J.G. Harlond on Dorothy Dunnett
J.G. Harlond, author of the Chosen Man trilogy
There are two sets of the Lymond and Niccolò series on my bookshelves, plus two copies of King Hereafter. Some are hardbacks, the rest are now dry, cracked-spine paperbacks, whose pages are so yellow and print so small that I struggle to read them – although I still do. Over the years, originals have been replaced, but I can never bring myself to part with them, despite their appalling covers. Looking at titles I can see scenes: a joyous youth riding a bald ostrich, the same man now older rides a silken-hide camel; a vast eagle swoops across a snowy waste to an outstretched arm; a fearless youth runs across moving oars and marries a woman with ‘spawn-like’ eyes . . . If you recognise these scenes, you probably qualify as a Dunnett fan, and are probably also a demanding reader.
That adjective, ‘demanding’ – this is what makes my debt to Dunnett complex, what hindered my transition from writing school textbooks to getting published as a fiction author. Dunnett helped to set me off on my travels as a young woman, curious, anxious to see the world, but as an author there’s no denying, she held me back. Stayed my hand. After reading her fiction since the 1960s it took courage to find an agent for my first novel in the 1990s. The agent I found told me what I needed to change and improve for the current market, which I set about doing, but I was reading The House of Niccolò series at the time and a soft Scots voice had begun whispering in my ear: ‘Is your work good enough yet?’ ‘No,’ I’d sigh, ‘not really.’
That first MS went into a drawer. Two more, unfinished, followed. My agent lost interest in me. Finally, inspired or motivated by the Claes-who-becomes-Niccolò, I started on what became The Empress Emerald. But then, when I decided that book was finished, I began hearing that gentle probing again: ‘Finished? Really? Is it good enough?’ Good enough, I hoped, but by whose standard? It wasn’t that I wanted to write like Lady Dunnett – would that I could – but she had set both my reading and writing criteria very high. You can see why I took my time to get published – although I’m very glad I did.
Re-reading The Game of Kings recently, I had another nasty moment when I realised the scene where Ludo da Portovenere in Book 1 of my Chosen Man Trilogy impersonates a voluble Spaniard to obtain a galleon in Lisbon was very similar to a scene in the first Lymond story.
Ludo’s adventures take place in the 1630s, he is large, charismatic and untrustworthy – nothing like aesthetic Francis Crawford – but Crawford does impersonate a flamboyant Spaniard on more than one occasion for dubious reasons. I must have internalised these scenes: it wasn’t conscious copying. There are aspects of Niccolò in my likeable rogue protagonists Leo Kazan and his ancestor Ludo, but that’s to do with character development, not the story. Except Ludo is sent on secret missions by monarchs based on real events, and I have also written a relatively light-hearted historical crime fiction series . . .
‘Inspired by Dunnett’ has to be my tribute: she inspired me to write well-researched historical fiction, stories of espionage, political and romantic intrigue that take the reader to different countries, but she set a very demanding standard by which to measure my achievements.
Málaga, March, 2023
J G Harlond writes more here on her blog about Dorothy Dunnett.
Her web page and more about her own writing can be found here.
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