A story inspired by history and rushing through political, legal and medical drama is being launched by a Cayman author.
Douglas Schofield is at Books & Books in Camana Bay on Thursday, 20 September, at 7pm to launch his new book, Succession.
Across the world, two-and-a-half billion people sit glued to the broadcast of Princess Diana’s funeral. In Bayonne, New Jersey, surgical resident Dr. Emma Parks watches the sombre proceedings over her morning coffee, then hurries to get ready for work. Today’s shift, she expects, will be no different from any other; fixing broken bodies, one emergency at a time. But Emma couldn’t be more wrong. Today, she’ll discover a lover’s betrayal. Today she’ll save a man’s life using a procedure she was never trained for. Today she’ll receive a mysterious call from a man riding in a London taxi. And, before the day is out, she’ll be suspended from her job.
But that’s just today. Tomorrow, a determined killer will try to end her life.
Interestingly, Douglas tells us, the story was plotted out in the mid-1990s whilst he was living in British Columbia.
“I was watching a television documentary on the life of King George III (‘Mad Old King George’, as he has come to be known). The narrator made a fleeting reference to Hannah Lightfoot, the so-called ‘Fair Quaker’, whom George was alleged to have secretly married 18 months before he ascended the throne. On further research, I discovered that the story of the George and Hannah’s clandestine marriage – if it was mentioned at all – was dismissed by historians as myth and speculation. Some conceded that George may have had a mistress named Hannah Lightfoot when he was in his late teens, but that was about it.
“I started to think about the potential consequences of such a union, had it actually happened. The project evolved from a thought experiment into a plot outline. I worked on it off and on while I was busy with other projects – one of which was my novel, Flight Risks, which was first published in the UK in the autumn of 2010,” he explains.
Hollywood beckons
The book actually started life as a screenplay, which was finished in 2009. It has already been optioned by none other than Sid Ganis.
“Louis Massicotte, a film and TV producer who lives here on Grand Cayman, had already introduced my work to William Blaylock, a talent manager in Hollywood. When William received a copy of the Succession screenplay, he took it straight to Sid Ganis. Sid loved the story and the next thing I knew it was optioned and I was sitting in Sid’s office on the Sony lot in Hollywood listening to Sid and William and Caleb Deschanel talk about financing and casting and locations.
“Caleb read the script right after Sid and told them he wanted to direct. While they started going the rounds trying to scare up financing – a process that is still going on, three years later – I decided to use my screenplay as an outline and write Succession as a novel,” says the author.
Cayman Brac, he says, is a great place to write although Succession was not directly inspired by Cayman in terms of content or location. Still, the beauty and atmosphere of the Cayman Islands seems to be inspiring lots of new work from the writer.
“I’m currently working on my third novel, Time of Departure, which is set in northern Florida,” he says. “This novel is based on a screenplay I wrote back in 2005 called The Crab’s Eye. That script took first prize in its category in a Hollywood screenwriting contest. I have also finished outlining a sequel to Flight Risks and will soon start work on a detailed outline for the second volume of the Succession series.”
Related Videos
