Re: Cover of the Solitaire trade paperback.
It is striking and hits the right emotional chord for the book. (Although oddly as I sit and consider it now, it does not seem to relate much to the story itself.)
Re: Solitaire
I really enjoyed the novel. It really struck an emotional chord with me. A couple of things that I found interesting:
- The virtual confinement environment was in many ways similar to the peaceful environment that I try to visualize when meditating.
- It took me a lot of thinking, a little therapy, and a lot of 12 step meetings before I found that (for myself anyway) there was tremendous personal growth in the process that Jackal succinctly summarizes as “I turned over every single rock inside myself and found all the worms. And then I ate them”. I’m curious if you saw the effects of Jackal’s experience in VC as positive or negative. I thought the novel was somewhat ambiguous on that point. I saw a lot of emotional growth, a refined sense of self, a better personal boundaries come out of the experience even though the way she came by that growth left its own emotional scars. (Doesn’t it always seem to work like that!)
- Reading your website I noticed that you mentioned that you had gotten some feedback that your male characters were weak. I did notice all seem to be very secondary characters and a lot of them, while not evil in any sense, seem to betray someone in some fashion. I cannot decide if in the end this gave the book an unbalanced feel or not, certainly it was not grossly out of balance evidenced by the fact I cannot make up my mind.
Just a completely random thought that popped into my head, was there every any discussion of marketing Solitaire as a young adult novel? I only ask because I noticed it has many of the characteristics of some of the better ones.
Sorry to ramble on so long and probably quite disjointedly. I really enjoyed your novel and will be keeping my eye open for both your past and your future work. Keep writing.
All the best.
Rob
It’s always nice to know when someone enjoys Solitaire enough to want to read something else I’ve written. If you’ve poked around on the site, you know that some of my published stories (updated in 2008: “Strings”, “And Salome Danced” and “Dangerous Space”) and several essays are available, but there’s no harm reminding people.
I agree with you about the cover, and I think an emotional connection is more important than a factual/textual one. I suppose that’s because for me the heart of any story is emotional. I am pleased to have had two covers that do this, rather than simply sending a pure “marketing” signal – like, for example, all those courtroom thrillers with gavels or jury boxes on the cover, or chick lit in pastel colors with the titles in curly writing. When a reader sees Solitaire in the bookstore, she may know what it isn’t (chick lit, for sure), but she won’t know exactly what it is – and curiosity is a powerful force.
No one ever discussed marketing Solitaire as a young adult novel, at least not with me. I’m curious to know what you think the YA characteristics are (that’s a real question, not a defensive one – I have great admiration for good YA fiction).
As far as I can tell, the only person in the book who doesn’t betray someone on some level is Snow, and that may only be because there was no practical reason. Snow’s quite pragmatic.
If by ambiguous you mean that the book doesn’t tell the reader how to feel about a particular experience, then Solitaire is ambiguous in many (perhaps most) respects. That’s deliberate. I think very few important experiences are purely positive or negative in the long term, partly because there are very few (well, I can’t think of any) experiences that aren’t susceptible to the influence of joy or love or fear. These are the “big three” world-shapers in my pantheon; the way they jostle and recombine in particular situations is something that interests me in life and work. I think the jostling is where the scars come from, as well as the strokes and thumps we all give each other in the everyday world. And yep, I agree with you that’s how growth works in the human world, although I do believe it’s possible to grow without fear if, well, if we weren’t so afraid to. There goes that snake, eating its tail again.
Cheers, and thanks for these interesting comments.