To have one book published on a birthday may be thought of as being
fortunate; to have two is prodigal; to have three is positively orgiastic.
On 24th August 2010, Gregory Dark will be indulging in just such an orgy. Exactly one week later, he will be 60 years old.
We can find no other instance in history of an author having three books published on the same date.
“I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a birthday since I was 29,” Dark confesses, “particularly not any of the 10’s. I’m not looking forward either to my 60th. But this tri-publication does take the sting out of it. It is by far the nicest birthday cake I’ve ever had. It certainly beats the Hell out of the triple by-passes being ‘celebrated’ by so many of my peers!
“No, it certainly wasn’t planned – by anything, that is, except for happenstance. There was a delay with one book, the second and third were already scheduled to be published close to each other: they’re different kinds of book. There was quite a bit of to-ing and fro-ing. I was probably getting quite fractious. One day, John Hunt (my publisher) simply said, ‘Why don’t we publish them on the same day?’ I don’t think at the time he had any idea of my forthcoming birthday. He’s not a sentimentalist in that way ... Well, not in any way that I know of.”
As Dark has just said, the three books are different from each other: ‘Man of the New Millennium’ is the third of his ‘Millennium Trilogy’. Its sub-title is ‘A search for us in an age of me’. That search embraces politics, economics, psychology, philosophy and spirituality, contained within a gentle story of a four-way love affair – perhaps, even a five- or six-way love affair.
‘Charming!’ is a book for young people – of all ages! It is the biography of Prince Charming, the story ‘they’ don’t want you to read. Its sub-title is ‘If the glass slipper fits ...’
‘Titus and Roni’ are two novellas which, like good one-act plays, are independent pieces, but where, in conjunction, one further illuminates the other. ‘Titus’ is the diary of a grandfather held hostage by terrorists with his grandson; ‘Roni’ accompanies the 24 hours in a mother’s life before her son’s execution. They are both tales of inspiration and hope.
At the heart of all three books is the urge of humanity for humanity – but, then, it would scarcely be a book of his without such an urge!
