Jay Amberg practices what he teaches.
An English teacher at Glenbrook South High School in Glenview, Amberg returned to school this fall to report that what he did on his summer vacation was to join ranks with Dickens, Twain and Melville, who provide the fodder for his daily lesson plan.
Amberg, 42, became an author of a published novel.
”Deep Gold,” a suspense thriller about a long-shot deep sea salvage to recover gold that had been aboard the HMS Edinburgh when it sank in 1942, has been available at bookstores since Sept. 1.
But even more unlikely than Amberg`s characters retrieving gold from 1,350 feet under the Arctic Ocean were the odds against having the book accepted by a publishing company, particularly as quickly as it did.
The book was sold without an agent, something that usually ”just doesn`t happen,” said senior editor Rick Horgan of Warner Books, which published it. Also remarkable is that the book was accepted by the first publisher to see it.
”I don`t read unagented books because the quality is usually abysmal,”
Horgan said. ”But the idea of an underwater adventure got my attention because it was fresh and different, and no one out there was doing it.”
The idea for the book came from a real-life salvage operation for the Edinburgh in the 1980s.
”I got to thinking, `What if the salvage had hidden agendas?` and went from there,” Amberg said.
”The story provides an education as well as a thrill,” said Horgan, who was impressed with the author`s thorough look at deep-sea diving.
But Amberg is not a diver. He said he had never stepped into a wet suit before he started the project. He said the book`s authenticity came from good old-fashioned research, just as he urges his students to do.
Although his purpose in the book was to entertain while his students`
papers are more to persuade, the process is the same, Amberg said.
”Researching and honing the prose need to take as long or longer than the writing,” Amberg said he tells his students.
Has the book won him new respect from students?
It`s too soon to tell, Amberg said, but he does believe that writing
”makes me more understanding of what my students go through.”
”Writing can be an arduous task,” he said.
Don`t expect to find ”Deep Gold” on Amberg`s required reading list for class, though. Those titles are reserved for books with stronger themes and characterization, said the author, who said he would strive for that in future works.
Some students, however, have read his book on their own time. A thumbs-up review came from Brad Canel, who was in Amberg`s language studies class last year and this year works as his lab assistant.
Canel said he has read a lot of spy and adventure novels and he rates Amberg up there with Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy.
”It was the first book I read where I knew the author,” Canel said.
”That was real weird. I saw a lot of him in the book. I could hear him saying the phrases.”
Life for Amberg hasn`t changed much since publication. Except for the occasional book-signing sessions he is committed to, the Evanston resident plans to carry on much as before, teaching high school and writing ”whenever I can sneak it in.”
