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September, 2003 Alas my old friend Manoussos the shepherd is dead. Though I should not feel sad because he was already of a great age when I met him during my stay on Crete. He was a postcard figure of the Cretan shepherd, almost mythical, with beaded hair-net, knee-length boots and curling moustachios, and he was probably the kindest, sweetest man I ever met in my life. He used to drive his sheep on a daily circuit that took him past my beach-house in Gerani near Chania. We bought eggs from his wife Eleni, and she would always add two extra eggs for free; trying to pay for the extra eggs was useless because she would just sneak in another two. You had to be very careful when you went to their very modest dwelling, because if you arrived at a meal time they would divide up what they had and insist you joined them. And I mean insist. Why do people who have so little shame us who have so much?Maybe he didn't have so little, and that's just fabulous Western arrogance. If Manoussos saw me near the kafenion he would buy me a raki and I would buy him one and then he always wanted to walk down the two-hundred yard track together towards our respective houses. If I said I had things to do he would wait. If I protested I would be an hour he would still wait, because, he said, it's more of a pleasure to walk the track together. Perhaps because my Greek was basic (he spoke not a single word of English) I always thought he was being profound or speaking in metaphor. Of course he wasn't. I think. But I often recall that two hundred yard stretch of track, and how it's more fun to walk it with someone else. He often said to Sue and I s'agapo, I love you or s'agapo pedia, I love you children. I was already into my thirties though I did feel like a child next to him. (He'd been frostbitten in the Albanian mountains fighting Mussolini and the Nazis. What, you on your own? I would say. He kept wanting me to say it, so he could throw his head back and laugh at me.) And the walk down that short track might take another hour because local people would always want to stop and talk with him, or ask him to milk a difficult goat or something, and to hurry away would be to risk insulting him after he'd waited for you so long. In House of Lost Dreams I mistakenly called a character Manoussos on the disguised island of Lesbos, when in fact it's an almost exclusively Cretan name. On the morning we finally left Crete, Manoussos had broken his herding routine to wait for us. He ran to us with eyes full of tears, this very old man, and with handfuls of white gardenias, which he sprinkled over us. It's my last memory before leaving the island to come home. I wanted Ella and Joe to meet him one day, but alas I left it too late. I wonder who now drives his sheep along the beach. But we did take the children to Greece over the summer and relaxed back into the genius of the place immediately. I was able to show off my Greek language to my children, and they at least were impressed. Though my West Cretan accent always win a certain quizzical look from Greeks in Athens and on the other islands. I figure it's like hearing some foreigner who learned English on the Outer Herbides. Will ye no sell me a wee dram and all that. Publishing news, plenty going on. The Facts of Life has been shortlisted for both the World Fantasy Award and the British Fantasy Award. Been some good reviews in the US press. You could check out the Village Voice at http://villagevoice.com/issues/0329/press.php or the Washington Post at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10917-2003Jul31.html If that's not enough for you there's a blow-away review by Paul Guran at http://www.darkecho.com/darkecho/f_rev/facts_life.html Meanwhile the new book is now in good shape, do you hear that Bill Sheehan? I have a new title. Forget anything you may have read on these pages: it will be called The Limits Of Enchantment, a tale of subtle (subtle! can your hear the fellow!) witchcraft. Publication early 05. Before that Nightshade Books are on schedule for their Autumn (oh go then, Fall) publication of The Stormwatcher, with fabulous cover art by Jon Picacio. Similarly Subterranean Press will have the collection Partial Eclipse ready soon cos I've done all the signature sheets. They just won't tell me when. Film news: I sold an option on Dreamside to the science-fiction cable channel producers Fireworks Pictures. Idea is to make a TV movie pilot with series potential. Well, we'll see. Hollywood. I don't know about You'll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again. It should be You'll Never Be Bothered To Check On A Project's Progress Again Because Your Toes Will Curl From Boredom. As for Dark Sister, well that moved from option to outright purchase over the summer and though I don't know how far in Development it is; entrail-scrying and readings of tea-leaves suggest it's going ahead. Finally The Tooth Fairy: the producer whom I had difficulty seeing eye-to-eye with at Radar has left or been fired. Anyway, where this leaves the movie is anyone's guess. They'll either let the option fall in December and I could try to sell it again; or a new producer will think it's a great idea to continue with the insufferable Semen-Fairy idea. If you don't know what I'm babbling about you haven't been following these updates. If you'd like to see me babble in public I'll be giving a reading at Borders Bookshop, Oxford Street in London on Monday October 13, from 6.30. Actually I might be interviewed/roasted by the fabulous Pat Cadigan so you could be spared a reading. Anyway come along and say hello. After that I'll be in Washington DC October 30-November 2 for the World Fantasy Convention. I'll also be at the British Fantasy Convention in Stafford November 21-23. Ella has reached the milestone of her seventh birthday. The Jesuits of old would take a child away from its parents in infancy and return it, fully conditioned, smoking from the mould, aged seven. "Give me the child and I will give you the man". (Never had much of interest to say about women, the Jesuits.) The Spartans meanwhile would take a boy away from his family at age seven and begin his military training on the basis that the childhood years were over. So that's it then. Ella is shaped, stamped, ready for weighing. Now it's all just the shouting and the door-slamming. This thought overwhelms me. Though more cool parenting tips continue to come in and this is really good: help your child with homework but make it take at least two hours. Then next time homework is on the agenda say: I'm tied up right now but I'll come and help you with your homework in half an hour. Your clever offspring will have it done and dusted with quality answers and neat presentation all inside twenty minutes. Anything but sit through the agonising two hour melodrama you seem to want to make of it. Car music: Pete Everest recommends Armageddon Days by The The and Peaches by the Stranglers. You may think he's a bad man but I've tried 'em on the fractious savages and Pete is right, they're winners. Joe meanwhile is still in the pre-Spartan protean years, but has started school. I've said it before, but damn this system. Anyway he liked the first couple of days before it dawned on him that someone had mysteriously signed him up on an "every day" basis. I know Joseph, I know. You've been sold into Egypt. The other day his class teacher asked them all to do a painting of "someone who is very special to you". Joe produced a painting of himself. It's up there on the wall, next to all the other kids' runny, splotchy big-face primary-colour paintings of Mum and Sister and Gran etc. This rampant egotism he must get from his mother. Manoussos: sto kalo. Graham Joyce can be contacted by emailing graham@grahamjoyce.net | |
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