Not that any of that work is finished, but it’s finally settling down into something of a routine, which means not only that there's a smidgen of time left over to get back to sharing my thoughts here on writing, but there's also finally a chance to get to work on the next novel.
With regard to the next work, I have knocked around ideas for quite a while, some of them conventional mysteries (like Cadaver Blues), others of a more literary bent. But I keep coming back to what makes Primacy a compelling and penetrating novel (if the early blurbs are to be believed) and what deeply interests me: writing thrillers that, although they're primarily entertainment, force readers to confront aspects of our shared values that are ripe for reexamination.
In Primacy, of course, I highlighted the tragedy of animal testing by imagining a bonobo that had developed the ability to speak and been discovered in a lab. The next book, tentatively entitled Propinquity, doesn’t require science fiction for its plot to get off the ground. It’s more about what we humans do to one another.
If anyone’s still out there, I hope you’ll join me on my new journey.
