Another summer reading op
Award-winning Daniel Silva: “My new book ‘An Inside Job’ is my 28th. Each hit the best-seller list. I’m now in airports and hotel rooms publicizing it.”
Translated into 30 languages, this latest in his international Gabriel Allon spy series is about the Vatican robbery of a papal masterpiece.
Silva: “HarperCollins’ schedule is only six months to write. To survive I do similar things constantly. Same clothes, sleep three hours, up early because my head’s working. I work all day, every day, seven days a week. My phone’s in a different room, the Internet’s ignored, distractions are cut. I focus. I stay at it all the time to get it done.
“While writing I couldn’t even see the ending because of the story’s major twists. Otherwise, I just can’t pull it off. Harper’s provides private editing so even typos don’t slip through. It’s only six months to write a book a year. Very short time. My Gabriel Allon character is a Venice-based art restorer. This one was inspired by a recent financial scandal at the Vatican. The real story is a cardinal was once on trial, first ever, before a Vatican tribunal. Embezzlement. Real estate deal gone bad. The Vatican lost hundreds of millions of euros.
“I borrowed that incident, added a Leonardo da Vinci stolen painting and turned it into an inside job. To write this I even had to learn to paint like da Vinci.”
Born in Kalamazoo, Mich., educated in California, worked in Washington at CNN, wrote his first book in secret, is married to journalist Jamie Gangel.
So Silva’s opinion on guns?
“Don’t like them. We have too many of them. This country has more guns than people.”
Paint the town dread
Agreed that America can never be destroyed by its Instant Geniuses. But New York — the greatest smartest toughest richest chunk of land on the planet — is hobbling. Also aging.
Our whole city has athlete’s foot. Bridges not bridging, rivers overflowing, forest fires, airplanes crashing, torrential rains, crushing heat, big-time poverty, school system busted, medical system busted, haters, demonstrators, shops closing, prices rising, people moving, trains fearsome, food expensive, cops quitting, politicians fighting, senators like New Jersey’s in prison, traffic impassable — but, listen, all’s not bad.
We’ve got bicycles, delivery guys, scaffolds, restaurateurs on coke, three mayoral maybes who nobody adores. Also crime, high cost of living, public housing, killing us taxes, filth, homelessness, dicey safety, ants, rats, pollution, double parking — and a 33-year-old semi-commie (my bras are older) looking to run it all.
Also — worse than a week-old bagel — Stephen Colbert gone poop. Even the Statue of Liberty needs a hanky.
Me bitching and moaning — but where else is there to go? South Dakota? After a week trying to find it, what have you got? Prairies and skybeans.
That’s not in New York, kids, not in New York.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
