About Ferus Rex
Ferus Rex is a novel I wrote between 1993 and 1997, while living in New York. I wrote most of it while working as banker in Tower 2 of the World Trade Center. I had lots of time, as it worked out. My job was Credit Analyst, which meant that I reviewed prospective commercial loans for the bank. I would study the particulars of the deal, as well as the industry of the prospective borrower. Then I’d do a write-up and present my opinion to the Board. This was a Japanese bank, I should mention. If you know anything about the history of Japanese banks doing business in the US during the 90’s, it may make sense to you that there came a point when I simply had nothing to do. The bank stopped making new loans (as a prelude to shutting its doors, but who knew that, then!), and I had very, very little to do. I was (we all were) amazed they simply didn’t let us all go. But, it’s kind of a Japanese thing to keep people employed during such downturns. I will always be grateful for that, not least because it gave me the chance to finish writing Ferus Rex… my first, my only novel.
I am bringing Ferus Rex to the blog-form as an experiment. I am curious how the blog-form might be used as a vehicle for novel-length works of fiction. The blog-form allows for many exciting things with text. But the blog also brings with it a number of eccentricities and challenges. One such that I can think of immediately is the fact that I shall have to begin at the end of the book, rather than at the beginning. This is necessary so that readers be able to start at the “front”, where one usually finds the most recent, or “last” post. If I started my blog posts at the beginning of the book, the novel would be backwards. Weird, huh. Well, let’s see how this goes…