Millionaire literary titan Salman Rushdie has two lovely sons, a knack for attracting beautiful women, and the prospect of seeing his latest book turned into a video game.
Life is good, eh? Even the daily threat of being attacked by religious extremists has eased somewhat.
But Rushdie's new novel, Luka and the Fire of Life (Random House, $25), betrays a concern that might affect any man who marries a woman 20 or so years younger than himself.
"When my younger son [Milan] was born, I was already 50 years old," Rushdie, 63, said in a telephone interview from his home in New York City. "That's the same age gap that exists between Rashid and Luka," the father and son in the new novel.
"One of the implications of being an older parent is that the question of mortality becomes much more vivid; the subject of life and death is inevitably in your mind in a way it isn't if you have child at 25," added Rushdie, who will speak Tuesday night at 7:30 at the Free Library of Philadelphia, 1901 Vine St.
Not that the question of mortality has been very far from Rushdie's mind since 1989, the year Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini declared a fatwa against him for the supposed blasphemy in his satiric novel The Satanic Verses.
Yet a father worries that time may do what the ayatollah might not. Hence, the plot line: Rashid, the father of plucky protagonist Luka, falls into a deep sleep and can't be awakened. As Rashid begins to dwindle, Luka must travel into the Heart of Magic, battle giants, monsters - and even time itself - to bring back the fire that will save his father's life.
In addition to inspiring this meditation on paternal mortality, Rushdie's young son Milan, 13, set the book in motion in a more straightforward way: He asked for it. His much older half-brother Zafar got a book of his own (1990's Haroun and the Sea of Stories), and Milan said he deserved one, too.
After reading early chapters, Milan also had some advice: "Don't write novels. Write series."
Luka certainly leaves the door open for sequels. Written about the same redoubtable family that peopled Haroun, the new book is crammed with gods and goddesses from the Greek, Roman, Japanese, Nordic, Vedic, Egyptian, and Aztec traditions, among others.
They plunge into action that unspools as if played on an Xbox. Luka collects "lives," solves puzzles, defeats bosses, finds allies, and saves progress as he journeys up from Level One to Level Nine.
We see Milan's influence here as well.
"I would know nothing about [video games] if it were not for my children," said Rushdie. "When my older son was 11 or 12, that was the age of Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog, and I started learning these games from him. . . . I'm no good at them, though I have to say I've developed a certain skill on [the iPhone game] Angry Birds. "
Rushdie said there are video game developers interested in turning Luka into a game.
Each spring, Rushdie spends about a month teaching seminars at Emory University in Atlanta. His relationship with Atlanta goes back to 2004, when he considered, for the first time, what would happen to his papers.
"Since I was marked for death in '89, it hadn't occurred to me to think about it," he said. He placed his literary archive at Emory University, then joined the Emory faculty in 2006.
He doesn't like to talk about the price still on his head, but has said that the danger has eased and that the threat is more one of "rhetoric" than intent. In his memoirs, however, which he started this year, "the starting point would be . . . the strange event that happened in 1989."
He wrote his first "children's book" immediately after The Satanic Verses, partly as a way to cope with the stress of that dark time. "I tried to fill it with light and even give it a happy ending."
Single since 2007, Rushdie said he has no plans for another children's book because he has no plans for another child. Yet he hopes books such as Luka can help demolish the distinction between children's and adult literature. He sees evidence, in the popularity of the Harry Potter series, that the barrier is permeable.
"There are books that do cross in the other direction as well," he said.
"My 13-year-old son just finished reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, which is now his favorite book he's ever read, I suspect," adding ruefully, "ahead of the one that I just wrote."