Author Leslie Croxford is back for a new interview. Today, we’re chatting about his new psychological thriller, Another Man.
You can check out his interview about Deep Sahara, here.
Bio:
Leslie Croxford is a British writer born in Alexandria, Egypt. He resides in Cairo, where he is Senior Vice-President of the British University in Egypt. He obtained a doctorate in History from Cambridge University and has written two novels, Solomon’s Folly and Deep Sahara.
Welcome back to Reviews and Interviews, Leslie. Please tell us about your newest release.
Frank Ward, a research historian troubled by his own past and a sense of emptiness, returns to a Spanish pueblo to celebrate the publication of his first book. Unexpectedly discovering that Albert Speer s wartime driver had convalesced there after years as a Russian POW, Frank plunges into an attempt to penetrate the mystery of Speer the so-called ‘Good Nazi’-beyond the extent of his crimes. Consequently, he is drawn into a series of intense encounters in the pueblo where Speer and his driver, although deceased, continue to influence events. Amongst the people he meets are the cheerful owner of his pensión; a malevolent archaeologist; an Argentine pianist and his estranged ballerina wife … and Paloma, their captivating daughter, with whom Frank stands a chance to rediscover love. Leslie Croxford’s third novel is a complex, carefully braided story of emotional wounding and healing, one in which Frank seeks to become what Speer sought, but failed to be: another man.
What inspired you to write this book?
I had been reading Speer – The Final Verdict by Joachim Fest – which turns out not to have been the final verdict after all. It speaks of Speer, while travelling to stop German industry from implementing Hitler’s scorched earth decree at the end of the War, having to hide for hours in forests and ditches from allied bombers. I wondered how he, architect and Minister of Armaments, could possibly have come to terms in these moments with the destruction of everything he had built and been.
I shared my thoughts with my agent at the time in an Italian restaurant near the Charles Hotel in Harvard. Coincidentally, at the next table, speaking loudly since he had become very deaf, was Kenneth Galbraith, the economist, who had interviewed Speer. (He never believed Speer’s story that he had only very limited knowledge of the Nazi ‘s crimes.) And as my thoughts of that lunch reverberated, I began writing my novel Another Man.
What’s the next writing project?
I am just finishing From Madrid to Heaven, (De Madrid Al Cielo) a volume of short stories set in Madrid, in its triangle between Madrid, Lisbon and Tangier.
I have also begun a new novel set in Egypt between its opposed poles, namely the Great Egyptian Museum by the pyramids, unearthing artifacts from the tombs, and avant garde art housed in a makeshift gallery in downtown Cairo.
What is your biggest challenge when writing a new book? (or the biggest challenge with this book)
I realized that the image with which I started Another Man did not convey what I thought it did: Speer’s sense of emptiness at the destruction of all he had built and been. This did not come to him until much later, during his twenty years of imprisonment in Spandau. This then forced me to trace the long-standing personal void that prevented him from facing such a feeling of emptiness.
As a result, I did not focus on how much Speer knew of Nazi crimes, especially since it is now established that he knew essentially everything. I turned instead to the nature of his emptiness, as well as to whether such a thing can be overcome and if life ever offers second chances.
If your novels require research – please talk about the process. Do you do the research first and then write, while you’re writing, after the novel is complete and you need to fill in the gaps?
I was trained as a research historian. As such I learned to await such information and explanations as the systematic study of archives yields. But my experience of writing a novel is quite different. This even becomes a theme in Another Man since the main character is an historian ultimately preferring to write fiction. A novel, rather than starting with an aspect of past reality for which historians seek evidence, intending to describe and explain, starts – for me – with an image. It acquires meaning through imagination using whatever means are at hand. These may well include books and documents. But the novelist’s use of them is very different from the historian’s. It is selective and haphazard.
What’s your writing space like? Do you have a particular spot to write where the muse is more active? Please tell us about it.
I have written in many places over the years. Recently it has been my study in the duplex apartment where my wife and I live on the outskirts of Cairo, near the pyramids, and at the mouth of the road taking one in two hours to Alexandria. But whether at home, in other people’s houses, or hotels, my experience of writing has this in common. I begin as soon after I get up in the morning as possible, profiting from whatever part of my mind is still connected to dreaming. I write less easily as the associations of the day accumulate. And I like to write in a room with the door closed. I hope this isn’t just because I’m antisocial. I think it aids complete absorption in writing.
On this matter of concentration, I used to play music. Now I never do. It interferes with the rhythm of the sentences.
What authors do you enjoy reading within or outside of your genre?
Apart from the classics, which I also read, I am drawn to novels outside my tradition. Maybe it is fear of influence, or a desire to breath different air.
I enjoy reading Japanese authors. I read Kawabata’s Snow Country but it keeps giving me the slip. I can never quite get it into focus. And I could not put down Akira Yoshimura’s Shipwrecks. It is a perfect novel.
Anything additional you want to share with the readers today?
On September the 1st, 2021 it will be 40 years since Albert Speer died of a stroke.
Norman Stone, the historian, who interviewed him for the BBC in London wrote:
“Speer was having a rendezvous with the German wife of a British army officer. He had said to his publisher, Wolf Jobst Siedler, that he had had to wait until the age of seventy to have a real erotic experience, although there was a wife with six children in the background. In what circumstances he had his stroke, we do not know. Although I had seen him just two or three hours before he collapsed, I saw no warning signs.”
Thank you for coming back to Reviews and Interviews!