It’s the start of the new cultural season.
Which is worth repeating. It’s nice to live in a country where we have such things. The end of August used to be signalled by the uitmarkt in Amsterdam, but these days it’s been decided the whole of the Netherlands gets to have a go and this year it’s the turn of Amersfoort. Good luck to ‘em. We’ve still got the Van Gogh Museum. (Although, perhaps not for much longer considering the bad news story about leaky roofs that’s been all over the news the last few days. Yikes.)
No Rest for the Wicked
But the new season also means it’s Autumn – or Fall, depending on where you live (Herfst, if you live here), and that means mists and mellow fruitfulness and gory Halloween-themed thrillers, and I’m glad you brought the subject up, because my good friend Rachel Louise Adams has her debut novel out in just a couple of weeks, and that’s an epic story.
An epic story that I’m proud to have a miniscule walk-on part in. We bumped into each other five years ago on Goodreads when I was just at the start of my writing journey and she was already a polished writer with a confident voice … and an almost infinite patience for wannabes like me. She filleted my early efforts and left me surrounded by shredded bits, wondering how to pick up the pieces, but also gave me a strong sense that I *could* pick up the pieces, and that she’d be there with encouragement (and her filleting knife) if I did. Several novels later, we’re still critique partners.
Rachel is one of the most rigorous editors I’ve ever worked with, and through all the beta swaps and trenchant criticism Rachel has been a big part of my learning process. I can only hope that I’ve been of some use to her along the way. I can detect an evolution in her writing over 5 years, but it’s starting from a very high base.
I knew she was several steps (strides/leaps/intergalactic time-warps) further than me, but still it was quite a shock, of the pleasant sort, to hear that she’d breached the bastion of traditional publishing and was represented by Millie Hoskins | United Agents. What seemed like five minutes later, she’d got a book deal, and the rest is history, or at least, No Rest for the Wicked is out on September 16th.
And she’s here on Substack. Did I mention that? Well, I did now: @rachellouiseadams
Well, what about the book itself, I hear you asking? There, I have to leave you on a cliffhanger. More on that subject next time. And talking of cliffhangers...
New series: The Lives of the Artists
(A series on Substack? Is that a thing? It is now.)
You heard it here first. I’m doing a series about the stories behind some of my favourite artists: how their (sometimes unbelievable) personal lives shaped their art, the art world, and ultimately our world view. These guys (and a great many of them are guys, it has to be said) have also had a real influence on my writing, so there will be digressions into short stories, and editing autopsies. As with everything with me, it’s all a bit of an experiment. I’m hoping the first episode will be out in a few weeks. Should be fun.
If the title sounds familiar, it won’t come as a surprise to hear that ‘it’s been done’. Giorgio Vasari wrote The Lives of the Artists in 1568 and it remains a classic, but quite a lot of art has happened since, and some quite amazing artists have lived truly amazing lives. So, if you’ve never heard of Giovanni Segantini or Franz Matsch, now’s the time.
The Fig Tree of Victory
All that, and it’s the start of the fruit season. The apples are falling faster than we can pick them, the plum jam is already bottled and going fast, and we’ve been plucking figs from the fig tree.
A fig tree? In the rainy Netherlands? Well, yes, such things aren’t impossible, but our fig tree is a bit special. Five years ago, we lost uncle Leo. The family packed up and sold the house, but the fig tree he planted wouldn’t fit in a plastic bucket on the balcony of their new flat, so it ended up in our garden. (I skip over the epic work of actually extracting the poor thing from the ground and transplanting it.)
The first winter, all hope seemed lost, and the next spring wasn’t spectacular either. When we’d nearly given up hope, tiny leaves appeared, barely big enough to cover a putto’s modesty in a medieval painting. Three more years passed and in the last one, microscopic figs appeared. We left them on the tree in approved biblical fashion (https://www.bible.com/bible/compare/LEV.19.23 – lots of handy tent maintenance tips there also, if you’re interested), and this year – fat, juicy figs.
Of course, the birds got most of them, but we managed to salvage a small punnet and they’re spectacularly good if I say so myself. It’s not down to me, but nature (a.k.a. God), and Leo for planting the tree in the first place, many years ago when a fig tree didn’t look like a viable bet in our cold, rainy country. It’s just a small thing, but it’s a victory.
Thanks, Leo.
I'm so late in replying to this, but thank you!! All the hype you've been sharing about No Rest means the world <3