Wildest dreams

Welcome to the Frederick Nolan website.
(a sort of autobiography in the making...)

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Wildest dreams
"The best possible equipment for a writer is a built-in, shockproof shit detector." -- Ernest Hemingway.

Looking back, I sometimes feel like the snail in that old joke who was mugged by three tortoises. When the cops came, they asked him if he could give them a description of his attackers. The snail shook his head. "It all happened too fast," he said.

And that's how it felt for me.

The contract with Morrow was signed in July, 1974, the same month they published The Algonquin Project, while in London No Place To Be A Cop made its debut. A whole lot of other stuff was happening as the year raced by. My work charts show that between signing that contract and May, 1975 when I delivered the finished manuscript of The Mittenwald Syndicate, I also wrote two “Angel” westerns, not to mention regular fortnightly issues of The Gee Report, and schmoozed with columnist Digby Diehl at the Frankfurt Book Fair, while also revelling in reading British and American reviews of The Ritter Double Cross, and Kill Petrosino! and enjoying the appearance in paperback of The Oshawa Project and four “Angels”.

During the period between my delivering the finished manuscript of The Mittenwald Syndicate and its publication, I set out to fulfil a lifetime ambition by writing the life stories of my two favourite composers--Rodgers and Hart -- well, Hart really. The idea of doing a biography of Lorenz Hart had been a cherished dream forever, but I had never really had the time--or the money--to travel to the United States and track down some of the people who had known and worked with him. So began an intensive period of research during which I interviewed some of the greatest stars of the Broadway musical. To appreciate what that was like, you have to imagine someone who once sat enraptured in a shabby Liverpool cinema watching MGM's " biopic" of Rodgers & Hart Words and Music somehow, magically, transported to Hollywood, sipping cognac at his Beverly Hills home with Gene Kelly, listening to reminiscences of their shows and/or how their songs were written from the likes of Helen Ford, George Abbott, Arthur Schwartz, Vivienne Segal, Edith Meiser, Jesse Matthews, Larry Adler, Howard Dietz, Irving Berlin, Dorothy Fields, Mary Martin, Joshua Logan, Dorothy Hammerstein, Alec Wilder, Harry Warren, Muriel Angelus, Agnes de Mille, Celeste Holm, Jan Clayton, Benay Venuta, Irving Caesar, Harry Warren ... and then, amazingly, unbelievably, to spend three hours talking with the maestro himself-- Richard Rodgers. More on this later ...

Then something completely unexpected happened. I’ll let Paul Nathan, whose “Rights and Permissions” column in Publishers Weekly was one of the places to get your book mentioned, tell the story, datelined June 2, 1975.

“Several weeks ago a rave notice for ‘The Algonquin Project’ by Fred Nolan appeared in the Sunday book review section of the Los Angeles Times. Dorothy B. Hughes, herself an accomplished writer in the suspense field, concluded with the words ‘Don’t miss it. It is truly an incredible piece.’ When published by Morrow last July, Nolan’s story of an assassination plot just after World War II against one of America’s most famous—and hated—generals attracted a modest amount of critical attention, but not until the Times review burst upon Hollywood did the author’s agent Arthur Pine receive his first inquiry about film rights. Then the calls began to flood in.With no fewer than ten producers expressing interest, the book has gone to Martin Rackin Productions under a step arrangement that will carry the total price to $100,000 by the start of shooting. In addition Nolan is cut in for 5% of the producer’s share of profits. Cooperating with Pine in contract negotiations were Bart/Levy Associates in Hollywood.”

Meanwhile, The Hollywood Reporter noted, Artie Pine—“not one to quit while he’s ahead,” was checking into the Beverly Hills Hotel “to push other film sales for writer clients, not the least of which will be Nolan’s newest novel ‘The Mittenwald Syndicate.’” Which, although it was not to be published until the following summer, had already been bought for paperback by Sphere Books in London.—Pan, Corgi, Coronet and Mayflower were the underbidders—for GBP10,000 ($25,000). On top of all that we sold Italian, Spanish, Finnish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Japanese and book club rights as well as serialisation rights in the Sydney Daily Mirror. Is that exciting, or what?

Pausing only to write another—and the last—“Angel” western and, as summer time ended, regretfully but necessarily terminating publication of The Gee Report, putting together an outline for a big, sprawling historical novel about the building of the US transcontinental railroad and listening to “The Richard Rodgers Story” –the series of five one-hour programmes I’d written for the BBC’s Radio One channel, narrated by Jessie Matthews (fans of the well-I-never school of coincidence might be amused to note that almost simultaneously on Radio Three, Alistair Cooke was doing a series about American songwriters) I was already moving on to my next project. Well, not altogether my next project, more accurately Artie Pine’s.

Paul Nathan again. “For the one-man industry that is Frederick Nolan, 1976 gives every indication of being a good year—the best yet, in fact. Martin Rackin and Berle Adams are planning to go into production with a film adaptation of his 1974 novel “The Algonquin Project.” His forthcoming novel “The Mittenwald Syndicate” has just been auctioned for British paperback … with Sphere Books making the high bid of £10,000—one of the company’s top advances. In the US, where Morrow is Nolan’s regular hardcover publisher, Warner Books has guaranteed a substantial sum to acquire softcover rights to another novel, “Carver’s Kingdom” which exists only in outline. Before next fall, when he expects to deliver the manuscript based on this outline, Nolan will have completed his assignment for Macmillan [New York] as collaborator on the autobiography of Jay J. Armes. Armes is a Texas private detective who, in spite of having no hands, is among the most successful—as well as flamboyant—in the business. Magazine article and TV appearances (with more of the latter coming up in a series built about him) have popularized him to such an extent that Mattel is making a Jay J. Armes toy.”

So in December 1975 I spent a week in El Paso with Jay Armes, who was, to quote the shout line for the book, “the world’s most successful private eye. He works like Raymond Chandler and lives like James Bond.” He had a Navajo Indian bodyguard, he had a helicopter, he had his own private zoo, he had a house with a stream running through the living room, he had a submachine gun clipped to the dashboard of his limo, he drove a flashy red Corvette, he had his own shooting range in the basement ... and, although it didn't slow him down any, hooks instead of hands, the result of a childhood accident when he picked up a railroad warning torpedo and it exploded. How could you not write a terrific book about a guy like that? By the first week of February I had a draft and delivered the final manuscript at the end of March—boy, if only every book you wrote would spill onto the page that fast! Here is the book. And the man himself, ten times larger than life.

You beginning to see why this page is headed "wildest dreams"? All this, and then in the spring of 1976, The Mittenwald Syndicate became a reality. In London, Cassell & Co. (where my old friend Michael Legat was now editorial director) announced the UK hardcover edition for a 24 June publication, and in New York William Morrow followed suit (retail price, by the way £3.95 in England, $8.95 in the US). Here's how the book looked on both sides of the Atlantic ... which one do you think suggests the content best?

and here are some of the translations that appeared soon after ...

In rapid succession, Artie Pine sold the Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, and Spanish rights. The Mittenwald Syndicate was on its way, and it was going to be a lulu.