 |
|
| Jack Whyte | |
Jack Whyte, a Scottish Canadian author of historical fiction, died February 22. He was 80. The Daily Courier reported that his 17 books, which have been translated into more than 20 languages, include the series A Dream of Eagles, the Templar trilogy and the Guardians of Scotland. He was also an actor, poet, singer and orator.
In a 2018 interview with the Daily Courier (a publication for which he also contributed a regular column), Whyte reflected on his passion for research and what he believed were the reasons for his worldwide success as a writer of historical fiction: "I've gone looking for legends and tried to strip away all the accumulated crap of the centuries and uncover what it was originally that made this story and these people so great," he said.
Author Diana Gabaldon tweeted that Whyte was "a wonderful writer, fantastic singer, a generous, funny Scotsman with a lot of love for the world."
Whyte lived for 25 years in Kelowna, B.C., where he was a frequent visitor to Mosaic Books for his book launches, the CBC noted. Co-owners Michele and Michael Neill remembered him as a fun-loving man dedicated to excellence in creative writing.
"We'd go upstairs to the office and have a bottle of wine sitting there... we'd have a smoke [cigarettes] up there and have a few words," Michael Neill said. "He was just full of energy and what a storyteller.... You could hear a pin drop in the room (of more than 200 people) while he read from his book."
Michele Neill added that Whyte collected an incredible amount of historical details and went to great lengths to embellish them in his stories, not hesitating to toss his imperfect drafts. "He once wrote 600 pages of a book and then realized it was all wrong and threw it out and started again."