My mum paid me what I think is the ultimate non-fiction writer's compliment the other day. She said my latest book 'Bush Vet', by Dr Clay Wilson and me, read like a novel.
Mothers are not known for dishing the dirt on their writer children, and it would be a rare parent or other loved one that said 'this book is crap'. It's not that they don't offer frank assessments - if your nearest and dearest reader says something such as 'Hmm, I'm not so sure about that bit', then you know that's code for 'crap'.
To say a biography (co-written autobiography, in fact) reads like fiction might sound a like a bit of a back-hander, but it's not. It's what I aim for, to try and make my non-fiction entertaining as well as informative, perhaps interspersed with a bit of drama and tragedy.
Dr Clay Wilson, a South African-born American citizen, worked for a few years as a volunteer wildlife veterinarian in Chobe National Park on Botswana's northern border. When I first met Clay and his then girlfriend, Laura, Clay was a man literally living his dream.
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