Alan Cook's Blog - Posts Tagged "cold-war"
James Bond and Me (and a few others)
Pop quiz. Name the only two Americans who have written James Bond novels. No, not Ian Fleming. He invented 007 but he’s British and has been dead since a previous millennium.
Give up? They are Jeffery Deaver and Raymond Benson. Raymond and Jeff have written lots of other bestsellers too, as you may know. And now they’ve teamed up as editors of an anthology of Cold War stories called "Ice Cold" (appropriate, right?), under the direction of Mystery Writers of America.
They asked some of their best-selling buddies to contribute stories for the book, including Sara Paretsky, J. A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, John Lescroart and Gayle Lynds. Oh, and they also picked ten stories from the hoard of starving but competent writers in the universe. The good news is that I’m one of them.
My story, "Checkpoint Charlie," will be in the book, to be published April 2014. Call it serendipity, but the timing for this book was perfect for me. I found out about it when I returned home from a trip to Germany, including a visit to Checkpoint Charlie and the museum there.
When the Berlin Wall was up (from 1961 to 1989) the only legal way you could get from West Berlin to East Berlin, and vice versa, was through Checkpoint Charlie. Many people tried to cross the border illegally, mostly from East to West. Some of them made it; some of them died in the attempt.
The museum commemorates those attempts. It’s a poignant trip back to the days of the Cold War. People tried to go over and under and through the wall. Many of the conveyances they used are in the museum. The collection includes newspaper articles by the score. There’s a movie about the demolition of the Wall. It’s difficult to understand how valuable your freedom is until you’ve lost it. A trip to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum will highlight that in bold letters.
My wife and I first visited Checkpoint Charlie in 1993, not long after the Wall came down. A piece of the Wall was still there, and small pieces of it are on display today, there and elsewhere. In its prime it was covered with graffiti—the graffiti of frustration. If you ever get to Berlin, be sure to visit Checkpoint Charlie and go through the museum.
And be sure to purchase a copy of "Ice Cold." We don’t ever want to forget those days.
I wrote a poem about the Berlin Wall after our first trip there. At one time it was on display in the Checkpoint Charlie Museum.
Over and under and through the Wall they came,
parched with a thirst they couldn't quench.
Tunneling, flying, leaping, crawling, hidden
in car seats and carts, determined to wrench
themselves free from tyranny's stench.
Oppressed, tortured, imprisoned, shot—
still the thirsty would not could not be denied.
The spring of freedom beckoned, so close, so far;
yards, feet, nay inches away they died—
and friends and loved ones cried.
Some made it! a baby hidden in a bag in a cart;
desperate men who leapt on a moving train;
a hollow car seat, tunnels, boats,
a makeshift glider, balloon and plane;
putting an end to the thirst and pain.
And then one day, one wonderful day,
they hammered and shattered and tore down the Wall!
Thirsting, singing, shouting, laughing, hugging,
chunk by chunk they watched it fall—
and the terrible thirst was quenched for all.
Give up? They are Jeffery Deaver and Raymond Benson. Raymond and Jeff have written lots of other bestsellers too, as you may know. And now they’ve teamed up as editors of an anthology of Cold War stories called "Ice Cold" (appropriate, right?), under the direction of Mystery Writers of America.
They asked some of their best-selling buddies to contribute stories for the book, including Sara Paretsky, J. A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, John Lescroart and Gayle Lynds. Oh, and they also picked ten stories from the hoard of starving but competent writers in the universe. The good news is that I’m one of them.
My story, "Checkpoint Charlie," will be in the book, to be published April 2014. Call it serendipity, but the timing for this book was perfect for me. I found out about it when I returned home from a trip to Germany, including a visit to Checkpoint Charlie and the museum there.
When the Berlin Wall was up (from 1961 to 1989) the only legal way you could get from West Berlin to East Berlin, and vice versa, was through Checkpoint Charlie. Many people tried to cross the border illegally, mostly from East to West. Some of them made it; some of them died in the attempt.
The museum commemorates those attempts. It’s a poignant trip back to the days of the Cold War. People tried to go over and under and through the wall. Many of the conveyances they used are in the museum. The collection includes newspaper articles by the score. There’s a movie about the demolition of the Wall. It’s difficult to understand how valuable your freedom is until you’ve lost it. A trip to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum will highlight that in bold letters.
My wife and I first visited Checkpoint Charlie in 1993, not long after the Wall came down. A piece of the Wall was still there, and small pieces of it are on display today, there and elsewhere. In its prime it was covered with graffiti—the graffiti of frustration. If you ever get to Berlin, be sure to visit Checkpoint Charlie and go through the museum.
And be sure to purchase a copy of "Ice Cold." We don’t ever want to forget those days.
I wrote a poem about the Berlin Wall after our first trip there. At one time it was on display in the Checkpoint Charlie Museum.
Over and under and through the Wall they came,
parched with a thirst they couldn't quench.
Tunneling, flying, leaping, crawling, hidden
in car seats and carts, determined to wrench
themselves free from tyranny's stench.
Oppressed, tortured, imprisoned, shot—
still the thirsty would not could not be denied.
The spring of freedom beckoned, so close, so far;
yards, feet, nay inches away they died—
and friends and loved ones cried.
Some made it! a baby hidden in a bag in a cart;
desperate men who leapt on a moving train;
a hollow car seat, tunnels, boats,
a makeshift glider, balloon and plane;
putting an end to the thirst and pain.
And then one day, one wonderful day,
they hammered and shattered and tore down the Wall!
Thirsting, singing, shouting, laughing, hugging,
chunk by chunk they watched it fall—
and the terrible thirst was quenched for all.
New York Book Signing with the Pros
Since I’ve been writing and publishing books for over 20 years, I’m used to participating in book signings, often with other authors. However, the book signing I was at on April 29th in New York City topped them all for fun and excitement.
The book being signed was Mystery Writers of America Presents Ice Cold: Tales of Intrigue from the Cold War (isn’t that a mouthful?). It contains 20 stories by 21 authors, including me. My story is called "Checkpoint Charlie."
There are some big names. Jeffery Deaver and Raymond Benson, who edited the book, are the only Americans to have written James Bond novels. Other authors include Sara Paretsky and J. A. Jance, and Californians T. Jefferson Parker, and John Lescroat.
When I heard the book signing was going to take place on April 29th at the Mysterious Bookshop in lower Manhattan, I didn’t think I’d be able to go. But where there’s a will… My wife, Bonny, and I grew up in the East, although we’ve lived in California for over 50 years. We have carloads of relatives on the East Coast that we try to visit periodically. Perhaps April and May were the right months to do that.
We landed in Boston, and worked our way south through New England, including a stop in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, where Bonny grew up. Do you know anybody who keeps track of all their high school classmates? That’s right—she does.
We arrived in Manhattan in the morning, and promptly ditched our rental car in a parking garage. That evening it cost us $55 to get it out of hock. We took the C train (remember Duke Ellington’s classic song, “Take the A Train”?) to Central Park and visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We saw five Vermeer paintings, and found out he painted more than one girl wearing a pearl earring (remember the movie, The Girl with a Pearl Earring?).
The book signing started at six p.m. in the cramped quarters of the store that has shelves of books going up to the high ceiling, with ladders on tracks and rollers to retrieve them. Thirteen of the 21 authors showed up, and lots of book lovers. Wine and beer were served. Bonny ran around taking pictures.
It was a big occasion for the store, which has a close association with Mystery Writers of America. MWA was presenting their Edgar Awards to the best authors that week in Manhattan.
The 13 authors sat around a table, and for a while we signed books as fast as we could. I was sitting next to the editors, Jeffery Deaver and Raymond Benson. They would sign first and pass the books on to me. Deaver, who has signed thousands of books in his life, has perfected his signature so that he can do it in less than a second. Benson is also a very fast writer.
The books began to pile up beside me, as I am slower at writing my name. Gayle Lynds, a former Californian, was taking bets on when my stack would fall over. Vicki Doudera, who sat on the other side of me, said she had planned on wearing a pink dress to the signing, but her 19-year-old daughter said, “Nobody wears colors in New York.” She wore a black and gray dress.
We must have signed a hundred books at the table. Patrons who had purchased their own copies would thrust books over our shoulders to be signed, interrupting the assembly-line process, and making the stability of my growing pile more precarious.
Finally, we had finished signing the books that the store provided to us, and we were free to mingle with the other authors and patrons. It was fun to meet fellow authors who had stories in the book.
Jeffery Deaver had placed one of my short stories in an anthology he edited some years ago, and I met him in California once. I enjoyed seeing him again.
Authors not in the book, who were in town for the Edgar Awards, showed up. I shook the hand of Robert Crais, a Southern Californian being presented with the Grand Master Award from Mystery Writers of America.
After we left the bookstore we had trouble finding our motel in New Jersey, but that’s another story, and didn’t dampen the fun we’d had.
The book being signed was Mystery Writers of America Presents Ice Cold: Tales of Intrigue from the Cold War (isn’t that a mouthful?). It contains 20 stories by 21 authors, including me. My story is called "Checkpoint Charlie."
There are some big names. Jeffery Deaver and Raymond Benson, who edited the book, are the only Americans to have written James Bond novels. Other authors include Sara Paretsky and J. A. Jance, and Californians T. Jefferson Parker, and John Lescroat.
When I heard the book signing was going to take place on April 29th at the Mysterious Bookshop in lower Manhattan, I didn’t think I’d be able to go. But where there’s a will… My wife, Bonny, and I grew up in the East, although we’ve lived in California for over 50 years. We have carloads of relatives on the East Coast that we try to visit periodically. Perhaps April and May were the right months to do that.
We landed in Boston, and worked our way south through New England, including a stop in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, where Bonny grew up. Do you know anybody who keeps track of all their high school classmates? That’s right—she does.
We arrived in Manhattan in the morning, and promptly ditched our rental car in a parking garage. That evening it cost us $55 to get it out of hock. We took the C train (remember Duke Ellington’s classic song, “Take the A Train”?) to Central Park and visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We saw five Vermeer paintings, and found out he painted more than one girl wearing a pearl earring (remember the movie, The Girl with a Pearl Earring?).
The book signing started at six p.m. in the cramped quarters of the store that has shelves of books going up to the high ceiling, with ladders on tracks and rollers to retrieve them. Thirteen of the 21 authors showed up, and lots of book lovers. Wine and beer were served. Bonny ran around taking pictures.
It was a big occasion for the store, which has a close association with Mystery Writers of America. MWA was presenting their Edgar Awards to the best authors that week in Manhattan.
The 13 authors sat around a table, and for a while we signed books as fast as we could. I was sitting next to the editors, Jeffery Deaver and Raymond Benson. They would sign first and pass the books on to me. Deaver, who has signed thousands of books in his life, has perfected his signature so that he can do it in less than a second. Benson is also a very fast writer.
The books began to pile up beside me, as I am slower at writing my name. Gayle Lynds, a former Californian, was taking bets on when my stack would fall over. Vicki Doudera, who sat on the other side of me, said she had planned on wearing a pink dress to the signing, but her 19-year-old daughter said, “Nobody wears colors in New York.” She wore a black and gray dress.
We must have signed a hundred books at the table. Patrons who had purchased their own copies would thrust books over our shoulders to be signed, interrupting the assembly-line process, and making the stability of my growing pile more precarious.
Finally, we had finished signing the books that the store provided to us, and we were free to mingle with the other authors and patrons. It was fun to meet fellow authors who had stories in the book.
Jeffery Deaver had placed one of my short stories in an anthology he edited some years ago, and I met him in California once. I enjoyed seeing him again.
Authors not in the book, who were in town for the Edgar Awards, showed up. I shook the hand of Robert Crais, a Southern Californian being presented with the Grand Master Award from Mystery Writers of America.
After we left the bookstore we had trouble finding our motel in New Jersey, but that’s another story, and didn’t dampen the fun we’d had.
