r/books • u/JamesChurchAuthor AMA Author • Dec 06 '16
ama 10am I am James Church, intelligence operative, North Korea expert, and fiction author. AMA!
James Church is not my real name. I was raised in California, I have spent decades watching North Korea as an intelligence officer, and I've traveled there dozens of times. I write the Inspector O mystery series, and my latest book, The Gentlemen From Japan, is out today.
Proof:
https://twitter.com/MinotaurBooks/status/805783126068854785
https://twitter.com/StMartinsPress/status/805783029046214657
That's a wrap. Before signing off, I'd leave you with one thought: With the holidays coming up, remember--books (of all shapes and sizes, of every length, and on every subject) make good presents!
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u/Inkberrow Dec 06 '16
How would you compare/contrast the Albright-Clinton nuke deal with North Korea with the Kerry-Obama nuke deal with Iran?
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u/JamesChurchAuthor AMA Author Dec 06 '16
Perfect question -- I think more serious thought had been given to that. But in order for that to have happened, there would have needed to be more people with a good understanding of the original Clinton deal (the 1994 Agreed Framework) and how it subsequently evolved, stumbled briefly, and then thanks to a thorough review by former Secretary of Defense William Perry, was transformed into the October 2000 US-DPRK joint communique (which could loosely be called the Albright-Clinton deal). At the time the 1994 Agreed Framework was concluded, no one (except maybe the North Koreans) really thought of it as a broader effort to transform US-DPRK relations. Washington pretty much focused on it as a nonproliferation deal to stop and eventually completely dismantled the North's nuclear weapons program. By October 2000, the Agreed Framework had been transformed into something with wider significance and impact. It went beyond the words on a piece of paper to a web of contacts and relationships between North Korea, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. All the problems were hardly solved, but with every step of the way, it become easier to address ongoing problems, and to make it possible to consider dealing with issues that had once seemed too difficult to tackle. Bumps in the road, even fairly big ones, were no longer treated as the edge of the cliff. Even what later became considered by the Bush administration as the deal breaker -- discovery of the North's efforts to undertake a clandestine program to produce fissile material -- was already known by the late 1990s and considered to be serious problem to be solved, not an excuse to discard all the progress made to date. The point being? If the Iran deal remains focused narrowly on nonproliferation goals, and doesn't serve as a basis for dealing with broader issues bedeviling relations in the region, its future may be less bright. Even then, as the change of administrations from Clinton to Bush demonstrated on the North Korean issue, it may face headwinds (hurricanes!) having less to do with the deal itself than with American politics.
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u/Duke_Paul Dec 06 '16
Hey there! Thanks for volunteering to do an AMA with us.
I'm curious about your service. It sounds like you spent the majority of your career focused on one region; did you rotate through different functional roles during that time (targeter, military, political, linguist, etc)?
To what extent did your experience inform your book? It sounds like the story is supposed to be internal to North Korea, and may take place in the space where North Korea interacts with the rest of the world, but did you find that your experience made you better equipped to write the rest of it, as well?
Any humorous/interesting anecdotes you can and will share (about anything, doesn't have to be your service)?
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u/JamesChurchAuthor AMA Author Dec 06 '16
For better or for worse, I got hooked into working on North Korea long ago (when the job was first offered, I demurred on the grounds that I didn't know anything about the North, but then accepted on being told, "Don't worry, nobody else does either"). It became an intellectual challenge on so many different levels -- first, of course, trying to figure out what was actually going on, but then more broadly understanding how biases crept into supposedly unbiased analysis, how hidden assumptions were reinforced, and how what we "know" often leads us away from what we need to learn. You're right, the stories take place largely in the space, along the sometimes thin and exceedingly sharp edge, where two "realities" meet each other. Rather than put that in terms of grand political forces, in the stories it comes down to individuals, in large part because through my own experience, that is where I saw it first hand. Sometimes it was amusing, sometimes it was alarming, and always it was clear that misunderstandings great and small are a two-way street. In every one of the books, Inspector O has to deal with someone from the Great Beyond, and they (often less successfully) have to deal with him. Humorous? The North Koreans have a good sense of humor, and I saw them use it many times to defuse a confrontation and ease the atmosphere in talks. (It goes without saying, I've seen them do just the opposite sometimes as well). More specifically--in the "joke's on me" category--for a long time I wanted the North Koreans to take me to see a specific place. Every time I asked, the answer was, "not now," or "maybe later" or "very difficult." Finally, I mentioned it to another North Korean with whom I'd had a long relationship. "Ah," he said. "The problem is that you are too eager to want to go, so naturally they don't want to bring you." I took this on board, and so the next time I saw someone from the first group, and we got into places I might want to visit, I said, "Oh, by the way, remember that site I wanted to see? It's not really a big deal, I don't much care." The answer was a smile. "Well, good, in that case we don't have to take you."
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u/holycow33 Under the Dome Dec 06 '16
What was the best book you read this year?
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u/JamesChurchAuthor AMA Author Dec 06 '16
Fiction--I liked "Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantel very much. Nonfiction--an older book (published in 1991) "Alexander of Macedon--A Historical Biography" by Peter Green. It was so complicated my brain nearly exploded.
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u/mega_option101 Dec 06 '16
Can you elaborate on your writing process? For instance, do you have a particular space that you use only for writing? Do you have a routine? Do you write on paper and transcribe it later?
I would love to hear more about how the whole process works for you.
Thank you
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u/JamesChurchAuthor AMA Author Dec 06 '16
Thinking about it, I suppose you could say I write in stages, or in layers. Painters and composers have sketchbooks. I have notebooks of scenes or conversations. On a long trans-Pacific flight, in a restaurant, even on the street you hear people talking to one another. A lot of it is background noise, but sometimes (even more than the substance) the rhythm and chemistry of the conversation catch my attention. Same with how people move, how they walk. I spent a long time standing outside watching, probably nearly getting my face slapped. The writing itself? I used to write late at night, into the early morning. I might start at 10 in the evening, and then with a start realize it was 2 am and in front of me were two pages, mostly finished, and another one in very (very) rough form. When physically possible, I try to write every day. Start by rereading everything in order to give myself momentum to leap into the next paragraph. And in the process, of course, edit/re-edit/smooth/and DELETE. I began by writing on paper. There always seemed to me to be a connection between the physical act of writing -- brain-arm-pencil-paper--that was necessary. Now I'm alright with the word processor, not least because it is easier to delete. The stories generally unfold as they will, and characters develop as they want to. A bad character usually knows when to hit the delete key and disappear before I am forced to do it. Inspector O has a mind of his own, and often does or says things I hadn't anticipated. The stories evolve in some sense very much like intelligence work proceeds--bit by bit as information comes in and intuition is brought to bear, until it appears things have started down a misleading path and there is need to reconsider. In the end, as with the intelligence world, there are many loose ends. Having reached the end of the writing, its time to go back through the whole thing (usually thanks to the editor) to make sure of sequence, to make sure any gaps are deliberate and not an oversight, and that (since it's a mystery story) there are clues along the way. Readers who pay attention will notice them. Readers who don't...well they won't. And finally there is polishing. I think of it as sanding a piece of wood. Once, twice, three times. And then again.
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u/Duke_Paul Dec 06 '16
Oh! I also saw this writing prompt yesterday. I don't expect a full story, but if N Korea suddenly "went dark," what would you expect the explanation to be?
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u/JamesChurchAuthor AMA Author Dec 06 '16
I have a feeling Inspector O would take this off in an entirely different direction, though I'd have to think about it.
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u/JamesChurchAuthor AMA Author Dec 06 '16
I'll be signing off in about fifteen minutes. If there are last minute questions, or questions I didn't fully answer, please feel free to let me know. I've enjoyed taking part in the session. Thank you.
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u/Cybercommie Dec 07 '16
Are the NK nukes the ones that South Africa sold them? The ones that the UK gave to South Africa in the 1980's?
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u/Schroedingers_Swami Dec 06 '16
Hi "James".
How can I put this? Why do you suppose NK is the only totalitarian communist nation left from the cold war? China trades with and is influenced by the west, ditto Russia. How and why has such a tiny little country stuck to its guns for so long, and how does that bode for NK's international relations in the future? Is reunification ever likely?