#10
Oct 27, 2002
From: Albert

I just finished reading Solitaire. It was a very powerful book. Halfway through, I almost did not continue—I did not see how Jackal could do anything worthwhile after the elevator event. But I persevered, and enjoyed the conclusion very much.

While I see the need for the direct plot line, I guess I was a bit disappointed that Steel Breeze never came in for much attention. Surely someone in that organization must have set up Jackal. But why?

I hope to see another novel (or many more) from you!

I'm certainly glad you didn't stop reading: I wanted to affect readers, but not like that.

When I stop reading a book, it's usually because it's terribly written, or personally offensive, or because I feel the writer has done something to mutilate the book and twist the story beyond repair. Good writing draws me into the head and heart of the characters: bad writing can push me right out, no matter how much I want to engage with the story. Offending me is harder to do, but certainly possible: the only books I've ever actually thrown away were, for example, 50 pages of one episode after another of sexual and emotional brutalization (all 300 pages of this particular book might have been like this, who knows? I didn't get that far). I find this sort of thing offensive because it's lazy and self-indulgent, in my opinion. I've read equally disturbing scenes in books that upset me, and that I might have a hard time reading again, but they weren't gratuitous: they were specific, written to make clear both the circumstance and consequence, and part of a larger context (rather than the entire context). Writers who think whole novels "about" victimization are deep and meaningful are fooling themselves, but they don't fool me.

Then there's the story-gone-wrong. This one's harder to pin down, but the best example I give is actually from the movie Alien 3. I adored Alien and Aliens: I found them suspenseful, frightening, and well-made, with characters that I cared about. The movies had an internal consistency that impressed me: the Ripley of Aliens was the same woman, but she'd clearly been affected by her experience in ways that directly shaped her actions in the second movie.

And then came Alien 3. What a bunch of crap. In just a couple of hours, everything that was meaningful about Ripley was destroyed. The connections she fought for (with Newt, Hicks and Bishop) are severed even before the credits finish rolling; the fact that she's a woman is made an issue for the first time in the story arc, in ways that are almost entirely unpleasant; she's rendered helpless; she's raped; she's impregnated with a baby alien; she loses her guts to the point that she can't take her own life (by which time I'm thinking, who are you and what have you done with my Ripley?) And her amazingly brave struggle of the first two movies ends with an alien bursting out of her chest. Perhaps some postmodernists would call this "deconstruction" and find it artistically meaningful, but I thought it was bullshit. I am still thoroughly annoyed by this movie, can you tell? But it wasn't badly written or even particularly offensive in any of its elements: it was simply wrong.

And so I am relieved that this was not your experience with Solitaire. The elevator episode was tricky for me, and involved a fair amount of is this really the right way to go? consideration before I wrote it. Writing it was a bit like chewing tinfoil.

The elevator event has also indirectly engendered some interesting responses in reviewers (and, I assume, readers). Most reviews state that Jackal has been framed. They even go so far as to say "unfairly convicted" or "something she didn't do." Some perceive that she's been deliberately put into this position by Ko as punishment. Et cetera.

I'm not sure how to feel about this. I tried to create an ambivalent situation with this plot element, and either I did a great job or a lousy job. It doesn't matter to the overall story arc what interpretation the reader takes away (she was framed, she was set up, she was an innocent victim, etc.), but it does matter to me that I didn't communicate it well. You've already put your finger on part of it—I didn't want the book to become the story of How Steel Breeze Did It. But the other part must be that I didn't give enough pointers.

And now I can't talk about this without spoilers.

SPOILER ALERT. BIG SPOILER ALERT.

Okay, so here's what my intention was: Steel Breeze has in fact already created the assassination scenario, with one of the two elevator attendants prepared to carry out the attack (if you'll recall, one turns up dead and the other is missing after the event). In the meantime, Jackal has had too much to drink, and is not thinking clearly, particularly with the stress of seeing her web in danger. And she pushes the wrong button. She makes a mistake.

If she hadn't pushed the button, then the attendant would have carried out the original plan, and the ambasssador would have gone down anyway. Would the other elevators have been targeted? We don't know—maybe yes, maybe no. We do know that Jackal is in no way a terrorist. Steel Breeze didn't even know she was going to be there, and they didn't care about her: they were after the ambassador. They saw the chance to use her after the fact, and jumped on it (I have a very clear picture of Sheila Donoghue in a communication strategy meeting laying it out for Breeze's media contacts). And Ko couldn't afford the bad blood with China, so they gave her up.

But the fact remains that Jackal is responsible. She is not guilty of terrorism or murder, but she is guilty of the deaths. She was incorrectly convicted of the crimes she was charged with, but she is not blameless.

So there you are. This whole bit of plotting was pretty frustrating for me—took me ages to work it all out to my satisfaction, and even more time to decide how much information to include in the book. The elevator scene is a pivotal point, where plot, character, action and consequence intersect with a bang. I needed an event that would strip Jackal of her people, her company, her desire to defend herself, and then propel her into VC. It had to carry a lot of weight, and I think I showed more skill in creating the emotional structure than I did the plot structure. It's been a big writing lesson, one that I'm chewing over as I begin work on my new book.

Jackal's life changed forever in the random intersection of her carelessness and Steel Breeze's machinations. Later in the story, she imagines everyone in the world as colored beads in a bowl, knocking against each other, leaving dents. That, for me, is a metaphor for the elevator scene.

#9
Sep 29, 2002
From: Sam

I know what I'm reading <smile>. What are you reading at the moment?

Lately I'm reading across a spectrum of genre and concern, and that's about to become even more wacky: I'm making a research list for my new novel, which will include the geology and biology of Midwestern or Northwestern lakes; the art of Norman Rockwell; left- and right-brain neural functionality; cognitive development in adolescence; and who knows what else?

But until those start rolling in from the library, I've been enjoying From A Buick 8 by Stephen King. He's so audacious and damn stubborn in his determination to put pure-D horror and subtle emotional metaphor in the same room and make them get along. I admire him immensely for this. When it works, the result is wacky, thrilling, thoughtful and grown-up, all at the same time. Even the moments that (IMO) miss this high-water mark still resonate for me.

I just read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (me and about a million other people). It's a good book, lovely writing and some amazing moments. I think it wobbles at the end and loses some focus, but that's a matter of taste, and is also a relative criticism, sort of like saying that someone hung the Matisse a few inches off center.

I am also reading a bunch of non-fiction about American Sign Language and Deaf culture, because I've been studying ASL. I'm about to get more serious about it-- in January I'll enter a 4-year program to study ASL and interpreting. It's a beautiful and eloquent language, and its linguistics fascinate me.

On the "read me soon" pile: The Fourth Treasure, by Todd and Linda Shimoda; Embrace the Mutation: Fiction Inspired by the Art of J.K. Potter (anthology, edited by Bill Sheehan and William Schafer. I'm guessing I'll need to fasten my seat belt for this one); The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon; and A.M. Homes short stories.