Re: RARA-AVIS: Bastard child

From: JimSallis@aol.com
Date: 27 Feb 2004


Mark,

Thank you for your kind words. Anyone who compares me to Jack O'Connell is a friend!

The series is adumbrated in the first volume, which begins as fairly standard fare, then circles in ever closer to a kind of autobiography. I knew that pattern, that tendency or structure, would continue through the later books. As I wrote MOTH, I knew where I'd end the series -- but I had a few other novels in the series to write first.

I didn't begin it as a series, actually: I wrote THE LONG-LEGGED FLY, then found there was so much more I wanted to know, about Lew, about Don, about LaVerne, that I wrote another. Then I wrote BLACK HORNET and realized I needed to counterpoint that with its mirror image in BLUEBOTTLE (which deals with white supremacy movements just as HORNET deals with Black Power in the 60s). BLUEBOTTLE actually began as a story commissioned by the BBC and soon let me know it wanted to grow uo to be a novel; I wrote another story for the BBC.

I agree that EYE OF THE CRICKET and GHOST OF A FLEA are the high marks. I cannot write better than I did in those two novels, nor will I ever.

I want to thank Bill Denton and all of you for having me as a guest this month. It's been great fun.

Jim

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