Pastime With Books: Michael Meyer

Naming My Novel

by Michael Meyer

What to name a novel requires a lot of thought. Getting just the right words to convey not only a little of what the book is about, but also to tweak the reader’s interest, takes a lot of time and hard thought. I must have gone through fifteen different choices, all of them appealing to me in one way or another, until finally I had the epitome that I needed: COVERT DREAMS said it all for me, the writer. It captures fully what this suspense thriller is all about.

There are a couple of very important reasons, I feel, why COVERT DREAMS is so aptly named. There are two alternating stories that are linked in a horrifying way. The novel begins with a terrible murder back in 1984 that somehow is connected to the disappearance of an American’s spouse in today’s Saudi Arabia. B.J. suddenly starts experiencing increasingly terrifying dreams, all of which seem so realistic. Is he living a nightmare, or is it reality? How can he dream the same dream night after night and know intimate details of Munich, a city in which he has never been? How can he speak German in his dream, a language he does not know? Why does everybody think he is losing it? Is he going crazy?

In the alternating story, Stan Halsey, a newly arrived professor in Saudi Arabia, suddenly discovers that his wife is missing. But how can a woman suddenly disappear in the Saudi Arabian heat, along with every trace of her very existence? Why is there absolutely nothing, not one single detail in any records anywhere, to prove that she is indeed a living person and that her spouse is not crazy for thinking so? Why do both the American government officials and the Saudi Arabian authorities insist that she has never even existed?

What is real, and what is not? Who is really who, and why? What is behind the murder, the kidnappings, and the nightmares all leading up to what end? Dreams indeed play a large part in this novel of suspense, and the word covert plays a significant role. One blends into the other as the story unfolds, the secrecy of the covert ending meshing with the reality that the nightmarish dreams represent. I hope that my choice of those two words for a title not only provide a bit of a clue as to the content, but I that they also entice the reader to want to read the book.