Photo © Mark O’Connell
‘I wanted to bring in those meta-fictional moments because they also let me speak to the cinematic side of Bond. It would be an impossible task as a writer just to pretend that the cinematic side didn’t exist.’
Kim SherWOOD, DOUBLE OR NOTHING
As Double or Nothing is published in the UK and marks the first of a new Double O trilogy of new Bond world novels, Mark O’Connell speaks to its author Kim Sherwood.
We chat about the challenges of taking the 007 universe forwards with one eye on its Fleming past and its literary future, navigating writing during a pandemic, the unspoken histories of women in the Bond literary and cinematic timeline, the thrill of being a Bond fan handed this most special of literary batons, creating new visibilities, her 007 movie nods, her Bond alumni grandfather George Baker, and the planned future of this DOUBLE O project…
Kim Sherwood’s Double or Nothing is a departure for the literary 007. The first part of a Double O trilogy, this new contemporary adventure marks a new and coy move to ensure the works, titles and legacy of Fleming are handed onto future generations and new readers with style, inclusivity and an intentionally younger verve. The genesis of literary (and cinematic) Bond was always deeply influenced, crafted and steered by women. Yet, aside from Samantha Weinberg’s The Moneypenny Diaries (beginning in 2005 with Guardian Angel), it has always been male authors tasked with taking on the Ian Fleming baton and pen. Until now.
Set in a modern-day backdrop, Double or Nothing and the Double O trilogy illuminates the world of the Double O section. It suggests that the Bond literary franchise is – to use modern parlance – extending its universe along the lines of Marvel and DC. Yet, with many continuation novels, short stories, new authors, comic books and character spin-offs it is maybe arguable that Bond quietly wrote the book on extended universes already. Or maybe that should be Extended Universal Exports?!
As we discuss in the interview, the genders, sexualities, identities and politics of a 2022 world do not get ignored – just as Fleming himself included the people, issues and faces of his late 1950s world. Before some detractors cry ‘woke’, let us remember that Sherwood is a self-confessed big Fleming and Bond aficionado. Kim is mindful of modernizing what is now a strange, delicate franchise mix of the vintage and the contemporary. The temptation is to make everything quasi-Bond, even if 007 himself is sort of absent. Sherwood is well aware of the narrative ‘gravity’ 007 brings to the party. Yet, her journey and success writing Testament (2018) points to a writer mindful of the future’s relationship to the past and how wars shift people and politics. That is more Fleming than not.
‘I don’t want this to be tokenism. It frustrates me sometimes when something gets mentioned about a character, but in passing – when it is actually really important. and it feels a little bit like you’re being baited, there’s a glimpse of something but then ‘no, we’re not going to explore that’. I didn’t want it to be that… I wanted it to be a central part of the narrative.’
kim sherwooD on the inclusivity and visibility of DOUBLE OR NOTHING
As we discuss, it is a brave move to craft a new Bond novel that confesses he is missing when it starts. Whilst Bond has been captured – or even killed – by a shadowy private military company, a tech billionaire by the name of Sir Bertram Paradise suggests he can revert climate change and save the planet. Step forward the very best of the Double-O division. Fearless and bold in their defence of their country, three agents have a licence to kill and a licence to stop time running out. Those three agents are 003, 004 and 009. Their real names are Johanna Harwood, Joseph Dryden and Sid Bashir. As author Sherwood well knows, the Bond world is familiar with more than one of those names. Johanna Harwood was the screenwriter involved in both Dr. No (1962) and From Russia with Love (1963) and we talk about her in this interview.
/ Photo Mark O’Connell
This new canny appointment is not so much that Kim Sherwood is a young woman taking on such a perceived male domain as 007. It is because she is a younger voice – and a keen Bond fan – that Sherwood makes such an intriguing addition to the almost all-male Bond literary canon so far.
Double or Nothing by Kim Sherwood is now published by Harper Collins UK in the UK.
A big thanks to Kim Sherwood, Harper Collins UK, the Fleming family and Ian Fleming Publications.
Catching Kim Sherwood’s DOUBLE OR NOTHING at its London launch – MARK O’CONNELL (markoconnell.co.uk)
