Phillip DePoy is the director of the theatre program at Clayton State University and author of several novels, including The Drifter's Wheel, A Corpse's Nightmare, and December's Thorn.DePoy's latest novel is A Prisoner in Malta, the first book in a new mystery series featuring Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare's contemporary and Queen Elizabeth's man behind the throne.
Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. His reply:
I can’t read fiction when I’m working on one of my own books—it’s too confusing or, more often, intimidating. When I made the mistake of reading the first page of The Poisonwood Bible,Learn more about the book and author at Phillip DePoy's website.it took me six weeks to recover. Six weeks of considering other careers--plumbing or fish-mongering. So I’m happily reading two non-fiction books at the same time right now. Brian Walker’s Hua Hu Ching: The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu, and Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life—the subtitle of which is “Not a Novel.”
The Hua Hu Ching is a sort of companion book to the Tao Te Ching, arguably the oldest philosophical book in the world. A very valuable idea I get from that book is the notion that I ought to try to link my individual mind with the universal mind. That’s exactly what I think happens when Iwrite, when I’m in the middle of the process of writing: it’s no me writing at all, it’s something else.
The Proust book elucidates In Search of Lost Time (usually translated, of course, as Remembrance of Things Past). From that book I glean a certain understanding of the great beauty in taking a long time to examine everything. Opening a door is an opportunity to examine every conceivable aspect of a door knob—in Proust’s case, for fourteen pages. It’s the opposite of what I think I’m supposed to do as a writer, so that’s good for me to hear too.
The Page 69 Test: A Prisoner in Malta.
My Book, The Movie: A Prisoner in Malta.
--Marshal Zeringue
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