FYI, this post talks about themes and some 10,000-foot-view elements of a work that is not yet published, so if you hate reading about a book before you read the book itself, skip this!
Sarah J. Sover is doing a #TueSneakPeek thing on Twitter and inviting other writers to jump in. I’ve done so over there, but I liked what I wrote today enough to repost it here as well. Each Tuesday she has a different theme, and today’s is “aesthetics.” First, let me talk a little about the aesthetics of NEW LIFE IN AUTUMN, which comes out in… a few months. The aesthetics of that book–a sci fi detective novel in a biotechnological dystopian future–are bones, bones, and more bones.
Ultimately NEW LIFE IN AUTUMN is about the remains of lives that are over: the life of the narrator, of children taken from the streets of his city, and of power structures unaware they’re on the way out. Since it’s a noir, that also means mean streets and dive bars.
But NEW LIFE IN AUTUMN also gives us a glimpse of some new places in the City of Autumn, including a bar that isn’t even remotely a dive. Again, it’s a detective novel. Sometimes a private eye has to go where the money’s on open display.
NEW LIFE IN AUTUMN is also about the question of what identity we’re wearing at any given moment. The narrator takes us to meet a friend from another life: a seamstress, a term with more than one meaning in this setting.
When I step back from NEW LIFE IN AUTUMN, I see a story that is also a grave: the place where a life once was, silence others try to fill with conversation, tragedy waiting for someone to solve the mystery of its existence. It’s a funeral in a library in the gutter at night.
The funny thing is, I’ve wrestled this book for nearly two years and I didn’t even figure out that’s what it’s about until I typed that sentence.
Anyway, if you want to see that on Twitter, go here:
Yes, that is EXACTLY it. A story about the Grave, burial, and life continuing beyond the grave.