Covers – continued

by Jonathan on July 18th, 2010

A German reader let me know that the German edition of A Hard Death is now available for pre-order, with an October publication date. Droemer-Knaur have given the book a snappy new title, and used a cover that recaptures the graphic spirit of their edition of Precious Blood (German title: Martyrium).

I like the cover, and am entertained by the new title, TORTUR, the English translation of which is – I’m going out on a limb here- TORTURE.

I don’t think I quite appreciate how brutal my books are in the eyes of some readers. I’m fairly matter of fact about violence – I approach violent death with scientific detachment, a detachment essential for understanding the facts of a homicide without being distracted by my emotional reactions to its brutality. My life as a forensic pathologist involves extreme contrasts – torture, murder, Bach, lobster; in my writing, I try to present that collision of sudden, unspeakable violence with everyday life.

Anyway, welcome, TORTUR!

I just wonder what the hell they’ll call Jenner 4, now that they’ve already used TORTUR…

Cover Stories

by Jonathan on July 2nd, 2010

I’ve just learned that the U.S. publication date for A Hard Death will be April 12, 2011; I don’t understand the complexities of publishing, and have to admit that I’m a bit disappointed that it’s taking so long to come out here. I’m going to do my best to make sure that the third book, tentatively titled City of Rust, arrives a little more promptly.

The delay is actually a bonus: I’m using the time to tighten and polish. There’s an old writing adage that “a novel is never finished, it’s abandoned” – it’s a real luxury to have the time to touch up an already “abandoned” project…

I really like both the new US hardcover jacket for A Hard Death (above) and the paperback cover for last year’s UK release. The two covers are carefully designed, reflecting local taste and the practicalities of marketing a book on a bookshelf – I suspect that the UK cover wouldn’t have played as well with US readers as it did with those in the UK.

The US cover for A Hard Deathis more literal, a watery swamp forest bathed in a golden red glow; that intense colour will make the book “pop” on the shelf. Unlike the clean, urbane font used for the US Precious Blood jacket, where the story was set largely in New York City, the designer has gone with a battered, almost Western/vintage-style font that, by coincidence or design, evokes the UK cover, particularly the font used for my name.

The UK cover is visually edgier, bristling with visceral style. It’s of a piece with the UK cover for Precious Blood, which reminded me of blood spatter on an abatoir floor. For the new book, the concrete has been swapped out for an impressionistic backdrop of light filtering into a clearing through rotted trees, perfect for the Florida Everglades setting of A Hard Death. Since it’s a paperback, and smaller than a hardcover, the title and author name are much larger, easily legible across the bookshop.

I have to admit that my initial reaction to the UK cover for Precious Blood was a little like one of those movie scenes where a character is sitting for hours, having her portrait painted. The bearded, beatnik artist paints furiously, eyes flicking repeatedly from subject to canvas as he captures her likeness in minute detail. Finally, he pronounces the work a finished masterpiece. The sitter approaches the canvas only to discover that it is an incomprehensible mess of drips and spatters. After my initial surprise, I quickly grew to like the cover – I think it’s very effective, the style working well at a gut level to convey the brutality and violence of serial murder. I did feel that, while the design captured the book’s urban mayhem, I peronally saw Precious Blood in very deep rich colours, full of expressive, nuanced visual detail; to me, the UK cover felt a little reductive, the story distilled to blood on concrete. I think I liked the UK cover for A Hard Death better both because it was more literal and more organic (yeah, the trees may be dead, but, still – trees!), and also because I had a clearer idea of what to expect.

I really loved the very direct cover for the German edition of Precious Blood. The Gothic text works really well, I think; indeed, I was a little surprised by how much I liked the simple, graphic style. Note that they decided to go with another title – Precious Blood has, I believe, richer connotations in English than in German.

The Dutch cover kind of baffled me – I won’t tell you what I thought it was the first time I saw it! But I do love the title in Dutch; my first unaccompanied trip as a kid was to the Netherlands, and I hold a special place for the country in my heart.

There were a couple more editions in German. This one was for the Austrian market – quite chaste in comparison with the second German edition that follows it! Note: the book is not this tiny in real life…

This is the cover of the most recent German edition. In her review of Precious Blood, USA Today critic Carol Memmott was kind enough to use the phrase “nail-biting masterpiece”, but they captioned the cover photo “like a literary equivalent of horror flick Saw“! Those of you who know me know I’m too much of a wuss to ever watch that film…

Anyway, yes, this cover looks like it would be perfect for the literary equivalent of horror flick Saw…

Finally, my friend Kevin Krooss had his own ideas about how the Precious Blood cover should look:

Of course, when Kevin learned there would be a Swedish edition, he couldn’t resist having a crack at that, too…

Audio: Interview on Irish Radio

by Jonathan on December 1st, 2009

Last week, I was on Moncrieff! – not literally on Sean Moncrieff, but on his popular afternoon show on Irish talk radio.

Sean Moncrieff: The work of a pathologist is often characterized as somewhat ‘glamorous’, yet this is a person who, on a daily basis, cuts up dead bodies – who would do such a thing? Well, Jonathan Hayes, for one. He’s a novelist and has worked as a forensic pathologist in the U.S. for over twenty years…

Moncrieff/Hayes

My Life in Blood – a gallery

by Jonathan on November 23rd, 2009

I have a long article about blood in the UK newspaper the Independent today. It’s a bit of a curious thing, hopscotching around the place, covering how I became a forensic pathologist, the Cuban white and black magic I saw in Miami, realism in crime fiction, the meaning of blood in different religions, blood spatter forensics and vampire movies.

Since I don’t know how they’ve illustrated it, I thought I’d add a few photos to support the story. I gathered these from around the internet when I first started working on them, and have lost the links – if they’re yours, please let me know so I can credit you.

I’ve tried to do it in sequence to correspond to the story. Obviously, if you’re squeamish, you probably shouldn’t look at this post. Although, really, if you’re squeamish, what are you doing on my blog?

In Israel, a ZAKA operative wipes blood after an attack:

A Durer portrait of Christ suffering:

A Cranach crucifixion – Christ’s blood anointing the faithful…

A devout Filipino being crucified on Good Friday:

Shi’a Muslims marking the Day of Ashura; others sacrifice by donating blood.

An nganga, a cauldron filled with mystically significant metal, wood and leather objects, and blood, and, here, a human skull. For practitioners of palo mayombe, the dark form of the syncretic Caribbean religion of santeria, the nganga is the ritual equivalent of an altar.

Technicians clean up an nganga discovered in New York City, ritual markings on the wall. In Miami, when we encountered santeria or brujeria (palo) artefacts, the cops would scoff at them, but most would refuse to touch them.

Ah, yes… “masterful” indeed.

by Jonathan on November 20th, 2009

I’m posting this review from an English newspaper because I loved the “masterfully”.

I’ll be using the word frequently in my internal narration of my day – “Here is Jonathan Hayes masterfully pouring milk on his Frosties”, “Here is Jonathan Hayes masterfully looking for his pants”, “Here is Jonathan Hayes masterfully freeing the several feet of toilet paper trailing from his shoe”,  that sort of thing.

Here is Jonathan Hayes masterfully blogging despite being still 90% asleep…

-

And this just in…

by Jonathan on November 13th, 2009

The prize for First Review of A Hard Death goes to… The Daily Mail! Our heartiest congratulations to them, and my thanks for a great review.

I’m flattered that the critic focuses on Jenner as an emotional character (let’s face it – Jenner’s a bit of a trainwreck). I’m also intrigued that he or she cites the book’s refreshing lack of gore – violence was pretty much the only thing American critics had against Precious Blood.

I have to say that the “too violent” critique didn’t worry me. I don’t want to shock or offend, but I realized, as I was writing A Hard Death, that I write violent. Which isn’t surprising – just as breaking eggs is an unfortunate but necessary step in the omelet-making process, if you’re writing murder…

I didn’t think Precious Blood was particularly violent; rather, the violence was explicit and realistic, but never gratuitous. A Hard Death moves faster, and has a signifcantly higher body count than Precious Blood; it’s plenty violent.

It’ll be interesting to see what other critics think… In the meantime, click here to read the Mail review yourself:

A Technical Note: Airboats

by Jonathan on November 12th, 2009

British readers may be unfamiliar with airboats, which, as far as I know, don’t exist in the U.K.

The airboat is a shallow draft boat, powered by an aircraft engine and propeller in a mesh safety cage.  Because they use air movement, rather than an underwater propeller,  airboats can travel in very shallow water, and even over more solid terrain (for short distances). They’re very popular in the Everglades, which is essentially a vast, extremely shallow river hidden by marsh grass; the first time I rode in an airboat was to get to the scene of a remote airplane crash in a part of the Glades not easily reached by traditional boats.

I found this photo on a web page from the Airboat Association of Florida, a tribute to a man named John F. Schneider. Mr. Schneider was apparently devoted to airboating in the Glades; these photos make it easy to see why. Airboats skim across the surface of the water – they feel incredibly fast, in part because of the roar of the engine behind your head. If you find yourself in Florida, you owe yourself at least one airboat ride.

The Blog That Time Forgot

by Jonathan on October 6th, 2009

Well, yes. I have been a little quiet lately: I blame Facebook, plus the nextbook. But I’m back now. I’m not 100% sure I can remember how this works, but I’ll fumble along.

I’ve finished A Hard Death; the book comes out in the UK on November 5, but we’re still working out the US release date. The feeling at Harper was that Precious Blood rather got lost in the onslaught of “Big Books” that come out in the autumn – yer Koontzes and Kings, yer Browns and Balzacs – so though the book could be ready for release in the fall, it’ll more likely appear in winter instead.

Anyway, more about that later. I’ll post some goofy thing about what I’ve been doing for the last 11 months – mostly finishing the renovation of my tiny place in Paris, writing A Hard Death, and keeping the world safe from evil from a secret New York City location (actually a giant bathysphere somewhere below the icy surfaces of the East River, but don’t tell anyone).

OK. I’ll be in touch!

It feels weird to be back, but kinda good…