Thomas Mullen

For those of you not in the know, the scenario is thus: a new spy novel called Assassin of Secrets was published two weeks ago, and less than a week later the publisher pulled it from the market upon realizing that large swaths of the book were stolen, verbatim, from earlier works. The plagiarized texts ranged from Ian Fleming's classic James Bond novels and newer spy thrillers to nonfiction books about the intelligence industry, like James Bamford's tomes about the National Security Agency.

A few things to note: Markham and I have the same publisher and, in fact, the very same editor. I feel badly for my editor, not only because he's had to deal with this mess but also because some people will doubtless use this as yet another example of the inferiority of "traditional, legacy" publishers in a digital world, evidence that the gatekeepers of the publishing world are incompetent, etc etc.

Here's the deal: if you really want to pull one over on an editor, it isn't that hard. Editors have only so much time, and they spend that time doing things other than, say, Googling random phrases of a manuscript to see if they turn up any matches. We should not expect editors or publishers to play the role of high school English teachers looking for cheaters, mainly because we should not expect writers to act like 13 year-olds.

Another thing: Any writer with a "traditional, legacy" publisher signs these boring, analog things called legal contracts. The contract explains your royalty rate, what will happen if someone sues you for libel, what happens when your book is remaindered, and other fascinating tidbits of Inside Publishing. There also is a clause in which you, the writer, do solemnly swear that the work is entirely yours and does not contain passages taken from other writers.

If a writer wants to pull a fast one, fine, but you're breaking your contract. You're being a fraud. It's clear that there was some weird element of performance art with Markham, who published under an alias and even used stolen lines in his interviews. Perhaps he was intending to make some grand statement about influence and appropriation, or the art of fiction and lying, or sneaky spies, or whatever. I'm just not all that impressed. Congrats, you got your name in lights for a brief moment, and you fooled people who trusted you. Hats off, old man.

Another random thing: My editor had asked me, a few months ago, if I would read Markham's book and, if I liked it, if I might contribute a blurb. (Like "an amazing work from a writer to watch," a line which someone once wrote about a first novel and which countless blurbers have appropriated.) I've actually never given a blurb, and I wasn't sure the book would be my thing, but I said I'd take a look. I read the first chapter, didn't like it. I read a few more, as a favor to my editor, hoping it would get better. It didn't. After maybe 50 pages, I gave up, and sent my editor my regrets.

Of course, now it's coming to light that the book was not so much a cohesive novel as a series of stolen lines, woven together into something approximating a narrative. Maybe this is why I didn't like it, though I'd be lying if I said I felt there was something suspicious afoot.

A few of the stories about Markham have playfully noted that Publishers Weekly and Kirkus gave the book starred reviews, delighting in the fact that the publishing empire (whatever that is) could be so easily fooled. Others have wondered how the editor could have failed to notice the thefts, as if he should have possessed instant recall of spy thrillers he might have read as a teenager (which is when I myself last read a few Ian Fleming books).

No doubt some voices are already calling Markham a genius, a sly jester whose theft (and whose very brief period of Getting Away With It) exposed the flaws of big publishing and shined a spotlight on the notoriously muddy concept of artistic inspiration. We all borrow from each other, such voices say, and we all rip each other off. Right?

Yawn. I think it just proves that if someone in today's world wants to get a lot of attention for something other than hard work or artistic prowess, it isn't all that difficult. The rest of us will trudge along using our own words, thanks.


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Hey folks-

Goodreads.com has set up an author interview page for readers to post questions to yours truly. Have any questions on the writing process, or where I get my ideas, or why I do what I do? Or what the deal is with a certain mysterious character in my new book, or anything at all about the previous two? Don't be shy. Go to this page and post a question for me. I've been posting answers all week, and I'll answer any new ones on Monday.

And would someone please tell the sun to come back to Atlanta? Some of us are much, much better writers when it's sunny out. Thanks.


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Maybe it's not the same as being interviewed on the air by Wolf Blitzer, but there's a new interview with yours truly now online at CNN.com.

Crazy month, as I'm off to talk to a college tomorrow about my first novel, which was assigned to their freshmen. Glad to hear that people are still reading it! I need to take off my Revisionists hat and put on my trusty old Last Town on Earth hat...


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Today's blog post is just a couple quick links to other sites that have posted new content about The Revisionists, which is now available at bookstores (yes, they exist) and various e-forms, or so I'm told.

For a new interview of yours truly by my friend and fellow novelist Jon Fasman (The Geographer's Library and The Dispossessed City), click here.

For an wonderful review of the book written by novelist Michael Koryta (So Cold The River and The Ridge), click here.

More soon!


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Next Wednesday is officially the publication date for The Revisionists, though I hear that Amazon is already shipping it and some brick-and-mortar stores are already putting it on their shelves and tables. That gives you a hint into the oddity of the publication business. (Reviews are coming out too, including this one from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which calls the book "superb.")

Lots of new essays, posts, and random info will be appearing on my site over the next few weeks, and on the site of my publisher, Mulholland Books, so please check in regularly.

Already new to my site, if you click on the BOOKS link and then click on the new book (or just click here), you'll find a new author interview, touching on the various subjects of The Revisionists.

Now, I realize there may be some readers of my earlier two books who, upon hearing that the new one has a time traveler in it, get a bit turned off. Or they hear it called an espionage thriller and wonder if it's their thing. Trust me, it's not as odd as it sounds. Or maybe it is, but in a good way.

I thought that a better way of describing the book, rather than trying to figure out which genre to put it in or which adjective best fits, would be to simply let some of the characters speak for themselves. After all, especially in a book about post-9/11 paranoia about government surveillance and ubiquitous threats, what better way to learn about the characters than by eavesdropping on them?

So, read below (or click on this link) to hear from the characters in their own words:


Eavesdrop on the Characters from The Revisionists

Introducing the major players of The Revisionists, in their own words:


Republicans believe that the scariest thing in the world is an all-powerful, unfettered government crushing their freedom. Right? And Democrats believe that the scariest thing in the world is a group of all-powerful, unfettered corporations crushing their rights. What they don't want to admit is that the corporations and our government are completely intertwined: the modern corporatist state. (p. 206)

--T.J., bike messenger by day, freelance political activist and troublemaker by night. Lives with the constant awareness that he's being watched by powerful forces. Is right about that.


Here was what none of these peace activists wanted to admit, the thing they were simply too blind or angry or spoiled to realize: this life was the best it could possibly be. There were flaws, yes, and the world might not work for everyone all of the time, and innocent people occasionally suffered due to the callousness of fate or their fellow citizens, but what were the alternatives? What utopia were people like T.J. dreaming of when they railed against the minor problems of capitalism and democracy? Had they taken a look at the world around them? Didn't they realize how much better this was than any other country, any other system, any other way of life? Had they failed to notice that every time some mad dreamer took the reins of a country by revolution and promised his people a paradise on earth, he delivered the opposite?

What these loony activists didn't realize was that if they lived in almost any other country, they already would have been arrested, tortured, and discarded. (p. 279)

--LEO, former CIA agent, now monitoring peace activists and hackers for an "entrepreneurial intelligence contractor." Hates his job.


She remembered when she was younger, all the collegiate energy, the anger at the rotten world, the desire to remake it. Even the smallest decision--going vegetarian (for one year) to save a few hundred animals or boycotting clothing chains that used sweatshops--seemed to carry enormous moral weight. Years later, she still considered herself a politically engaged citizen, but full-grown adults who even mentioned sweatshops tended to sound like teenagers chanting slogans at a rock concert, and people who didn't eat meat were a bitch to plan around at dinner parties. Bringing up the plight of the oppressed sounded ridiculous when buying five-hundred-thousand-dollar row houses in what had recently been dilapidated neighborhoods.

Modern living made you choose between your morality and your desire to fit in, to not be a freak. But what if the freaks were right? (p.77)

--TASHA, corporate attorney, dealing with the loss of her brother in Iraq. Recently leaked sensitive documents about a war contractor to the press. About to get in a lot of trouble.


We help people filter information. Anyone can tap a phone, track an e-mail, but who can keep up with all that information? How do you differentiate the important shit from the unimportant shit without having ten thousand bored-to-tears analysts combing through meaningless babble, half ready to shoot themselves? When Orwell invented Big Brother, he must have imagined the guy was an amazingly fast reader with infinite patience. But he's not. My company invents the tools to filter things out, make it all intelligible, actionable. (p. 342)

--SENTRICK, former high-ranking officer with the National Security Agency, now head of a vaguely defined company called Enhanced Awareness.


Jakarta was my home. I grew up there. It felt safe to me, until one day it wasn't. That's the funny thing. Everyone knew we lived under a horrible tyrant--you weren't supposed to talk about it, but people would say things when they felt they could trust you. But then when the horrible tyrant finally stepped down, look what we did to each other. The riots. The burning. My mother. Maybe all those students and protesters were wrong. Maybe it was good to live under a dictator.

So now I work in Washington. I'm learning that everywhere is just as bad as everywhere else. My employer hates me just because I'm not Korean. In North Korea they hated her just because her husband said something good about South Korea, or something. And here in America they'll hate me because I'm not American. (p. 247)

--SARI, abused servant for shady foreign diplomats. Needs to escape, but they took her passport and she doesn't speak English. Working with Leo on a dangerous escape plan.


I protect the Events.

That's the most succinct way of putting it, and that's how my superiors at the Department first explained it to me. I used to know as little about these particular Events as anyone else did, but now I'm an expert on this era. I know why these people are fighting each other, why they hate those they hate, what they most fear. At least, that's what they told me in Training. Don't be intimidated, they said. You will know these people better than they know themselves. After all, how much do we truly know about what we're doing, and why, as we're actually doing it? It's only later, as we're looking back, that events fall into easily definable categories. Motive, desire, bias. Happenstance, randomness, intent. Cause and effect, ends and means. One thing this job has taught me is that when people are caught in the maddening swirl of time, they do what they need to do and invent their reasoning afterward. They exculpate themselves, claim they had no choice. They throw their hands up to the heavens or shrug that Events simply were what they were. They used to call it fate, or God, or Allah, though of course such talk is illegal now.

Now. I barely know what the word means anymore. (p. 6)

--ZED, time traveler, officer for the Department of Historical Integrity. Currently working in present-day Washington to ensure that a horrible disaster unfolds as dictated by history, in order to protect his perfect future society. Patiently watching all of the above characters. Hates his job.


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