One of the highlights of 2010 for me was corresponding with Prof. David Downing and finally interviewing him about his book, Looking for the King. If you remember our discussion then (or if you just follow that link to read it), you know it was always friendly but not a little combative, which is what I think words between reader and author with book should be — full-on engagement, not quite argument. One of the fruits of that edifying exchange was an invitation to read and review another book, Toward the Gleam, on a similar if wonderfully different subject.
King, you’ll recall, is the story of two Americans in England just before the second world war. They find themselves in a hunt for a sacred object and have the good fortune to have C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and J. R. R. Tolkien as advisers. Prof. Downing is an Inklings authority whose books on CSL’s Narniad and Space Trilogy are rightly esteemed as among the best so his foray into fiction this way had to be very good to meet what were high expectations from the Spare Oom reading set. And it was a grand read.
Toward the Gleam is by an author I had not read previously but the subject was so daring — a story re-telling how The Lord of the Rings was written, with a host of historical figures from Agatha Christie to Winston Churchill — that I confess I wondered if it was possible to pull it off credibly or as engrossing fiction. Despite being endorsed by Michael O’Brien, the planet’s most notable and risible Harry Hater still standing, Gleam hit on all cylinders. Below the jump you’ll find my 10 question interview with the author about the story’s genesis and peculiar choices. Enjoy!
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