"Bull,.Emma.-.War.For.The.Oaks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bull Emma)

thinking otherwise if the author doesnТt want me to.

I wonder sometimes how authors would feel if they read the
introнductions that spring up in front of their works after theyТre too
dead to say anything about them. What if that character had nothing
to do with the authorТs brother but was actually based on the
writerТs dadТs stories about what it was like to grow up with Uncle
Oscar? What if the author was rejected by his childhood
sweetheart, but it was secretly something of a relief to him by that
point, though he never said so to anyone? And does chapter 10 Ц
read differently if the reader knows that?

ItТs all just too darn risky, this business of introductions. If I werenТt
me, IТm sure IТd be working up to declaring here that УBullТs
experiнence as a professional musician clearly informed War for
the Oaks.Ф But since I am me, I get to dodge that bullet. IТd had
very little exнperience as a professional musician when I wrote this
book. I was extrapolating from things IТd seen other people do,
things IТd read and heard. War for the Oaks was written from the
backside of the monitor speakers, as it were, and it wasnТt until
after the book was published and Cats Laughing came together
(Adam Stemple, Lojo Russo, Bill Colsher, Steve Brust, and me,
playing original electric folk/jazz/space music) that the novel
became at all autobiographical. (By the time I became half of the
goth-folk duo the Flash Girls, I was pretty used to the involvement
of supernatural forces in oneТs band. Half kidding.)

But just knowing a few facts about the chronology of the authorТs
life doesnТt make introduction-writing safe. Writing a novel may be
much like childbirth: once the end productТs age is measured in
double digits, the painful and messy details of its origin are a little
fuzzy. My firstborn book is a teenager, and its very existence
makes it hard for me to remember what life was like before it
existed.

And as with teenagers, thereТs a point at which your book leaves
the nest. What War for the Oaks means to me matters less, now
that itТs done and out of my hands, than what it means to whoeverТs
reading it. A book makes intimate friends with people its author will
never meet. IТm not part of those peopleТs lives; Eddi McCandry is,
and the Phouka, and Willy Silver, and the Queen of Air and
Darkness. How can I describe or explain that relationship, when IТm
not there to see it?

HereТs what I can safely, honestly tell you about the story that
folнlows this introduction:

I still love this book. I still believe in the things it says. When
someone tells me, УWar for the Oaks is one of my favorite books,Ф
it still makes me happy and proud.