How The Trouble Started, Faber, July the 5th 2012.
The police were involved over the trouble. They had to be. ‘I was just playing,’ I told them, but that wasn’t enough. They wanted to know what I understood by ‘intent’.
Donald Bailey is sixteen. He can’t forget the trouble that happened when he was eight, when the police were called. His mother can’t forget either and even leaving their home town doesn’t help. Then Donald befriends Jake, who is eight years old and terrifyingly vulnerable. As he tries to protect him, Donald fails to see the most obvious danger. And that the trouble might be closer than he thinks…
Following Robert Williams’s prize-winning debut Luke and Jon, How The Trouble Started is a dark, gripping novel about childhood, morality and the loneliness of children and adults. Told with Robert Williams’s characteristic warmth, humanity and deceptively light touch, it is a story about how our best and worse intentions can lead us astray, and the moments we can never leave behind.**
** Please note, I am not talking about myself in the third person. This is a copy and paste job of the catalogue copy written by someone else. And whilst it is a wonderful thing when people do talk about themselves in the third person, I just can’t pull it off. I’m no Rio Ferdinand. Or Andrew Stone.
The Italian cover has arrived. It has firmly split opinion in this household… And this edition has a subtitle: Story of a Friendship. Interesting how different the covers have been so far. Should see what the French come up with next.
I had a great time in Berlin. Many thanks to our wonderful guide Rieke, who showed me and Kate around all week, and thanks to all the people who came to the events, the translators, actors and moderators, the drivers, and of course the organisers of the festival. I also met the lovely people at Bloomsbury over there, and Brigitte, the Luke und Jon translator, sampled the best Apple Strudle in Berlin and wasn’t sick in the middle of any of the events. A great week then.
The photo below is taken from a play the students at the Weinmeisterhaus performed, based on the story of Luke and Jon.
And here is the hall where I did my ‘big’ event. I should have perhaps taken a photo when the audience were there…
My events at the Berlin Lit Festival have started appearing on their website. There are only a couple up there at the moment, but I know I’m doing a few more so maybe they will be added at some point. I have an actor reading from the book at some of the events, so even if I’m crap that might be fun. Oh, and in between all this book talk my girlfriend has told me we are hunting down Nick Cave’s squalid haunts from when he was a heroin addict living in Berlin… as good a reason as ever to link to one of the best songs ever written, which also contains perhaps the greatest opening verse of any song ever written.
The kindle version of Luke and Jon is being sold for 99p on Amazon. I hope this is a special offer, because the new paperback edition is coming out on Thursday, and not a reflection of their opinion of the book.* So, if you’ve not got much money but you own a kindle (which is unlikely if you’ve not got much money unless the kindle was a present, that would make sense), and you fancy reading a story about two lost young lads in a northern hill town go here. If you have no money and don’t own a kindle your local library should be able to help. Particularly Clitheroe library. My mum works there. You aren’t allowed to leave without borrowing a copy.
* I’ve just seen that there are about a million kindle books currently on sale for 99p on Amazon. And some really good ones.
