In your background, you attended The Citadel. And you’re a military man, you served in Vietnam. Did that kind of help you with this head for intrigue and the Machiavellian interactions that we have in this book?
Actually, all that really helped me with is that I know what it’s like to have somebody trying to kill you. I know what it’s like to have a lot of people trying to kill you. And I also know what’s it like to kill somebody. These things come through, so I’ve been told by people who are veterans of whether Vietnam, or of Korea, or combat anywhere—Desert Storm; I had a lot of fan letters from guys who were there.
As far as the Machiavellian part, as I said I grew up in a family of Byzantine complexity, in a city where there has always been a great deal of Byzantine plotting. The court of Byzantium never had anything on Charleston for either plotting or blood feuds. It came as mother’s milk to me.
Do you think that these books, such as they are, could only have been written by a southerner, and someone with a head for that?
These particular books could have only been written by a southerner because I write in a somewhat southern voice. My major influence as a writer, I think, is Mark Twain. And, there’s no denying the southern voice of the books. If someone from another part of the country had written them, they would sound entirely different.
rj on writing ,
rj on life ,
vietnam ,
military ,
the citadel ,
charleston ,
rj’s family ,
rj on reading ,
wot influences
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