Leo joins the Fire Brigade

Yesterday (and again today) Leo wandered into our local Fire Station uninvited. Fortunately a very nice fireman there showed him around. Careers advice is now surplus to requirements, at least for the time being. Well, at least I can breathe easy that my eldest doesn't want to be a writer...

I’m sorry, I’ll read that again…

There are currently two audio book versions of The Einstein Girl on the market: an unabridged version in English, produced by Oakhill Publishing; and an abridged version in German produced by DAV.  Two weeks ago I took delivery of the former and have been listening to it whenever I get the chance – which usually means in the car going to or from the shops. Made up of 12 CDs in all, it plays out at 15 hours and 2 minutes. At the current rate I should be through it by the end of September.

My experience of audio books in the past has been very mixed. Carriers was brutally abridged but vividly read by the American actor John Glover (he who, in Annie Hall, said he wanted to die by being “torn apart by wild animals”); Omega was carefully abridged and beautifully read by the actor/director/screenwriter Campbell Scott. Other productions have been more workaday; and there is one I’ve never listened to for more than five minutes because the folksy intonation of the reader is just too irritating. My conclusion? A good audio book can work as well or even better than the regular kind, if it’s well done. A bad audio book is like listening to an opera performed by frogs.

Happily, the Oakhill production is a good one. It’s read by Richard Burnip, who is fast becoming a specialist in the reading/voice-over field. He has a beautiful voice, and one that is perfect for The Einstein Girl: rich in both authority and compassion. He is particularly good at dialogue, managing to lend individuality to each and every speaker. I  look forward to hearing what he’ll come up with every time I know a new character is about to appear. He even seems familiar with German - a small, but welcome bonus. Just occasionally I do get the impression that he’s feeling his way, that he isn't quite sure where the stress of a sentence should be until he gets to the end of it, or how the intonation should be handled. On these occasions he tends to slow down, perhaps to give himself more time. But this is a perfectionist’s complaint. If each sentence and passage were to be rehearsed and re-recorded until every last stress was perfectly placed, the business of recording (not to mention editing) would have to go on for weeks, rendering the enterprise uneconomic.

Meanwhile in Germany, Das Einstein-Mädchen is still clinging onto the Der Spiegel bestseller list after nine weeks, rather to my surprise. Every week I feel sure it will finally drop off, and every week I find it’s still there. In the hours before the new lists get published (on Wednesday afternoons), I must admit, I get quite tense – which, in the grand scheme of things, is a bit silly. 

Einstein at home

Today I received my third batch of reviews from Germany. Das Einstein Mädchen (the German edition of The Einstein Girl) has been on the official Der Spiegel bestseller list for the past seven weeks, which I put down to an excellent translation by Sophie Zeitz and to the voluminous press coverage. The latter has included a feature on Deutschland Radio, and long reviews in Germany’s No.1 circulation daily, Süddeutsch Zeitung as well as the leading weekly news magazine Focus. In addition, there have been reviews, sometimes syndicated, in dozens of local and regional newspapers, as well as literary web sites of all kinds across the German-speaking world. The reading public have chipped in with 92 reviews on the decidedly frank Vorablesen site (and 530 reviews of the opening chapters). Whether this is typical or not, I cannot say. But I do know that such coverage is extremely rare in the UK, unless the book in question is authored by a household name. I was told that fiction is still considered newsworthy in Germany, and so it has proved. In any event, I’m hugely impressed by the publicity department at DTV. Their wonderfully slick and elegant web site promises a lot, but in my case they have certainly delivered.

http://www.dtv.de/

That said, having enjoyed seven weeks in the bestseller sunshine, I’ll certainly count myself lucky if I can hang on for another two. The Einstein Girl is not, by modern standards, an easy book; and we are living in the age when easy books definitely rule, even in Germany.

Life imitates art, kind of

Next week I'll be taking a break from drafting the new book for a trip to Germany. I shall be travelling to the Prenzlauer Berg district of Berlin, following an invitation from the Ex-Berliner magazine. Berlin is, of course, where most of the action in The Einstein Girl unfolds. I'll be doing a reading and answering questions (assuming some get asked…) at the St George’s English language book shop on Wörtherstrasse, which, I am told, is something of an institution among English-speaking ex-pats in the German capital.
This is where things become quite coincidental: for it is on Wörtherstrasse – about a hundred yards from the modern day shop – that the ‘Einstein girl’ herself actually takes a room when she first arrives in Berlin, and where a lot of important events in the novel take place.
I once stayed on the nearby Schönhauser Allee – in what was the old East Berlin Reuters apartment (following in the footsteps of Timothy Garton Ash and various cold war writers). A good few of the buildings roundabout still sported bullet holes in those days, and the years of GDR neglect were still much in evidence. Subsequently, in The Einstein Girl, I had my protagonist (Martin Kirsch) lodge on that street. But it’s been more than a decade since I was there. It will be interesting, and possibly spooky, retracing the steps of these characters - steps that only ever took place in my head, but which feel almost as genuine as actual memories. I suspect that with the vast amount of renovation and refurbishment that’s been going on, much of the area will be hard to recognise. But that's Berlin for you: so much changes, and so much stays the same.
If anyone is in the German capital next Wesnesday 31st and is interested in attending the Ex-Berliner event, here are the details. It starts at 9pm and everyone is extremely welcome:

Saint George’s Bookshop
Wörther Straße 27
10405 BerlinTel: (0)30 81798333

In the eye of the beholder

Yesterday I received this strange and wonderful picture from my good friend Carmen in Madrid. I was able to catch up with her during my brief visit to the city in November and she told me about some of the work she has been doing, including for a recent exhibition in the Netherlands. Of course, talking is not the same as showing. So, without my knowing it, she produced this piece for me and put it in the post. It arrived just before my birthday.

Carmen's work is often quite biographical in a spontaneous kind-of-way. Many of her pictures are inspired by the individual for whom they are intended. Is this a good likeness of me, I wonder, representationally speaking? Well, my wife says yes, especially the fact that the clock is upside down. It reflects the fact that I often do things later than I'm supposed to, or not at all...

Whatever the truth, I really like this picture, which is enigmatically entitled Tiempo a destiempo. It grows on me day by day. Carmen says she may exhibit in New York some time soon. I hope so, because I think her stuff would go down a storm there. Either way, I'm very pleased to have got in ahead of the rush.

Regreso al Madrid

This past week I spent two delightful days doing press interviews in Madrid. My hosts at Alfaguara (chiefly in the persons of Rosa Junquera and her colleague Alejandro Aliaga) were wonderful, and looked after me like an old friend. It was also delightful to meet María Fernandez Soto, who translated Zoia’s Gold for Alfaguara a few years ago, as well as The Einstein Girl more recently. It turns out she is writing a novel herself, which may account for the beauty of her prose, which I have heard widely praised. As a writer, if you are lucky enough to have a good translator in a foreign tongue, it is a very desirable thing to keep them, not least because you will enjoy continuity of style and voice (which are theirs, after all, and no longer really yours). She told me about some of the particular challenges involved in turning English literary fiction into Spanish literary fiction, which I found quite fascinating. All the decisions about style, voice and tense that a writer makes have subtly different ramifications in different languages, so I am beginning to learn.

The effect on press coverage has been excellent. The interviews given to the press agencies in particular have been syndicated all over Spain and Latin America, and there have been features in the national press - occasionally accompanied by photographs of me looking tired (I was) and jowly. There have also been radio features all over the place, including this one on the national RTVE network. Although the item itself is in Spanish, the entire interview (with the utterly charming Eva Cruz) is also downloadable and is in English. You can hear both broadcast and interview here:

http://www.rtve.es/mediateca/audios/20091126/philip-sington-habla-su-ultima-novela-chica-einstein-asuntos-propios/637668.shtml

Down among the book stacks

Literary festivals, library events and reading programmes are a novelty for me, but I've been invited to a number of them since The Einstein Girl was published. In October I did a quick spot at the Calderdale Readers' and Writers' Festival in Halifax; and earlier this month I spoke at a similar event in Fulham Library, which is just a mile or two from home. I was a little apprehensive about both events, having little or no idea what I should talk about, but I've hit upon quite a good strategy which so far has produced lively results.

It is standard practice to do a quick reading from the latest book; so I start with that. Then I describe very briefly my writing career, the who, the what, the when. This takes five minutes. Then I throw open the floor to questions.

This is, I will admit, a little risky. People at first can be quite shy. There can be some long pauses before someone pipes up; so I warn the organisers beforehand so that they can step in with a question if need be. So far, though, that hasn't be necessary. Once the questions start, they don't stop. On both occasions so far I have been impressed (and a little humbled) at just how interested people are in the whole publishing business. Many, of course, are writing themselves. It seems if you are prepared to be open and candid about your own experience - the lows as well as the highs - the curiosity only seems to deepen. A few jokes don't hurt either.

Next week I am off to Madrid, where Santillana have lined up 14 press interviews to coincide with the launch of the Spanish edition. Years ago, when I covered southern Europe for a magazine, Madrid was almost my second home. I loved it there. But I discovered the other day, to my amazement, that my last visit was in 1994. I think it is going to feel quite strange going back, either because things have changed, or because they haven't. I can hardly wait.