Interview with Katherine Neville

I must confess. For me, most board games are about as much fun to play as watching paint dry. I haven’t quite figured out the novelty except for the fact that if you don’t like the way things are going, you can just start all over again. Now come to think of it, wouldn’t it be great if we could just do that with the stock market? Oh, if only we could.

All kidding aside, I think my distaste for these types of games really has to do with my ignorance. Take chess for instance. I’d be the first to admit that I just don’t get it. I even have gone so far as to buy the children’s version in hopes that the elementary instruction would help me see the light. No luck! I was as confused as ever.

But, lo and behold! This month’s Jen’s Jewels came to my rescue. Katherine Neville is the Internationally Bestselling Author of THE EIGHT which was released over twenty years ago. Her groundbreaking novel dared to incorporate various genres into one storyline that paved the way for such phenomenal  page-turners as Dan Brown’s THE DA VINCI CODE. Her latest release, THE FIRE, is the highly anticipated sequel which once again takes the reader jet-setting across the globe in search of Charlemagne’s most prized possession… the Montglane Chess Service. From knights to queens, this novel is pure historical pleasure. And, I am proud to say, that my knowledge of chess has taken a giant leap forward thanks to my new friend. (Just in case you’re wondering, you do not have to read THE EIGHT first. While connected, each novel does stand alone.)

As part of this interview, Ballantine Books has graciously donated five copies for you, my lucky readers, to win. So don’t forget to look for the trivia question at the end.

Now sit back, relax, and be prepared to be swept away by the exceptional talent of Katherine Neville.

Jen: Sometimes to get from here to there can require taking quite a circuitous route. The same could be said of your stellar career. So that my readers can have a better understanding of the journey which led to you becoming an author, please tell us a little bit about your educational and professional background.

Katherine: My career wasn't especially stellar--unless you consider a roller coaster ride to be stellar. I had to work for a living full- time at various jobs throughout college and later in grad school (which explains the mediocre grades I often made.)--mostly, later on, in the computer field.

During those 22 years, whenever the economy took a turn for the worse I often was laid off from jobs or fired, so I quickly learned to keep my resume dusted off and placed around various parts of the country, and I was always prepared to relocate at the drop of a job offer--even to outside the country. Meanwhile, I always took whatever work there might be in the place where I was living, and learned not to mind too much if neither the job nor the pay was very glamorous. I was a busboy and a waiter, also a model, photographer, portrait painter, and so on.

It was pretty rocky most of the time. I went through a lot of jobs, careers, cities--even boyfriends--but it certainly gleaned lots of material for future novels.

I only quit working for good when I had sold my first two books (A CALCULATED RISK and THE EIGHT) to my publisher, Ballantine. But I still haven't really settled down.

Jen: One of the most challenging aspects of writing a debut novel is deciding in which genre the author’s voice best suits. Twenty years ago when you first came on the scene, you defied the stereotypical boundaries and put forth a novel entitled THE EIGHT that encompassed nearly them all. What was the driving force behind you taking the bull by the horns? At any point did you waver or lean towards going in just one direction?

Katherine: Actually, the reason it took me so long to do my first novel was that I really felt I needed the right STRUCTURE to tell the kinds of stories that I loved to read and that I wanted to write. I went through several university "creative writing" programs which did not give me the tools that I knew I needed. But I knew what kind of books I loved to read and it seemed that nobody who knew how to write them was still alive.

I confess--though I am a gluttonous reader--I was so ignorant of the book world that I didn't even know what a "genre" was until after my first book was published. All I knew was that bookstores had a Literature section and a Fiction section.

My book was regarded as so outré--so outside of any mold--that my first fan letters, if you can call them that, came from my fellow authors--mainly asking me "How did you get them (the publishers) to let you get away with it?"

But in fact, the kind of book I'm writing does have a genre that is, thankfully, making a comeback just now:

It's called a Quest novel and it's as old as literature itself: THE ODYSSEY, JASON AND THE GOLDEN FLEECE, PARSIFAL AND THE HOLY GRAIL--and the oldest of all, GILGAMESH AND THE QUEST FOR THE ELIXIR OF LIFE. I'm really delighted to see so many of my fellow authors tromping around in the same pasture now. But I still hope it doesn't become so "specialized" that we have to give it a category and a bunch of prizes.

The kinds of books I love to read are inspiring and just plain fun. The test for me is whether I want to read them again the moment I'm done.

Jen: Your latest release, THE FIRE, took twenty years in the making. Why such a long time to write the sequel to THE EIGHT? If you could do it all over again, would you still have waited so long? Why or why not?

Katherine: I always say that I don't write my books--they write themselves. Or at least they decide when to be written. I thought of HOW to write the sequel to THE EIGHT in July of 1992. As it turns out, the book refused to be written then— THE MAGIC CIRCLE was clamoring in the bottom drawer, demanding to be written--so I wrote THE MAGIC CIRCLE instead, about the turning of an aeon or 2000-year cycle. (In 1998--just in time for the ACTUAL aeon!)

Then on a sunny day in September a few years later, a plane hit the Pentagon just across the river from my apartment, and I knew that I was not writing the book I thought I was writing. You can't write the sequel to a book about Arabs and oil and Islam and the Middle East when real events are unfolding all around you that are going to impact what you are writing about.

Then while I was waiting to see what would unfold--we began the war in Baghdad. The very place where the mysterious chess set of Charlemagne was created 1200 years earlier--the chess set I created for the plot of THE EIGHT!

So the event most critical to the plot of THE FIRE had just taken place--on that first week of April, 2003.

Jen: I have said in previous columns that in order to make a storyline ring true with readers, there must be at least some amount of research incorporated into the book. For you, this statement must seem trite. Your novels are rich in history and factual information. So, let’s talk about the other extreme. How do keep it fresh while still interspersing the story with so much historical background? Katherine: I read the actual journals, letters, memoirs, and eyewitness reports about or by the real historic figures I use as characters. But more important--I go there. I always tell young aspiring authors the two most important things they need to write a book: get a job and get a Eurail Pass.

I've actually lived and worked in most of the places I write about--Russia, Germany, North Africa, New York, San Francisco, Idaho, and Colorado. When I haven't been there at all, I try to get film footage. I had extensive film footage of the Alaska and Eastern Russia scenes in THE FIRE.

And I lived in a place in DC--where I set most of THE FIRE--that's so obscure it isn't even on most maps yet!

Jen: And to tack on to that last question, approximately how much of THE FIRE is historically accurate? And what, if any, liberties did you take in creating this riveting page-turner?

Katherine: Well, I must admit that I'm not trying to write true history. I feel that any obligation to report fact in my books should be mitigated by the two words on the jacket: A Novel.

Having said that, almost everything in both the historic and modern parts of my books is well grounded in factual elements, right down to the ingredients in the soup.

But I stress my feeling that if readers approach the book and begin by assuming that everything in the book is invented by me, then they’ll be really delighted. Should they do any further research on their own, they would discover how much of it is not just factual, but actually little-known, highly fascinating trivia about things that really occurred--things that they'd have great trouble finding out elsewhere.

So many events like that happened in THE FIRE that I wouldn't know where to begin. Some of the early topics that early readers of THE FIRE had expressed interest in include:

- Catherine the Great's explorations of Siberia, Alaska, and North America; - "Secret Societies" throughout history which appear in my books; - and- -because of my love of cooking and because Alexandra Solarin is an apprentice chef in THE FIRE--many little- known things about Food and Wine in both THE EIGHT and THE FIRE.

Jen: You have mentioned that in your latest release, THE FIRE, (which is fabulous by the way) that the storyline took an abrupt turn after your meeting with the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Treasury. Please tell us about its significance in relation to the evolution of the novel.

Katherine: As a fiction writer, you often think you made something up--and suddenly find out that what you invented exists or has maybe just happened.

One example from THE EIGHT is that after Talleyrand and my heroine Mireille had a child that I invented (Talleyrand had plenty of illegitimate children I could have used), I discovered that Talleyrand actually did arrive one day from the hot springs at Bourbon, where he went each summer, with a 5-year-old child-- "Charlotte la Mysterieuse"--whom he raised as his own daughter, but whose parentage was never disclosed. So I'd given her an instant family tree!

In researching THE FIRE, the most interesting was getting an invitation from a reader for a private lunch and tour of the US Treasury. The "reader" said he'd been inspired to master chess while reading my book THE EIGHT while he was in Kuwait and is now none other than the Chief of Staff of Treasury. After lunch, I asked how it happened that he had mastered chess in Kuwait. He said, I read your book in Kuwait-- but I mastered chess in Baghdad. I said, Baghdad! So what was he doing in Baghdad? It turns out that as assistant to Tommy Franks he was one of the first to enter the city when the war first began.

So I knew, sitting there at the table that I wasn't there to visit the secret bunkers of Treasury at all. My book wanted me to find out about Baghdad -- because that's where the Montglane Service, (the chess set of Charlemagne I invented in THE EIGHT) was originally created--in 775 AD! Serendipity!

Jen: The game of chess could possibly be touted as one of the main characters in THE FIRE. A question I just have to ask…are you an avid player? What do you find most fascinating about this game?

Katherine: I'm terrible at chess--largely because I learned too late, not until age 18 or so. I once checkmated a boyfriend without realizing he was even in check (a scene that I use at a critical point in THE FIRE.) And I also have experienced the same "chess blindness" as the heroine, kind of like vertigo. So I was able to describe it from my heroine's point of view, firsthand.

I do find chess the most fascinating game and not just as a metaphor or a symbolic model of the universe, but also, as you mentioned, it's a living breathing thing that is a part of the player's physical and thought process-- and here, as with anything else required to be a competitor, you are first competing to better yourself.

I should mention, too, that part of the first-edition proceeds for THE FIRE are being awarded to SPICE--grandmaster Susan Polgar's Institute for Chess Excellence at Texas Tech--which trains young people--especially girls--among other things in how to deploy tools like tactics, strategy, and Promethean perception that they can acquire through chess.

Jen: As I read THE FIRE, I was intrigued by your choice of such colorful secondary characters that added just the right amount of panache to the novel. Which one was the most enjoyable to conjure up? Which one was the most challenging and why?

Katherine: When you have as many characters as I often have, they have to step out onto the page full of life and juice, the heroes as well as the villains, so you will remember--even if don't they appear again until 300 pages later -- exactly who they are.

So it should come as no surprise that my favorite supporting actress in THE FIRE is Nokomis Key. She's the kind of chick that every girl who was a tomboy growing up would have loved to have as a sidekick-pal.

In fact, I consider myself very fortunate to have known a lot of women--even back when most girls were still addicted to crinolines, mascara, and "catching a man," way before "women's lib.” I knew women from the generation before mine who did all kinds of things like Nokomis--flying on their own, not whining, not afraid to take risks.

The most challenging was Sage Livingston. We've all known people who are born- again cheerleaders, socialites, prom queens. It's hard to imagine one of them being multi-dimensional enough to act like a Rottweiler.

But that was then, of course. Life recapitulates fiction.

Jen: Alexandra Solarin, the central figure in the book, has many crosses to bear. What are her greatest strengths? Weaknesses? What makes her the ultimate player in this international game of suspense that will ultimately decide the fate of her family and the world?

Katherine: Alexandra Solarin is a person who, due to the circumstances of her parents' involvements in the previous book, has been cast into a soup tureen surrounded by mysterious ingredients that she knows nothing about.

Her greatest weakness is that she would like to blot out the one great tragedy of her past that changed her life and (she believes) created her as the girl she is today. Her greatest strength is that--when she realizes that this very tragedy is the key to everything else--she is willing to jump back into the fray. She is wiling to suspect people she loves and to trust people she always believed she hated.

Only by taking off our rose-colored glasses, and also those dark-tinted ones that filter our observations with prejudices, are we able to see the Big Picture. In one week of her life, Alexandra is willing to give up her perceptions--even her beliefs--about everyone and everything, and to take a fresh look at real events as they unfold around her.

Jen: Peppered throughout the book are numerous mind games or brain twisters, if you will. Were these clever ruses the product of your imagination or from research? How were you able to piece together these elements of the story without losing sight of the end product?

Katherine: All the puzzles in my books come from research, though my research is not usually from a book. For instance, the first puzzle in THE FIRE--the phone number puzzle--came from a puzzle posed by a Middle Eastern physicist, at a cocktail party in Virginia for a bunch of engineering professors. The minute I heard it, I told him, "That puzzle is appearing in my book!" It fit so perfectly with the fact that the entire story of THE FIRE has to do with a chessboard--with an altar where things are transformed--not just with a game. That's what I mean by serendipity.

Jen: When you finally typed the words "The End" was there a sense of sadness having to say good-bye to these characters? I think they must have become a part of your life having taken twenty years to come to fruition. And also, how have you grown as a writer in respect to your first novel, THE EIGHT, to its sequel, THE FIRE?

Katherine: I'm always happy to say "End Game" in a book. Maybe it's because I always know what the last sentence is before I start writing the first sentence.

But as for THE FIRE, Alexandra and Vartan are the only characters I really wasn't ready to leave at the end of the book. I felt that--although my publisher and I and all my fellow authors who wrote comments definitely felt that the book was over--these two still had more that they wanted to say.

Who knows what or when it may be?

Jen: Please tell us about your website. Do you have e-mail notification of upcoming releases? Do you participate in author phone chats? And if so, how would my readers go about arranging one? Do you have a blog?

Katherine: Gosh--I must confess that I am definitely a Blog Virgin. When I set up www.KatherineNeville.com, ten years ago, I had never even seen, much less sent, an email. Today, my website is full of podcasts, trailers, quizzes, photos, Q and A, reader-oriented editorials and essays. We will soon have a newsletter. It's great!

Jen: Are you currently at work on your next release? If so, what can you tell us about it?

Katherine: It's a book I've been involved in for more than 20 years-- about painters in the 1600s and the present. The smell of the oil paint--the scent of the book! I already have my easel out in preparation…

Jen: Thank you so much for sharing your superb talent with my readers. I have to say, you have broadened my scope of world history and sparked a renewed interest in the world in which we live. Please stop by again. Best of luck in your future!

Katherine: Hugs from here!

I hope you have enjoyed my interview with Katherine. Please stop by your favorite bookstore or local library today and pick up a copy of THE FIRE.

Okay, it’s time for the trivia question. Enter the correct answer to the following question and you could be ONE of FIVE winners!

Name the main character in THE FIRE. (click here to enter answer)

Later this month, I will be bringing to you a very special interview with Karen White. Her latest release, THE HOUSE ON TRADD STREET is set in one of my favorite cities…Charleston, SC. You won’t want to miss it.

Until next time…Jen

When a twist of fate landed Jennifer at the "Reading with Ripa" roundtable discussion with Kelly Ripa and Meg Cabot, she knew that her career as a French teacher would essentially be over. Instead, she figured out a clever way to combine her love for reading and writing and "voilà" She became a book reviewer and columnist with www.freshfiction.com. On the sidelines, her parents secretly hoped that her French degree from Vanderbilt would one day come in handy and Jennifer is happy to report that the phrases ‘Je ne sais pas' and ‘C'est incroyable!' have been quite useful when reviewing certain selections! As is typical in her whirlwind life, one thing led to another and soon she found herself facilitating a popular moms' book club and writing a column she cleverly named Jen's Jewels. (Jewelry is one of her many addictions, as is the color pink and Lilly Pulitzer, which when you think about it, would probably make for a good story! Hint! Hint! ) To keep herself away from her favorite retailer, Ann Taylor, she serves on the Board of Trustees of the Harford County Public Library in Maryland. As a national trainer for The Arthritis Foundation's Aquatic and Land Exercise Classes, she is an advocate for those like herself who suffer from arthritis, the nation's #1 cause of disability. When asked how she manages to do all of these things and actually get some sleep at night, she simply replied, "It's just Par for the Course." Hmm! Now where have we heard that before?