought to have it fresh in my mind for conversations with the publisher. Mistake. A week or so later the detailed page edits arrived from Orion. Every page was a morass of scribbles, crossings-out, corrections, and edits. I had to read it all again. That was hard. Today I've had a cheerful email from the publisher. They'll send me the page edits to go though over Christmas. I'm going to have to read it again. I do wonder how writers get any time to read anyone else's work at all - you're so busy reading your own.


Hey ho. Only a few more shopping days until Christmas. I've abandoned 'The To Do List' as material for Book Three. No matter how hard I try I can't dismember the original screenplay format. So now I'm writing something darker. These are early days, so I shouldn't say much. And I'm only 3,000 words in. But, for the sake of honesty and posterity I shall drop in my working title. It is, 'Forgetting the Whale.'

The First Cover Design ...(9th July 2011)

This is getting exciting. I've had the first cover design from Orion - and I love it!

For more about my books check out my website https://johnironmonger.com

Maximilian Ponder: The Story so far ... (11th April 2011)

This is me working out how to blog. Oh dear. Don't like this font. Let's change from Times New Roman to Verdana. Much better. Should I mess around with fonts for a while? How about Lucida? Not very different is it? Georgia then? Oh no. That won't do for my new blog. Back to Verdana. But now I'm wasting time and losing my readers. Why do I prevaricate like this? The story so far ... In July 2005 I sat at my computer and typed out the first line of a novel. I already knew this was going to be a novel and not a short story, and it was going to be my first 'proper' novel in contrast to the strange science fiction and fantasy tales I'd written before. The story had been incubating in my mind for some months, but, well, I'd put off actually committing anything to paper; or to hard drive. 


Anyway - the time had come. I loaded up Microsoft Word and I typed, 'My name is Maximilian Zygmer Quentin Kavadis John Cabwhill Teller. My name contains every letter of the Roman alphabet except for the letter 'f'. My mother, it seems, had an aversion to 'f'.' After this I had to check the name to see if the alphabet claim was true. But damnit there was no 'p' either. I tried adding another name - 'Paul' but somehow this made the line lose its rhythm. I messed around changing names and inserting letters, and in this way I happily spent around an hour before finally having to abandon my writing for the day. I had written thirty three words and had stalled on finding a name for my central character. It wasn't an auspicious start.


Fast forward five years. The finished novel has been languishing on my computer for eighteen months while (in another fit of procrastination) I wonder what to do with it. Finally one morning in a fit of uncharacteristic energy, I send some sample chapters out to three agents. The book is now called, 'The Interesting Brain of Maximilian Ponder.' It is the story of a young man who locks himself away for three years to catalogue every memory from his brain. Only it doesn't take him three years. It takes thirty years. 


Would anyone ever want to read this? I really don't know any more. But I send it off anyway. And then I wait. Writers need to be good waiters. The manuscript went out in May 2010 and the first rejection came back before I'd had time to make a coffee. The second agent gushed over it for five months before sending me the squirmy letter. But hooray for the third agent. I shall call him 'Stan' although this isn't his real name you understand. Stan called to say that he loved the book. Now as anyone who ever wrote a novel could tell you, this immediately means that you can die happy. Someone actually loved this piece of tortuous prose that you've been living with for five years. Those words over the phone trump a massive injection of heroin in terms of sheer euphoric effect.


When the auction started it was giddy. It was unreal. Bids came flying in for unimaginable sums of money, and the man we shall call 'Stan' glibly batted them away into the long grass, waiting for bigger ones to emerge. I am so happy to have signed with Orion. I love everything about them. Their offices are right opposite 'The Ivy'. I have a lovely and very understanding editor. They throw fabulous parties where you rub shoulders with Michael Palin and Hairy Bikers. Most of all, they seem to love the book. Now it is, 'The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder.' (Apparently the word 'interesting' isn't especially interesting.)I'm revising the manuscript this month, and hope to see it in print in the spring of 2012 - a year from now. That is the story so far. I will try to blog updates, including progress on Book 2 (working title: 'Explaining Azalea.'). So that was Blog Number One. And it kept me from having to revise Maximilian for at least thirty minutes. Now about those fonts ...

For more about my books check out my website https://johnironmonger.com