Breaking Glass

My contribution to the second Daily Squash Report group novel has just come out today. I am the third author (out of eleven) in this go-around. Unlike last fall with “The Club with Hell” here with “Breaking Glass” it was less a case of tying strands together and keeping the narrative on its somewhat wobbly tracks and more creating some of the tracks in the first place. So I added a couple of characters and tossed in some juice about some sort of international conspiracy emanating from the bowels of the IOC and hit blend.

Other bits went in, too: in memory of George Plimpton, a Sidd Finch-like barefoot squash player; and someone who goes the whole tournament without shaving: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playoff_beard

After Alan Thatcher’s explosive first chapter, though, it was hard to avoid some sort of sexual reference, so I brought back a salacious touch of the Venice Squash Club from the nineteen-seventies. Those who were there forty years ago have never forgotten it. 

And some magic realism at the end. What serious squash player hasn’t wanted to go back to Harrow in 1865 and see the game at its genesis, to see the original habits, styles and rules, to learn the reason why they called it “squash” and to give it a go in one of the courtyards or alleys?

 

http://dailysquashreport.com/1_30_13_breaking_glass_chapter_3.htm

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