My Name Is Leon (25 page)
Authors: Kit de Waal
9. Share with us your writing heroes. Who is your favorite author? Who are you reading now?
I have so many heroes. I began my reading career with the classics so I have to include some of those authors in my top ten, who are:
Gustave Flaubert
Graham Greene
Walter Mosley
Cormac McCarthy
Arnold Bennett
Kevin Barry
Sebastian Barry
Jane Gardam
Emile Zola
Zadie Smith
I'm currently reading Kevin Barry's new novel
Beatlebone
, which is about John Lennon and his purchase of an island off the coast of Ireland. I say I'm readingâI'm actually listening on audiobook because Kevin Barry himself is reading it, which is an absolute treat. Not every author is a good reader, but Kevin Barry gives a true performance.
10. Can you share with us any news of upcoming writing projects? Will we get to meet any of these characters again in future stories?
I'm currently writing my second novel, which is about a dollmaker. Can't say anymore at this stage but I love it! And love her. Leon will definitely be back. He's forty-three now and he's the man I originally met in one of my other stories. He's changed, obviously, and he's been away, but he's still Leon, and two of the other characters are still around when he comes back to town.
About the Author
Justine Stoddart
Kit de Waal is published in various anthologies
(Fish Prize
2011 & 2012,
The Sea in Birmingham
2013,
Final Chapters
2013,
and
A Midlands Odyssey
2015
)
and on
Radio 4 Readings.
She came second in the Costa Short Story Prize 2014 with “The Old Man & The Suit,” second in the Bath Short Story Prize 2014 with âThe Beautiful Thing,' and second in the Bare Fiction Flash Fiction Prize. She won the Readers' Prize at the Leeds Literary Prize 2014, and the Bridport Prize for Flash Fiction in 2014 and again in 2015.
She lives in Leamington Spa, England with her two children.
My Name Is Leon
is her first novel.
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Kit-de-Waal
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Kit de Waal
Originally published in Great Britain in 2016 by Penguin Random House UK
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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition July 2016
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Interior design by Lewelin Polanco
Jacket illustration by Jim Tierney
Jacket art Getty Images
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: De Waal, Kit, author.
Title: My name is Leon : a novel / by Kit de Waal.
Description: New York : Simon and Schuster, 2016.
Subjects: LCSH: BrothersâFiction. | Ex-foster childrenâFiction. | Racially
mixed familiesâFiction.
Classification: LCC PR6104.E2336 M9 2016 | DDC 823/.92âdc23 LC record available at
http://lccn.loc.gov/2016000754
ISBN 978-1-5011-1745-9
ISBN 978-1-5011-1747-3 (ebook)