Niteblade

Posts Tagged ‘The Straight Razor Cure’

Daniel Polansky’s debut novel, Low Town, is released into the wilds today. While prepping for the big day, he was kind enough to take a few moments out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions from Niteblade.

Here’s the information from Doubleday’s site to introduce you to Low Town.

Drug dealers, hustlers, brothels, dirty politics, corrupt cops . . . and sorcery. Welcome to Low Town.

In the forgotten back alleys and flophouses that lie in the shadows of Rigus, the finest city of the Thirteen Lands, you will find Low Town. It is an ugly place, and its cham­pion is an ugly man. Disgraced intelligence agent. Forgotten war hero. Independent drug dealer. After a fall from grace five years ago, a man known as the Warden leads a life of crime, addicted to cheap violence and expensive drugs. Every day is a constant hustle to find new customers and protect his turf from low-life competition like Tancred the Harelip and Ling Chi, the enigmatic crime lord of the heathens.

The Warden’s life of drugged iniquity is shaken by his dis­covery of a murdered child down a dead-end street . . . set­ting him on a collision course with the life he left behind. As a former agent with Black House—the secret police—he knows better than anyone that murder in Low Town is an everyday thing, the kind of crime that doesn’t get investi­gated. To protect his home, he will take part in a dangerous game of deception between underworld bosses and the psy­chotic head of Black House, but the truth is far darker than he imagines. In Low Town, no one can be trusted.

Which came first – the agent or the book deal?

Like most writers, I got an agent first — the fantastic Chris Kepner, tip of the hat and so on.

The UK edition is titled The Straight Razor Cure and will be published concurrently with the US edition. Why is the title different?

In short, because Doubleday, my US publisher, asked me to change it after they bought the book, and I was pretty giddy with the whole ‘being a published author’ thing, and not in the mood to quibble.

Your novel will be published in multiple languages. Will you handle any  of the translations yourself?

Would that I could! But if you had any idea of how inept a student of foreign languages I am, you would know the answer to that question already.

Low Town is your first published novel. How long did it take to write?

It’s a little hard to say — it took me about four months to get a rough draft down, but it was about a year and a half between penning the first word and getting a book deal. Of course, a lot of that time was spent trying to get an agent and so on.

What was the most interesting part of writing Low Town? Discovering the story or the characters?

They kind of came concurrently.

Do you have any other books in the works related to the Thirteen Lands?

I’m working on a sequel at the moment, though it’s sadly still untitled. All goes well it should be coming out in Summer of 2012.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with Niteblade’s readers?

Only that I hope they enjoy the book. Actually, I mainly just hope they buy the book. Enjoying the book would be icing. I have a Facebook page that’s updated pretty regularly, on Twitter I’m @DanielPolansky, and you can find me on GoodReads if you look hard enough. First 7 chapters, mailing list, etc. at DanielPolansky.com. Appreciate your time.