Hidden Inspiration

Hard to believe, but they all have something in common

Have a good look at the book covers in the image above.
They all have something in common.
Yes, I know it’s not easy to spot, after all, there’s a cookbook, a novel by a famous playwright, the original books from several top movies of the last seventy or so years, even one that was made into a superb TV series, starring House and Loki. Oh, and of course, a storybook and a novel for children.
Is it the colors, the style, the genre, the lettering fonts?
Last chance; any guesses?
Okay, I’ll put you out of your misery.
It’s the authors.
Still not figured it out?
 
When thinking what to write about for this week’s article, I decided to take a hint from the recent publication as a Kindle Short Read of my tale ‘Death of a Sparrowman’, and yes, the title is a direct reference to Arthur Miller’s play. For those of you who may not be familiar with Miller’s famous work, ‘Death of a Salesman’, it is the story, heavily laced with irony, of the last day in the life of Willy Loman, the salesman of the title. It is a very American work, with great depth and insight regarding a man’s inability to accept change and his loss of individual identity as he pursues the American Dream.

I decided my short story would take these two themes (identity loss and change of circumstances), set them in an environment outside the States, and in a world with which I was familiar. Thus, the salesman became the Sparrowman, the profession became that of a covert courier for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), and, in case readers were familiar with Miller’s play, I drove the tale toward a similar tragic conclusion.
 
Just a minute, you cry. What’s all this got to do with the book covers and their authors?
Well, one of the three great influences on my own writing is Ian Fleming, one of the authors above. I also wrote ‘Sparrowman’ as a low-key tale, with a slow-building underlying tension, in a similar vein to the novels of David Cornwell, better known as John Le Carré.

There’s another clue.
Le Carré and Fleming were both intelligence agents, the former working for both MI5 (British counterintelligence) and MI6, whilst James Bond’s creator, and also the author of ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’, was active in British Naval Intelligence prior to embarking upon his writing career.

Got it, yet?
Yes, all of the authors in the above images were, at one time or another, intelligence agents!
I wonder what it is about the life of a spy that results in so many evolving into top authors. Perhaps the intensity, the loneliness, the experiences? Next time you pick up a cookbook or children’s tale, ask yourself about the secret life of the writers.

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