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The Price Is Bright

The Price Is Bright
When you can trust no one, who better to send around the world than a drunk, delusional poet to unknowingly do the dirty work.
Henry Williams
In this eclectic, somewhat manic excursion thru a post cold war wasteland, a poet, seeking only publication of his first collection, is unknowingly recruited by CIA agent Mark Selen, and becomes a player in a deadly hunt for a mole within the agency. Selen, posing as a neighbor, befriends the poet and offers to have a friend of friend at a publisher have a look at the collection. But Selen's intention to use the poet in an elaborate test of communication's security is itself only a façade, with the real purpose of Project Arnaut being the attainment of concrete evidence of a mole within the agency, a mole Selen believes is none other than the Director himself. As if the game were not complicated enough, Selen finds himself dealing with the fact that the poet is becoming delusional and derailed by his guilt at collaboration, and with a proclivity for self-medication, using alcohol to dull the world, the poet proves to an uncontrollable asset, likely to implode or cause unintended explosions

Table of Contents

Comments

Henry Williams 22 August 2012 - 11:23am
So here it is almost a year later and I've finished a bit of a wholesale revision of the novel, changing the poet from being an unwitting participant to having a certain amount of knowledge as to his part in the story, and as a consequence of his growing guilt over his complicity, becoming more unstuck. I ope the changes have improved it, and look forward to hearing what others think (also want to apologize for my lack of involvement over the last year. Life with your head up your ass can get like that.)
Michael Vagnetti 29 September 2011 - 11:20am
The idea of a charlatan poet is compelling, as is the idea of how that affects a speaker's language (and, by extension, his ways of thinking). As with the use of obsolete verb forms, and the inclusion of actual poems, you could amplify the zaniness yet further, if that was a direction you wanted to go. At the same time, I found the syntax of many sentences to be baroque and difficult to parse. Heavily stylized writing can be effective, but maybe in doses? With a longer narrative, you may want to consider how longer multi-clause sentences can push the reader away, too.
Henry Williams 29 September 2011 - 1:28pm
Thank you for the input Michael. In the poet's sections I wanted to try and keep the same voice as much as possible, so the intent behind the Reports and narrative sections from the other characters was to try and break up that voice and maybe relieve some of the pressures on the language. But I will definitely take a look at it and consider how it flows.
Richard Melo 28 May 2011 - 10:54am
Henry, the novel's awesome & here are my overall impressions. (There might be spoilers in my comments, so if you haven't yet read the book, you might not want to read these.) The storytelling is smooth & efficient, and the suspense & jokes build mount from chapter to chapter. I love that you created a character who's a poet who is neither a great wit or spiritually connected to the universe (the usual poet cliches), but rather is good at talking shop, and all the references to the poetry publishing industry are terrific. I like how up front, there's talk of vanity presses promising something too good to be true, yet the poet is soon fooled by his own book deal. Even though the poet is smart, he's blinded by the money & credibility of his publishing house. It's a funny turn when the poetry collection becomes a success, and you handle it nicely (word trickling in from the states). Some of the suspense elements suggested are the poet's family (whether he really has one) and his mental state (he seems pretty stable to me) & I'm not sure these items are all the way resolved. Also, as far as drunks go, the poet never goes to Under the Volcano or Mayor of Casterbridge extremes in that the story's direction doesn't get seriously altered by the poet's drunkenness, which I think adds to the book's comedy (going against the cliche of writers as fall-down drunks). I like how the Project Arnaut reports recap the previous chapter from another point of view, but I was confused the first time one appeared, as I thought that it accidentally popped into the poet's Blackberry, and that he was privy to the secret scheme. The denouement introduces quite a bit of backstory and new emotional elements, as well as characters who weren't visible during most of the novel's unfolding. I think this can use a little massaging, either connecting more to the new characters earlier in the novel or cutting to the chase quicker with how these post-narratives relate to the poet's adventures. It's a terrific, engaging novel, and I wish you great success with it!
Henry Williams 28 May 2011 - 5:06pm
Thank you, Richard. I appreciate the comments and insights. I think the reports lose some of their effectiveness here or might be confusing because they aren't as separated as they are in manuscript. I probably should have separated all of them into their own chapters. I think you are correct about the denouement. I've been re-writing this part but haven't finished yet or incorporated the changes yet.
Henry Williams 22 May 2011 - 10:22pm
Well here goes...

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