We are sharing some of our interviews from the past! This is a classic interview with Howard Kaplan, author of the "The Damascus Cover," the first book in the Jerusalem Spy Series.
Tell us a bit about your novel, “The Damascus Cover.”
"The Damascus Cover" is a plot within a plot. There’s a surface story about a rescue of children from Damascus. Then there is an underlying story unknown to the protagonist as he races through Syria and everything starts to go wrong. He slowly learns it is intended to go wrong and there’s a twist near the end of the story that actually didn’t come to me until I was a good deal into writing it.
You have a unique background, having lived in the Middle East, as well as participated in covert missions in the USSR. Did your personal experiences influence your writing?
When I was 21 and 22, I made two forays into the Soviet Union to smuggle out manuscripts on microfilm. At the time anyone leaving the USSR could not take unpublished writings with them as they were considered “property of the state.” I was arrested and interrogated for four days though I had no incriminating documents on me. I met some people in the espionage business along the way so I began to write about what I’d learned and seen in fiction form. I’m always surprised when how writing, personal experiences jump to mind and find their way into the novel. So yes, all I’ve seen and experienced and I’ve been to the Middle East dozens of times seem into the works.
Kaplan on-set for The Damascus Cover film. |
Tell us a bit about the protagonist Ari Ben-Sion.
Ari is a man who has made a huge mistake that cost the life of a younger spy. He’s plummeted from being at the top of his game and is desperate not to be put out to pasture, so he will accept about any mission. He does not realize the head of the Israeli Secret Service uses Ari’s weakness to create a greater mission.
“The Damascus Cover” will soon be made into a major motion picture. What can you tell us about this upcoming film?
The film adaptation stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Olivia Thirlby (Juno, Goliath) as Kim and Ari. There is great chemistry between them. I was on set in Morocco for some of the shoot. The head of the Israeli Secret Service is played by Sir John Hurt, who recently passed after an illustrious career. We are beyond lucky to have had him with us.
Some authors have a very hands-off approach in the production of their book’s film adaptation while others are more involved. What was your role in the movie’s creation like?
Generally speaking production companies purchase motion picture and television rights to the novel, which means I still control the book and they have complete say in the screen versions. I was fortunate to maintain and close relationship with the director so while I had little input into the script, I was invited on several occasions to view the film during the editing process and I made a number of suggestions which were taken.
The protagonist of “The Damascus Cover,” Ari, is played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the upcoming film. What about Meyers makes him a good fit for the character?
Jonny as he likes to be called is a fabulous actor and he brings passion to everything he does both in terms of action and romance. He was a real coup to get him to play Ari.
What, if any, were the difficulties of transitioning the story to the big screen?
Changes were made but there weren’t any real difficulties other than one scene where in the novel Ari jumps off a train and the producers decided it would be too expensive to shoot so they changed that transition to inside a movie theater in Damascus. The director often says that when he was up against a wall he always returned to “the spine of the novel.” So the film adaptation preserves the integrity of the book. It’s real a marvelous movie.
“The Damascus Cover” is the first book in the Jerusalem Spy Series. Is there any talk of film adaptations for subsequent books in the series?
Not yet, but wouldn’t that be great. I think those things depend on the success of the film.
Thank you for speaking with us about your book and upcoming movie!
An excerpt from the opening of "The Damascus Cover":
DOV ELON sat in the dirt in his cell leaning against the whitewashed wall. The cubicle, three feet by five feet, was windowless. The air stank of urine. A can, his washbasin, lay on its side in one corner. A thin blanket covered the mound of damp straw piled in the other.
Dov’s eyes rested on the food trap in the door. Not long before he’d heard the banshee cry of the muezzin beckoning the Muslim inmates to prayer. He assumed a bowl of jasmine tea would soon be pushed through the food trap, but he wasn’t sure. The previous day he’d been transferred from Tadmor Prison, near the ancient Greek ruins of Palmyra in the north, to Sigin al-Mazza, on the outskirts of Damascus. He didn’t know if his new guards would feed him regularly or at random intervals. So he waited, listening for approaching footsteps, not moving—for every shift in position arched pain through his bruised body. After a while he closed his eyes. The minutes fell away. There were no sounds. The silence hummed in his ears.
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