Baffled visitors and books passionate observed the wave of people reaching the third floor of Waterstones Piccadilly. The usually quiet room, exposing biographies, books about films and TV, spirituality and self-improvement filled with an energetic buzz of voices. A dozen of rows of folding black chairs appeared in the middle of the chamber along with a small stage. Rapidly, the audience neatly occupied the seats, and the event could begin.
In her first appearance in the UK, Tana French discussed The Wych Elm, her latest stand-alone novel, with the writer John Boyne. The book is about Toby, a golden-boy of a rich middle-class family, who, one night, gets beaten up by a couple of burglars. To recover from the injuries, he decides to refuge in his ancestral country house and take care of his dying uncle. When a skull is found in an elm tree, Toby realises that the reality surrounding him has never been what he really believed it was. After a quick presentation of the author and her novel, Boyne immediately plunged into the conversation. “I don’t feel difficult to create characters and personify them,” French replied the question. “I used to be an actress and materialise characters was my job. Especially when I have to write dialogues, my experience as an actress comes in handy. What it’s more complicated and demanding is to create an appealing plot and a good structure.” The inspiration for the protagonist of her novel came from observing his son. The writer realised that he had everything a kid might desire, a normal family and good parents. Some children, unfortunately, hadn’t the same luck. “I wanted to create a man who had everything from his life, Toby is a privileged guy with a rich family taking care of him and a good job. He’s handsome and successful,” the author explained. “I wanted the perfect world spinning around him to be against him. His luck has suddenly run out, and now Toby has to deal with the reality, with no advantage.” The centrality of the country house was another important concept in the novel. It was an Irish characteristic as Irish people put a lot of emotion in it. “It’s an Irish thing,” French said. “We Irish are very fond of the place where we’ve been living. It’s where we feel safe and comfortable. So felt Toby until the skull came out. But the past it’s also important. To ditch your previous memories never works out properly, you’ll always have to face them. It becomes a sort of struggle, and what really catches me is to see how people get away from it.” Toby was a perfect troubled character; his privileged condition corrupted the view he has about reality. He wasn’t able to separate what was real from what he believed was real. “Slowly, Toby realises that he has to deal with it,” the author carried on. “And dealing with it may not be as easy as it seems. My main character was not prepared for it.” The conversation unfortunately headed to an end, and, as often happened, the author had to do deep and thorough research to make her work as close to reality as possible. “It was the most frightening experience I had ever had,” Tana French said, opening her eyes wide. “I’ve known this retired detective for ages, and I needed to know how he carried out an interrogation in a particular situation. I still remembered that phone call. Suddenly, he was serious–he almost sounded hostile–and he started asking questions. He went straight for what he wanted to know.” The audience silently listened to the author’s anecdote. “Then, his attitude changed, and he got back to be the jovial and friendly person he was. He had just shown me how a detective would have questioned a suspect.”
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
November 2020
Follow me on: |