Sam Eastland Q&A: The last thing I would read is something in my own genre

[ Sam Eastland’s Inspector Pekkala series ]

What was the first book to make an impression on you?

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

What was your favourite book as a child?

Norse Gods and Giants by Ingri d’Aulaire and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire

And what is your favourite book or books now?

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

What is your favourite quotation?

Friedrich Schiller: “Hold fast to the dreams of your youth”

Who is your favourite fictional character?

Dr Watson

Which do you prefer – ebooks or the traditional print version?

Most of the books I read nowadays are for research on my own novels. The majority of these are so old that they aren’t available in ebook format, so I end up reading the print versions. I see the value of ebooks, especially when I consider the weight of carrying books with me when I travel, but I haven’t been able to take advantage of that.

What is the most beautiful book you own?

A 1911 edition of A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates (1724) by Captain Charles Johnson and illustrated by Howard Pyle.

Where and how do you write?

I write on a Getac B300 laptop. Although it is heavy and clunky, the B300 is pretty much bomb proof. I need what they call a “ruggedised” laptop because I often do my writing when I am out in the woods or on the tundra doing research for the books. Ironically, the greatest peril faced by the laptop is not being dropped or bashed against a tree when I am carrying it in my pack, but the smoke from campfires which can coat the electrical connectors. My favourite place to write is a little hut I had built for me in the garden of my house in the far north of Maine, in a region known as the Western Mountains.

What book changed the way you think about fiction?

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway.

What is the most research you have done for a book?

I spent six years working on deep sea fishing boats off the coast of New England. The work I did on those boats became the material for the second novel I wrote, which is called Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn.

What book influenced you the most?

There are many, but the book that most influenced the Inspector Pekkala series, which I am writing now under the name Sam Eastland, is called The Ochrana, by AT Vassileyev and translated by Rene Fulop-Muller, published by JP Lippincot in 1930. Vassileyev was the last serving commander of the Tsar’s secret police in Petrograd and he wrote about his experiences while in exile in Paris.

What book would you give to a friend’s child on their 18th birthday?

Not a book exactly but a framed copy of The Desiderata by Max Ehrmann. Some people think that this poem was found in a church in Baltimore, Maryland and that it dates from the 1600s, but in fact it was written by Ehrmann in 1927.

What book do you wish you had read when you were young?

The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

What advice would you give to an aspiring author?

Write every day, even if it is only a couple of lines.

What weight do you give reviews?

Much less than I used to. I used to feel physically sick if I got a bad review. On the other hand, if I got a good review, the most I ever felt was relieved. The problem with placing too much stock in reviews and in the critics is that if you believe all the good stuff they write, you are bound to believe the bad stuff as well. The great paradox of being a writer is that you write for other people, but you can’t afford to care too much about what they think. What you need to remember is that, whether the news is good or not, you still have to sit down and write every day. In this way, good news can be just as disorienting and unproductive as the bad stuff. So I read the reviews. If there is helpful stuff in them, good or bad – I try to make use of that. But then I must get back to work.

Where do you see the publishing industry going?

In the literary industry, the mark of an author’s success is the filmability of or his/her work. This is not a hard and fast rule – some literary prizes can allow an author to sidestep this equation – but it is something most modern authors must contend with. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just a thing.

What lessons have you learned about life from reading?

That being the master of your own time is more important than celebrity or wealth.

What has being a writer taught you?

The value of persistence. And the price of it, as well.

Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?

Joseph Heller, Ray Carver, Tobias Wolff, Paul Bowles, Freya Stark, Percy Fawcett, Enid Blyton, Esther Ransom, Winston Churchill, Siegfried Sassoon, whoever wrote The Vinland Saga,

What is the funniest scene you’ve read?

Winnie The Pooh, CHAPTER VIII, IN WHICH CHRISTOPHER ROBIN LEADS AN EXPOTITION TO THE NORTH POLE.

They had come to a stream which twisted and tumbled between high rocky banks, and Christopher Robin saw at once how dangerous it was.

“It’s just the place,” he explained, “for an Ambush.”

“What sort of bush?” whispered Pooh to Piglet. “A gorse-bush?”

“My dear Pooh,” said Owl in his superior way, “don’t you know what an Ambush is?”

“Owl,” said Piglet, looking round at him severely, “Pooh’s whisper was a perfectly private whisper, and there was no need----“

“An Ambush,” said Owl, “is a sort of Surprise.”

“So is a gorse-bush sometimes,” said Pooh.

What is your favourite word?

Barbarous, especially when muttered under one’s breath.

If you were to write a historical novel, which event or figure would be your subject?

Inspector Pekkala. Russia. In the time of the Great Terror.

The plot of Red Icon reminds me a little of Robert Harris’s Archangel. Have you read it or other Russian-set classics such as Gorky Park?

I haven’t read either of these books. I read all the time, but almost everything is non-fiction – biography, history or memoir – as research for whatever book I’m working on at the time. But I don’t read much fiction these days. I find no escape in it. I have become too aware of the artifice of its construction. It is like having unwanted X-ray vision. People I know who work in film have told me the same thing – you can’t willingly suspend your disbelief. I spend on average about five hours a day writing fiction. For me to then pick up a novel would be the equivalent of jogging all day and then going out for a jog to unwind. The last thing I would read is something in the same genre. The only fiction I have read recently are works by Anton Chekov, Lermontov and Sholokhov – to get a sense of the pace and timing of classic Russian narratives.