Duane Swierczynski Is Dead

In Germany, at least. Let me explain.

First, the real good news portion: I've just made my first foreign fiction sale. The remarkably wise editors at Heyne, which is an imprint of Random House in Germany, has made an offer on the German rights to The Blonde (or, presumably, Das Blonde). No word on the pub date yet, but it will be a mass market paperback, and I'll be joining folks like Charlie Huston, which thrills me. This afternoon I'm raising a big-ass stein of German brew to my uber-agent, David Hale Smith, along with his gang of foreign rights agents, for making this happen.

Now, the weird news portion: They want me to use a different name.

This is not the first time I've encountered this. In the U.S., no one flinched when they saw a novel with the name "Duane Swierczynski" slapped on it. I thought St. Martin's might bring it up after they bought The Wheelman ("Wouldn't you prefer something a little less... Polish, perhaps?"), but nope. Not a peep.

When pimping the foreign rights to both Wheelman and The Blonde, however, more than a few UK and European editors thought my last name (and who knows? maybe the first, too) would be a problem. Don't get me wrong; I have no evidence that my last name prevented a sale. But I'm sure it didn't help matters, either.

(Quick aside: Years ago, fresh out of college, I was lucky enough to have lunch with Jamie Malanowski, then an editor at Spy magazine. I loved Spy, and idol-worshipped Malanowski, not only for his talent, but becaused he dared to show his Polish in a sea of Anglo-Saxon surnames. Malanowski bought me a burger and plate of frites, and told me he had three pieces of advice. The first? "Change your name.")

Anyway, back to Heyne: I asked David if keeping my name would be a deal-breaker. He seemed to think not, but they really, really, really seemed to want me to change it.

So, being the people-pleasing motherfucker that I am, I'm changing it.

Don't look at me that way. I'm not selling out. And actually, I'm really not changing my name at all. The name that will appear on the cover of Das Blonde?

"Duane Louis." Which is my first and middle name. See? I'm not changing a damn thing. I'm just truncating.

This is something I've considered doing before--way back when I was about to be added to my first magazine masthead (Philadelphia Magazine, July 1993). Back then, I balked. I wanted my real name there. Call it a Polish pride thing. When I started doing fiction, I figured I should keep the name, since it was already out there, you know? And I am proud to see my real name on the books I've had published.

But secretly, I've been jealous of the Starrs, Fords, Hustons, Colemans, Grans, Abbotts... hell, even the Gischlers of the world. Short, punchy names that everybody can spell and nobody mocks. (Except for maybe "Gischler.")

So this is an experiment. See how it flies.

Maybe I'll make it a rule that all of my foreign editions are published under the name "Duane Louis."

Even Poland. Just to mess with their minds.

And for the past 24 hours or so, I'm wondering... should I make a clean break with the next book and just truncate my name permanently? It'd be like pulling a John Cougar Mellencamp. Only in reverse.

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. In the meantime, I'm going to back to work on the novel, no matter what name ends up being slapped on it.

Update: Certain German intelligence sources say that the correct translation is Die Blonde, which is just totally fucking cool. Can any German-speaking Secret Dead Blog readers confirm this? On the other hand, the German translation of "Duane Louis" turns out to be "David Terrenoire." So weird.