Talking to Machines

Thank you for asking — and it is a fair question.

I came across Durban’s Bread while scouting books on Reedsy Discovery. I spend time looking beyond the obvious genre description to understand what makes certain books particularly interesting from a reader-discovery and positioning perspective, rather than simply looking for books to promote.

That is what led me to your book.

What interested me was the tension between the story’s thriller elements and the moral question underneath them. Jax isn’t presented as some flawless action hero, and that actually makes the premise more interesting to me. His ordinary life, personality, and circumstances create a sharper contrast with the question of what happens when someone who has been wronged begins to consider whether justice through the system will ever be enough.

My interest, therefore, isn’t simply in whether Durban’s Bread is a good thriller. I’m interested in understanding what the book can mean to the particular readers who would connect with its combination of psychological tension, dark humor, moral ambiguity, and South African setting.

I help authors think about what happens after a book is published — particularly how a book’s deeper identity can be made clearer to the readers most likely to value it. I don’t approach that from the perspective of simply pushing a book harder; I find the more interesting question is whether the book is being understood and positioned in the way the author intended.

And that brings me back to Durban’s Bread.

When you wrote it, what did you most want readers to wrestle with after they finished it — the question of justice and revenge, Jax’s personal journey, or something else entirely that you feel sits underneath the thriller?

I’d be genuinely interested in hearing your answer.

Best regards,
Godfrey

Hi Prim,

Fair point. And yes, I think we can officially retire the overly polished handshake now that we’ve established we’re friends.

Your “I don’t have a penny” defence made me laugh, particularly because you managed to make the same argument three times without actually strengthening it. I suspect that says something about the book too. There is a dry, irreverent voice underneath what is, on the surface, a story about attempted murder and its moral consequences.

That actually brings me to something I think is more interesting than promotion.

If someone encounters Durban’s Bread for the first time, I wonder what they assume they are getting before they ever open it. “Attempted murder and its moral consequences” suggests a serious crime story, but Jax, the humour, the setting, and the moral ambiguity seem to promise something considerably less conventional once the reader gets inside.

That gap between what a reader expects from the outside and what the book actually delivers can be extremely powerful, but it can also work against a book if the first impression puts it into the wrong mental category.

So I’m curious about your instinct as the author: when you imagine the ideal reader picking up Durban’s Bread for the first time, what do you most want them to realise about the book that they probably wouldn’t expect from its premise alone?

I think that answer says a lot about where the book naturally belongs in a reader’s mind.

Best regards,
Godfrey