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Aside from personifying the syndrome of the vertically challenged male, the Napoleon complex, Napoleon Bonaparte is believed to have also brought us the saying “four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.”

Apparently he said this in response to the strength and breadth of the media’s influence during his time..

Joel Mark Harris’s book A Thousand Bayonets, is inspired by Napoleon’s quote, and exudes the same sentiment on the media’s clout and role in defining our perception of world realities. Published in August 2011, the novel is the most recent work of the Vancouver-born and raised author, journalist, screenwriter and producer.

The novel stars protagonist John Webster, an investigative journalist and war correspondent returning to expected normalcy of life in Vancouver after an assignment in Afghanistan.

In the setting of East Vancouver, Webster pursues a lead story on a brutal gang killing, and finds himself muddled in facets of the law and the criminal world.

Juxtaposed against the gang warfare and squalor of modern Vancouver are the protagonist’s recollections and flashbacks of war in Afghanistan. Amidst a battle between two powerful criminal gangs, Harris’s conflicted protagonist fights past and present circumstances to outsmart the criminals who want to eliminate him as a potential witness, and come to terms with his own internal turmoil.

Harris, who graduated from the Langara College journalism program in 2007, came across the idea for the novel while sitting in class on a lecture about observation in journalism. As his professor was reading from a Sherlock Holmes story, the author conceived of the character of John Webster.

Joel Mark Harris - Photo by Jan Hilario

“John Webster is the person I wish I could have the courage to be,” quips Harris. “He’s definitely a romanticized version of myself.”

The protagonist’s character, attributes and idiosyncrasies, Harris explains, evolved from his encounters with various individuals in the journalism field and mirrors the experiences and traits of those war correspondents, journalists, and journalism professors.

The author goes on to explain his perception of the importance of the journalist’s role in being able to observe and report on situations, countries, and places that are far removed from what we experience every day, and to convey what goes on in the rest of the world.

According to Harris, ethical and accurate journalism is especially important in today’s society where we are relayed views and messages from a lot of different sources.

He says that there must be a “conscious effort to keep these institutions in place, [a]nd it may not be in newspaper form, but whatever form it is and will morph into, it [will be] even more important, as the world becomes more complex, to have journalists we can trust to report the truth in the news.”

So, although the novel was pulped and ground out of several drafts, Harris maintained the core concept of having a journalist as a protagonist, as an ode to the role of the reporter and the importance of journalistic integrity in a society where information is compulsively collected and shared, but  knowledge remains elusive.

A Thousand Bayonets is intended to be the first in a series featuring the exploits of John Webster. Harris is currently working on the sequel, Shame the Devil.

Joel Mark Harris's first novel takes a look at the importance of true journalism today
Photo by Jan Hilario

For more information: joelmarkharris.com