Syria-SCD

Seeking the Heart of the Syrian People / Davis

A Book Proposal
project description
reader's report
author's response
writing sample
author's bio

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Other pages of interest for lovers of Arabic culture
Essays by Arab-American writers in An Ear to the Ground
Lost Arrow and Other True Stories
Poetry by Jamal Gabobe

Description
Seeking the Heart of the Syrian People by Scott C. Davis
350 ms pages (87,500 words)
maps, photos, sketches
Nonfiction travel narrative, first person, narrated in past tense.
Based on the author's 1987 hitch-hiking trip through Syria.

Author's statement: "A journey of the soul rather than a male conquest fantasy in the style of Tim Cahil, et al."
Author's willingness to edit: "I have completed 39 drafts of this ms. A couple more won't hurt me."
Technical condition of ms: Author has verified historical references, made spellings of Arab words consistent, and incorporated changes suggested by a professional copy editor. Detailed Bibliography is complete plus a definition of common Arabic terms and a note on Arabic proper names.
Author's willingness to promote: "I did 72 publicity events for my first book."
Previous critical success: The World of Patience Gromes: Making and Unmaking a Black Community (Kentucky, 1987) won the Washington State Governor's Award, was featured on All Things Considered, praised by the Christian Science Monitor and the Wall Street Journal, was reviewed by a dozen urban dailies, and was accorded large feature articles by the Richmond News Leader and the Seattle Times.
Sales History of Previous Book: Patience sold 2,300 in hardcover plus 1,700 as a book club main selection.

Reader's Report
by Dan Watkins

When carpenter, writer, and adventurer Scott C. Davis walked into a hotel in Syria's ancient northern trading town of Aleppo, he noticed a number of hotel guests like himself (foreign white European men) sitting in the dining room and scribbling in notebooks. He commented about this curiosity to the young man behind the front counter who replied: "They're all writing books."

Unlike other travel writers, Scott Davis in Seeking the Heart of the Syrian People is honest about his motives; he is a writer seeking out dramatic experiences for a gripping adventure tale. Yet life rarely unfolds as you hope or dream it will. So Davis' experiences in that middle east country of contradictions and extremes never lead to the dramatic moments he set out to create. Epiphanies turn up in unexpected places. And the myth of the romance of travel is thoroughly demolished.

Everyone can relate to this writer as he struggles with the language, with getting around the country, with confronting his fears about traveling alone in a police state. At the end, this reader was left humbled and inspired by a man who would subject himself to extremes of physical and emotional deprivation in order to test his mettle as a writer and a man, and to unearth insights about a misunderstood people and culture.

Davis excels as a writer in the memorable descriptions of the characters he meets in Syria: a bumbling yet loveable Muslim businessman who couldn't seem to locate the correct direction in order to kneel and pray to Mecca, a singer and dancer with an upturned handlebar moustache that made him look like he always had a perpetual grin, young Muslim women flirting only with their eyes because that was the only part of them uncovered. Other things stand out, like Davis' adventures in a bazaar: a boy offers himself as a guide to Davis and takes him to the carpet store where he worked. Then the boy cagily corners Davis in the store, making it impossible for Davis to leave without buying an overpriced rug, an intriguing insight into how a real bazaar actually works.

The narrative bogs down when Davis gives too much historical context (back to boring high school history books). Also, some scenes drag -- sometimes the novelist's technique of shaping a scene for dramatic effect could have been employed. And Davis' bias against the Western media's negative representation of Arab people is obvious, redundantly brought up, and irritating.

With some careful editing and reorganizing (always with the idea of making the book reader-friendly and interesting even if some substance is lost), Mr. Davis will have a distinctive, excellently written book that will strike a dramatic chord with the reading public, the "common man."

Check list:
1) Characters -- colorful, varied, but maybe too many (crowds the narrative).
2) Place Descriptions -- not endowed with poetic power, but efficient.
3) Dialogue -- excellent when short and character-illuminating, but poor when trying to give historical context (seems forced and unnatural and too long).
4) Settings -- strange and fascinating and well-conveyed from a foreigner's perspective.
5) Narrative flow -- takes too long to get into the story but picks up stride about 20-25 pages in. Remember to hook the reader from the very first sentence.

--Dan Watkins is a freelance writer based in Seattle.
He edits Cune magazine.

Author's Reply
In response to Dan's reading I am:
1. Carefully trimming some of my beloved history to enhance the narrative flow.
2. Cutting nearly all my remarks about the Western media.
3. Tightening several scenes which Dan feels are a bit too slow in developing.
4. Removing one or two character descriptions to speed up the pace. (I'll use them later in another volume.)
5. Openings are always tough. I will trim some material and move other material to more appropriate places later in the narrative. I want to proceed cautiously here, so I don't lose what I have that's working.
6. I like Dan's point: this book is the story of a would-be travel writer attempting, and failing, to have an adventure that meets his high standards. A failed macho travel narrative that ends up delivering insights into the local culture. I am rereading every sentence with an eye to sharpening this story.
7. What Dan may have missed is that, beneath the ambition and contrivance of my efforts as a would be travel adventurer, I am pulled along on this journey by the importance of the subject, the humanity of ordinary people, forgotten people. These are the souls who normally are lost to view in our media and our politics, and who are equally invisible when we travel among them. Modern adventure-travelers, like moneyed vacationers in Bermuda shorts are preoccupied with creating successful travel experiences and rarely penetrate--seldom discern the life that flows around them.

Writing Sample
Excerpted from Lost Arrow and Other True Stories
Click Here

Author's Bio
Scott C. Davis supports himself as a building contractor in Seattle. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and other publications.

Davis' first two books The World of Patience Gromes: Making and Unmaking a Black Community (Kentucky) and Lost Arrow and Other True Stories (Cune) won the Washington State Governor's Award and the King County Arts Commission Special Projects Award respectively.

Davis is the founder of Cune Press and the editor of An Ear to the Ground: Presenting Writers from 2 Coasts.

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