Editor’s Note: This exchange is part of a series of brief interviews with emerging writers of recent or forthcoming books. If you enjoyed it, please visit other interviews in the I’ve Got Questions feature.
- What’s the title of your book? Fiction? Nonfiction? Poetry? Who is the publisher and what’s the publication date?
Murder in Mennefer – fiction. Publisher: Regal House Publishing. Publication date: June 18, 2024
- In a couple of sentences, what’s the book about?
In Egypt before the pyramids, during the time of cruel and benevolent gods, thirteen-year-old Imhotep’s hopes of becoming a healer are dashed after the sudden, apparently accidental death of his father, a successful builder, forces the family into penury. Suspicious about his parent’s unusual loss of fortune, Imhotep is forced into an apprenticeship with a cruel, whip-wielding butcher, even as his affection for Meresankh, a baker’s daughter, grows.
- What’s the book’s genre (for fiction and nonfiction) or primary style (for poetry)?
YA historical
- What’s the nicest thing anyone has said about the book so far?
There is a very nice review of the book at Small Press Picks.
- What book or books is yours comparable to or a cross between? [Is your book like Moby Dick or maybe it’s more like Frankenstein meets Peter Pan?]
Murder in Mennefer is a coming-of-age novel, and it owes a lot to The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, in that it takes place in ancient Egypt and concerns a boy’s struggle to right the wrongs done to himself and his family.
- Why this book? Why now?
Well, I have worked on it for nearly twenty years, collecting reference material, and so on, and it remains fresh and alive in my mind. Also, what I want to do is to write books for “reluctant readers,” generally young boys, and turn them on to the thrills of reading and discovery. MIM is the first book of a trilogy, and I’m thrilled to be able to carry Imhotep’s adventures out across three volumes.
- Other than writing this book, what’s the best job you’ve ever had?
Wow. Tough one. I’ve had two jobs that qualify as “best,” I guess. The first one was working for MAD artist Wally Wood back in the 1970s. I was always a pretty good artist, but unpolished. Working with Wood was the making of me as an artist. The other “best” job was working for the Prodigy online service, where I was able to put my computer graphics experience, gained from a few years doing educational software in the mid-Eighties, to good use. I worked in corporate America for a number of years thereafter.
- What do you want readers to take away from the book?
The idea of self-reliance, the idea that no one can hold you down. I want to open up the world of history to young folks. Plus, of course, I want to tell a good story.
- What food and/or music do you associate with the book?
Middle Eastern food, maybe? The ancient Egyptian diet was relatively limited. And we don’t know a lot about their music. But I like world music, and Indian music, so there’s that.
- What book(s) are you reading currently?
I just finished a fantasy by Seanan McGuire, one of her “October Daye” books. I love those. I’m also reading Splintered, by A.G. Howard, a modern retelling of Alice in Wonderland. (Alice is one of my favorite books.) But I read omnivorously, fiction as well as non-fiction.
Learn more about A.L. at his website.
Follow him on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
Buy the book from the publisher (Regal House Publishing), Amazon.com, or Bookshop.org.
