John Lathrop

Somerset Maugham: wanting, but not quite able, to believe

In September of 2007 I flew to Phnom Penh to gather material for a new novel.  Two of the books I brought with me were by Maugham: a first edition (a gift from Susana Serna) of The Gentleman in the Parlour, a Record of a Journey from Rangoon to Haiphong (1930), which is as its title suggests a travel book, and a Penguin paperback edition of The Summing Up (1938), a collection of valedictory essays.

In both books Maugham devotes a section to the question of evil; that is, how to satisfactorily explain the existence of evil read more »

Bach and The End of the Monsoon

Can music and spirituality have a place in a political thriller?  I think they can, if they’re sub-themes illuminating character.  In The End of the Monsoon, Mrs Ambler, an idealistic lawyer, is also an amateur musician and practicing Buddhist.  Her guilt over her illicit affair strengthens her desire for at least a breath of transcendence.

In 1983 I thought I had such a breath in the wee small hours of the morning, while playing the clavichord in my third world luxury apartment in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

In my novel I transferred this experience to the character of Dr White, a no-nonsense, middle-aged expatriate English doctor in Phnom Penh.  read more »

I loved them when I was thirteen

Want a story to grab you by the neck–but tired of getting it in the neck?

How about a sexy, adult, political thriller?  No virginity.  No teenage angst.  Plenty of adult angst.  Setting?  No, not Utah.  The tropics.  The End of the Monsoon.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia, today.  Hot, humid nights at the Foreign Correspondents Club overlooking the Mekong.  Businessmen and tourists, both a little on-the-make.  A cosmopolitan in your hand and frangipani on the air–with a whiff of sewage from an outfall by the National Theater down the quay.

A contemporary story.  The lovers: a British professional woman of Sudanese ancestry, and an American, formerly on Wall Street, now a diplomat. Their affair is illicit, as is his latest assignment: do what it takes to ensure an American oil company is granted a concession to drill in Cambodian waters.

read more »

Writing The End of the Monsoon

In March of 2007 I sold my first novel, The Desert Contract, in a two book deal, which meant I had to write another political thriller.  But about what, and set where?

That summer, while finishing the publisher’s suggested revisions, I read Karen Armstrong’s  A Short History of Myth.  The final pages held my attention.  She suggests that read more »

How The New York Times contributes to government abuse

In articles written for the public by respectable journalists, in respectable papers, we find the terms, ‘extraordinary rendition’, ‘detained’, ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’. When in fact, we should be reading, ‘kidnapped’, ‘imprisoned without charge’, and ‘torture’. read more »