Great success of "Blackwater", the saga that inspired Stephen King

• The family and fantastic saga "Blackwater" is a publishing success at the start of the summer.

• The six volumes of this serial novel written in the 1990s have already sold 120,000 copies.

• Michael McDowell, author who died in 1999 at the age of 49, had co-authored the screenplays for "Beetlejuice" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas" with Tim Burton.

“I wanted to create a little moment of magic that the first 15 or 20,000 French readers of the saga will remember,” says Dominique Bordes, the publisher of

.

In publishing, the "magic moments" mentioned by the boss of Mr. Toussaint Louverture are rather rare.

And we do not necessarily expect them on the side of a 1,200-page American serial novel, written in the 1990s and which has remained unpublished in France.

By what miracle

by Michael McDowell reappear 23 years after the death of its author in the form of six paperbacks?

How did it sell more than 120,000 in three months, to the point that each volume found itself, at some point, out of stock before the release of the next?

This is all the magic that Dominique Bordes talks about.

A family saga mixed with fantasy

What does

?

It's a family saga mixed with touches of fantasy, which begins in Alabama in 1919 and ends fifty years later in the same place.

Over time, the family evolves and the dead come back to haunt the living.

One thinks of

which Stephen King wrote ten years later, following the model of Michael McDowell, whose work he admired.

But also

or

which McDowell, fascinated by mortuary artifacts, had written the scripts before becoming the prolific author of around thirty novels in ten years, until his death in 1999. at 49 from AIDS.

Still,

would be nothing without its literary qualities.

From the publication of the first volume, on April 7, Emily Costecalde, reader for the literary platform  

Books and blogger, underlined "the narrative efficiency of a soap opera" where "the cliffhanger is in order" at the end of each volume.

And our contributor to specify that “beyond the neat reconstructions, Michael McDowell showed a great sense of the creepy, brilliantly instilling small touches of macabre and horror”.

Emily then reviewed each volume, one after the other, arousing, each time, envious and passionate exchanges with the other contributors to the platform.

A volume published in France every fortnight

“In the United States, McDowell published the six volumes at the rate of one per month, says the boss of the publishing house Mr. Toussaint Louverture.

I thought it would be better to pack the six months of the serial into three months, by publishing a volume every fortnight, because the time is no longer the same.

Everything is going faster, including people's desire that is dying out faster than before.

Speed ​​was therefore Dominique Bordes' first choice.

The pocket size is the second.

“For its price (8.40 euros each) that I wanted accessible, justifies the publisher.

But also so that it is chunky, pleasant to hold and easy to read in transport or at the café.

Even, this summer, by the sea or by the swimming pool…

“Two short hours of reading are enough to get through each volume”, specifies Emily Costecalde who insists on the fact that “each of them is a little gem of workmanship;

It may be futile, but it matters!

“, she rejoices.

"I wanted a slightly rock cover and illustrations, with a tattoo, poker side, something that was both classy and bling-bling", explains Dominique Bordes.

The six volumes will give an obvious cachet to your library when you put them away after having devoured them.

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