This
interview with Steven Saylor was conducted in late October 1998. I've also
reviewed the paperback edition of 'A Murder on the Appian Way'.
KM:
What first made you become a writer?
STEVEN
SAYLOR: All writers begin as readers. As a boy I had a great love of books from
early on. There was also a wonderful card game we'd play, called
"Authors," a rummy game in which you'd collect suits of various
authors - three Dickens, three Edgar Allan Poes, and so forth. Each card had a
picture of the author and a list of his or her works. When I was asked,
"What do you want to be when you grow up?", I answered, "An
author." I wanted to be like those people on those cards, you see, with my
portrait and a list of all these books I'd written. That was my ambition from
early on.
I was lucky to receive encouragement. I won a short story contest when I was
twelve or so, sponsored by a national Methodist youth magazine. I wrote a piece
of historical fiction, curiously enough, about the Spanish conquest of Peru. It
was published and they paid me a bit of money. Seeing my words in print was the
hook. I never thought of being anything but a writer after that.
KM:
What authors have influenced you, and who do you read now?
STEVEN
SAYLOR: I liked science fiction as a boy - Robert Heinlein and Ray Bradbury,
and later the wonderful Polish writer Stanislaw Lem. Tolkien was a tremendous
influence; Lord
of the Rings sent me on a quest for anything half as good, so I read reams
of fantasy in my teens - Mervyn Peake, William Morris, Lord Dunsany, E.R.
Eddison, H. Rider Haggard, and the greatest American fantasist, James Branch
Cabell. Historical fiction gradually eclipsed those other genres; I read
everything by Mary Renault and quite a bit of Robert Graves. The television
production of Tinker,
Tailor, Soldier, Spy inspired me to read everything by LeCarre; he's served
as a model for me, because in each novel he gives you the elements you're
craving from a spy story, but also a new plot and a new theme, never repeating
himself. I finally read Conan Doyle, again inspired by television and Jeremy
Brett's wonderful incarnation of Sherlock Holmes. Reading all the Homes stories
from first to last was one of the most enjoyable summers of my life.
I should also mention Tolstoy, whom everyone should read, for the sheer pleasure
of it. Anna
Karenina is unsurpassed, I think, but his last "big book,"
Resurrection, is a secret known to too few readers. It was so subversive at the
time that the critics buried it, and it's still one of the most dangerous books
ever written. The powers that be don't want people to read books like Resurrection,
much less write them!
I'm very bad about reading my contemporaries. These days I read lots of Roman
authors, for research, and mystery short stories, for relaxation. Probably my
favorite living author is Andrew Holleran, whose work is so different from mine
that I can't possibly be jealous of him. He's a gay author who writes from
absolute realism, and a superb craftsman. 'Dancer From the Dance' and The
Beauty of Men are great novels.
KM:
How does your usual writing day run? In what sort of environment do you write?
STEVEN
SAYLOR: As I write my answers to this interview, I'm sitting on the back deck
of my little bungalow in Berkeley, California, enjoying the winter sunshine.
Thanks to the California climate, I can work outside on my PowerBook for much
of the year. When inspiration lags, I get up and tend the garden for a while. I
start about nine or ten in the morning - I'm not an early riser and work
through the afternoon. I work Monday through Friday, and take the weekends off.
Each novel begins with a research period - perhaps three solid months of
visiting the University of California library, which is a short bike ride from
my home. Eventually, I'm eager to plunge into the story,
champing at the bit. The actual writing time depends on the length of the book.
Catilina's
Riddle, my longest, took eighteen months. Rubicon,
which I've just finished, took only six.
KM:
Why did you choose to write about Rome during the fall of the Republic? What I
liked a great deal about 'Murder on the Appian Way' was that there were so many
famous Romans integral to the plot. Are you the ultimate classical namedropper?
STEVEN
SAYLOR: Years ago I wrote a review of Gore Vidal's Creation
and suggested that he should write a novel about the end of the Roman Republic
as a sort of centerpiece between 'Creation' and Julian.
But Vidal never did...so it fell to me!
The allure of this period is the great abundance of sources - everything from
private letters and erotic poetry to defense orations and cookbooks. And the
political manoeuvrings make sense to us. There's
not a veil of religious or ideological hocus pocus thrown over everything; it's
all about naked power. It's not always easy to penetrate Caesar's or Pompey's
motivations, just as it's not always easy to understand why Clinton or Blair do
what they do (the TV pundits can argue endlessly!), but the ancient Romans are
people of flesh and blood, with appetites we can understand and actions that
reverberate even now.
As for the namedropping, it's unavoidable. In the Rome of Cicero, everyone of
importance knows everyone else, and either sleeps with them, takes them to
court, or murders them - sometimes all three!
KM:
Each of your novels revolves around a tale from Cicero's Orations. Will you
still continue writing about Rome when Cicero dies, and go on to cover aspects
of the empire?
STEVEN
SAYLOR: I can't quite see beyond Cicero right now; in fact, I can see only as
far as the assassination of Julius Caesar. But that's still at least three or
four novels away. Indeed, with 'Rubicon', the Roma
Sub Rosa series
will enter a new phase, and will be less about politics and murder trials and
more about the course of the civil war between Pompey and Caesar. We'll have
naval battles, sieges, and lots of espionage. But there will still be murders
and mysteries...and eventually, Cleopatra.
KM:
I know there are a number of Gordianus short stories. Were these written before
the novels? How did you conceive the character of Gordianus the Finder?
STEVEN
SAYLOR: The Gordianus short stories, so far, have been collected in The
House of Vestals, forthcoming from Robinson. All those stories take place
after Roman
Blood and before Arms
of Nemesis. More short stories are on the way. These allow me to exploit
minor mysteries I encounter in my research, and to explore various aspects of
Roman life, such as the theater, their belief in lemures (ghosts), beekeeping,
and the occasional scandals that erupted around the Vestal Virgins. (Crassus
and
Catilina were actually tried for sleeping with Vestals; that's the basis of the
title story of the collection.)
As for Gordianus, I first tried to write Roman Blood without him, thinking to
make Cicero the hero with Tiro as his Watson. But just try to spend twenty-four
hours a day with Cicero! So I decided to give Cicero a detective, which is not
too farfetched, considering the litigious nature of the late Republic. All
these families constantly suing one another would need an independent
specialist to dig up the dirt; thus, Gordianus the Finder. His name was
inspired by the legend of the Gordian knot, which not even Alexander the Great
could unravel.
KM:
In 'A Murder on the Appian Way', Gordianus is about fifty - fairly old for a
Roman. Will Gordianus pass the truth seeking torch to any other member of his
family, or will he still be stirring things into a ripe
old age?
STEVEN
SAYLOR: I don't see Gordianus leaving the stage any time soon. He will
certainly still be around when Caesar is assassinated. He was blessed with
excellent genes, you see. (Romans could live as long as we do, if they had good
fortune; look at Cato the Elder.) He might eventually pass the torch, but not,
perhaps, to one of his sons. What about Diana, his daughter? She and her
husband Davus could make quite a sleuthing team.
She has the brains, he has the brawn, and they're both beautiful.
KM:
Talking about stirring things, I've heard that there may be a great deal of
competition between you and that other Roman crime novelist, Lindsey Davis.
What's your point of view on this?
STEVEN
SAYLOR: Personally, I don't see any direct competition between my books and
those of Lindsey Davis. Our periods are actually quite different - the
autocratic Principate versus the more political Republic - and I think our
approaches are quite different, too. But book marketing being what it is, I
suppose the two "Roman mystery novelists" get lumped together.
I hope readers will read and enjoy us both.
KM:
How did your recent tour of England go? What amused and intrigued you most
about this trip?
STEVEN
SAYLOR: The book tour of England was fantastic. I love London, and the
excursions to Manchester, Colchester, York, Oxford and Cambridge were wonderful
experiences. Most amusing was seeing that display plinth in shop windows - a
handsome young model in a toga holding up my books!
I'll tell you the absolute highlight, the epiphany: being in Oxford, Tolkien
territory, and seeing the two shop windows at Blackwell's, one full of Tolkien
books and the other...full of my books! That was a very
moving thing for me, a sort of homecoming, to see my Rome next to Tolkien's
Middle Earth.
KM:
How much of your novels are based on historical fact? Did Sextus Tedius really
exist, for example?
STEVEN
SAYLOR: The amazing thing is how little I have to make up. The sources are so
rich with fascinating little details and coincidences that the problem is
fitting them all in! Take Sextus Tedius in 'A Murder on the Appian Way'. Yes,
he existed. We know only two things about him, really: that he was the man who
discovered the body of Clodius on the Appian Way, and that later, despite his
advanced years, he made a great show of going off to join Pompey in the fight
against Caesar. He was a cantankerous
old Tory, in other words. From that little, I managed to infer much more. When
history hands you a character with a name like Sextus Tedius, you have to use
him!
KM:
In 2,000 years time, do you think novelists will be writing about Ancient
America? Would say, Gordon the Finder be investigating the Lewinsky case or
Murder on a Texan Road?
STEVEN
SAYLOR: You hit on an interesting point: we will be ancient history to those
who come after us. What will they make of our scandals, our religion, our
strange political rituals? What ludicrous mistakes will future historians make,
misinterpreting some "mystery" that we take for granted? David
Macaulay has a wonderful picture book about archaeologists in the future
unearthing Las Vegas. Each living quarter
appears to include a smaller "sacred chamber," containing what the
experts presume to be a ceremonial headdress - which you can see at a glance is
actually a toilet seat!
That keeps me humble; all historians should always be aware of the margin of
error in their work. Fortunately, as a novelist, I have a bit more freedom than
an academic. But I have an additional challenge. I strive for historical
accuracy, but also for psychological authenticity. The characters and the story
of what happens to them, what choices they make and the consequence of those
choices, have to make sense, have to resonate with the reader, even across a
gulf of two thousand years.
A MURDER ON THE APPIAN WAY by STEVEN SAYLOR
This
is the latest in a series of Roman epics featuring Gordianus the Finder.
Critics in America have raved about Steven Saylor's work for years, and the
American imports of his novels are highly sought
after in Britain. These novels may look imposing, but they are a fantastic
read, and bring Rome to life with the greatest of ease. Whilst Steven Saylor
may not be directly competing against Lindsey Davis, he is certainly giving her
a run for her money.
The novel opens with the news that popular politician Publius Clodius has been
murdered in the run-up to the consulship elections. His opponent, Titus Milo,
is accused of the crime. But the tensions within Rome are in danger of pulling
the Republic apart, much to the interest of Pompey, and his young rival,
Julius Caesar...
'A Murder on the Appian Way' is one of the best novels I've read this
year, but dedicated Saylor readers tell me that it is not as good as previous
volumes in the Roma Sub Rosa sequence, but I would say,
how can such perfection get any better?
Kevin Mahoney
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