Repurposing real-life celebrities from bygone eras into readymade
fictional characters is a handy device, saving the modern-day novelist
the work of crafting personalities from the ground up, quirk by quirk.
In Paul Malmont‘s Jack London in Paradise, the
Oakland-bred socialist whose beloved bestsellers include White
Fang and The Call of the Wild is forty, near death, and
pondering Jungian psychology in Hawaii. Like the real-life London,
Malmont’s fictional London is restless, adventurous, and maintains a
fiery relationship with his wife, the former Charmian Kittredge. In the
novel, which Malmont will discuss at Books Inc. (1344 Park St.,
Alameda) on January 13, London is pursued across Hawaii by
actor/director/film studio owner Hobart Bosworth, who seeks a London
screenplay in hopes of saving his own career. Bosworth, too, was a
genuine historical figure and known associate of London.
While researching his previous novel, The Chinatown Death Cloud
Peril, Malmont “came across a mention of how Jack, in his final
year, had discovered Jungian analysis. Since his writing is so rich
with symbolism and archetypes, I had to wonder what this investigation
might have revealed and how it might have affected him,” says the
author, who works in advertising. “The richness of Jungian theory is
that there’s this whole symbolic language that we all share and use,”
and which “would have been extremely attractive to someone like Jack
who used such rich imagery for most of his career without understanding
where it came from. When he did begin to delve into the universal
subconscious, and begin to understand that he had a creative libido, it
must have been a stunning revelation.” Setting the novel in Hawaii
offered Malmont prime opportunities to draw upon strong symbolism
himself: tradewinds blow; tropical plants burgeon; cliffs loom. As must
all writers of historical fiction who use real people as characters,
Malmont made stuff up when it suited him. His fictional London believes
himself to be the victim of a curse: an idea that Malmont spun out of
the fact that the real-life London’s mother was a spiritualist, a
performer of séances who claimed to commune with the spirit
world. “It’s a character trait I created,” Malmont admits.
He also had to create a voice for his fictional London. The
real-life London authored bestselling fiction, nonfiction, and
speeches. But how did he sound in casual conversation? In a typical
swatch of dialogue, Malmont has London telling a friend: “We’re going
to see the waves. At this time of year they’re the biggest, most
spectacular things in all of Hawaii save for the volcano, I hear.
Everyone says it’s a sight to behold, especially the beach boys. …
The Hawaiians considered Waikiki a sacred place, a healing place.”
Putting made-up words into the mouth of a world-renowned wordsmith
takes a lot of nerve. Malmont knows that. “Jack London was such a
popular writer that I knew there would be plenty of haters ready to
tell me, ‘You don’t know Jack,'” he admits. “But … his story was so
unique that I couldn’t let go of it.” 7:30 p.m. BooksInc.net
