Life Without The Boring Bits

by Colleen McCullough

  Preparing the time line block was indeed a lot of hard work, but the finished product and how it served me was excellent, well worth the labor. It moved onward and upward with far less fuss than a secondary computer would have.

  When there were parcels of dates all the same but detailing events in different places, I coded them with highlight markers — red for Anatolia, purple for Rome, and so on.

  From 110 BC to 27 BC, I never got my dates confused, and they were there in black-and-white for checking.

  Maybe here I should re-emphasize that I eschewed computers entirely for this project. As a scientist, they hold no mysteries for me, but I refuse to trust them with my sweat, my blood or my tears. It’s too easy to lose what’s in there, and the way my mind works doesn’t click with the mind-set of a computer programmer. I would have to write my own programs, and life’s too short.

  The real trouble with a computer is that it’s not dumbly obedient. Even worse, it actually thinks it’s smarter. Well, I have news for it …

  I woke up with a shock of horror mingled with joy when I realized that in order to do justice to this one man, Caesar, I would have to write at least five novels, starting before he was born and ending well after he died. Seven, it finally turned out to be. For Caesar embodied a far greater theme than his life: he also embodied the fall of the Roman Republic, a timocratic institution that lasted for 500 years and ended for good and all on the day in 27 BC that the Senate gave Octavianus the title of Augustus. The next 500 years consisted of the Imperium.

  By now the year was 1988 and the research had been going on for about ten years. Several key facts had steeled my resolve to write however many books the story demanded. One fact concerned history as it is usually taught: the men it studies tend to spring fully formed onto a country’s stage as grown, mature men; a second fact concerned the tendency to study a man or group of men as distinct from the times in which they lived, and from the world that shaped them; and a third fact point out that while a deed of a man may be known, all too often the reason why is a mystery. What I wanted to do was show the world the men lived in, first and foremost; then, trace the progress of these men from infancy to the public stage; and, most importantly of all, attempt to furnish reasons why. Whole academic careers have been made on pondering the reasons behind historical deeds. If I did enough research, I told myself, I too could have a valid stab at the reasons why.

  I was ready to go, right down to having decided upon a prose style. It would have to be literate, yet simultaneously project a comfortably modern feel; the Romans of the Republic were a remarkably forward-thinking, forward-looking group of men who would not have couched their speech in a convoluted way. Latin is a crisp language, succinct. And the connective tissue of narrative would have to follow the same rules — neither too colloquial nor too ponderous. Workmanlike.

  What I lacked was a publisher. I had never been published by any save Harper & Row, a most prestigious New York firm, and, being a creature of habit, I had no plans to transfer to another firm. Unfortunately the start of my writing career coincided with the last of the great editors and the last of the publishing chiefs who saw the book first, and the profit second. Also, as told in the earlier parts of this essay, Harper & Row wanted Son of TTB.

  I had an interview with the Publisher himself. He was filling in as my editor, and Creed had bewildered him. I told him about Caesar and the five books — I didn’t dare hint that there might be more. Full of enthusiasm! The first book would be about Gaius Marius. Who? The second book would be about Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Who? The third book would be about Pompey the Great. Oh! Heard of him! The fourth and fifth books would be about Julius Caesar. Now we’re getting somewhere!

  He was an erudite, sophisticated, highly educated man, but as the conversation proceeded I began to see that he didn’t have the slightest idea what I was really aiming to do: retell the fall of the Roman Republic in a form that would capture people’s interest rather than turn them off. Roman history has an undeserved reputation of dryness, boredom, long-winded speeches and too much law. By 1988 I’d done more than enough research to have learned that for every speech there was a battle, for every law a rebellion of some kind, and for every crisis in Rome there was a war. It was riveting stuff, and the men who peopled it were fascinating.

  No, said the Publisher when I had concluded, Harper & Row weren’t interested in publishing five novels about ancient Rome, even if Caesar was their hero. However, said he craftily, if I wrote Caesar first in one volume and then followed that up with Pompey the Great, and they were commercially successful, then Harper & Row might see their way clear to publishing Marius and Sulla as — wait for it! — prequels. I was aghast, but had the good sense not to show the depth of my dismay. Once I could speak, I tried to explain that they had to be in temporal order, from earliest to latest, or the history would be lost and the project a travesty.

  I ended in flatly refusing to maim my Roman books, and so ended my writing career with Harper & Row. By extraordinary chance, I met Rupert Murdoch on the day I tendered my refusal. Quite unbeknownst to me, Collins, his British publishing firm, had just acquired Harper & Row, which became HarperCollins. After shaking hands with the Great Man and noting that he had a massive cranium not unlike those of Caesar and Cicero, I walked out of the building never to go back; it was the same day Rupert Murdoch walked into it for the first time. What kind of omen is that?

  I remember cudgeling my brains as to how I could better have outlined what I needed to do: what the teachers of history did not do, failing to show their students what kind of children or youths the famous men had been. All of us, from Prince Charles through business managers to coal heavers and murderers, are a product not only of our times, but also of our upbringing. Every momentous incident in the life of a five-year-old contributes to what sort of person he or she becomes; as does the success or failure of a first kiss; the unjust beating for an uncommitted sin; some glorious triumph on a sporting field by a child hardly big enough to wield the bat or catch the ball — I could go on, but you know what I mean.

  Think of that immortal postscript of Napoleon’s to Josephine as he neared Paris and their reunion, always bearing in mind that she was a Creole who loved her bath and her perfumed soap: “P.S. Don’t wash.” If one wants to know the reason why, look at the Great Man’s formative years in a Corsican house that probably had no laid-on water or ablution facilities, surrounded by women who undoubtedly stank of everything from sweat to menses — he was a product of his environment, and adored smelly women.

  So too was Caesar a product of his environment, and Pompey the Great, and all the rest. To understand the grown, mature man, it is a great help to know what kind of life he lived as a babe, a child, a youth and a young man. Shrouded in mystery, yet able to be pieced together. Caesar was an Everyman type; growing up in the stew of the Subura would have been a great help in developing this quality, and it would have helped him understand foreign languages too. Whereas Cicero was always conscious of his bumpkin origins, and was an inveterate social climber.

  In the end, I realized that I was touting a product nobody would want. Commercial publishing houses would deem the work too scholarly to turn a quick profit, whereas academic publishing houses wouldn’t publish fiction by a bestselling writer.

  Ric was my only enthusiastic fan, which told me that the Roman books did have popular appeal, at least for men. He’s a true critic, in that he says whether or not he likes a work, and waxes more enthusiastic about some books than others. If it’s women’s fiction, he doesn’t like it. But the Roman books? He loves them! No one else did, from agents through to publishers. The world was at best lukewarm. I had tried to explain that they were not designed to turn a quick profit, but that they would always have an ongoing, steady market. Not something publishers want to hear in the third millennium, when a book’s shelf life is three months and then it’s remaindered. Though, which I find interesting, my books tend to keep selling — small but
steady, year after year. What I write doesn’t go out of print entirely.

  Even more interesting is the number of foreign languages in which I am published — not merely TTB, but each book as I write it. I don’t know why that is, as my output is so varied. All I can think is that in many countries books continue to be a more important part of life than they are in English.

  Carolyn Reidy has been in my life for a long time. She was President of Avon Books, the American paperback house that published me. And she listened. The only problem was, these Roman books were definitely hard cover. The hard cover firm associated with Avon Books was William Morrow, though it leaned toward texts on commerce and finance. Willy-nilly, Morrow were dragged in, complicated by advances that were too big. It’s nice to have the money, but paying it back always haunts me, and one can wind up seeing all one’s earned royalties debited against unearned royalties on other books. Middlemen are the ones who never lose. Don’t be a writer or a publisher: be a literary agent.

  Carolyn both understood and believed. I can see no other reason why I had a contract for five Roman books with Morrow and Avon. Not only did she believe; she edited me through The First Man in Rome and The Grass Crown. What a joy! After some twenty-two books, I have had editors of all kinds, but never one in the same league as Carolyn Reidy — keen, brilliant, merciless, percipient, able to keep the overall picture in her mind even as she dealt with the minutiae. I reveled in being edited by such a professional, someone who was friend as well as the only critic who can ever matter to a writer — one’s editor. Other critics see the finished work. One’s editor sees the warts, pustules, boils and rashes. And a good editor never suggests how to fix what is wrong, simply points out the faults.

  I imagine that Carolyn saw The Masters of Rome as I did: not overnight bestsellers, but constant modest sellers for years.

  The pity of it was that, as is always true of superlatively gifted people, Carolyn moved onward and upward. I lost not only my best ever editor, but also my support base. Though they were my primary publishers, Morrow disliked the Roman books and did nothing to help each one’s progress into print, then their sales force neglected them utterly — why not, when they were interested in selling books on how to make millions on Wall Street?

  The First Man in Rome did really well, but before The Grass Crown was in print, Carolyn had gone, and things had changed; The Grass Crown died. So did the third, Fortune’s Favorites, though not so badly; of all of them, The Grass Crown was the one no one, even the most ardent fans, knew was in print. Caesar’s Women, about the years Caesar spent inside Rome, did better again, so I looked forward to the fifth and last Roman book under contract to Morrow as able to reach what was a rapidly growing number of fans.

  But Morrow was in lemming mood, and determined to wreck whatever chances the fifth Roman book had. Its title had been set in stone for a long time: Let the Dice Fly, which was what Caesar said as he crossed the Rubicon. But Morrow wouldn’t have that title. They wanted to call it plain Caesar. I argued and battled for months, and let this be a lesson for all aspiring writers: if your publisher takes against a title, they will nag, hector and threaten until the writer gives in. The great argument is always that with the writer’s title, the book won’t do well, whereas with the publisher’s title, it will sell fantastically. And you, the author, thinks of how many other books you want to write, and gives in. Guess what? The publisher’s title never does a thing for the book! It would have done quite as well with the author’s title. But they have to have their own way, it’s a demonstration of power.

  So the last Roman book for Morrow came out as Caesar in huge letters and, inside on the title page, in small letters, Let the Dice Fly. My British Commonwealth publishers left off all mention of Let the Dice Fly anywhere, and published it as plain Caesar. It did poorly because no one realized it was a new book, so all the progress made with Caesar’s Women went for nothing, and the volume that saw Caesar conquer Gaul and cross the Rubicon didn’t reach its full audience.

  Simon & Schuster, which was now Carolyn’s firm, took the last two Roman books. The October Horse, which deals with the assassination of Caesar, is the best of all the series, but that’s hard to say, because they all dovetail so neatly. And the last, of course, was entitled Antony and Cleopatra.

  But this change of publishers is unfortunate too. The series is split between two houses — houses that have not amalgamated, as well. How am I ever going to see a uniform edition of all seven in a trade paperback size? It’s the logical move for The Masters of Rome but foiled by circumstances. Were it possible, the books would continue their amble into the far future sure of a small but steady market. The fate I always envisioned.

  I can say that with some truth, for since The Masters of Rome appeared, Roman history in high schools and universities across the world had found a larger, more enthusiastic student intake. Why did that happen? Because I created a living, striving world correct down to its smallest details; my readers can see how and why men like Caesar and Pompey the Great clashed, why Rome was shaken by a series of civil wars while simultaneously threatened from without by a series of great kings. The best of all books open a new world to the reader, and show it in all its glory and its squalor.

  I did all my own maps, by hand. As the books went on, I got better at the mapping, though by The October Horse my eyes were failing and the quality went down again. But no one else could have drawn the maps, with their alien names. Some of my editors disliked having maps, but where I’d crumble over a title, I’d never give in over a map.

  I gathered photographs of all the ancient portrait busts, and from them drew what look like black-and-white newspaper photographs of Rome’s famous men. The busts, bleakly white, with blind bald eyes, were not like that when they were made; they were painted with exquisite attention to detail and color, and looked like a Madame Tussaud waxworks potrait. But with the centuries the paint wore off, leaving us to think this white object was what a Roman saw as he walked around his city. Though my drawings are not in color, they do give the reader a better idea of what Caesar and his contemporaries really looked like.

  It took over twenty years to do the research, sometimes having nothing else on hand, at other times squeezing it in whenever I had a free moment, and it went on long after I had started writing the novels. Some women like them, but they appeal far more to men, particularly men of the cloth, men of the courts, and men of the political arena. Some of my fans are famous men in their own right, and from both the far political left and the far political right. That’s because, of course, the books deal with politics as a science and an art, and the Romans were past masters at it.

  Ric and I went to Turkey, where we hired a minibus, a guide and a driver, and covered 11,000 miles of Anatolia following in the footsteps of Lucullus as he chased Mithridates. We wound up in places no Turk ever visits, let alone tourists, and traveled in the midst of Kurdish troubles; there were seven murders in one remote town near Ararat the night we stayed there, but no one worried us. I add that we came away deeming Asian Turkey the most beautiful country we’d ever seen, and its people the nicest. We saw the pink snow that so terrified Lucullus’s soldiers, thinking the gods had stained it with blood: sand from the Sahara. And how stunning the impact of Mount Ararat, white with snow, Little Ararat on its flank. We were in Turkey from mid-April through to the end of May — snow on every mountain, the high passes barely open, the crag of Coracesium rising out of the sea, and lush green grass everywhere. A gorgeous, gorgeous place, especially once we shook off the hordes of leather-coated German tourists who descend on the buffet and leave not a crumb behind. If we saw a promising valley or hilltop, we went there, a marvelous autocracy for tourists. In my “pajama suits” I never offended Muslim sensibilities, though Ric was wolf-whistled by six veiled women in a hotel in Samsun. His face can pass for any Mediterranean nationality, but six-foot-three and a fine physique were more than the ladies could handle, I guess. He smiled at them, and they swoo
ned.

  Off the subject of Turkey! I could rave for pages.

  Like some statistics about the Roman books?

  Three and a half million published words. Given that each book went through at least five drafts, and that I physically typed each one on a typewriter, that’s 17,500,000 words. God knows how many carbon and correction ribbons — hundreds, certainly. There were a total of seventy-seven portrait drawings, sixty-four maps, five architectural or other plans, and one table of events.

  And, as already said, no computer!

  However, I do have a little treasure-trove. I have the originals of all my maps and drawings, apart from a few drawings I have given as gifts. Genuine hand-done work, in my possession. I may be a dying breed, but the satisfaction that one experiences when something is finished is indescribable. I did it, not some inanimate assortment of soldered circuitry.

  Think what an amazing career I have had!

  Twenty-three published works thus far, including one of the greatest bestsellers of all time, and a gargantuan work of true scholarship that even the professional scholars respect. Almost everything I have ever written is still in print. And my books continue to be published in dozens of foreign languages.

  At the moment I am writing more Carmine Delmonico whodunits — why? Because I love the genre, and they’re both enjoyable and intellectually challenging to write. Too Many Murders and Naked Cruelty followed On, Off and a new one, The Prodigal Son, will shortly appear.

  I forgot to say that I wrote a cookbook too, for which blame Roger Straus. He was marketing director of Harper & Row while I was still there, and said to me that it was beneath the dignity of a major novelist to write a cookbook. Red rag to old cow! I decided to write a cookbook. I found an elderly vegetarian female friend wondering how she was going to make ends meet in her retirement, and asked her to co-author the cookbook. Her strengths were my weaknesses, and vice versa, so it was an ideal collaboration. The result was called Cooking with Colleen McCullough and Jean Easthope and was published in Australia only — all the other publishers chickened out. But the book was well-written and explained many of the mysteries in cooking — what makes bread rise, why the butter has to be cold if you’re making pastry, and so on. It did amazingly well, and helped Jean’s retirement greatly. I am still being asked to write another cookbook, and who knows? Maybe one day I will.