Here are some Questions that Faber and Faber put to all their authors.
At school I was terrible at . . . Maths
When I was a child my favourite book was . . . “The Phantom Tollbooth” by Norton Juster (which was full of Maths).
I started writing when / because . . . I started writing at 16, when my parents left England for Australia. I moved in with my elder sister and her boyfriend and began to produce very gloomy short stories, featuring a great deal of rain, peripheral teenage sex and acute observations about the multiformity of kitchen stains. Why did I do this? To appease my emergent tendency to try and build sentences out of every new experience.
The hardest part of writing a novel is . . . For me, finishing. Not only is it hard to leave the imaginary world and the characters within it, it is hard technically for me to wind things up without betraying my initial ambition for the story. I have a tendency to fear the ending, and the unconscious desire to botch it (by having them all die in a hideous car crash) as if to do so is to elude inevitable failure by simply not trying hard enough.
I work best when . . . My children are out.
I wish I’d written . . . Anna Karenina
If I wasn’t a writer I would . . . Be a transplant surgeon or a country and western singer.
The most underrated writer is . . . Andre Dubus
My favourite short story is . . . ‘A Perfect day for Bananafish’ by J.D Salinger
The most romantic piece of writing I’ve ever read is . . . The love scene between the 36 year-old exorcist, Cayetano Delaura and his 12 year-old subject, Sierva Maria in Garcia Marquez’s ‘Of Love and Other Demons.’ (And the ‘fiacre scene’ in Madame Bovary).
My favourite bookshop is . . . Shakespeare and Company, Paris, France.
My literary five-a-side football team would include . . . If they were writing and not playing football: Samuel Beckett, Virginia Woolf, Leon Tolstoy, Gustave Flaubert and Cormac McCarthy.
The finest and most disappointing film adaptation are . . The finest would Kubrick’s ‘Lolita’ and the worst would be Kundera’s ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ in the hands of Philip Kaufman and Daniel Day-Lewis.
If I listen to music when I write I usually put on . . . Never, ever do that.
I am kept awake at night by . . . Snoring (my own), children, or fear of death.
My guiltiest pleasure is . . . watching figure skating. And enjoying it. Even crying over it.
My favourite all-time TV show has to be . . . Deadwood (HBO’s drama series set in a lawless gold prospecting town in 1870s America)
If I could go back in time I would . . . Be a divorced heiress in early 18th century France.
Hi Lucy,
I have a few questions if you’re of a mind:-
If Napoleon had won at Waterloo …
My best excuse for avoiding working is …
Literary kudos or Fame n’ Fortune? (You can’t choose both!) …
Beatles or Rolling Stones? …
France / UK / Other for retirement? …
Three things still to do …
I would like to be remembered for …
Hope they’re not too intrusive.
Feel free to ignore any / all of them (I wouldn’t blame you!)
Warm regards,
Gary
If Napoleon had won at Waterloo … My imagination doesn’t stretch that far.
My best excuse for avoiding working is … The children.
Literary kudos or Fame n’ Fortune? (You can’t choose both!)… As the probability of literary kudos recedes, I fear I’ll have to settle for the ‘F’ words.
Beatles or Rolling Stones? …Beatles
France / UK / Other for retirement? …Other (Don’t know where yet)
Three things still to do …The Menopause, A great novel, Death.
I would like to be remembered for …A great novel.
Thanks, Gary. Your questions made be smile.
L
Thanks for taking the time Lucy. Excellent answers!
Gary
I have read A PERFECT DAY FOR BANANA FISH to many people many times, aloud and with meaning and purpose.
Love the Malkovich story too. Curious Mr. Smith promised some story but didn’t come up with it…. would love to hear that too!
M.
Having discovered The Secret Life of France by accident (Daunts in Marylebone High St) and just finished reading it I want to tell you how much my wife and I enjoyed it and how much it taught us. We too live in the Cevennes and I too just now am in the excellent hands of the French medical service. I hope they are doing you as much good as they are to me and that you will be fully back in action soon. Meanwhile many thanks and congratulations once more on a marvellous book. (You can read a review I put on Amazon).
Hi Lucy,
Just finished reading your book whilst enjoying a week in Brittany with my French girlfriend and her family. I have to say, being a non – French speaker and still being relatively new to French traditions and culture, the book was a life saver.
Every-time I needed an English rest-bite to get away from the confusion caused by my adopted French family your book was the saviour.
There is so much I have been able to relate to, from French Vanity, to the French love of turning a ‘blind eye’. It’s been a reassuring read and provided me with a good understanding of our moral differences. Your Film and musical references have also provided good talking points and new discoveries for myself and my girlfriend.
Are there any plans to publish the book in French? As I would love for some friends to read the book.
Thanks
hi lucy ,
thank you so much for this book , i learned so much about my own country , and the english point of view of it , even if my partner is english and we live in england..
i gave the book to my friend who is able to read in english , unfortunally my mum and sister aren’t, would you be able to tell me if there is a french version of it yet …
When i finished reading it , i just wanted to meet you to hug you ( not so french manner!!!)) and talk about it more& more …
thank you..
A
Having emigrated to Southern France 17 years ago with wife + two daughters I must confess that this is without any doubt the best foreign book on the subject. Too bad, it was not available at that time. But then we would have missed all the new discoveries which you describe so well. Thank you so much.
J.C. Liesecke, LtCol German Army ret.
I read the Secret Life of France last summer. I used to work in the Pyrenees many years ago and always had ‘mixed feelings’ about ‘the French’. Your book clarified so many things and when I went on holiday to the South of France and Corsica last year, I viewed people differently and felt more at home with the locals as a result of your perceptions. So, thank you. I have now just completed Greater Love, which I enjoyed immensely. I put it forward as a book club book and so far I have had very positive feedback. I really wanted to go and be looked after by such a warm and loving family in the Moroccan mountains! I just wondered, and I am not very religious, but just curious, did you paint the muslim traditions in such a beautiful light as a result of your comments about Sarkozy’s comments about religion? Was your attitude brought about by anti-Sarkozyism or have you been truly won over in some romantic way? Just wondered …. Anyway, I thought the book was fab. Thanks again
Dear Suzanne
Thank you for writing. I’m so glad the book helped you to enjoy the French more.
Thank you, too, for reading ‘Greater Love’ and for suggesting it to you book club. To answer your question about the Muslim characters in the book, they were certainly not born of any political views I might have. The sheikh and his family were mostly inspired by French Muslims I had met and spent time with, as well as people I encountered while on holiday in the Atlas. As for the minutiae of their traditions, that was a mixture of research and conjecture. I just worked on the assumption that all religions have embedded inside them something worthy and beautiful and that there are plenty of people out there whose humanity draws them to those aspects of their religion rather than to the dogma and the prejudice.
Anyway, I’m thrilled that you enjoyed it and that it may yet live a second life!
Warmly,
Lucy
Lucy,
Just finished an article in a late July issue of the New Yorker about Elisabeth Badinter. Have you written anything about her? Any comments. The article is quite complimentary, with a few caveats.
Love you and hope to see you and Ben and the kids soon.
Gros Bises.
/chase
I’m a Pole living in UK. In many parts of the book you could substitute France and the French with Poland and the Polish, especially in the chapters about health and education; it opened my eyes to many cultural differences I couldn’t see or identify before.
But … I think you’ve compromised some facts for the sake of style, especially when you wrote that Poland (Estonia and Lithuania) slaughtered around 90 per cent of their Jews. From among all nations it was actually the Polish people who saved the most Jews, over 6000 of them were awarded Righteous among the Nations. There were instances when the Poles killed Jews, there’s no denying that, but it were the Nazis who killed them in Ghettos and in Nazi (not Polish!) concentration camps in Poland. Living in occupied Poland was a different story than living in occupied France, the terror actually was directed against the Polish as well.
Estonia … 25% of Estonians were killed during WWII by Nazis and Soviets.
You may have the point with Lithuania, where actually it were the Nazi collaborators who played a big part in the exterminations of the Jews.
I was actually being unjust to the Lithuanians, the Estonians and the Polish did collaborate as well. You are, however accusing my nation of killing 3 million Jews.