Burgeoning Author Explores Mysteries Of Chinatown

I think most of us know about the high-powered literary couples in our midst, in which both husband and wife are known for their novels and other writing. Those that come most immediately to mind include Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida; Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman; Daniel Handler and Lisa Brown (also an illustrator); and Alice Sebold and Glen David Gold. (I can’t think of any same-sex couples at the moment.)

All of these authors have read at Book Passage, where you can’t walk into the Corte Madera branch without noticing the works of the store’s favorite author, Isabel Allende, lined up along the counter across from the front door. OK, but why I am mentioning her? The reason is … yes, she is half of a literary couple, too. We just haven’t seen any of William C. Gordon’s books yet.

That is about to change with the publication of Gordon’s first novel, The Chinese Jars, a mystery set in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the early ’60s. Not surprisingly, Gordon and Allende will be at Book Passage, where Allende will interview her husband on Nov. 6.

An attorney with a law office in Sausalito, a father, photographer, and world traveler, Gordon had long wanted to write. The story of his life and work so far is so complex, I refer you to his engrossing website, www.williamcgordon.com, where he discusses all that and more. (His father’s history alone is so fascinating, it became the basis for one of Allende’s novels, The Infinite Plan.)

In brief, once Gordon cut back his legal practice around age 60, he started writing. His first attempt, Flawed, featured an “oversexed dwarf” so repulsive that no woman, Allende informed her husband, would want to read about him. Urged to explore terrain closer to home, he came up with The Chinese Jars, featuring detective Samuel Hamilton. First published in Spain in 2006, it’s been available in nine languages — not one of them English, until this month.

King of the Bottom (2008) was also first published in Spain. You can finally meet Gordon’s small, sex-crazed protagonist in a third mystery, The Ugly Dwarf (2010) — that one first published in Brazil. Those two books are due out in English next year, in addition to another Samuel Hamilton mystery, Fractured Lives, which you can also read in Spanish and Portuguese. Oh, and Gordon is working on another Hamilton mystery, The Halls of Power, which he hopes to finish by the end of the year.

Obviously, Gordon and Allende will have a lot to talk about on Sunday. By the way, the Spanish-language editions of The Chinese Jars (Duelo en Chinatown) and King of the Bottom (El Rey de los Bajos Fondos) will be available, too.

IF YOU GO:
Nov. 6, 7 p.m., William Gordon & Isabel Allende in Conversation, Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera, 415.927.0960, www.bookpassage.com.