I don't just want my books to be about the '30s and '40s. I want them to read as if they had been written then. I think of them as '40s novels, written in the conservative narrative past. Alan Furst More Quotes by Alan Furst More Quotes From Alan Furst It takes me three months of research and nine months of work to produce a book. When I start writing, I do two pages a day; if I'm gonna do 320, that's 160 days. Alan Furst writing two book I grew up reading genre writers, and to the degree that Eric Ambler and Graham Greene are genre writers, I'm a genre writer. Alan Furst eric degrees reading I read very little contemporary anything. Alan Furst contemporary littles I write what I call 'novels of consolation' for people who are bright and sophisticated. Alan Furst sophisticated writing people I'm not really a mass market writer. Alan Furst mass I don't really write plots. I use history as the engine that drives everything. Alan Furst plot use writing I love Paris for the million reasons that everybody loves the city. It's an incredibly romantic and beautiful place. Alan Furst city beautiful love romantic Moscow had this incredible, intense atmosphere of intrigue and darkness and secrecy. Alan Furst incredible moscow atmosphere darkness Spy novels are traditionally about lone wolves, but how many people actually live like that? Alan Furst wolves live like people Le Carre's voice - patrician, cold, brilliant and amused - was perfect for the wilderness-of-mirrors undertow of the Cold War, and George Smiley is the all-time harassed bureaucrat of spy fiction. Alan Furst cold voice perfect war When you move a border, suddenly life changes violently. I write about nationality. Alan Furst life-changes changes you life 'The Levanter' features some of the strongest action scenes to be found in Ambler - who can, in some of his fiction, stay in one place for a whole novel. Alan Furst stay some place action I don't inflict horrors on readers. In my research, I've uncovered truly terrible documentations of cruelty and torture, but I leave that offstage. I always pull back and let the reader imagine the details. We all know to one degree or another the horrors of war. Alan Furst know details research war
