How to write a sequel
Sadly, most reviews (here, for example, and here) of T.R. Pearson's novel "Glad News of the Natural World" (which I discussed briefly below) focus on the plot. The plot is not very relevant, any more than it is in a Tim Burton movie. The point is the tapestry: for Burton, visual; for Pearson, linguistic.
Pearson has a unique voice: cynical but touching, garrulous yet concise, full of wild but appropriate metaphors. It has evolved over the last 20 years: not so naïve as when it belonged to 13-year-old Louis Benfield, jr., more open to cosmopolitan ideas and letdowns, and certainly more complicated.
On the other hand, the voice is exactly what troubles me about "Glad News" -- what makes it hard to believe *as a sequel,* which is its intent. The original book, "A Short History of a Small Place," was full of eloquent conversationalists and richly eccentric characters. The second Benfield book, "The Last of How It Was," added mouthwatering traditional Southern food.
Yet today's Louis Benfield is bored by conversations in Neely, hardly luxuriating in its characters, and disgusted by its bland modern food. And I'm thinking: what happened? If this is the grown-up boy, shouldn't he be pondering the reversal?
I think I know the problem: Pearson has admitted that he couldn't reread the original novel before writing the new one. He said it's always too painful to reread his own work: he wants to rewrite it all. I understand the dilemma: I hate rereading my old material. But if you want to write a sequel without such major disconnects, don't you have to?
I very much wanted that answer to be "yes." But then I started thinking about the meaning of a "sequel." We've come to understand the Hollywood version: a tired rehash of the same themes. But if a novel springs from the mind of a writer, you could also argue that the next novel to spring from that same mind is its sequel, regardless of how different they may seem.
On the other hand, that takes us down the dangerous road of fiction as autobiography. For years I wanted to meet T.R. Pearson, convinced that he *was* Louis Benfield, and Neely, NC, really did exist. Eventually I convinced myself he's not: he's a man who creates characters out of his imagination. That's what novelists do (and -- memo to celebrity magazines: -- actors too). We all have to find our own Neelys.
Perhaps that's what Pearson had in mind when he not only changed our view of the current town and characters, but dedicated it to Neelyites "wherever they may live."
I'm always interested in feedback, via info at johnclaytonbooks.dsot.csom
Pearson has a unique voice: cynical but touching, garrulous yet concise, full of wild but appropriate metaphors. It has evolved over the last 20 years: not so naïve as when it belonged to 13-year-old Louis Benfield, jr., more open to cosmopolitan ideas and letdowns, and certainly more complicated.
On the other hand, the voice is exactly what troubles me about "Glad News" -- what makes it hard to believe *as a sequel,* which is its intent. The original book, "A Short History of a Small Place," was full of eloquent conversationalists and richly eccentric characters. The second Benfield book, "The Last of How It Was," added mouthwatering traditional Southern food.
Yet today's Louis Benfield is bored by conversations in Neely, hardly luxuriating in its characters, and disgusted by its bland modern food. And I'm thinking: what happened? If this is the grown-up boy, shouldn't he be pondering the reversal?
I think I know the problem: Pearson has admitted that he couldn't reread the original novel before writing the new one. He said it's always too painful to reread his own work: he wants to rewrite it all. I understand the dilemma: I hate rereading my old material. But if you want to write a sequel without such major disconnects, don't you have to?
I very much wanted that answer to be "yes." But then I started thinking about the meaning of a "sequel." We've come to understand the Hollywood version: a tired rehash of the same themes. But if a novel springs from the mind of a writer, you could also argue that the next novel to spring from that same mind is its sequel, regardless of how different they may seem.
On the other hand, that takes us down the dangerous road of fiction as autobiography. For years I wanted to meet T.R. Pearson, convinced that he *was* Louis Benfield, and Neely, NC, really did exist. Eventually I convinced myself he's not: he's a man who creates characters out of his imagination. That's what novelists do (and -- memo to celebrity magazines: -- actors too). We all have to find our own Neelys.
Perhaps that's what Pearson had in mind when he not only changed our view of the current town and characters, but dedicated it to Neelyites "wherever they may live."
I'm always interested in feedback, via info at johnclaytonbooks.dsot.csom
