James R Benn on Road of Bones

 

LUCY BURDETTE: Today we welcome our friend James R Benn, the author of the acclaimed Billy Boyle series. He raises a question dear to all writers' hearts: What to call the darn book? Take it away Jim!

What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet.

—William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (Act II Scene ii)

James R Benn: What’s in a name? That’s the question authors confront when choosing the title for their book. The truth is, any other name will not smell as sweet. No matter how good the writing between the covers, the title must grab the reader’s attention. A poorly chosen title—one that is perhaps clumsy or boring—can keep readers from cracking open the book. A title’s job, in my opinion, is to force a question. To stop the browsing reader in their tracks. To arouse their curiosity. 

For me, the title also has another job. It should reflect the theme of the book, to act as a constant reminder of the deeper thread of meaning I am weaving into the story. Some authors may not place so much emphasis on the title in their process. Some may pick the title after the manuscript is complete. But for me, it’s a symbol of what I’m writing about.

So, when I decided to set a Billy Boyle novel in the Soviet Union (thanks to Reed Farrell Coleman, but that’s another story), I began the search for a title as soon as I started my research.

It didn’t take long.

The R504 Kolyma Highway is a road through the Russian Far East, aka Siberia. It’s also known as the Road of Bones.

Title search complete. 

The road, most often called the Kolyma Route, is a gravel track, often covered in mud or ice. It was built by political prisoners during the Soviet Union's Stalinist era. Inmates of the Sevvostlag labor camp started the first stretch in 1932, and construction continued into the 1950s. The prisoners worked in horrifying conditions. Winter was long and bitterly cold, summer blisteringly hot, rampant with swarms of mosquitos. The Kolyma Route extends to Yakutsk, where the coldest temperature ever outside of Antarctica was recorded. 

As prisoners extended the roadway, it was used to bring in more prisoners to camps that comprised Stalin’s Gulag. The Kolyma Route stretches 1,260 miles through desolate, frozen wasteland, connecting Magadan on the Pacific Ocean to the city of Yakutsk, 280 miles south of the Arctic Circle. 

Why is it called the Road of Bones?

The roadway was built on permafrost. It is estimated that between a quarter million to one million slave laborers died in the process. Where to bury all those bodies? The Soviets solved the probably neatly, interring the corpses in the fabric of the road.

If the high estimate of the death toll is correct, that makes for 793 bodies per mile entombed within the Road of Bones.

As Joseph Stalin said, “Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.”

The Mask of Sorrow is a monument located on a hill above Magadan, Russia, commemorating the many prisoners who suffered and died in the Soviet forced labor system. 

Photo credit: Сергей Ковалев, via Wikimedia Commons.

There’s a recently freed Russian political prisoner in Road of Bones—the book, not the route—and his fear of being sent back to the camps is a driving force behind the story. The title helped to focus me on writing about the challenges of existence within the oppressive Communist system, and the chilling effect it had on Soviet citizens.

But wait. There’s more to the story. There’s a ghost. Or a ghostly woman, as The Siberian Times called her in 2018. Spotted at several locations at the southern terminus of the Road of Bones, she walks alone, refusing all offers of assistance, even in frigid winter weather. Her name may be Luidmila. She may be from Kazakhstan, and she may be headed for Kamchatka, a peninsula that extends into the Pacific Ocean. She’s been called a spirit of Siberia and the ghost of a prisoner who died on the road. Nothing is certain about her, so feel free to make up your own answer. 

That’s my story. Now tell me yours.

Everyone, what’s your favorite title?

Here’s my book title of the month. Hats off to Dennis Duncan and this brilliantly clever title:

Writers, how do you select your titles? Does it sound like I’m over-thinking all this, or does something here ring true?

Readers, does a unique or interesting title grab your attention? Or does this sound like a whole lot of folderol?

James R. Benn is the Dilys, Barry, and Sue Feder Historical Mystery award nominated author of the Billy Boyle WWII mysteries. He splits his time between the Connecticut shoreline and the west coast of Florida, with his wife, copyeditor Deborah Mandel.

About Road of Bones:

Billy Boyle is sent to the Soviet Union to conduct an investigation into a double murder. Teamed with a KGB agent, he has to navigate the dangerous currents of life in Stalinist Russia.

***In other business this week, Kevin Tipple is the winner of the Bouchercon anthology, This Time for Sure. Please email me raisleib at gmail dot com with your snail mail address.

***And Robin Coxon is the winner of A Time to Swill. Email Sherry with your snail mail address to arrange the drop! sherryharrisauthor at gmail dot com.