Books
INTERVIEW WITH STEVE HERMAN ABOUT HIS BOOK,
THE SIGN OF FOUR
Why did you decide to do a re-telling of the Sign of Four?
I wanted to tell a story in first person, by a radio talk show host. But I needed a plot. And I was thinking about what Mike Ebberstadt once told me: We were talking about finding a plot for a screenwriting class, and he said, "Why don't you just do what Shakespeare did? Steal one." So I did. I wanted to use an Agatha Christie or a Sherlock Holmes, primarily because I thought they would be old enough to fall outside the copyright restrictions. I am waiting for the copyright on The Moving Finger to expire; have an idea on doing something with that. You know, it's interesting how dependant the old "mysteries" are upon a lack of technology. But, in any event, the Sign of Four worked, and was intriguing to me, because it really melds with the motifs of signs and symbols, which are repeatedly taken accepted at face value, mis-interpreted or mis-understood.
Unlike the Gordian Knot, you choose to set the book in New Orleans.
Yes, which is a challenge. Because, particularly with a city like New Orleans, and you see this in the movies a lot, there is such a tendency to use the setting as a crutch. The accents. The food. Mardi Gras. Music. Voodoo. At best, you get a showcase of images and scenes from New Orleans, in which character and plot are reduced to secondary roles. At worst, you get on big cliche. I wanted to tell a story about people who simply happen to live in New Orleans.
Is that what makes this book different?
I don't know if anything makes it different, quite honestly. I think the narrative is done well, without much "cheating". But I wrote it, after the Gordian Knot and A Day in the Life of Timothy Stone, as something that could be more "commercial". And I think, hope, that it is. But I think there is a nice interplay between the narrator's world-view, the plot, and the underlying themes.
Why a radio talk show host?
Talk radio, at the time I was writing the book, was really at the height of popularity. It is, by comparison to television or film, for example, more easily transferrable to text. There is a freedom to simply expound on things. And it fits with the themes in the sense that, invariably, whenever you see the radio host, it never fits; you already have a picture in your mind of what he or she looks like; and you can never quite put the voice with the face.
I like the description of the way the show works. Did you work in a radio station?
No. My wife ran her college radio station; classic rock show. But I just called up David Tyree, who was the drive-home talk show host I always listened to on 870, and he invited me up to the studio, showed me how things worked, et cetera. Good guy.
Do you still listen to him?
Not much. Seems to have gotten more conservative in his old age. Or Republican, I should say. I'm conservative. Plus, I think he is usually off air by the time I am driving home. I usually switch between Tom Fitzmorris and Jerry V.
