Sunday 26 February 2017

Will Alexander Nod?

Will Alexander Nod? (Post 57) Welcome to the shadowy and not-so-shadowy space behind Sally's books. If you're not familiar with this blog, scroll down to see what it's all about.

Will Alexander Nod? (2003) is, like Show Us! (Post 52) an embellished story that sounds like a tall tale... but isn't. Athina has been reluctantly co-opted into her aunt's stage show Zeus Nods, playing the role of Hebe, cup-bearer to the gods. She is not pleased to be paired on stage with Alexander Kirk-Papadopoulus or, as Athina calls him, Adelaide Greek Boy, in the role of Ganymede. During the run of rehearsals, fittings and general waiting about, Alexander puts himself out to entertain Athina with tales of his family; especially his parents' long-delayed wedding. Each day he tells her of an increasingly unbelievable reason for the wedding's delay or cancellation. Athina is unwillingly fascinated, waiting for Alexander to "nod", or make a mistake and contradict his own stories. In the end, it dawns on her that Nick the director and Jenny the choreographer actually are the parents in question, and as the stage show wraps the wedding finally goes ahead.

Alexander's tales include Greek and Scottish wedding traditions, which I had to research, the affair of the oscar (a fish) which I already knew about because my son's flatmate had one.and something about pet rats, which again I knew about because my daughter used to have some.  The stage show, being about the Greek gods, was easy to dream up, because Greek and Roman mythology has been a hobby of mine since childhood. In my teens and early twenties I also served as a member of the chorus in various musicals and music halls, so I knew quite a bit about staging musical plays. I don;t know Adelaide very well, but I've been there a few times, and could wing it for a bonsai novel at this length and level.

As with all this series of books I had a wonderful time with this story. It is written under the pseudonym Theo Georgiou, which is something of an in-joke as the name 'Theo" means "gift" and "Georgiou" is a form of "George". The name translates to "Gift of George"... which just suggests (correctly) that I'm the daughter of my father.

If you want to read Will Alexander Nods you may be able to buy it HERE


About the Blog

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. This preamble will be pasted to the top of each post, so feel free to skip it in future.

The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. 















Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. This preamble will be pasted to the top of each post, so feel free to skip it in future.

The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. 

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