Living in the Present

Excerpt from Living in the Present

But this time, I wanted to go further. I wanted to plunge my hero into a mess and get him out again by the time the story ended. Before writing the first word, I drew up a skeleton plot which showed his progress from rejection of life to acceptance of it. I decided exactly what lessons he was going to learn and in what manner he should learn them. This, skeleton has not survived, but it can be reconstructed very fully by anyone who reads the book. Edgar Banks is first shown in a mood of despair and disillusion in which he is willing to throw his life away. Since he still has a lingering wish to be of service in his generation, he decides that he can best do so by murdering the most offensive person he knows; having no need to fear the death penalty, he can regard himself simply as an executioner....