Maxwell will discuss many fascinating topics -- among them:
- Writing from the point of view of an unreliable narrator
- How traveling influences his writing
- Separating fact from fiction while writing a book that’s partially based on real-life experiences
- “In Another Country, and Besides,” comes out next February, and is a suspenseful ride through post-war Europe with troubled writer Harry Hoffman. He meets the intriguing Cleo as he’s struggling to leave his past behind him, but his intense fixation on her may lead to his undoing.
- In Another Country, and Besides, tells the confessional story of Harry Hoffman, an expatriate living in post-war continental Europe.
During a time of moral bankruptcy, dissolution, and unrealized love, Harry is a lost soul with a sinister past.
Our story begins in Venice, where our protagonist meets Cleo, who offers him an unexpected love affair and a chance to start over. But when this newfound happiness is threatened and their affair is strained by new passions, jealousies and other men, Harry slips back to his old ways and plots his revenge. This takes him on a great variety of adventures and experiences -from Zurich, and the Swiss Alps, to the Cote d’Azur and finally to Paris, irresistibly drawn back to the great, sprawling city he had once fled in bitterness and disgust.
From its violence, ignorance and cruelty, to its joy and mystery, In Another Country, and Besides is told in a language of great simplicity and power of loyalty and courage, love and defeat and the tragic death of an ideal that shows vividly Jacobs own expatriate experiences and by doing so, has created a story with the mass and movement of an epic novel.
