An Interview with James Twining
What is your favourite book?
Without question, The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald its tragically flawed characters, the capturing of the essence of the Jazz Age and the captivating web of doomed relationships. Combine all this with a lyricism that elevates it to an almost poetic reflection on love, money, class, idealism and the empty heart of the American Dream and I think you have one of the greatest books that's ever been written: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Anything else?
1. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Caroll
2. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
3. The Tempest - Shakespeare
4. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
5. Tess of the d'Urbevilles - Thomas Hardy
What is your favourite movie?
Probably Blade Runner. I like science-fiction generally because it seems to me to be the essence of what the cinema should be about transporting you to an imaginary and yet believable world and making you think. Blade Runner combines Philip K Dick's reflection on the nature of memory and personality with a totally compelling and authentic vision of the future. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen it!
Anything else?
1. Star Wars
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
3. Citizen Kane
4. Rififi
5. The Thomas Crown Affair
What are you working on now?
Currently I'm working on the second book in the Tom Kirk series. It is one year on and Tom and Archie have now gone legit and set themselves as art detectives. A case that begins innocuously enough in Prague, soon reveals a puzzling link to a theft from the NSA museum in Virginia and a long forgotten Nazi heist that took place at the end of the Second World War. I had the idea for this in a dream, so I'm very excited about it!
When is your next novel coming out?
These things change all the time, but at the moment it's slated for Spring 2006.
Tell us three things that people probably don't know about you.
1. I was brought up in Paris, France until I was eleven.
2. Before becoming a writer I worked for an investment bank advising companies on takeovers and then left to set up my own business.
3. I support Arsenal Football Club!
Do you have any weird hobbies?
I collect brass and iron plates/plaques off the front of old British safes and strong rooms. Is that weird enough for you?
Do you enjoy writing compared to being an investment banker or an entrepreneur as before?
I suppose that every job has its good and bad points. Writing can be a very lonely business that lacks the camaraderie and company that a normal office workplace provides. It can also be, contrary to most people's belief in free-flowing artistic inspiration, a seemingly endless process of re-writing, editing and proofing that tests your patience and your resolve to the very limit.
However, it is also an incredibly rewarding experience in terms of both the creative outlet that it provides which so many jobs never give you the opportunity to explore and the pleasure you can take in producing a work that other people enjoy reading. It also provides incredible opportunities for travel, for meeting interesting people and allows you to take control of your life in terms of where and when and how you work which, for anyone who has worked in a large, bureaucratic environment, is a wonderfully liberating experience. Overall, I love it!
What is your typical working day?
Perhaps because of my previous business experience, I treat writing very much as a job: I sit down at my desk at eight thirty, take an hour for lunch, work through till about six thirty and try and keep my weekends free. I find that this disciplined approach helps keep me focused and productive. In the morning I normally review what I have written the previous day, while the afternoon is dedicated to new work. The key for me is not too worry too much about getting the dialogue or the descriptions exactly right first time through or I find that I spend hours on single sentences. I just keep writing and try and get something down and then play around with it later.
How long did it take you to write the book?
I started researching and planning it in late 2002 and actually first put pen to paper in January 2002. The first draft only took me six weeks, but was awful! I then spent six painful months re-writing it again and again. It was only in August that I had a version that I felt was good enough to go out to Agents who then insisted on yet another re-draft. I realised afterwards that I made the typical mistake of the first time novelist in not investing enough time up front because I was too eager to actually get writing. Not a mistake I intend to make again.
Why do you think that art crime provides a good basis for a book?
You only have to leaf through the newspaper most days or go to the movies to see that most people share a bizarre and insatiable fascination for stories of daring break-ins and heists, or looted Nazi art surfacing or ridiculous amounts of money being paid for a painting. Perhaps this fascination reflects the paradox of great art in the twenty first century: How is it that objects that represent everything that is best in human endeavour, often bring out everything that is worst in human nature?
Where does the character of Tom Kirk come from?
When I was growing up and people asked me what I wanted to do, I would always oblige by telling them what they wanted to hear - a lawyer, or an accountant. The truth was, though, that from an early age I had harboured a secret ambition to become one of the world's greatest art thieves - dancing around infra-red trip wires, abseiling down the sides of buildings, cracking open safes. So in a way this character, this incredibly successful art thief, has been living in my thoughts and fantasies ever since I was a child and has perhaps been at the root of my lifelong interest in art and antiques. The Double Eagle was the first chance I got to bring him properly to life.
Where did you get the idea for the story of the Double Eagle?
Incredibly it was from an article about the auction of the Double Eagle that I had read on the BBC website in July 2002. I was so struck by its unique story that I saved it onto my computer and began to think about how I could work it into a novel. The key though, was creating the characters. Once I had clear pictures of Tom, Jennifer, Archie, van Simson and Renwick in my mind, the story unravelled itself.
Are the historical facts alluded to in the book actually true?
Absolutely. From the outset what I wanted to do was take a real historical event and then weave a modern day thriller around it. I think that this both helps give the book a certain historical veracity and also provides an interesting backdrop that the reader can learn about and engage with.
Can I see a Double Eagle for myself?
As the book suggests, two are permanently on display in the Money and Medals Hall of the National Numismatic Collection which is housed on the third floor of the National Museum of American History, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. The actual 'Farouk' Double Eagle, the coin which sold at auction for almost $8 million, has recently gone on display at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, a short distance from Ground Zero.
Have you been to all the places mentioned in the book?
Those that I am allowed into yes! The only place that I have not been to is Fort Knox. Although you can visit the military base and see the Depository from the outside, the Treasury maintains a strict "No Visitors" policy that it has had in place since the facility first opened in 1936.
Do the artworks referred to in the book really exist?
The Winter Egg and the Pansy Egg are real, as is the price tag placed on the Winter Egg when Christie's sold it in April 2002 for $9.6 million, a world record. Other pieces mentioned include the sword gifted to Admiral Lord Nelson by Sultan Selim III after the Battle of the Nile in 1798 which sold at Sothebys in October 2002 for £350,000. Two famous paintings that are mentioned are The Concert by Jan Vermeer and Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt. Both works were part of the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum job, probably the world's largest ever art heist when 12 paintings valued at over $100 million were stolen. It remains unsolved and all the paintings are still missing.