In this behind-the-scenes blog series, Sapere Books authors offer an intriguing insight into how, where and why they write.
Today, we are delighted to spotlight Alistair Forrest, author of Sea of Flames, Libertas and Vipers of Rome.
For some authors, inspiration is a flash of instant eureka. For me, it’s been more like evolution.
I had never intended to write historical novels centred on the late Roman Republic, but it became inevitable when I moved to Spain with my wife, two-fifths of our children and assorted pets.
Our new home had been built slap bang in the middle of an ancient battlefield. More about that later.
For me, inspiration began in an English lesson at boarding school. One day, evening prep was to write an essay on Macbeth and I hadn’t got a clue how to answer the question. So I flipped to the cover of my textbook, which featured an image of Dunsinane Castle and the encroaching Birnam Wood.
I used my embryonic creative writing skills to describe the scene and thus avoid answering the question, hoping my talent would impress the English teacher, Patrick Cormack.
He wasn’t impressed. He called out my feeble effort in front of Class 4R, announcing that my work was too descriptive, and I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. But the truth is, I really enjoyed writing that essay.
If I had ever summoned the courage to discuss career options with him, he would have said ‘Go and be an accountant’ or something like that. But while he became a politician with a knighthood and later Lord Cormack, I became a humble journalist. Yes, I could write.
Years later, on the publication of my first novel, Libertas, Lord Cormack was kind enough to give me an endorsement. “Forrest has the gift of a true storyteller,” he said, with a hint of a chuckle in his email.
My journalism career provided further inspiration. As a pimply cub reporter on the South Wales Echo, the terrifying news editor would peer down the vast newsroom to see who was slacking. The ‘punishment’ was to be handed the latest novel supplied by a hopeful publisher and told to review it by the next day. This happened to me frequently, and I never objected.
Among the many was Gateway to the Gods by Mary Teresa Ronalds, a magical excursion into the ancient world of Babylonia. It clicked for me, because as a child and teenager, I had lived in three Middle Eastern countries. From that moment, I wanted nothing more than to be a writer of ancient stories.
Leap forward decades, and that move to Spain. My wife and I chose a house amid well-tended olive groves in an upland valley opposite Monda (ancient Munda), a charming village in the Sierra de las Nieves Natural Park, not far inland from Marbella.
And it didn’t take long to discover that Julius Caesar had marched his crack legions through our garden.
I started writing Libertas, revelling in the scenery and culture, and imagining what the community might have been like when Caesar came.
I developed the theme of an indigenous people who were creative and inventive in their own right. They understood herbcraft and lacked nothing for a full, healthy life.
The hero in Libertas is not a warrior but a thinker. He is appalled at the horror that Rome brings to his hometown.
Living in the same community as my protagonist, separated by centuries in which nothing much happened between Caesar and Franco, enabled me to add colour and feeling to my imagined community of bakers, brewers and cheesemakers.
Happily I can refer to a comment by the Historical Novel Society’s reviewer: “Forrest makes us care about Munda. He captures the tragedy of a people dragged into the horror of a vicious war brought about by circumstances over which they had no control and could hardly understand.”
Such a contrast to my teacher’s comment on my Macbeth essay. But let’s face it, his comment was where inspiration began for me.
