Hedge-fund manager Chuck Martin has joined the ranks of novelists.
Martin’s full-time job is with his Mont Pelerin Capital in Newport Center. His sideline takes him all over the world, figuratively, with a book that’s titled Provocateur and due out next week.
It’s about the exploits of Nadia, a “sexy, mysterious woman who takes down wealthy, powerful men for the sport of it.”
Nadia grew up as an orphan in Russia and came to the U.S. as a mail-order bride. She ended up working with Olga, a former CIA agent whose new calling involves her own agency, which “extracts large amounts of money from wealthy men.”
Credit Martin’s wife, Twyla, for the initial inspiration.
It happened one night at the Resort at Pelican Hill as the couple chatted toward the end of a regular dinner get-together with a crew that includes at least one of OC’s Wealthiest, the subject of this week’s special edition of the Business Journal (see profiles of entries, starting on page 31; the list, starting on page 44; related stories, throughout issue).
Twyla Martin noticed a young lady striking an amorous pose with a portly, older man at the bar. She wondered aloud.
Her husband rattled the scene around for awhile before “a little brainstorm” hit. Then he set out to build a story that stays true to its origins with an opening scene at Andrea at Pelican Hill—and an ending 190 pages later at Il Pelicano Hotel in Italy.
“I never intended to write a novel,” says Martin.
That’s when his wife went from inspiration to muse.
“I wrote a couple of chapters for amusement,” he says. “I gave them to Twyla, and she said “what’s next?”
Martin spent the next several months telling her—between obligations for business and philanthropy.
“I would only write when I got some good idea that bubbled up,” he says. “The base story was written part-time over eight weeks. It came together as a story gradually, and then it took a good, solid five months to fill it out, polish it, enhance the story line and really professionalize it.”
Lessons
Martin also had to give himself some lessons.
“I read a lot, but I don’t read a lot of fiction,” he says. “When this started looking like it was going to become a book, I went back to look at how fiction authors handle this.”
He checked out Lonesome Dove and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, among other novels. That led him to restructure and rewrite Provocateur.
Some breaks came from Martin’s long and varied business connections, which included publishing executives and a book designer.
Martin decided to make his own breaks when the book was ready to go to the printer.
He says a publishing house was interested but wanted to hold off nearly a year to get in sync with the retail cycle of the book business.
“Basically, I fired them,” he says.
Another business tie filled the gap when he happened to meet Karen Strauss, a veteran publishing executive whose Strauss Consultants works with smaller imprints and independent authors.
Martin formed his own imprint, Chaney-Hall Publishing Group, as a unit of a personal services corporation he’s had for decades.
He hired JKS Communication in Chicago—a literary agency with an all-female staff, he notes, with his main character in mind. He got an established Hollywood hand working on a screenplay, too.
Previous Books
Martin has two books to his credit, but they’re not anything like Provocateur. One is called The Little Black Book, the Key to Successful Investing in the Stock Market. The other, titled Sea Stories, is collection of his short tales about racing sailboats as a young man, along with other adventures that shine some light on the history of Newport Harbor in 1960s and 1970s.
Martin’s tale of Nadia is something different in literary terms—and altogether different from Martin’s hedge fund and other business interests. His status as a fiction writer remains more avocation than profession.
“I’ve enjoyed a huge amount of success, but this is a sort of recreation,” he says.
Some guys play harder than others.
That sounds like it could be the first line of Martin’s next novel.
