Bob (this one) wrote:

> If you haven't read them, Aztec and Aztec Blood (slightly less) are good
> reads.

Actually, I meant to say Aztec Autumn rather than Blood. When gary was
getting ready to write what he was calling "Aztec Twilight," he wrote
me a letter after reading one of my columns. I was paralyzed because
he was one of my favorite writers and it took me a week before I got
up the nerve to reply. We arranged to meet for dinner, him, me and my
(about to be ex-) wife named Autumn. In an earlier novel of his, he
had a character named Autumn and said he'd never met anyone with that
name.

Anyway, we had dinner a couple more times before she and I finally
came apart. When I saw the beginning of the manuscript, I saw the name
change. He said it was because he enjoyed our dinners before she moved
away and because it fit the subject.

He'd been through a bout of bad health and was still wobbly. So I
helped him through that time and we ate and drank too much and finally
the book was done. He stuck my name in the acknowledgments of Aztec
Autumn and I think it was a nice gesture. He died shortly thereafter

Aztec Blood was written by someone else, not really in Gary's style
although it's been presented as finishing his work. It's not a bad
book, just doesn't have the intensity that Gary's writing does. Still,
with a bit of forgiveness, it's a good story.

My other fave is his retelling of the Marco Polo story called "The
Journeyer." He actually traveled the Silk Road to research it. Both
out and back through some wild country and hostile cultures. Amazing
guy. Looked like some mild-mannered reporter. Lived large.

Pastorio

Bob (this one) extrapolated from data available...


>
> My other fave is his retelling of the Marco Polo story called "The
> Journeyer." He actually traveled the Silk Road to research it. Both
> out and back through some wild country and hostile cultures. Amazing
> guy. Looked like some mild-mannered reporter. Lived large.
>

I suspect that more than one author of grand and colorful historical
fiction, an avocation which requires a spectacular imagination as well as
(at least among the "I'm-not-one-of-the-not-quite-but-mostly-dry-as-dust-
research-assistant-aided-last-named-Michener set") an imperial capacity to
record and remember bits and pieces from pages read, even those from mis-
spent youth, are likely to have "lived large" in some aspects of
life...(and the dinner table or saloon bar offer especially easy access to
some large living). I met Jennings once at a book-signing and was
impressed by a certain largeness of life aura about him. I've enjoyed most
of his novels, great for business trips to less than exciting
destinations and airport waits - incidentally, a "less than exciting
destination" is one in which you carry the book you've been reading along
to dinner with you, expecting to see or experience little worth recording
in the restaurant.

TMO

Bob (this one) extrapolated from data available...


>
> My other fave is his retelling of the Marco Polo story called "The
> Journeyer." He actually traveled the Silk Road to research it. Both
> out and back through some wild country and hostile cultures. Amazing
> guy. Looked like some mild-mannered reporter. Lived large.
>

I suspect that more than one author of grand and colorful historical
fiction, an avocation which requires a spectacular imagination as well as
(at least among the "I'm-not-one-of-the-not-quite-but-mostly-dry-as-dust-
research-assistant-aided-last-named-Michener set") an imperial capacity to
record and remember bits and pieces from pages read, even those from mis-
spent youth, are likely to have "lived large" in some aspects of
life...(and the dinner table or saloon bar offer especially easy access to
some large living). I met Jennings once at a book-signing and was
impressed by a certain largeness of life aura about him. I've enjoyed most
of his novels, great for business trips to less than exciting
destinations and airport waits - incidentally, a "less than exciting
destination" is one in which you carry the book you've been reading along
to dinner with you, expecting to see or experience little worth recording
in the restaurant.

TMO