I feel like I have begun all the posts on this blog by apologising for not writing more. So here’s my sole new year blog resolution (which is dual, see how I’m already trying to wriggle out of it). This year, I want to:
- Stop apologising for not writing more.
- Write more.
That should work.
But to the matter at hand. Speaking of writing, and publishing, I can finally announce the upcoming release of my first translation: Le dernier grand train d’Amérique, by James Grady (originally published in 2022 with a very sober title: This Train).
Grady has written more than fifteen novels, and made a name for himself with the very first one in 1974: The Six Days of the Condor. The following year, it was adapted for the silver screen as The Three Days of the Condor (yet another example of the strange maths ruling over titles). It was a resounding success, thanks to Sydney Pollack’s direction and to great acting by Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway.
Since that first novel, Grady has been improving his craft, and he takes us aboard This Train at the gripping pace he is famous for. In this pressure cooker on rails, he constantly switches between the points of view of colourful characters who give us as many different perspectives on today’s America.
It will be published in France on 6 March 2024 by the éditions Payot & Rivages, and I can’t wait to get feedback from the readers. I’ll talk more about it then.