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I have always rather hoped that readers would judge my book by its cover. I think its sassy, eclectic, roaming, fun and unexpected – words that I would also hope sum up Adventures in Correspondentland.
The presence of Bill Clinton, smoking a cigar with Old Glory covering his modesty, was a complete no-brainer. Ever since I was a budding journalist, he was something of a guardian angel. The first time I ever saw my work in print was a story concerning ‘Slick Willie,’ the nickname from his scandal-tainted years as Governor of Arkansas. My first foreign posting was to Washington during the Monica Lewinsky crisis. I was told to stay there until Clinton was out of trouble. A few months perhaps? I was still there five years later. Deservedly then, Clinton gets a whole chapter of his own: ‘Dear Bill,’ although it could just as easily could have been called ‘Just William.’
Saddam Hussein also made sense, as well, since he was such a key character during the post-9/11 years – although it remains a matter of enormous contention whether the Bush administration was right to target him or not.
Diana in excelsis reaches back to a much earlier time in my career, and her untimely death in Paris. As the book recounts, for hours we reported that she had escaped alive based on an eyewitness who claimed to be in the underpass that night – an American in Paris, no less. Infuriatingly, he turned out to be a hoaxer, who thought it would a real hoot to hoodwink the world’s press, which he successfully managed to do. Not our finest hour.
Bono features on the back cover, cross-legged in the lotus position and wearing a peace t-shirt. It’s a reference to the part he played in the Northern Ireland peace process – a role that many historians have overlooked, but one which I believe was actually rather crucial. Correspondentland explains all.
The choice of which Australian should grace was the matter of some debate. Should we go with Kevin Rudd, dressed perhaps in a Kevin 07 t-shirt? Should it be John Howard, resplendent in, say, a Wallabies tracksuit or wearing an Akubra hat? Should it be Steve Irwin, wearing his trademark ball-crushing shorts?
Eventually, we went with Shane Warne, who also has a cameo in the book. Here is seen eating from a can of baked beans and sending a text message – or perhaps he is tweeting? We’ll leave readers to decide. Perhaps by the time the book comes out in London we will need to make an addition. Warnie perhaps in top hat and tails, with Liz Hurley on his arm?
We have reached our destination and the final sixth key to writing The Sixth Key and I couldn’t end without speaking about Don Quixote, Sherlock Holmes and Edgar Allan Poe.
When I was a young girl, my birthdays were celebrated in my house by going to the movies. On my twelfth birthday I was taken to see the film, Man of La Mancha, with Peter O’toole and Sophia Loren and I enjoyed it so much that for weeks I couldn’t stop singing, ‘To Dream the impossible Dream’. My Spanish father was so excited that he bought me my first copy of Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes, which I would have thoroughly enjoyed, had it not been printed in old Spanish making it a tad tedious to read! Even so, I was very excited to come to Don Quixote again through Otto Rahn, the main character in The Sixth Key, because, as it turns out, he was quite a fan.
Sherlock Holmes had been a favourite of mine for years; in particular I loved Basil Rathbone’s portrayal of him. So when I realised in researching The Sixth Key, that his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was not only a Freemason but had also visited the south of France and come into contact with one of my characters, I couldn’t believe my luck. I was also amazed to find out that Edgar Allan Poe’s Monsieur Dupin was the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes, because his macabre stories were so delicious and fit so nicely with the overall theme!
So there you have it. I have only scratched the surface of what is locked inside the pages of The Sixth Key – adventure, romance, conspiracy, mystery, crime, murder, not to mention magic. Have I lived all these things? Of course!
As Edgar Allan Poe says, ‘all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream’.
In a story written by Schiller, a young acolyte sneaks into the temple and steals a peak beneath the veil of the Goddess Isis. He falls down dead. What was hidden behind the veil? Something beyond time and space, something very dangerous…ourselves, or rather, what we were in past lives.
In my latest novel I play with the concepts of time, space, life, death and even reincarnation. Like that incautious acolyte I wanted to take a peak behind the veil, but unlike him I didn’t do it alone.
The first time I came across a philosophical approach to the study of reincarnation was in the work of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. In fact, his work changed my whole outlook on life. Many years later, I read A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and I was amazed at how easily he had incorporated spiritual ideas in his novel by cleverly moving from magic to realism. I realised that authors are the Gods of their own books and as long as they are skilful enough they can do anything they want.
These were important influences, but when I discovered the Argentinian writer, Jorge Luis Borges, I knew I had found the fifth key, the key to incorporating the concept of reincarnation into my new novel. Borges wrote amazing, puzzling short stories and like me had a penchant for playing with time, space, life, death and immortality. In particular, The Library of Babel, The Garden of Forking Paths and The Book of Sand, provided me with the literary devices I needed.
And so I did take a peak behind that veil and I haven’t fallen down dead, but one never returns completely unscathed from daring to look into the face of the silent Goddess Isis.
Would I do it again? You’ll have to wait for my next book to find out!
The Roman God, Janus, is depicted with two faces staring in opposite directions: one face looking into the past and the other into the future.
The past can tell us a lot about who we are and what we will one day create, or do. That’s why I find it essential to retrace the steps that led me to a new novel and in so doing the fourth key to writing The Sixth Key is closely linked to my love of history and my passion for mysteries.
My love of history began at around age fifteen when I first read Gone With the Wind. I became a lover of historic novels and developed a fascination for history itself. My passion for mysteries was ignited when I saw my first Indiana Jones movie. The idea of lost artefacts, codes, puzzles and unsolved enigmas, excited me so much that I told myself I would one day write thrilling mystery novels based on true history.
Two books later, the protagonist in my historic mystery thriller, The Sixth Key, is Otto Rahn – the living inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones. Rahn is racing against time to solve numerous puzzles, codes and enigmas to find a lost artefact that actually existed in history and although the book is predominantly set in the late 1930’s, it is interwoven with other historic time-lines.
I guess we never know what influences will work on us strongly enough to become actions. The best we can do is to look back every so often, like the God Janus. We might then better understand the present and even prepare ourselves for the future.
In this case – a sequel!
The Third Key to writing The Sixth Key has to do with the fact that some people belong to their time and others do not. What do I mean by this? Like Otto Rahn, my protagonist, I realised at an early age that I didn’t belong to the Australia of the 1970’s but to the America and Europe of the 1930’s and 40’s.
I didn’t fit in at all. While my friends were listening to the soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar, or the music of Jimi Hendrix, I was enjoying old recordings of Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and Billy Holiday. Skirts were getting shorter, hair was becoming straighter and longer and the shoes were growing chunkier, but I wanted to dress in flowing silk gowns and beautiful stiletto heels like Ginger Rogers, with my hair short and curly, like June Allyson. And when my generation was flocking to movies like Mash or The Godfather, I snubbed my nose at them, preferring to stay at home to watch The Maltese Falcon, Frankenstein or Alfred Hitchock movies on TV. I even recorded them with my little cassette tape recorder, so that I could practice the lines. I was such a dork!
So when the time came to write The Sixth Key, it is not so hard to see why I was drawn to set it primarily in the late 1930’s, with a protagonist who is a mix of all the sensitive male heroes to have ever graced the silver screen, partnered by a heroine who has the moxie of Katherine Hepburn, the intelligence of Lauren Bacall, and the vulnerable, ethereal beauty of Louise Brooks.
I know my parents worried about me in those days, when I wanted to spend half my life in ‘hot rollers’, trying to speak with a husky voice like Greta Garbo. But as you can see, not belonging to your time can sometimes come in handy!
