What would you risk to avoid obscurity?
Malaya, 1788
Aspiring journalist Jim Lloyd jeopardises his future in ways he never could have imagined. He risks his wealthy father’s wrath to ride the coat-tails of Cap-tain Francis Light, an adventurer governing the East India Company’s new trading settlement on Penang. Once arrived on the island, Jim—as Light’s as-sistant—hopes that chronicling his employer’s achievements will propel them both to enduring fame. But the naïve young man soon discovers that years of deception and double-dealing have strained relations between Light and Pe-nang’s legal owner, Sultan Abdullah of Queda, almost to the point of war. Tensions mount: Pirate activity escalates, traders complain about Light’s mo-nopolies, and inhabitants threaten to flee, fearing a battle the fledgling settle-ment cannot hope to win against the Malays. Jim realises that a shared obses-sion with renown has brought him and Light perilously close to infamy: a fate the younger man, at least, fears more than death. Yet Jim will not leave Pe-nang because of his dedication to Light’s young son, William, and his perplex-ing attraction to a mercurial Dutchman. He must stay and confront his own misguided ambitions as well as help save the legacy of a man he has come to despise.
Inspired by true events, Lies That Blind is a story featuring historical character Francis Light (1740-1794) who, in an effort to defy his mortality, was seem-ingly willing to put the lives and livelihoods of a thousand souls on Penang at risk.
What inspired you to start writing?
I was inspired to start writing when I discovered the thrills that could be had from playing with pencils and paper at the age of two years! All I’ve ever wanted to do is write, which is why throughout my career I’ve been a freelance features journalist, author/co-author of 20+ non-fiction books, and now a novelist.
What was the hardest part about writing this book?
I’d say the most challenging part, at least at the beginning of the process, was figuring out who was to be my protagonist. In the early drafts I thought this should be Captain Francis Light (1740-1794) because, without him, there would be no story. My novel is inspired by true events when this ‘founder’ of the island of Penang in modern-day Malaysia almost lost his legacy, his reputation, and endangered everyone’s lives, by duping the island’s legal owner, the Sultan of Queda into leasing Penang to the East India Company. I had a handle on Light as a double-dealer but couldn’t sympathise with him enough to make him the hero of my story. Then I stumbled upon a 1758 essay written by Dr Samuel Johnson entitled Of the Duty of a Journalist that bemoaned the fact that journalists would make things up rather than doing the harder work of reporting ‘truth’. Fake news is nothing new, it seems. That was when I decided to make my protagonist a young aspiring journalist named Jim Lloyd who comes to work for Light as his assistant and chronicler. After that, the story just took off on its own.
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| The statue of Light is shown on my book cover. Here’s another version (with me standing alongside) featuring Captain Francis Light at Penang’s Teddy Bear Museum. |
Does one of the main characters hold a special place in your heart? If so, why?
I’ve always had a soft spot for damaged ‘villains’. I was cheering on Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham when most people were swooning over Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood. Not surprisingly, then, enigmatic Dutch trader, Pieter Reinaert, is my favourite in Lies That Blind. He has an enormous chip on his shoulder from having been born with a cleft palette (something known in those days as ‘the Devil’s bite’) and simmers with repressed rage that while Dutch fortunes in the Malay Archipelago are waning, the British are taking over. I think it’s important that ‘the bad guy’ has strong motivates for acting the way he does. Pieter is probably the most multi-dimensional, complex character you’ll find in my book.
If your book was to be made into a movie, who are the celebrities that would star in it?
Funny you should ask! In response to a similar question that I came across on Twitter I posted pictures of: Sean Bean as Captain Francis Light (or, as an alternative, Richard Armitage); Timothée Chalamet as Jim Lloyd; James Cosmo as Captain James Scott; Tom Hiddleston as Captain Robert Hamilton, and Malay actor Iedil Dzuhrie Alaudin as Sultan Abdullah of Queda. Imagine my delight when Iedil responded with “Universe. Make it happen ”. That casting tweet received the most likes and retweets I’ve ever had on Twitter. Now, if only the Universe would respond to Iedil’s call! I think this story would make an exceptional movie.
What do you hope your readers take away from this book?
I’d like readers there to come away with some understanding of the culture of Malaysia (Malaya as it was back then), and specifically the history of Penang which, given Light’s foothold, led eventually to the colonisation of Malaya by the British. So often historical novels are concentrated on places and periods in time (like Regency England, or the Revolutionary War in America), and people (such as the Tudors), that are more familiar to us. I want to take readers out of those comfort zones and present them with a very different setting and circumstances to what they’re used to reading about. I would also love for someone to read my book and, once we can travel freely again, come to visit Penang to experience Fort Cornwallis and George Town for themselves. And maybe even Malacca, which has an equally interesting history, having been a Dutch enclave connected to the spice trade for something like 183 years.
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E.S. Alexander
E.S. Alexander was born in St. Andrews, Scotland in 1954, although her fami-ly moved to England a few years later. Her earliest memories include produc-ing a newspaper with the John Bull printing set she was given one Christmas. She wrote and directed her first play, Osiris, at age 16, performed to an audi-ence of parents, teachers, and pupils by the Lower Fifth Drama Society at her school in Bolton, Lancashire. Early on in her writing career, Liz wrote several short stories featuring ‘The Dover Street Sleuth’, Dixon Hawke for a D.C. Thomson newspaper in Scotland. Several of her (undoubtedly cringe-worthy) teenage poems were published in An Anthology of Verse.
Liz combined several decades as a freelance journalist writing for UK maga-zines and newspapers ranging from British Airway’s Business Life and the Dai-ly Mail, to Marie Claire and Supply Chain Management magazine, with a brief stint as a presenter/reporter for various radio stations and television channels, including the BBC. In 2001 she moved to the United States where she earned her master’s degree and Ph.D. in educational psychology from The University of Texas at Austin.
She has written and co-authored 17 internationally published, award-winning non-fiction books that have been translated into more than 20 languages.
In 2017, Liz relocated to Malaysia. She lives in Tanjung Bungah, Pulau Pinang where she was inspired to embark on one of the few forms of writing left for her to tackle: the novel.
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