03-04-03: Trouble in Middle Earth

SMH
March 4, 2003

Trouble in Middle Earth
Staff Reporter

Simon Tolkien, the grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien, has written his first novel after being cut off from his "literary inheritance" by a dispute which has split his family. By David Thomas.

When Simon Tolkien, the 44-year-old grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien, gave the manuscript of his debut novel, The Stepmother, to his American publishers, they were incredulous.

The plot of his courtroom drama hinges on the decision of Sir Peter Robinson, a government minister, to side with his mistress rather than his teenage son when the mistress is accused of planning a murder that the son has witnessed. Robinson cuts the boy out of his life. He refuses even to speak to him.

Tolkien says this raised a few American eyebrows. "My editor was concerned that I'd taken Peter Robinson to a point where he could not be believed in," he says. "And I said, 'No.' Maybe this is an English thing; maybe it's related to English public schools and all the rest of it. But English fathers are capable of this kind of action. And it's wrong."

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