The Story Behind A Book Title - Diana Evans
Book titles are hard to get right. My first novel, 26a, was first ‘36a’, before it was adjusted to escape the fate of sharing a name with a bra size. My second novel, The Wonder, went through several titles before finding the right one. Emails flew back and forth between me, my two editors, my publisher and my agent with increasing feverishness – The Absence of Mr Rogers? After Midnight? The Midnight Ballet? The Bus That Went Over the Moon? In Search of Mr Stardust? We couldn’t settle on anything, until one night (after midnight as it happens) while I was still working at my desk (as you do when you’re trying to complete the final draft of a book) my partner came home from a night out and solved the problem.
This was a routine scenario at the time – me working late, him staying out late. When he got home we would have a little chat via the doorway of my study and that was pretty much the extent of the time we spent together. That particular night I was rewriting a scene set on a beach in Denmark, in which two of my characters, Antoney, a Jamaican dancer who has settled in London, and The Wonder, one of the musicians in his troupe and a former fire-eater, are talking about names. Antoney wants to know The Wonder’s real name but The Wonder is being coy about it. Antoney gets it out of him in the end, but only on the condition that he doesn’t tell anyone else. I explained to my partner that this was my favourite scene in the book and The Wonder my favourite character, to which he replied, ‘Why don’t you call it ‘The Wonder’ then?’ First I laughed. Then I said, ‘Hmm...’ Then I slept on it. In the morning I ran it by the title crew and that was that.
The Wonder is based on a real person. There actually is a fire-eater who goes by that name. Or at least there was in Negril, Jamaica, in October 1998 when my partner and I went there on holiday. My twin sister had passed away eight months earlier. We stayed in a hotel composed of thatch-roofed circular chalets and an outdoor restaurant overlooking the sea. As the sun was going down and the guests were enjoying their dinner, the compère would introduce the evening’s entertainment and a large, pot-bellied man, The Wonder, would appear, wearing a flapping grass skirt and holding a burning baton. He would weave and dance amongst the tables doing swallowing tricks with flames and inviting the women to burn the soles of his feet. When he was finished he would bow with humility and knock off for the night, disappearing into the darkness.
It was one of those holidays that sticks with you. We spent sizzling days on the beach and climbed the rocky falls at Dunns River. The animals were quirky. I rode a stubborn horse who almost threw me into a ditch, and one night while watching a reggae concert on the beach we were chased by a tiny yet terrifying three-legged dog that couldn’t stop sneezing. Another reggae concert, a gig by Anthony B, didn’t quite materialise, though we paid a man called Juicy a black-market price to drive us to the venue, which turned out to be some dreamer’s backyard in a neighbouring town. To get back to Negril we had no choice but to get back into Juicy’s car, which he drove at such hair-raising, narcotic-infused speed that I fully expected to die that night and said my final prayers.
In Jamaica I tasted the best mushroom linguine I’ve ever had. When we ran out of money we sat on a wall at dinner times and ate cheese loaves. On the morning of our departure we enjoyed a traditional Sunday Jamaican breakfast of ackee, dumplings, callaloo, plantain, fried breadfruit and green banana, which no London West Indian takeaway or full English breakfast has ever been able to match. Standing in the lobby of the hotel as we were leaving, chatting quietly to a drummer and passing the time of day, was The Wonder. He gave us a warm and calm smile and wished us a safe journey home. I never had an actual conversation with him, never got to know his real name, but his kind, humble demeanour stayed in my subconscious and formed the foundation for a character, and the title of a book. The sight of him dancing in the evening air with his paunch and his flame has become emblematic of an innocent, restorative, magical snatch of time spent in a wonderful and enigmatic country.
The Wonder, if you’re out there, greetings and salutations. People like you make travelling the rich experience that it is. Look me up, you sweet, inflammable man.
26a and The Wonder by Diana Evans are both available in Vintage paperback.