There are, sometimes, plans that we shoot at a comet, not imagining for a single second that they can come true. Among them, sharing a beer with R. J. Ellory, a British author that I particularly like.
Also, is it really necessary to specify how lucky we were when, accompanied by Robin, his press officer, he accepted a privileged meeting at the bar Le Dandy in Lyon, as part of the Quai du thriller festival ?
Maybe.
And this meeting leaves me, personally, still stars in my eyes.
Let me start this portrait with a little story, told like a fairy tale.
Once upon a time there was a young author. Which was not his first attempt at publication. After having chained the difficulties and put writing aside, he wrote 3 manuscripts, which he sent to 36 editors. 35 will give him a negative answer. Only one editor remains. In an action/disaster movie, he would be the one we call “the last hope”.
In the editing team, there is a man, young, who has just taken up his job. He reads one of the manuscripts and has a revelation. The manuscript he had just read HAD to be published. So he called the author to tell him about his book and told him he was going to talk to management about it. Since that day, every two weeks, this author called this man who answered him tirelessly “I still need a little time…”.
A few months later, the editorial team begins to be interested as well. Only the final boss remained. The decision maker. The great chef. Who was also about to go on vacation, but with the manuscript.
On his return, the young employee asked him what he thought of the book, to which the director replied that he had not read it because the whole thing was too heavy for his luggage and that he had had to part with it.
Because yes, you should know that this story takes place at the end of the 90s. E-books did not exist and you had to bring the sheaf of paper composing the manuscript to have access to it.
The young employee then replied that the author had been waiting for a response for a few months and that, out of respect for him, a response was needed. Director's decision: No.
And when all hope seemed lost, the young employee took out his own credit card from his wallet, announcing to his boss that if he did not make a contract with the author, he was going to do it with his own money, adding that he would look stupid.
The director then asked him a question: If he had to choose between publishing this book or keeping his job, what would he choose?
The employee's response was simple. He had been recruited to find books. So he would choose to publish this book AND keep his work. Seeing his enthusiasm, the director gave in and offered the author a contract for the novel.
The employee's name is John, and he unknowingly has just allowed an author named R. J. Ellory to publish his first novel in England. And the story he has just told you through
this article is none other than that of the publication of Candlemoth.
However, the story does not end there for this first novel. Presented at the Frankfurt Book Fest, it was then translated into Dutch, Italian and German, bringing profits even before its publication in England, and allowing its author to win a contract for two other novels: Ghostheart and A Quiet Vendetta.
This third novel also has an equally thrilling origin, because its publication comes after the writing of an finally unpublished manuscript. At that time, the author and the publisher are in discussion to find a title for this manuscript which did not have one. And at the end of this meeting, during a totally banal conversation, R. J. announces that, for his next one, he would like to write a novel on the Mafia, and sends about twenty pages already written to his agent. A few days later, he receives a call telling him that they want to publish the book on the mafia.
BUT, there is a problem. R. J. has already submitted a manuscript, ahead of the deadline. And to publish this book, he only had two months left to write it.
Challenge accepted!
Simultaneously working two jobs, he chained four-hour nights and managed to deliver on time and have the manuscript of Vendetta published.
It is his longest book to date. Written in the shortest time.
Speaking of writing, R. J. Ellory bases his on 3 decisions.
It begins by defining a very basic idea of the story, often in a single sentence. Then he decides the place and time in which to set his plot. As he says himself, “One does not write in the same way A Quiet Belief in Angels, which takes place in the South of the United States during the 1930s, and A Simple Act of Violence, which takes place in 2006 in Washington”. And finally, he decides the emotion he wants to provoke in the reader. For which he also noticed that it was not necessarily the one he was going to actually receive.
And once his decisions are made, he starts writing. Without more plans, synopses, or even the slightest idea of how the novels will end. In the same way that he start writings without prior research, because he simply does not know what to look for.
He explains this to us through the example of Vendetta.
In this story, the character goes through 10 different cities. And he treated each city independently of each other, only wondering at the end of each “part”, which was going to be next. And once the destination has been found, the research begins to find THE point of detail, the little anecdote that makes it special and try to integrate it into the story.
I am now at a stage of writing this article where I remember this encounter, and where I realize that, yes, I am talking about R. J. Ellory. But what makes this man so special?
For now, I gave you two anecdotes related to his novels and a short overview of his writing method, but not once did I talk about the Man.
How Roger Jon became Ellory?
Although his story does not start out joyfully, with a father who disappeared before he was born and a mother who passed away during his childhood, the young Roger Jon embarked on intensive writing at the end of the 80s. Between 1987 and 1993, he will write 24 novels for which he will collect more than 600 rejection letters. Among the reasons given, the fact that a book on the United States written by an Englishman will not sell. Same story across the Atlantic, during his attempts at a New York editor. He then put the writing aside to come back to it the day after September 11th.
The attack on the World Trade Center permitted him to change his point of view, through various reflections, of the fragility of life. He explains to us that he thought about “these people who had left to work and who will never return home. To this woman who would never admit to her husband that she is pregnant or to this man who never dared to propose a date to a girl he saw every day”
He then realized that writing was the activity in which he flourished the most. Then begins the Candlemoth story, which opens this article.
He is now the author of 15 novels translated into French. And throughout his work, the same constancy on very realistic human characters, both in their feelings and in their reactions. As if he knew the human being perfectly well and could slip into the skin of the man as much as the woman, of the mafioso as much as the police officier.
So he tells us about his love of reading books on philosophy, history and psychology… He writes a lot of thrillers, but reads very few of them. And he concludes our meeting with the evocation of his desire to create the most human characters possible, by grafting a little anecdote on a signing session for his book Saints of New York.
Even now, at the time of putting an end to this article, I think back to the path that I have traveled in a personal way. As a man filled with doubt about his place on social media, as an isolated bookstagrammer and now through what the Quartier Noir book club makes me live. And on March 31st, 2023, I was able to tick a goal that I never thought I would tick one day: Sharing a drink with R.J. Ellory.
An incredible experience, a moment out of time, that I would like to relive again and again. And when I see the number of books I have left to catch up with this man, I now have the certainty that the probability of meeting this man again increases every moment.
I would like to thank again R. J. Ellory for his sympathy and Robin for organizing this special little moment!
I'm interested in characters that are truly human. And I have an anecdote that I will never forget. When I wrote Saints of New York, I created a character, called Frank Parish. A tortured detective, lost in his life.
One day I was at a book signing, and at the very end, when everyone had left, a woman came up to me asking if she could ask me a question. I said to him, "Of course, what would you like to know?" His question was: “Is Frank okay?”. I then replied that it was a bit complicated for him. We discussed about this man for a little , as if he really existed and, when leaving, she simply said to me “you will give him my greetings, when you’ll see him again”.
At the time, I think that was the best compliment you could give an author. Tell him that his character, which he created from nothing, marked you and still be a part of you now.
Today, I do not consider myself a worthy man. But I have a house, I have been able to raise my family and I have the chance to live from what I want to do. I have written for television, for the cinema and I have a band. So the most important thing to me is not that you remember the title of the book, or even my name. But I hope, through my stories, that you will remember the book you read through the emotion it took you through, just by looking at it.
- Roger John ELLORY -
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