Hello from Adam


Dear Adam,
I had to write and tell you how much I enjoyed reading Kings of the Yukon. This book has a kind of watery, flowing quality to the writing. Well done!   
Lone Wolf seems to have attracted some very positive reviews. (Yes, I will be ordering a copy from Amazon.) Is it a kind of metaphor for Europe, I wonder? Although Slavc somehow managed to cross the Alps to Italy, human migration seems to attract a lot of negative comments.
When we had a house north of Sofia, near the border with Serbia, my wife was out in the garden one afternoon and lots of the dogs in the village were barking. Then she heard a long, low sound, coming from the mountains. It was a wolf. All of the dogs were suddenly silent. She said that it was very weird. I daresay you collected quite a few strange tales while you were researching Lone Wolf.  
As for me, your old teacher and his wife are still in Bulgaria. We left China about five years ago and then I did about eighteen months of teaching in Sofia, before retiring. We now have a rather lovely country house with a view of the mountains, the sort of place that we could never afford in England. I still scribble a few posts for my blog, Bulgaria with Noodles.
I occasionally hear a few odds and ends from the Norman Court crowd. William Dobbie sent me a couple of emails. He is now a minister of a church in Tennessee. Matthew Unsworth and his wife are in Australia, I believe. Pia Fitzgerald, one of your co-stars in Arsenic and Old Lace, had quite a successful career on the London stage, but then she got married and gave it up.
Please give my regards to your parents.
Best wishes from Bulgaria,
Simon
Dear Simon,

It's lovely to hear from you. Sorry for the slow reply - it's been a busy couple of weeks. We had a first launch in Margate (around the corner from where I live at the moment, Ramsgate) and then one last Thursday in Stanfords, the travel bookshop in Covent Garden, which visited in my early twenties as though going on a pilgrimage to buy maps for various trips - holding a launch there was a very pleasing way to complete the circle. It felt not dissimilar to getting married - which I did with Ulli, two years ago, down in Cornwall - bringing together lots of people that I love, to celebrate. And lovely to have my kids there as well - 7 and 4 now - I've been writing this book for the best part of their conscious lives, and finally it's done! Not planning on getting married again, so I suppose I need to carry on with more books.

Bulgaria sounds wonderful. I walked through Bulgaria many years ago, on my way to Istanbul, and loved it. Plovdiv, and the Rhodope Mountains, before walking into Turkey at Erdine. Like you, we're wondering where we might like to live that we can afford - everything here is so expensive, and we keep on casting an eye to Europe - Ulli is Swedish, so I like to think she could bring me along on her passport, although I don't really know for sure. We're also looking at Wales though - we're currently in Ramsgate, in Kent, which has been great while the kids have been little - we are right by the beach, which is all you really need - but now they're getting bigger (7 and 4) it makes it possible to start thinking a little more ambitiously.

Delighted you enjoyed Kings of the Yukon - will love to know what you make of this one. Yes, we've had some great reviews so far, and it's been Book of the Week on Radio 4 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m002cznw) - so now just need to sit back and see what happens with it. Yes, it touches on human migration as well - it plays with the idea of the wolf as a scapegoat for all manner of things happening in the mountains, and the refugee seems to fulfil that function for a lot of politics at the moment as well. We lived for a year on Lesvos in 2019 - Ulli was working in the refugee camp there - which is when I started thinking about the book. 6 years ago!

Lovely to hear from you. And I've passed on your regards to my Mum and Dad, who are still both doing well.

Best wishes

Adam


From the launch, with Helen, my editor

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