30 years of London, Paris and The Venus Trilogy

At the Eiffel Tower in June 1995.

I lie on a narrow twin bed in a Paris hotel. Through the open window, there are indistinct voices, the low rumble of cars, distant sirens. Bjork’s kinetic ā€œHyperballadā€ wafts in from another room. It is summer in the 11th arrondissement near Place de la RĆ©publique. Across from me, on his own bed, a beautiful boy reaches out his hand, inviting me to join him. It is 1995, I’m 24 and my life is about to irrevocably change.

Behind me was America and its smothering morality, a string of shitty boyfriends, a file cabinet full of abandoned novels, short stories and poems. There was something about being abroad, out of comfort zones, six hours ahead of what I would soon realize was my ā€œformer life,ā€ that liberated my voice and sexuality.

For years, I had read about writers and artists moving to Paris to explore their creativity and find a simpatico community. There was something about the air, light, and energy that seemed to infuse these expatriates with inspiration. 

The hotel room on Rue Rampon, June 1995. If you squint,
you can see IrĆØne Laureux's balcony.

My first novel began as a poem written in that Paris hotel room, on a tiny side street called Rue Rampon. It would then transform into a screenplay that Jodie Foster’s now defunct production company would call a ā€œbeautifully written, but expensive art film.ā€ 

As the 90s ended, my agent suggested transforming the script into a novel. That’s when Conquering Venus was truly fleshed out. I’d spent the previous five years travelling back and forth to London and Paris for ā€œresearch,ā€ to soak up more of the locales and – frankly – the open-minded, easygoing sex. 

The men I encountered broke down barriers that I had put up, out of fear and my own lack of body image and self-esteem. They were less concerned about my looks and more about my passion, and I discovered I had much to give. The sex would be interspersed with fear and concerns for my own safety, not at the hands of these lovers, but the threats of terrorism that seemed to nip at my heels every time I set foot in Europe. 

Anything to declare...

On that first trip in '95, the Eurostar train I was traveling on passed over a bomb that failed to explode. A few weeks after I left, terrorists detonated a bomb on a metro train. In the winter of '96, I arrived in London as the IRA blew up a bus in the West End. On another trip, I was evacuated from an Underground station, almost crushed being swept back up an escalator. 

All of these moments – the exhilarating rush of sex with strangers and the eerie dread of terrorism – would find their way into my Venus Trilogy of novels. My main protagonist, Martin Paige, would become the surrogate for all these adventures as Conquering Venus begat Remain In Light and finally Leaving Paris

It took more than 20 years to get this sprawling literary mystery to readers. Agents and publishers didn’t know what to make of Martin’s central relationship with Parisian widow IrĆØne Laureux, an older woman with connections to underworld crime and searching for the shadowy government figures who murdered her husband. 

The real-life inspirations for many of The Venus Trilogy
characters on Rue Rampon in 1995.

One agent suggested Martin should be straight and IrĆØne should be a young, femme fatale. Another balked at the graphic sex scenes between Martin and Christian, the young hustler who becomes his lover. Gay sex, old women, terrorism, Alice Through the Looking-Glass doses of synchronicity and magical realism – the publishing world had no idea what to do with these books. 

But these divergent characters and scenarios were what two decades of personal and artistic exploration had given to me. I found both my fiction and poetic voice – which aren’t very dissimilar, I’m told – and it’s the best money I didn’t really have to spend that I’ve ever spent. And they did eventually find a home at the fabulous Sibling Rivalry Press and its operators, Bryan Borland and Seth Pennington.

Over the last 30 years, I've visited London and Paris more times than I can remember. I've made great friends, been embraced by London's literary community, got to guest lecture at Worcester College at Oxford University, read at Southbank Centre, and see Kate Bush perform two nights in a row. I've walked from one end of Paris to the other, sat in its gardens and cafes to write, and returned often to Rue Rampon.

My last visit to both cities was in 2019, before the pandemic upended the world and my cancer diagnosis upended my life. My first stop off the Eurostar that summer was Rue Rampon. I looked up, and the balcony full of flowers with its open, inviting doors was still there, unchanged from 1995. IrĆØne's balcony. This was comforting and, of course, set my mind whirling for a fourth novel. 

That novel is now well underway, although I don't feel any rush to complete it. I'm letting flights of fancy take me where they want to go, where the characters – as usual – direct me. Maybe my life is about to irrevocably change again. 

The Venus Trilogy is available directly from Sibling Rivalry Press

Back on Rue Rampon in 2019. (
Photo by Karen Head)


Comments

Popular Posts