James Leslie-Melville spent many years looking through windows.
The Fife author, whose debut novel Argentum will be published at the end of this month, turned to writing after a 30-year career in business and banking which took him all over the world.
On his travels, he caught glimpses of many places – most of them, he admits, through office windows.
And as “countless tedious meetings” led his mind to wander beyond the panes, a novel was formed, full of its own glimpses.
Written during the Covid lockdowns when business projects halted, Argentum traces a piece of silver throughout the last 5,000 years of history, falling from the hands of heroes like Alexander the Great to the grasp of Adolf Hitler, and displaying the malleable nature of the human experience.
For Leslie-Melville, the novel is “canter” across space and time, and a chance to craft something out of those windows into different countries’ history and culture.
Author swapped coin for silver
“My first job was working for a UK timber distribution company importing wood from all round the world,” the 62-year-old explains.
“It fostered a curiosity about the different cultures we dealt with, and the trading history of their countries.”
That curiosity drove the research which went into Argentum, which melds fact and fiction but keeps its story straight with authors notes clarifying which parts are true – a technique inspired by historical fiction writers Bernard Cornwell and Conn Iggulden, according to Leslie-Melville.
In an unusual approach to contemporary fiction, Argentum – the Latin name for silver – forgoes a main character, instead centring the inanimate piece of silver which lasts throughout generations.
But the story’s lining wasn’t always going to be silver, reveals the author.
“My original intention was to write about a coin moving through the centuries from the Roman empire to medieval traders to 19th century explorers and beyond, playing a part in a series of transactions that have changed the world,” he explains.
“I soon realised that this would be tediously repetitive, but that if the coin was silver, it could change appearance to feature in a range of other forms, such as jewellery, utensils and cultural symbols.”
While researching the individual historical episodes of the book, which include figures like Marie Antoinette and Judas Iscariot, Leslie-Melville gained an appreciation for “what a remarkable metal silver is”.
A pen full of silver
“It’s one of the most versatile materials on earth,” he effuses. “Even, to the ancient Egyptians, more precious than gold.”
And while it may have been tempting turn the silver itself into a character, Leslie-Melville says the choice to “keep it real” meant that he could tell the real historical narratives that he found most interesting.
“The piece of silver is intentionally passive, that’s to say I deliberately steered away from giving it personality, for instance by making it cursed or offering magical powers to its owner.
“This allowed me to work the metal into the stories of real historical figures featured down the ages.”
However, he admits there is something “curiously mesmerising, beguiling and unsettling” about element 47.
“As a person, perhaps it might translate as slightly fey?” he muses.
And after swapping out bustling Edinburgh for rural north-east Fife 25 years ago, Leslie-Melville felt right at home when his piece of silver landed on the banks of the Tay, bringing a local flavour to the globetrotting tale.
“I enjoyed researching the chapter about William the Conqueror bringing an army up the Tay in 1072 and negotiating the Treaty of Abernethy with King Malcolm III Canmore,” he says.
“It allowed me to work both the silver piece and the founder of Clan Leslie into the history of this part of Scotland.”
Argentum: The Adventures of a Silver Piece at Great Moments in History by James Leslie-Melville, RRP £8.99, will published by The Book Guild on February 28 2023.
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