Bookpleasures is pleased to have as our guest BradBuchanan. Brad is a distinguished author and lifelong chessenthusiast whose deep passion for chess history and culture informshis debut novel, Spy’s Mate.

He holds advanced degreesin English Literature from McGill University, the University ofToronto, and Stanford University and enjoyed a long academic careerteaching British and Postcolonial Literature as well as CreativeWriting at Sacramento State University until 2016.

Brad's literary output isdiverse, encompassing poetry, short fiction, scholarly articles, andthree academic books, in addition to a medical memoir reflecting hispowerful personal journey through cancer treatment.

His rich background as ascholar, cancer survivor, and devoted chess player uniquely positionshim to craft a novel set in the late Cold War-era Soviet Union,delving into the life of a young chess prodigy navigating the darkintersection of sports, politics, and espionage.

Today, we will discusswith Brad Spy's Mate, a gripping Cold War thriller wherethe high-stakes world of Soviet chess becomes a battleground ofespionage, power, and survival—an interview that will intrigueanyone fascinated by history, chess, and the human spirit underpressure.

Norm: Good day Brad andthanks for taking part in our interview:

What inspired you toset Spy’s Mate during the late Cold War-era Soviet Unionand focus on chess as the central theme? How do your personalexperiences with chess influence the storytelling and characterdevelopment?

Brad: The reason I setSpy’s Mate during the last days of the Cold War is thatchess had a geopolitical importance at that point in history that ithad never had before, and that it has not had since.

Chess was a majorpropaganda tool for the Soviet Union, and they were desperate to showthat their system produced the most intelligent strategic thinkers inthe world. 

It was East versus West, Communism versus Capitalism, andthe battle lines were very clear. Not only that, but the Soviets werewilling to bend the rules to favor their own top players and managedto corrupt quite a few of chess’s top officials. 

The American WorldChess Champion Bobby Fischer was convinced that the Russians were allconspiring against him and other Western grandmasters, and it turnsout that he was right. 

As far as my personalexperience goes, when I was a little boy, my mother taught me how toplay chess. She was a math whiz and professional accountant with alove for English Literature. 

Under her influence (though without herskill with numbers) I became fascinated with the way the chess piecesmoved. I played imaginary games in my room where I was both White andBlack, just like Yasha, the protagonist, does in Spy’s Mate. 

Aftermy mother’s death in late 2021 from complications of blood canceran ailment that seems to run in our family, since I have survivedtwo types of lymphoma myself) I wanted to pay tribute to the impulsethat led her to teach me a game that would last me a lifetime. Thus,Spy’s Mate  was born. 

I put myself into Yasha’sshoes as he learns chess from his mother in an Armenian village onthe fringes of the Soviet empire and ascends the perilous ladder tothe very top of the game. 

In the novel, Yasha askshis mother, herself chronically and irreversibly ill, to promise himthat she would live long enough to see him become World ChessChampion. 

Along the way, he must contend with, and indeed overcome,the sinister plotting of KGB agents, as well as tragedy and treacheryin his own circle. 

It is a hero’s journey that only chess canoffer; a truly remarkable story of perseverance and pluck, with someamazing brilliancies built in. I think my mother would absolutelylove it. 

Norm: The protagonist,Yasha Basmajian, is described as a chess prodigy of Armenian origin.How did you approach portraying his cultural background and identitywithin the Soviet chess establishment?

Were there historicalor real-life figures who inspired Yasha’s character?

Brad: I’ve beenfascinated by the historical status of Armenians worldwide for manyyears; they were victims of a genocide at the hands of the OttomanEmpire, and they have a widespread diaspora as well as a homelandthat suffered under Soviet domination for a long time. 

My own Irish heritage hasgiven me an affinity with such groups, and I absorbed quite a bit ofArmenian culture and religious iconography when I lived in the SanFrancisco Bay Area. 

There I met Father Mesrop, an Armenian Orthodoxpriest who invited me to witness a traditional Armenian wedding, andwho and discussed the finer points of Armenian Christianity with meover multiple lunches. 

I worked some of thesedetails into Spy’s Mate, partly to offer an alternative to thebleakness of Soviet life, and partly because I wanted Yasha to be anunderdog and an outsider. 

As a non-Russian whose ascent into theSoviet chess elite would be made more difficult by his ethnicity,Yasha is very loosely modeled on former World Chess Champion GarryKasparov, who was of mixed Armenian and Jewish extraction.

Norm: Your novelintertwines the world of chess with espionage and political intrigue.How do you balance these elements to maintain suspense withoutcompromising the authenticity of the chess scenes?

Can you share insightsinto your research process for accurately depicting the KGB andSoviet official pressures?

Brad: The chess games arebased on real-life, often very famous, games from chess history thatI have taken great care to reconstruct, dramatize, and illustratewith diagrams in the novel. 

These games have been checked by severalchess experts to make sure they make sense, because the novel’scredibility depends on their authenticity. 

As far as researching therole of the KGB in high level Soviet chess, I read quite a few chessbiographies, including multiple books about Garry Kasparov’s lifeand games. 

However, the mostmemorable book I found was a non-fiction book called The KGB PlaysChess, by Boris Gulko, Vladimir Popov, Yuri Felshtinsky, and ViktorKortchnoi, where the authors (all top chess players who lived in theUSSR) relate many wild, improbable, and often hilarious stories ofthe various sneaky and largely ineffective ways that the KGB spiedon, tried to sabotage, and subtly (or not so subtly) manipulatedthem. 

Basically, the Sovietelite wanted to promote loyal Communists, and Slavic (as opposed toJewish, Armenian, or otherwise) players who could function as posterboys for their ideology. Less loyal players, or players who wanted toemigrate, were persecuted, marginalized, and often mistreated.

Norm: Yasha faces a“sinister, predatory” World Chess Champion, Evgeny Volosin. Whatdoes this character represent, and how does he challenge Yasha beyondthe chessboard?

Did you draw from anyreal chess champions or political figures when creating Volosin?

Brad: On the surface,Volosin is a loyal Communist who represents the status quo in theSoviet Union, and as such is loosely modeled on Anatoly Karpov, aformer World Chess Champion and Garry Kasparov’s chief antagonist. 

However, he is also a narcissistic sexual predator and a paranoidbehind-the-scenes manipulator who plots with the KGB to spy on,discredit, or indeed destroy his rivals. 

Volosin plants what hethinks is an informant in Yasha’s camp and tries to disrupt Yashaemotionally and psychologically during their World Championship matchby having Yasha’s father arrested. 

Norm: Could you discussthe role of the renegade coach and anti-establishment grandmasters inthe story?

How do these charactersreflect broader themes of resistance and individuality withinauthoritarian regimes?

Brad: Yasha’s risewithin the world of Soviet chess is assisted by Alexander Mikeladze,a coach whose career Volosin has curtailed, as well as JerzySmolarek, one of Volosin’s seconds who was tortured with cigaretteburns by Volosin’s minions. 

They, and other characters who havesuffered at the hands of the authorities, assist Yasha as a way ofexpressing their broader dissatisfaction with the lack of freedom,lack of opportunity, and lack of justice in the USSR. 

So, when Yashafinally sits down at the board to play with Volosin for the WorldChess Championship, we see that he represents the power of theindividual to resist the power of authoritarianism.

Norm: Given yourextensive academic background, how has your study of literatureinfluenced your narrative style and thematic choices in Spy’sMate?

Did your previous workin poetry and scholarly texts shape how you crafted the novel’stone or structure?

Brad: Having taughtfiction writing at the college level, I have learned a few tricksover the years, as well as some pitfalls to avoid. Besides that,however, I had to unlearn some of my own academic, analyticaltendencies to write Spy’s Mate. 

In fact, I’ve used a deliberately“unliterary” style to tell the story: there are no longpsychological passages, for example, as well as minimal descriptionsof the physical settings, and not much background for eachcharacter. 

I wanted the novel to readlike a movie screenplay, i.e. to be driven by action and dialoguerather than by a unifying narrative voice. In fact, my first drafthad a rather chatty first-person narrator who played a minor role inthe story; however, I eventually realized that he was much moretrouble than he was worth, so (like a spy master dealing with adouble agent, I suppose) I quietly got rid of him. 

Norm: Spy’sMate is your first novel after a prolific career in otherliterary forms. What were the biggest challenges transitioning tonovel writing?

How did you maintainengagement over the novel’s 425 pages, especially given thedetailed historical and chess content?

Brad: The biggestchallenge in writing a novel was the daily routine of sitting down towrite a complete scene—or between 700 and 1,000 words—every day,with only my own imagination to rely on. In other writing projects, Iusually have lots of notes to work with, and primary or secondarysources to quote from, but with fiction I must create the entirething from start to finish. 

When my inspirationflagged, or when different plot strands got complicated over multipledrafts, I would stay engaged with the project by tracing thedifferent story lines with different colored markers on big sheets ofpaper, making lists of scenes on cue cards, creating charts showingdifferent characters’ development over time, noting places wheremissing scenes would need to be written, and using a white board todraw connections between characters. 

Norm: Chess culture canbe quite niche. How did you ensure the novel remains accessible andengaging to readers who may not be familiar with chess?

Are there particularchess concepts or moments in the book you hope resonate beyond justchess enthusiasts?

Brad: I showed variousdrafts of Spy’s Mate to friends who know very little about chess tomake sure that they could follow the story as well as the games. 

After hearing their comments, I created diagrams in the text thatshow key positions in the chess games being played, as well asreminders about who is playing Black and who is playing White. 

Thereare also a couple of pages at the back of the book that explain thenotation system used in chess, as well as the names of each of theboard’s 64 squares in algebraic notation. 

As far as moments thatwill resonate with non-chess enthusiasts, Yasha’s strong bond withhis mother is the emotional core of the novel, and I hope that hisdesire to keep faith with her is a very relatable and universalfeeling. 

I was weeping as I wrote the final scene, at any rate,because I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to my own mother inthe same way that he does.

Norm: Your medicalmemoir and experience living with graft-versus-host disease show yourresilience. Did your personal health journey influence themes orcharacterizations in Spy’s Mate?

Did writing the novelserve as a form of healing or a new creative challenge during orafter your treatment?

Brad: My health problemshave been a huge reason for my rediscovery of chess over the past 10years. The story began when I was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma, aform of malignant blood cancer, in early 2015, and a cancerous tumorin my left lung burst, sending me to the ER. 

My life was immediatelyturned upside down: over the next year I underwent 7 cycles ofchemotherapy, total body irradiation, and a stem cell transplant thatnearly proved fatal. 

My body was badly damaged by all this, and Ilost any athletic ability I had once possessed. I was left not justdisabled but saddled with a chronic illness that I still live withtoday: graft-versus-host disease. 

Then chess rescued me: unable toplay more physically active sports, I became obsessed with the game. 

Even when I was legallyblind for 18 months (an unexpected side effect of my transplant) Imanaged to peer at my iPad out of the corners of my eyes and practiceagainst the computer. 

Although I couldn’t yet play real gamesagain, I found a new chess-related hobby: making personalized woodenchess sets for friends and family. 

I bought square wooden boards froma local wood shop and painted them (with some help from mydaughters). To make the pieces, I glued together wooden shapes andfigures I found at craft stores. 

When I recovered myeyesight (four eye surgeries later), I started to read chess books,to play online and in-person games once again, and to think seriouslyabout writing a book about chess.

By this time, I had published threebooks of poetry, three academic books, and a medical memoir, and Ifelt I was ready to write something about the game that had becomethe only outlet for my competitive energies.

During the pandemic, likeso many others, I watched and read The Queen’s Gambit withfascination and admiration. I also realized that chess had become aworldwide cultural phenomenon for the same reasons it had inspired meafter my medical catastrophe. 

Chess was not just a training groundfor strategic and tactical thinking; it was also a treasure trove ofmythic stories, archetypes, and memorable personalities, all unitedin a visually striking contest between opposing forces. Chess wasStar Wars and John LeCarré Cold War novels all combined into one.

Norm: The novelfeatures rivalry, manipulation, and principled stands. Which of thesethemes do you find personally most compelling and why?

How do these themesmanifest themselves in Yasha’s growth throughout the story?

Brad: Personally, Iidentify strongly with Yasha’s principled stands against injustice,intellectual dishonesty, and unchecked power, even though thesestands are clearly the result of his youthful naïveté. His idealismand faith in himself are challenged at every turn, by peoplepretending to be his friend, or even his father, and he is badly hurtand even betrayed by people he once loved and trusted. His growth,both as a chess player and as a human being, is painful and hard-won,which I hope will make him a sympathetic figure for the reader. 

Norm: The novelinvolves high-stakes matches with life-or-death implications. How doyou portray the psychological pressure and mental endurance requiredin competitive chess?

Are there moments inthe novel that parallel your own experiences dealing with intensepressure?

Brad: Spy’s Mate showsthat chess is a deadly serious game, since some defeated grandmastersare disgraced, imprisoned, and in one instance killed. 

Thesepressures come across as Yasha fights to the bitter end againstolder, more experienced players, refusing to resign even in hopelesspositions. The passionate responses of the live audiences alsoamplify the tension of these contests and (I hope) make them intohigh drama.

My own modest backgroundas a hockey player and soccer goalkeeper, as well as a chess player,have given me some experience with high-pressure situations. 

Playinggoal forces you to think ahead, prepare yourself for the unexpected,and to react instinctively when a threat poses itself. 

Many of thechess games in Spy’s Mate come to a crisis point when one or bothplayers are in serious time trouble, with only seconds remaining ontheir clocks. 

Since running out of time means an instant defeat, theymust scramble and think on their feet in the same way that I, facingan opposing player coming in on a breakaway, had to decide whether todive at his feet, spread my arms and legs wide, or try to poke theball away before he could get off a shot. 

Norm: Where can ourreaders find out more about you and Spy's Mate?

Brad: My PERSONAL WEBSITE 

Spy’s Mate is availablefor pre-ordering on Amazon.com and through Bookshop.org. 

Norm: As we wrap up ourinterview, Finally, can you share any upcoming projects or whetheryou plan to continue exploring chess or Cold War themes in yourfuture writing?

Are there any lessonsor insights from Spy’s Mate that you will carry forwardinto your next works?

Brad: Since the advanceorders for Spy’s Mate have been so robust, I’m happy to reportthat I am already under contract to write a sequel! I can’t sharetoo many details about that project, but I certainly have learned alot from writing Spy’s Mate—both about chess and about thehistory of the Soviet Union in its last days— that will contributeto the sequel. 

Although I am old enough to remember Gorbachev andYeltsin and the fall of the Berlin Wall, I have been reading a lot ofbackground material to help explain how Putin’s rise came about, aswell as how chess’s political importance has changed since the daysof Bobby Fischer and, later, Garry Kasparov. 

I have some otherwriting projects in the works too: a book about the health benefitsof expressive writing, for example, is under consideration with areputable publisher. Finally, my fifth book of poetry, The Birds ofPoverty Ridge, will be published in early 2026 by Finishing LinePress.