By Alix Norman
The book is Payback, the pseudonym Alex Zenon, and the number is five. Four more than usual; three more than many of the world’s more famous examples of collaborative fiction (the Brothers Grimm /Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett /Stephen King and Peter Straub). But is it a case of too many cooks, or have our five local authors hit on the magic literary number? Because they certainly seem to have found a winning plot…
They say it takes a village to raise a child. In Payback, the village is in Cyprus and the child is seriously ill, so the locals have been collecting money for the necessary operation. Cent by cent, euro by euro, the funds have been raised, and the poor kid is about to be sent abroad for surgery when – horror! – the bail-in wipes out the entire amount. But, rather than sit back and lament the loss, the villagers decide to band together, their solution being to kidnap one of the European financial advisors… ‘When high-profile city banker Wolfgang Fleischer is kidnapped in the dead of night – a severed finger the only evidence found at the scene – conspiracy theories are all anyone can talk about. The Cypriots, the Russians, the CIA –all want payback for their stolen millions…’
Now, don’t you wish you’d thought of that? Hats off to Alex Zenon! Or, should we say, to Eve Makis, Harry Alexiou, Paula Gannon-Savvides, Zoe Piponides and Christopher Demetriou. Because these are the five intrepid authors behind what promises to be a rip-roaring read that will have you gasping and giggling in equal measure as elderly protagonists take on the might of the Financial Institution!
“The catalyst for the book was Eve Makis and the Cyprus bank collapse of March 2013,” says Alexiou, who is also author of The Tower. “We’d all attended one of Eve’s writing classes” – Makis is the award-winning author of The Spice Box Letters and one of Cyprus’ best-known exports – “and when we came back for more, she pitched the idea of a group-authored crime novel. My first reaction was ‘How can five people write a book?’” he adds. “But I thought it would be a nice experiment and good fun, so we pushed ahead… little knowing that a couple of years later we’d have a complete book ready for publication!”
“I was running a writing group when the crisis happened,” explains Eve, “and I felt we had to write something that captured our feelings, a response to all the stories we were hearing in the news and from family and friends. Initially, I suggested we put together a book of short stories, but we were all too shell shocked by what had happened and no one could summon the energy to write anything.” Eventually, however, the idea for a communal book came about, and the core group of five were chosen to begin the long haul to publication.
Zoe Piponides (an English teacher who writes and edits as a sideline) was one of the five, and she describes the process as “a tremendous balancing act. When I first started writing with Eve and co, it was a bit of a struggle to set words in motion in a way that would interest live readers. At first, I found myself editing the male protagonist chapters and, a month or so later, I began writing the mountain chapters, focusing on a bunch of maverick pensioners taking extreme measures…”
‘A flush-faced figure rose from his seat, his phone glued to his ear. He stepped into the open air, his eyes to the ground, instinctively moving towards the alley. The Codeine conspirators sucked in bronchial coughs, posing like Zenon statues to suppress the click of sticky bones. The duo swapped glances in a mutual decision: this Suit would be their target…’
With an amalgamation of styles and voices, one would expect Payback to be less than the sum of its parts, but in fact the opposite is true: it’s a seamless romp through the recession, with all the scandal and political shenanigans that implies. “There are a couple of scams going on in the novel,” Harry continues, “and those were explored by Chris who – though he had to ultimately drop out of the writing process – was great at all the research and technical side. Meanwhile Zoe was brilliant at descriptive writing, and Paula brought us dark humour and loads of good ideas…”
“And Harry is good at short, sharp narrative, punchy and humorous,” adds Paula. “The personalities in the group are very distinct: Harry is funny, Zoe is passionate, Chris is full of energy and enthusiasm, and Eve was the guiding hand, always on top of it, always guiding the way (while also providing coffee, wine, cakes, biscuits and a home for the group!). It was a magical recipe,” she muses, “I’m not sure we could ever repeat it.”
What, no sequel? Payback may only just have been released, but surely the readers are going to be clamouring for more. After all, this is a novel written by local authors about places we know and situations we’ve lived through. It’s definitely going to resonate with huge numbers of the populace, both here and abroad. So what will Alex Zenon do next?
Well, while Eve is eager for a Greek translation, and Chris hopes the book may have provided “an escape from all the anxiety, worry and uncertainty of tomorrow – and the loan payment that is long overdue – even if it is for just a brief moment”, Harry and Zoe believe the book would make a fantastic film. But Paula is “just happy to get it out there. We did it – that was enough.” Looks like we, the readers, may have to get up a petition for a second instalment. Now that would be Payback indeed, for the five guys named Alex Zenon!
Payback by Alex Zenon is published by Endeavour Press UK in digital format, and is available on Amazon.com at a price of approximately €5. The hard copy release is scheduled for December, with copies available from all good bookshops. For more information visit the Facebook page Alex Zenon or the website www.endeavourpress.com
