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If you could have one paranormal ability, what would it be?
There are a lot of places I’d like to visit in far away places, but when I think of packing, getting in the car, boarding a plane, and spending hours and hours getting to places, it really wears me down. So, the power I’d really like to have is teleportation. There are so many places I’d like to visit, but the top few on my list right now are the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Plaza Mayor de Salamanca in Spain, and the giant sequoias in Yosemite National Park.
What is one thing your readers would be most surprised to learn about you?
I studied playwriting at New York University as an undergrad and staged a bunch of plays Off-Off-Broadway in New York City. I worked with Robert Wilson, Anne Bogart, Bob Moss and the Bread and Puppet Theater. I once had dinner with André Gregory and once had breakfast with Stephen Sondheim.
When writing descriptions of your hero/ine, what feature do you start with?
In terms of physical description, I think it’s hard to gauge how much information is enough and how much should be left to the imagination of the reader. If a character is supposed to be beautiful and desirable and you describe the character in a way that readers dislike, you’ve pretty much written at cross-purposes. I like to give some clues, but not get too specific. I also believe that the best way to understand a person is through what they do when confronted with a choice, so it’s better to introduce your character through the things they do. And finally, people don’t always get it right – they don’t always mean what they say or believe things that are true. Let the characters lie and make mistakes and find out later they were wrong.
Are you a plotter or a pantser?
This is such a great question. I was speaking to a writer recently who told me he writes from a very detailed, multi-page outline which he has previously worked out meticulously. To put it simply, I would not enjoy that (and I would have no reason to write if I didn’t enjoy the process). Since I write historical fiction, I like to know something about the place and time before I begin, I like to know which major events are going to occur in that world, I like to have an idea about what the characters are going to do and how they relate to each other. When I write, I have a sense of where I’m going, but I won’t go there if it turns out it doesn’t make sense. I’ll change everything in the middle. I like to feel my way through scene by scene so that it makes sense to me, so that I feel it’s readable and well paced. So I mostly fly by the seat of my pants, but with a little bit of a plot in mind and a sense of where I’m going.
What is your favorite scene in your new book?
There are some scenes in my novel Tamanrasset, Crossroads of the Nomad, that I knew going in were going to be part of the story. These are sort of pivotal moments of crisis that were destinations I knew I wanted to reach. I feel those moments are very meaningful, but I’m also loathe to give them away as they would be major spoilers. But one of my favorite basic scenes is when the Swedish widow Isabel, now practicing Islam and having just returned from the Hajj, meets with French General Hubert Lyautey. In reality, Lyautey (who later became the French official in charge of Morocco) knew and obtained information from the person on whom the character if Isabel is based – Isabelle Eberhardt. There’s something about that scene where Isabel is beginning to feel who she is, her power, and Lyautey can see it in her, that I think makes a terrific moment of intimacy and understanding. It’s definitely a very important moment for Isabel.
TAMANRASSET is historical fiction set on the edge of the Sahara as the ancient world begins to fade and great empires collide. Four strangers—a mature Foreign Legionnaire, a Sharif’s wrathful son, an ambitious American archaeologist, and an abandoned Swedish widow—become adrift and isolated, but when their paths intersect, the fragile connections between them tell a story of survival and fate on the edge of the abyss. Blending the sweep of classic adventure with the horror of a great historical calamities, Edward Parr’s TAMANRASSET is a saga about the crossroads where nomads meet.
Demoreau knelt beside Lieutenant Claussen. The Sergent had been in plenty of actions during more than twenty years of service in the Legion: The sun beating down, the barrel of his rifle smoking and hot from constant firing, the taste of sand and sulfur in his mouth as he and his comrades fought off their enraged enemy with nerves of steel and cooler heads. “Que voulez-vous? C’est la Legion!” A part of him relished it. He had a calmness of mind gained through years of experience and training. As he raised his rifle to aim at the advancing tribesmen, he recalled to his mind the melody of a fine composition, the death waltz by Saint-Saëns, which unrolled in his inner ear, turning his blood to ice. He hummed the tune as his rifle fired and his deadly accurate shooting dropped one rider after another.
Claussen was a good Lieutenant and had plenty of courage, but that did not mean he couldn’t benefit from Demoreau’s experience. The Sergent turned and faced his commander: “We’re being overwhelmed and losing too many men, Sir: We can’t maintain this position. We must move east onto the ridge where there’s cover among the rocks.”
“I know, but it may be too far, Sergent,” Claussen replied.
“Yes, it might,” the Sergent agreed, “but we still have to go: We’ll certainly all be killed if we stay here.”
Claussen looked distraught, but as he looked Demoreau in the eyes his nerve was hardened. Everything had to be done “par règlement” in the Foreign Legion. He nodded: “Yes, give the order, Sergent. Withdraw to the ridge; smartly, now.”
© 2025 by Edward Parr and Edwardian Press (New Orleans, Louisiana)
Edward (“Ted”) Parr studied playwriting at New York University in the 1980’s, worked with artists Robert Wilson, Anne Bogart, and the Bread and Puppet Theater, and staged his own plays Off-Off-Broadway, including Trask, Mythographia, Jason and Medea, Rising and an original translation of Oedipus Rex before pursuing a lengthy career in the law and public service. He published his Kingdoms Fall trilogy of World War One espionage adventure novels which were collectively awarded Best First Novel and Best Historical Fiction Novel by Literary Classics in 2016. He has always had a strong interest in expanding narrative forms, and in his novel writing, he explores older genres of fiction (like the pulp fiction French Foreign Legion adventures or early espionage fiction) as inspiration to examine historical periods of transformation. His main writing inspirations are Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Bernard Cornwell, Georges Surdez, and Patrick O’Brien.
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ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the interview today.
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