Amazon.de Interview, September 05

For an assortment of reasons, the new book, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, is being published first in Germany, as of September 6th, 2005 - Ein Hauch von Schnee und Asche. Consequently, the German Amazon site, amazon.de, asked me if I would write a letter to the German readers, and answer a few interview questions for their site. Since their version of my response has been translated into German on their site, I thought perhaps it would be interesting to supply the English version here:

Dear Amazon.de customers-

Thanks so much for your interest in my new book! I’ve had some literary critics describe my books as “Harry Potter for Grownups,” and I suppose this might be true, as I see Mr. Potter and myself are presently neck-and-neck in the amazon.de ratings. (I’m fond of the Harry Potter books myself-though I will say in all modesty that I think my own books have better sex scenes. On the other hand…who wants to have sex with trolls or hippogriffs? (that’s a rhetorical question; if you do have such desires, please keep them to yourself.))

People have been asking me questions for the last three years about Ein Hauch von Schnee und Asche: Will the house burn down? Will Jamie (or Claire, or both) die? Will we find out whose Jemmy’s father really is? Will we learn what happened to Ian’s Mohawk wife and child? Will Roger get his voice back? And for three years, I’ve been saying, “Wait and see.” [g]

But now the wait is over, and you can. I do hope you’ll enjoy it!

Best wishes,

--Diana

P.S. I hope you’ll all enjoy the book-and no, it is not the last one in the series-there’s one more, at least, perhaps two-but do please be thoughtful of your friends who can’t drop everything right away to read it; there are a lot of Big Surprises in this book (and even more small ones), so if you do want to talk about them in your comments here, please be so kind as to put a “SPOILER” notice on your message? Thank you!

Question: A Breath of Snow and Ashes is the sequel to the great saga of Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall. The plot starts in 1772, just before the American Revolution. Which challenges have the protagonists to meet this time?

Answer: Oh, quite a few. [g] The only thing I knew, when I began writing novels, was that a good story must have conflict. Now I know a few more things, but that’s still the one best thing I know.

I can’t detail everything, of course, because that would ruin the story, but for starters…

Well, there is a big, fat war coming along, of course, and people behave badly under those conditions. House-burning, murder, rape, assault, tar-and-feathers…and that’s before the serious shooting starts.

And then there are the Cherokee Indians, who might fight for the Crown-or they might not, depending on what they think of either side. At the moment, they rather like Jamie, but if he goes on refusing the naked women the peace chief keeps leaving in his bed, that could change…

Then there’s the young soldier with an “M” branded on his face (for “Murderer")” and a bad case of hemorrhoids….

The mystery of Young Ian (Jamie’s nephew) and just what did happen to his Mohawk wife and child…

A plague of amoebic dysentery, and some public-health concerns about syphilis, which leads Claire to make Jamie take her to visit the local brothel (“If it’s the two of you,” the madam observes, “that’ll be a pound extra.”)…

Dr. Fentiman and his renowned collection of pickled deformities (Claire takes him an gouged-out eyeball, preserved in spirits of wine, as a token of goodwill)…

Ten thousand pounds of French gold that seems to have been stolen by a wandering ghost…

A mysterious slave-ship, reeking in the night, and a rendezvous at the dark of the moon…

A forgeress with a penchant for gambling, a gaoler’s wife with a penchant for gin, and a sullen slave with a penchant for infanticide…

A baby named “Rogerina” and what Brianna does about it…

An Irishman who comes and goes like a will-o-the-wisp, but is inclined to appear in the most inconvenient places…

And then, of course, there’s that sinister newspaper clipping that says the house on Fraser’s Ridge will be destroyed by fire in 1776, killing everyone. But will it? (As Jamie observes, “If ye ken the house is meant to burn down on a given day-why would ye stand in it?”)

Only time will tell. [g]

Question: You once said that you remain true to Claire and Jamie because they evolve through every new book. What is their evolution like this time?

Answer: Well, they’re in their middle years now, and so are dealing with physical and familial changes (not always their physical changes), both of them finding their marriage a constant source of joy, comfort, humor, and passion-as well as a source of aggravation, horror, grief, and danger.

Question: Claire comes from the 20th century. Is it always an advantage to be able to foresee events, or can it also become a kind of a curse?

Answer: Well, now, there’s a loaded question if I ever saw one. [g] As anyone who’s read any of the preceding volumes in the series could tell you, time-travel is a distinctly mixed blessing. Whether the benefits of knowing about germs and vitamins outweigh the difficulties of knowing the outcome of wars-but not the means by which that outcome arrives-well, all I can offer is the text of the Prologue:

Prologue

Time is a lot of the things people say that God is. There’s the always preexisting, and having no end. There’s the notion of being all powerful--because nothing can stand against time, can it? Not mountains, not armies.

And time is, of course, all-healing. Give anything enough time, and everything is taken care of; all pain encompassed, all hardship erased, all loss subsumed.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Remember, Man, that thou art dust; and unto dust thou shalt return.

And if Time is anything akin to God, I suppose that Memory must be the Devil.

(I should perhaps note that all of my books have Prologues. People often ask me who is speaking in the Prologue? To which I reply that to me, the Prologue is the voice of the book itself.)

Question: Referring to the increasing length of your novels you once said: “It just gets worse and worse.” What happened this time?

Answer: Well, I swore that the new book would be shorter than Das Flammende Kreuz (The Fiery Cross), because that book is really just about at the limit of what it’s physically possible to publish and bind. [g]

And I am happy to report that I succeeded in this effort. The Fiery Cross is 508,000 words (in English)-exactly the same length as Sho-Gun, as I helpfully pointed out to my publisher at the time-while Ein Hauch von Schnee und Asche is only 499,000!

Question: For you the night-shifts seem to be the most productive periods of writing. Is that due to your “biological rhythm”, or rather a concession to being a mother of three children?

Answer: No, it’s my natural biorhythm. I’ve always been most clear-headed and creative late at night. It’s just that having children makes it reasonable (to the rest of the world) that one should need to work at night.

Question: You made an academic career, worked on scientific computation, wrote for the Walt Disney comic program and raised a bunch of children. Did you ever fail at something?

Answer: Well, I can’t dance, and I’m a terrible athlete. I can’t even play badminton.

Question: You have sold seven million books in Germany alone. Many of your fans consider themselves addicted. Have you - given your knowledge in behavioural biology - ever researched this phenomenon?

Answer: Not formally researched, no. [g] I haven’t got time for that sort of thing, what with writing, book-tours, interview questions [cough]….people do ask me, though, why I think readers are so enthusiastic about the books.

I can only reply with what the readers themselves tell me they like about the books: some delight in the accuracy of the historical research, because they like to feel as though they’re learning something while being entertained (God forbid you should read a book merely for fun, eh? [g]); some love the wealth of Scottish lore and background, many are enchanted by the medical details of Claire’s unorthodox practice. Lots of them like the excitement of the storyline-the adventures, battles, encounters with the supernatural, and so on. Many of them like the humor; many like the romance of the various love-stories that weave through the books. And a lot of the less-inhibited readers tell me that they really like the sex. [cough]

By and large, though, what most people seem to like about the books is simply the characters. (As one person wrote to me, “What I like about your characters is that they’re mentally healthy. I can’t stand reading depressing stories about dysfunctional people!” [g]) Readers feel that Jamie, Claire, their family and friends, are all real people, and they want to know what’s going to happen to them.

Since that’s what I think myself, I’m in complete agreement. [g]