I’m still a little bit in awe of the moment. I have always hoped something like this could happen, of course, though the process seemed so random, the prospects so miniscule that it felt ridiculous to even mention the possibility. But here we are!
Traveling around the country over the last two months, getting such a warm reception from readers and booksellers alike, has been an amazing experience in itself. This is just the cherry on top.
The War Begins in Paris is officially a national bestseller. Cheers!
This is the first novel I wrote from start to finish as a published author, and the first since I became a bookseller. Every day when I got to work on these pages I tried to keep my audience in mind, treating the writing as a sort of performance and an invitation to engage. (As a book written mostly during the pandemic, maybe this was a matter of emotional survival.) The result is, I believe, my best work yet: an imaginative war novel that will challenge, delight, and resonate with many of the scores of readers I have met over the last six years, and hopefully many more.
All my work is topical in some way, but I think this is my most timely novel yet, as a novel about American fascism, but also about strained friendship and lost family. The idea for this story was born out of my experience as a political reporter during the last two presidential elections. The threats against journalists, the denigration of honest reporters, and the cynicism of propagandists—all this was on my mind as I worked on these pages.
Thanks so much to my family for putting up with my shenanigans. This is the fourth book we’ve launched together in seven years. That’s a lot of author relations work on their part, which isn’t easy. All my love. The same to my publishing family, especially my agent Stephanie Delman and editor Vivian Lee. Three novels together! And hopefully many more yet to come.
I hope you enjoy The War Begins in Parisat least a quarter as much as I did while writing it. Let me know what you think; share reviews online; come see me on my book tour; invite me to come visit your book club; request that your local library or bookstore put the book in stock; or suggest the book to a friend who might enjoy reading it. Most of all, I hope you have the time and inclination to read The War Begins in Paris. Whatever support you can give, I appreciate it, truly, knowing what it takes.
Best wishes. Yours in solidarity. Keep up the good fight.
Thanks so much to host Tom Knoblauch and producer Courtney Bierman for having me back on Riverside Chats to talk about The War Begins in Paris, American fascism, celebrity journalism, disingenuous political actors, and all sorts of critically-important stuff. This is such a great program; one we’re lucky to have in Omaha.
The conversation aired earlier today on Omaha’s local NPR affiliate, but you can catch it online, of course, at the link below. Or read a transcript here!
I’m so honored to share this fantastic endorsement for The War Begins in Paris from one of my favorite novelists (and the godfather of Nebraska authors) Timothy Schaffert!
His Paris novel, The Perfume Thief, is so charming, and being in conversation with Timothy about The Perfume Thief was my highlight of the last Omaha Lit Fest we did in back 2021. I can’t wait for his new novel, The Titanic Survivors Book Club, which is due out in April.
“This vivid novel takes on one of my favorite subjects: journalists in the war zone. Here we have ‘radio traitors’ among them, everybody wound tight, with questions of truth and trust all caught up in threat and propaganda. With fascinating parallels to our own cultural moment, The War Begins in Paris is a captivating and vibrant—and utterly present—portrait of chaos.”
What a thrill to have the great novelist Ron Hansen put his recommendation behind The War Begins in Paris! And even more so since Ron will be appearing with me, in conversation, at Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington DC on January 13!
So many of Ron’s novels have been an inspiration to me. The prologue to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is something I always go back to when trying to write the opening pages of a novel. It’s perfect. And Mariette from Ron’s Mariette in Ecstasy was a model for the character of Mielle in my new novel.
Still buzzing over this. What a rare mix of generosity and genius.
“Theodore Wheeler’s informed and fascinating novel uses the invented character of fashion reporter Marthe Hess to float us through this dark milieu and acquaint us with the financial, antisemitic, and often unthinking justifications for a journalist’s alliance with evil. The War Begins in Paris is a great idea for a book and it’s insightfully and thrillingly told.”
The War Begins in Paris will be published on November 14, 2023, but you can pre-order your copy now. (Order a signed copy here and have you shipped to you in November.)
Theodore Wheeler 