Tag Archives: Le French Book

“Wednesday Writer” – Bernard Besson

Posted on by

Thriller writer Bernard Besson has won multiple awards as he’s crafted stories based on his own experiences working in French intelligence and such modern phenomena as climate change, which he researched for his new American release, THE GREENLAND BREACH. I was happy to have an opportunity to interview him recently.

Besson_240_small-206x300ME:  I see that you were born a few years after the end of World War II. What was your childhood like in Lyon, France, and could you still sense the effects of the war? Also, did those effects have anything to do with your later joining the French intelligence service, and, if so, how?

BERNARD:  I was born in 1949 in Lyon, France. I remember when I was seven or eight walking across a “temporary” metal bridge over the Rhône River. The retreating German Army had bombed all of the city’s bridges. I understood later that the bridge in question had been built by the American army; it was still in use many years later.

In World War I, my grandfather had fought victoriously against the Germans at the battle of Verdun, and at home he reproached my father for having lost. I was raised with both memories of a victory (1918) and unthinkable defeat (1940). That confrontation between generations was a little confusing for a little boy. (I can well imagine.)

These feelings were then strengthened with the wars in Indochina and Algeria, and those defeats. It was these military disasters that, in part, explain why I signed up to work for the state, along with the admiration that I still have for General Charles de Gaulle. So it wasn’t entirely by chance that I chose to work for the police and then later for the intelligence services.

When I was little, I didn’t want to see my country continue to lose on the battlefield. I remember when I was a kid going to see a movie with my parents that had something to do with Waterloo. I cried at the end and wanted “Mister Director” to rewrite the scene.

We spent the summer with my younger brother and my mother in Dun-les-Places, in the Morvan, a rural, wooded region in central France. The little town was one of the only ones in the area to have new houses and streets with right angles. One day, as I came out of church with my two great aunts (my grandfather’s sisters), they told me why that was. On June 26, 1944, German soldiers had shot 27 men in the village church. They made the priest climb up the steeple and shot him in the head because he had blessed fighters in the Resistance. Then they threw fire grenades into the church. All the houses in the village were burned down in retaliation for what the Resistance was doing in that wooded, mountainous region.

My father was arrested by the French gendarmerie in 1942 when he tried to join the resistance. He was delivered to the Germans and deported. He resisted in Germany, and went on strike with others. Then he was sent to the Russian front to build anti-tank trenches, and punished a second time, to be sent to Rhineland to rebuild the roofs of the Messerschmitt factories that the Americans kept bombing. He was finally freed by the American GIs.

(I can see that World War II had a very real impact on your family. Thanks for sharing such details.)

ME:  How old were you when you determined to become a writer and what fueled your desire?

BERNARD:  I was fifty when I published my first novel, the Vierges de Kotelnikovo. When there was a shift in the French government, I found myself in another department, working for the Inspection générale de la police. I had way too much free time and was bored. I had written a few books already about business intelligence, and I thought I knew how to write and it would be easy to write a novel. It turned out to be much more difficult than I imagined.

ME:  What kind of preparation, academic or otherwise, did you have before you entered the intelligence world, and what personal characteristics made you so successful in your field?

BERNARD:  I studied law in Lyon and then in Paris. I wanted to have a Masters degree in law to pass the competitive examination to be a police chief. I did so in 1974. I was the youngest in my class. But I didn’t want a career in the police, because I don’t like firearms and have no taste for dead bodies. So I chose to work in intelligence right after graduating from Saint Cyr National Police Officers School. I never regretted the choice. I met many people who offered me interesting, high-ranking positions. I was able to work with a team of loyal colleagues, some of whom followed me to Paris and are friends. They taught me things I didn’t know. A good leader is one who chooses people who are more competent and more brave than he or she is. (Very wise.) And I had my fair share of them.

ME:  At what point in your career did you decide to write thrillers and what was the impetus behind your decision? Also, please tell us the title of your first novel, published in 1998, and how you conceived its storyline. (I would love to post a cover image, even if there’s no translated English edition.)

BERNARD:  I got inspired to write my first thriller when I was at the DST, which is French counter-espionage, or the equivalent of the FBI. I was very lucky to be working during the fall of communism and the Soviet Union. We were able to understand how networks of Russian, Bulgarian, Polish, Czech and Romanian spies worked with their allies in France.

The Russians from the KGB and the GRU were not in any hurry to return to Moscow. Living in Paris was much more agreeable than a future in Siberia. (I’ll say!) So we gave them an opportunity to explain how their system worked. I was impressed by the people skills these spies had, their extraordinary imagination and their patriotism that had been put to the service of a blind and incompetent dictatorship. The time frame was 1989 and 1993.

That is were I got the idea to write a novel and I began the Vierges de Kotelnikovo in 1985. This book recounts how the GRU, the Red Army’s intelligence branch, had imagined assassinating the president of France an hour before launching a nuclear war.

Bernards first book We discovered how widespread the network of spies was among what we called the “French elite.” I had been prepared for this debriefing work when I was in Lyon in 1985. There I was given the job of finding former French collaborators of Klaus Altman (Barbie), who had headed up the Gestapo, in order to get new elements in view of his trial in 1987.

I got an inside view of how the Gestapo had operated in eight different French départements, including three in the Alps, which was a major area for the Resistance. It was a very interesting experience. (I can only imagine.) My team and I were able to understand what tricks and organization Klaus Altman and his political police had used to manage to destroy the armed resistance in the region around Lyon and in the Alps.

ME:  As the daughter of a former CIA agent, I know that guns and spies do not necessarily go together—that it’s more about making contacts and gathering intelligence—but how large a role do weapons play in your novels? Do you try to follow the style of John Le Carré or tend more toward Robert Ludlum and Clive Cussler?

BERNARD:  Fortunately, I have never in my career used a weapon or killed anyone. I am happy about that. My characters don’t do it much either, or at least not with the usual kind of weapons. In THE GREENLAND BREACH, John Spencer Larivière uses a screwdriver and Victoire Augagneur a broken window in order to get rid of their bothersome adversaries.

I truly appreciate the professionalism of American authors. You don’t need to be a former spy or counter spy to write a good spy novel. It can help, but it can also hinder. I have learned not to explain things to my readers, but to leave my characters to act. Showing and not telling.

I do not try to follow the style of any particular author because I read very few mysteries and thrillers. But I loved Conan Doyle’s talent and the fast-paced action in James Bond.

ME:  Your latest work of fiction, THE GREENLAND BREACH, has been described as an eco-thriller. Have you written this kind of thriller before and what made you decide to do it now? Also, please tell us the main messages, if any, that you were trying to convey through the story.

greenlandbreach_750x1200-187x300BERNARD:  THE GREENLAND BREACH is my first eco-thriller. It was the debate among scientists in France that led me to write this novel. They do not all agree on the causes of global warming. And Greenland itself is a character in the novel.

After a career in intelligence, I continue to work in the field by teaching in the French “competitive intelligence” program. The most prosperous nations are those that are able to understand and anticipate economic changes as well as natural changes. In THE GREENLAND BREACH we have both. It was very tempting to tell a story that recounted this reality. Fiction makes it possible to tell more truth than an academic work filled with numbers and statistics.

(And it’s much more enjoyable to read!)

ME:  You have won several awards, including the Prix de la Chouette de Cristal, the Prix Edmond Locard for Best Science Thriller, and the IEC Prize for Economic Intelligence. Which book was honored for each of these, and which award means the most to you personally?

BERNARD:  I received the Prix Edmond Locard for Best Science Thriller for Chromosomes in 2000. It’s the story of a duel between two pharmaceutical companies—one French and one American. One of the two companies is trying to cure someone on death row and discovers something extraordinary and totally unexpected, as often happens in scientific research. You look for one thing and find something else.

 Chromosomes 1

In 2008, I received the Prix de la Chouette de cristal-IEC for Chien Rouge. “Chien rouge” or “red dog” was the nickname for the head of Japan’s intelligence services, a former director of Toyota. Japan’s prime minister asked him to anticipate a situation where the Americans and the Chinese would agree to split up strategic raw materials “forgetting” Japan all together. Operations are running smoothly until Chien Rouge has to defend Japan in a crisis situation. Part of the action takes place in my hometown of Lyon, where the Chien Dog has a talented female spy working in nanotechnology.

chien rougeME:  I understand that you currently live near the offices of French intelligence in Paris. Do you regularly get together with old colleagues and how helpful are they in terms of research?

BERNARD:  In fact, I live in the same neighborhood as my heroes John Spencer Larivière, Victoire Augagneur and Luc Masseron. They live and work out of 9 Rue Fermat in the fourteenth arrondissement of Paris. (Note: An arrondissement is a municipality or district.) They are former intelligence officers who left the DGSE for personal reasons. John had been wounded in Afghanistan, Victoire was bored and Luc had no skill in an administration. They founded Fermatown, a private intelligence company named after the Rue Fermat, but doesn’t yet earn a lot of money.

They now live (as of the sequel to THE GREENLAND BREACH, which is being released in French on Oct. 31) with a baby and a Persian cat in a house that John inherited from his American aunt, a sculptor. The building is really hard to heat, not very practical, and hugely expensive to maintain. But it is located in a great neighborhood called the Village Daguerre, which is a little bit like the Notting Hill of Paris.

(Hmm…could that Persian cat be anything like your own?)

Bernard Besson at desk with cat(Bernard’s cat editing his work)

I often see my former colleagues and it is always a great pleasure. But I also meet with heads of French companies interested in setting up ethical and legal in-house economic intelligence systems based on open source solutions, which are the most efficient. I help these organizations develop these solutions, which requires a long-term investment in people–a company’s most important resource.

ME:  Please provide a description of your writing process. Also, what are you working on next?

BERNARD:  I go to bed early, I think at night and I write early in the morning. I always come up with an extremely detailed outline for my novels. Certainly to reassure myself. And then, very quickly, my characters destroy my outline, because they have ideas and reactions I had not thought about. (Naturally.) I have learned that they are right, because life comes out on top over theory.

Right now, I am finishing a story inspired by the Cuban crisis between the United States and the USSR in 1962.

And, the sequel to THE GREENLAND BREACH will come out on October 31, 2013 in French. It has the same heroes. In this new thriller, Partage des Terres, thanks to the United States and their allies, including France, China has to share the exploitation and trade in rare earths with other nations. These precious metals are used in medical, military and information technology. The rare earths markets are set up in Paris and Malaysia and run smoothly until a grain of sand throws off the well-oiled international finance machine and obliges the CIA to put its best Asian agent on the trace of a mass crime in France.

(Sounds intriguingly complicated.)

All these stories are reread and corrected, sometimes severely, by Claudine Monteil, my companion for the past twenty-three years. She is a historian and writer herself who has published several books that have been translated into several languages. She provides great inspiration.

ME:  Finally, could you describe five items in your writing space or office that make it uniquely yours? (And I’d love to post a picture of your writing space.)

BERNARD:  My office is in the apartment that Claudine and I share in Paris. I have a normal wooden desk covered in sticky notes, which I use to write down ideas whenever they come to me.

desk with sticky notes(See the sticky notes?)

We have a slightly bizarre painting by Boldy that represents a cat, and a real cat named Caresse, who plays a role in THE GREENLAND BREACH. (Now I really must read it! Cats rule!) We also have a portrait of Simone de Beauvoir, painted by her sister, an artist Claudine and I knew.

cat poster(Bernard with Caresse beneath the painting by Boldy…I think)

You can learn more about Bernard in this interview and from his English publisher, Le French Book. As I noted on Monday, THE GREENLAND BREACH is available on Amazon, iTunes, and Nook.

I’ll be taking a break next Wednesday when I go to a writing retreat, but look for my interview with fantasy author T.M. Franklin on the following Wednesday, November 13th.

T.M.Franklin

 

Originally posted 2013-10-30 06:00:09.

“Monday Mystery” – THE GREENLAND BREACH

Posted on by

We’ve got a new thriller to announce from across the Atlantic, translated by the woman who brought us Les Miserables. Le French Book is releasing Bernard Besson’s cli-fi spy novel, THE GREENLAND BREACH, on October 30th.  It’s available on Amazon, iTunes, and Nook, and should be up shortly on Kobo.

Have a look!

greenlandbreach_750x1200-187x300Synopsis

The Arctic ice caps are breaking up. Europe and the East Coast of the United States brace for a tidal wave. Meanwhile, former French intelligence officer John Spencer Larivière, his karate-trained, steamy Eurasian partner, Victoire, and their bisexual computer-genius sidekick, Luc, pick up an ordinary freelance assignment that quickly leads them into the glacial silence of the great north, where a merciless war is being waged for control of discoveries that will change the future of humanity.

Excerpt

(First published in French as The Greenland Breach, ©2011 Odile Jacob. English translation ©2013 Julie Rose. First published in English in 2013 by Le French Book, Inc., New York)

The Greenland Breach by Bernard Besson and Julie Rose (translator)

SUNDAY

Greenland, the north face of Haffner Bjerg, 6:30 a.m.

Lars Jensen felt the ground tremble beneath the snow. He straightened up and abandoned his position, petrified by what he was seeing to the west, toward Canada. The last phase of global warming had begun just as a big red helicopter flew past from the east. It doubtless belonged to Terre Noire, the Franco-Danish oil-and-gas company that was carrying out geological surveys.

From the rocky slopes of Haffner Bjerg, events were taking an unimaginable turn worthy of Dante. With a sound as ominous as the crack of doom, the Lauge Koch Kyst had begun to tear away from Greenland and plummet into Baffin Bay in the North Atlantic Ocean. A colossal breach a mile and a half deep was opening up in the middle of the island continent. The trench ran for miles, as if an invisible ax had just split the ice cap in two.

Terrified, Lars backed away, forgetting what he had come to the top of the world to do. He’d guessed that his presence on the slopes of Haffner Bjerg had something to do with the death of the Arctic. The advance wired from an anonymous account on the island of Jersey was every bit as incredible as the cataclysm under way.

A mist shot through with rainbows rose from the depths of the last ice age. Behind the iridescent wall, thousands of years of packed ice raked the granite surface and crashed into the sea, stirring up a gigantic tsunami. He pressed his hands to his ears to muffle the howling of Greenland as it began to die.

It took Lars awhile to get a grip. His hands were still shaking as the thunderous impact reached him. It was even more frightening than the ear-splitting sound. Greenland was plunging into Baffin Bay. In a few hours, the coasts of Canada and the United States would be flooded. He fell to his knees like a child, overcome by thoughts that had never before crossed his mind. An abyss was opening inside him, and it was just as frightening as the one in front of him. It wasn’t until his fitful breathing slowed and his lungs stopped burning that he was able to get back to the tawdry reality of his own situation.

He lay down again on the hardpacked snow. With his eye glued to the sight of his rifle, he found the trail that the dogsled had taken from the Great Wound of the Wild Dog. That’s where the team would emerge, heading for Josephine and the automated science base that sounded the great island’s sick heart. The Terre Noire geologists were known for their punctuality, but at two thousand euros an hour, he would wait if he had to. Say what you like, the end of the world was good business.

Paris, fourteenth arrondissement, 18 Rue Deparcieux, 11:30 a.m 

John Spencer Larivière put the phone down and shot Victoire a triumphant look. It was an expression she didn’t like.

“What’s got into you?” Victoire asked.

“North Land’s offering me a hundred thousand euros for a mission. I’ve got a meeting tomorrow with Abraham Harper’s wife, Geraldine.”

“Where?”

“She’ll let me know at the last minute.”

“What kind of a job?”

“She didn’t say.”

“She’s obviously going to ask you to investigate their European rivals, Terre Noire, Nicolas Lanier’s outfit. I don’t like it, John. Don’t go looking for trouble. Don’t forget you’re French. Remember where you come from.”

“Still, a hundred thousand euros…”

Victoire moved closer. Ever since John had set up his own business, he had agonized over not being able to measure up. They were in the red. She rarely saw him smile these days. She slipped her hand into his pants and confirmed what she’d already guessed. “That Canadian woman has an effect on you.”

“She does not.”

“Come here, you idiot.”

They had met working in the government intelligence agency Hubert de Méricourt directed. Victoire and John wanted to have a baby, which was why they had quit together to start Fermatown, their own strategic- and criminal-analysis company. As the daughter of a Cambodian Khmer Rouge survivor and a French diplomat, Victoire bore a heavy legacy. After a spectacular nervous breakdown and a period of uncompromising psychoanalysis, getting pregnant had become her obsession. She wanted a son who would look like his father, a good-looking hunk, five feet eleven, with irresistible blue eyes and the blond mane of a movie star. John was a real man with simple ideas, a gentle giant who could massage her feet while getting his Cambodian and Cantonese hopelessly mixed up.

They left the media room and stepped into the space they called the confessional, where they settled into the welcoming arms of the black sofa. Their clothes soon lay where Fermatown’s rare clients sat. John kneaded that supple body yet again and made Victoire’s cheeks glow. She opened her eyes wide and encouraged him with her dancer’s hips. They grabbed pleasure by the handful as though it were the last time. Or the first.

Putting aside their old wounds and disappointments, they made sweaty love, falling off the sofa and onto the teak floor. Now they were nothing more than two balls of rage. Watching as though he were outside himself, John pinned her delicate wrists to the floor and prepared his assault. Wildly, he thrust faster and faster, and, when the moment came, he grunted like an animal, shooting into this flesh that was torn, as he was, between two continents and two histories.

Out of breath, they slid next to each other. And then, holding hands and looking up at the ceiling, they started bickering again.

“With a hundred thousand euros, we could redo the kitchen and get new cars.”

“A hundred thousand euros and a bullet in the head. Don’t go there, John.”

“I’ll send Luc to Le Havre. That’s where Terre Noire has its lab. I saw something on television. They sent one of their ships to inspect the lava that spewed into the ocean the last time Eyjafjallajökull erupted in Iceland. It wouldn’t hurt to find out more.”

“This is way beyond us. Everything about the North Pole reeks of ashes and disaster.”

“I want to go there.”

“You just want to prove to yourself that you can still stick your neck out and act like an idiot. You’re worried about what your former colleagues think—all those people we wanted to get away from.”

“I’m sick of sitting around reading CVs all day. I didn’t start Fermatown to fact-check biographies and trawl through social networks looking for witnesses.”

“Typical man. Too proud to ask the agency to pay us an hourly rate.”

“You’re starting to annoy me!”

John bounded to his feet and ran upstairs to the bathroom. Victoire was right, and that put him in a foul mood. Ever since Afghanistan, he had failed at everything. He couldn’t even get her pregnant. He punched the railing of the staircase to the third floor. He had inherited this rambling four-story duplex and garden from an aunt. The property was situated between the Rue Déparcieux and the Rue Fermat, just outside the village on the Rue Daguerre.

Author

Bernard Besson, who was born in Lyon, France, in 1949, is a former top-level chief of staff of the French intelligence services, an eminent specialist in economic intelligence and Honorary General Controller of the French National Police. He was involved in dismantling Soviet spy rings in France and Western Europe when the USSR fell and has real inside knowledge from his work auditing intelligence services and the police. He has also written a number of prize-winning thrillers, his first in 1998, and several works of nonfiction. He currently lives in the fourteenth arrondissement of Paris, right down the street from his heroes.

Besson_240_small-206x300Come back Wednesday for my interview with Bernard Besson!

Originally posted 2013-10-28 09:47:52.

In Celebration of “Bastille Day”

Posted on by

I’ve been apprised of a special deal that I thought I’d pass on to my readers:

Le French Book

July 14 is Bastille Day in France, and Le French Book is celebrating. This ebook-first publisher focuses on fiction in translation from France, with a special emphasis on the country’s top-selling mysteries and thrillers.

To mark the date, it is running Bastille Day Sweepstakes for an ereader and a number of summer ebook reads with a French flair.

“With our focus on entertaining reads from France, we couldn’t miss out on this Bastille Day opportunity to share what we are doing with new readers,” says Anne Trager, the company’s founder. She started Le French Book with the goal of sharing what she loves about the Gallic nation and its fiction.

The sweepstakes run from July 11 through July 14.

Get your chance to win via Facebook.

Or enter the sweepstakes directly here.

You can even get a free Bastille Day short story by seven of France’s top writers.

 

Originally posted 2013-07-11 14:16:34.

“Wednesday Writer” – Frédérique Molay

Posted on by

Frédérique Molay is the author of THE 7TH WOMAN, which is the first in an ongoing series of edge-of-your-seat police procedurals set in Paris focusing on the city’s elite Criminal Investigation Division and its Chief of Police, Nico Sirsky. This book won France’s most prestigious crime fiction award, was named Best Crime Fiction Novel of the Year, and is already an international bestseller. It was published in English by the digital-first publisher Le French Book.

Frederique MolayME:  When did you first know you wanted to be a writer, and what prompted you to attempt your first novel at age 11? Can you give us a quick summary of the story? (Also, I’d love to show a picture of you at that age.)

FM:  When I learned to read, it was like a revelation. It was incredible to discover that letters formed words, then sentences and, finally, stories. Stories that take you into a parallel world, a fourth dimension, a land of dreams–and nightmares.

Very quickly, I became intrigued by the mechanisms of suspense that keep readers turning the pages of a book. So, I made a wish: to discover this power granted to novelists so that I, too, could make others feel such strong emotions. To do that, I wrote my first novel when I was eleven years old. It was a story about a child-killing cat. (Okay, that’s scary. Sounds like the kind of thing Stephen King would have started out writing.)

FMolay1(Frédérique, at 11…obviously a dog-lover)

ME:  You have said that you think writers “are actually made to write in one genre or another” . . . that the writer has to find what he/she is made for and accept it. How did you finally know crime fiction best fits you, and what in your particular brand of crime fiction echoes who you are?

FM:  There are so many books I would have loved to write, magnificent books at that, but I quickly realized that I was made to write crime fiction. This is perhaps because I’m really two different people. One is Cartesian, realistic, reasonable, ordered, the filing kind . . . and the other is a dreamer, the story-telling kind, who feels the need to flee, to escape and to forget.

Perhaps also I feel the need to establish a special bond with the reader that you find in the interactive game offered by the mystery genre. Perhaps it is because I am attracted to the fight between good and evil, and like the search for truth, as well. In 1791, the French philosopher Nicolas de Condorcet said, “The friends of truth are those who are seeking it, not those who boast about having found it.”

And also, perhaps I am afraid of death and I am trying to come to grips with that. What could be more reassuring than discovering a motive and a culprit, a good explanation for a death?

(So many possibilities. Each one sounds reasonable.)

ME:  What was your childhood like, and did anything in it lead to your interest in crime fighting and justice?

FM:  I had a happy childhood; bad luck came to me later on. My paternal grandfather was a Voltaire-style humanist, as was my father, and I always tried to understand rather than judge the things that happened to me. Except that in my stories, good always wins out over evil. I should also mention that I have always loved American movies, and particularly the Marvel universe of superheroes. The ups and downs of life and human cruelty will never make me forget my thirst for ideals and justice.

ME:  Why did you go into politics, and did that motivation have anything in common with why you write?

FM:  Because of my ideals. I wanted to help people and to participate in local development. Building projects, writing speeches for a commission chairman at the National Assembly or for a government minister certainly contributed greatly to my understanding of how investigations work and the attention to detail that is involved. In the end, politics scuffed up my idealism, (Why am I not surprised by that?) but my characters bolster it.

ME:  I’m very interested in the minds of writers. You’ve said, “For me, writing is an outlet, a way to fulfill a need to live in a parallel life.” Does everyone have that need, or just writers, and why?

FM:  I imagine that anyone who gives themselves over to an art form, whatever it may be, does so out of passion, but also because of some inner necessity, some need to externalize emotions and feelings, driven by the desire to share and impact others, and to be loved in return.

As Hermann Hesse said in The Journey to the East, “My happiness did indeed arise from the same secret as the happiness in dreams; it arose from the freedom to experience everything imaginable simultaneously, to exchange outward and inward easily, to move Time and Space about like scenes in a theatre.”

(That’s an excellent summation of the writing process!)

ME:  You’ve also said, “It is a form of self psychoanalysis, but you have to remain Zen.” Could you elaborate on that? What exactly did you mean?

FM:  In Dune, Frank Herbert asks, “Do you wrestle with dreams? Do you contend with shadows?” I prefer to wrestle with dreams. That is most probably my way of escaping the daily grind, of inventing a world where, although there is still crime, the good guys never lose sight of what is essential. Ultimately, my main goal, though, is to give readers strong emotions, an agreeable moment during which they can forget whatever my be bothering them.

ME:  Why do you think people enjoy reading suspense?

FM:  Oh, that magical power we talked about earlier in this interview. Writers of suspense are sorcerers who make readers keep turning the pages, who drag the readers into a story and knowing the end becomes the sole focus. Who killed and why? How can you stop before you know? Watch David Fincher’s The Game with the so-attractive Michael Douglas (I told you I love American movies). It has an excellent plot that ends in a kind of apotheosis. Like a good mystery should.

(Thanks for the suggestion :D)

ME:  Which writers or philosophers have influenced you the most and how?

FM:  Who has influenced me? Enid Blyton was a big part of my childhood, then came Stephen King (Aha! I thought so), Mary Higgins Clark, Patricia Cornwell, James Patterson, Michael Connelly and so many others. I am a fan of fantasy and crime fiction, but I often dive into more traditional literature, and read it with great pleasure. I love so many writers, it would be hard to mention them all here. What is interesting is to see the historical and philosophical threads that connect these authors.

For example, in Planet of the Apes, which marked me deeply, the author Pierre Boulle’s commentary on human society, mockery of those refusing to have critical thinking, satire of human pride, and his humor were all inspired by the French philosopher Voltaire’s short story Micromégas, a philosophical tale of an extraordinary voyage, representative of the Age of Enlightenment and symbolizing the philosophical notion of relativity. (Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, was also inspired by Voltaire’s Candide.)

ME:  I understand you take a fairly structured approach to writing. Could you describe your process in writing a novel from start to finish? Also, what are you working on now?

FM:  A plot revolving around a police investigation is necessarily based on a logical approach: you have to plant the clues, give them meaning and lead the reader to the culprit. There is, of course, still a certain amount of room for the imagination. In THE 7TH WOMAN, I didn’t know who the killer was when I began the novel. It became obvious to me who it was as the story took shape. On the other hand, other stories require knowing who killed and how. But in any case, the characters sometimes reveal themselves to be different from how you imagine them at the beginning. They really do take on a life of their own.

7th-Woman_cover_3_v2-225x300

I am also regularly in contact with police officers, medical examiners and judges in order to be able to describe what they do in a realistic way.

Currently, I am working on the fourth book in the Nico Sirsky, Chief of Police, series. It renews with the kind of harshness found in THE 7TH WOMAN, where my hero finds himself facing uncertainty in his private life that makes him both darker and more fragile. I’ll say no more for now. (We understand. :D)

ME:  Finally, always being interested in where writers create their stories, I’d love it if you would describe your writing space in the voice of your main character–police inspector Nico Sirsky–as if he were conducting an investigation there. (It would also be wonderful to post a picture of your writing space.)

Molay_officeFM: (As Nico)

Nico climbed the stairs to the mezzanine that overlooked the living room. Piles of magazines and books surrounded two low chairs and a tiny coffee table. His heart beat faster as he cracked open the door leading to the devil’s lair: his creator’s office. What, or who, was he expecting to meet? What did it matter, anyway? What could possibly be worse than learning that he only lived through a woman’s imagination? That he was just a name on a book cover? That he would die the day his readers turned away from him, with complete impunity? A fate as terrible as getting shot in the heart as you turn a street corner.

The woman was sitting in a black leather chair, behind a long desk made of light-colored wood. She was focused on her computer, lost in a parallel universe, the one she built for him every day. All around her were white walls, with two roof windows letting the light flood into the room. There were paintings, and pictures of children, probably hers. There was one of her with Mary Higgins Clark, when she was younger; a good luck picture. There were other objects, Mother’s Day gifts and travel souvenirs, some look like they are from Russia, where both their ancestors came from. A Plexiglas tower overflowed with CDs. She liked music just like he did, played in the background, or blasting through the apartment. In the end, Nico found the atmosphere to be studious and calm, nothing at all like this woman’s blood-filled imagination with the crimes she set out on his path and made his duty to resolve. He observed her for a minute with a knot in his throat. Her face stiffened and then relaxed incessantly, while her fingers tapped away at the keyboard, nothing gentle at all in her approach. He sat down on a bench, slowly to keep from rustling the papers laid out there, hand-written notes and printed documents for her novels.

His lips formed the words, “Thank you.”

She straightened up, and seemed to look in his direction.

“No, it is I who thank you,” she whispers.

Nico wondered which of the two breathed life into the other, dazed by the very question.

(Formidable! E merci!)

Come back next Wednesday for my interview with Craig Everett, author of the middle grade financial literacy thriller, Toby Gold and the Secret Fortune.

Craig Everett

Originally posted 2013-02-06 06:00:09.

“Wednesday Writer” – Sylvie Granotier

Posted on by

Author, screenwriter and actress Sylvie Granotier loves to weave plots that send shivers up your spine. She is an acclaimed crime fiction author in France, with over thirteen novels to her name. Her novel, THE PARIS LAWYER, a legal procedural that doubles as a psychological thriller, was recently published in English by Le French Book. Sylvie splits her time between Paris and Creuse.

SylvieGranotier3-225x300ME:  You and I were both born in North Africa (you in Algeria and I in Libya) and raised in the Arab culture in a region that has certainly seen its share of violence (particularly now that Algeria has, once again, been in the news). What are some of your earliest memories of Algeria or Morocco . . . memories that have influenced your writing?

SYLVIE:  My parents married young when my father was barely finished with his medical studies. They had two children in the next two years, lived in a hotel, and life was not easy. Then my father was sent to Algeria and the change was enormous: they had a house, a housemaid, nice weather, and a comfortable life. (This is beginning to sound like my childhood in Baghdad.)

So, I was born at the best of times and the home movies my father made then show a sunny, joyous atmosphere. My parents always referred to these four or five years as their happiest, a kind of lost paradise. (Yes, definitely like Iraq in the early 60’s.) Much later, I read a book on the Algerian War and realized that meanwhile there had been mass massacres in this Eden of ours, and even though my father was a doctor and a good man, he still belonged to an occupying army. Violence was the background of this idyllic place of birth. (As it was for us in Iraq–three revolutions, but I was hardly aware.) I’m now convinced this latent and actual violence had a huge impact on me and made me choose the thriller genre.

We left when I was two and I have no precise memory, except I still have a very strong feeling of familiarity with everything Algerian. Morocco came later, when I was seven. It may surprise you, but that’s where I developed such a liking for everything American. There was an army base near where we lived, and being an American teenager seemed to me the most desirable state. Their freedom, their active social life, their music. So I tried to look American and my triumph was being hailed in English.

Less fun: I remember this good Moroccan friend of mine who was taken out of school at 13 or 14 because she was to be married. She visited me once in a car with blacked windows and we tried to play except, all of a sudden, she had the seriousness of maturity, while I was still a careless child.

ME:  I, too, have long felt a certain rootlessness because of my background. Did this sense of being a “nomad,” as you put it, have any effect on the protagonists in your novels, and, if so, how?

SYLVIE:  No, strangely enough, I don’t think it did. In one novel, my lead character is a French woman living in New York, but mostly my stories are rooted in France. One thing, though–I have never dealt with a really settled character. They all yearn for stability but have real difficulties attaining it. Deeply rooted people fascinate me. My ex-husband of 16 years comes from the north of France and has very strong links with this area, its culture and its traditions. I wanted to swallow it all and belong . . . some place.

ME:  So many writers I know have a background in theater. Please tell us about yours and how you think such experience makes its way into the writing process for you.

SYLVIE:  My background is both in theater and in movies, and I think the important factor is acting. I know, and have been told many times, that my strong point in my books is characters. I’m convinced this comes from having become so many people as an actress. I start with a vague outline of this woman, or that man, then they grow on me, as if I allowed them to take over, until they become so alive and surprising that they obey their own nature rather than follow my directions.

Then I know I’m doing OK because they are alive, not rational and predictable, but strange and exciting. And they keep their mystery. At the end of the novel, as well as in real life, I don’t know all there is to know about them. I have a new novel coming out in February in France, and for the first time I’ve kept my lead character, Catherine Monsigny, from THE PARIS LAWYER. She was very familiar, of course, but I know I can go further with her because she still intrigues me.

ME:  You were fortunate enough to spend time with the acclaimed short story writer and poet, Grace Paley, before she passed away. Please share some of what she taught you about writing, including her comparison of literature to a cathedral.

Grace Paley(Grace Paley)

SYLVIE:  I had not started writing when she came to Paris, and we took long walks and we talked about many things as women do, from the most frivolous or pedestrian to more cultural subjects such as films or books. I remember her buying a postcard showing a first of May demonstration (France celebrates International Workers’ Day on May 1), the Parisian streets dark with joyous crowds of united workers. It thrilled her. She was amazed at the number of bookstores around the city. She had a real knack for enthusiasm.

When I started on my first novel, I realized how much she had helped me unknowingly. She was a late starter compared to some and that did not bother her. She always insisted that one had to be modest to become a writer. Deciding to write the novel of one’s generation was a sure way to fail. You have to be modest and honest. That’s what came with her idea of literature being an intimidating cathedral. A cathedral is made of masterpieces, sculptures, paintings, stained-glass windows, and intricate tiles, but it also needs little stones to stand straight. I loved that idea, and still believe it: there’s room for all good writers, the giants and the midgets alike.

She also said that she never started on a story without the same impulse that drives a little kid to come running from school: “Mommy, I’ve got to tell you…” And knowing when to stop, that moment when you cannot go further without ruining what you did, even though you may still be far from the mark you had hoped for. And reworking: hunting for those bits and pieces you’re so pleased with and which are, in fact, complacent. Her story, “A Conversation with My Father,” is wonderful about how to write a story.

(That’s a book I’m definitely ordering.)

ME:  What was your very first attempt at creative writing and how old were you at the time?

SYLVIE:  I was 37. I had translated Enormous Changes at the Last Minute and met its author, Grace Paley. She left Paris and I started on my first novel. She had made me jump the first hurdle: allowing myself to try and write a novel. It took time and effort, and I learned a lot in the process. I had the plot–a good one, I thought–and I could not find the right way to tell it. I may have done five or six versions before I understood it was a long letter written by a woman to her mother to explain the murder of her lover and the consequences on her own teenage daughter. The book suddenly made sense. It was about the load each generation passes on to the next. And I easily wrote the final draft. I’ve known since then that point of view is capital. Anyway, it was a long and arduous process, but it finally got published. It’s called COURRIER POSTHUME (available in French only).

ME:  Please describe your writing process. Also, which is more challenging–short stories or novels?

SYLVIE:  I have lots of stories floating in my mind. There comes a point when I have the detonator, a kind of matrix, usually the opening scene, a situation that intrigues me. I want to know more. I start by hand writing a sketchy outline from beginning to end. Every morning, rain or shine, after breakfast, I set to work with a minimum word count to produce daily usually four pages. I drive on, never stopping to catch my breath. The tone may be wrong, the style sketchy, but I need that quick first draft to find the pace of the novel and to follow almost blindly the path my characters are opening. Normally, if things go right, I have my whole plot then, which is often different from what I thought it would be.

Then starts the actual work. I’m reassured at this point that I have a story. It’s a matter of polishing, rewriting whole passages, usually shortening because I tend to write long. I also try and track all the useless, artificial, ungraceful bits. Then, I give it to one or two good and trustworthy friends. I listen to them and rework a bit. Then I give it to my editor. I never have a prior contract. I hate feeling bound and never know when I start whether I’ll actually have a worthy novel. So, thank God, the editor usually accepts the novel and we rework a bit together. Experience has taught me how to use the various comments made on my work. Very often, a reader may pinpoint a problem whose source is actually some place else. It’s a tricky process. Critics are always worth listening to, especially when their criticism hurts.

I love writing short stories because I can have a first draft in one day. It’s like in painting, when you face a huge canvas and start and have to keep the whole image as you work on bits, as opposed to a miniature where you can rapidly have an overall image. Everything counts in a short tale; you have to be extremely rigorous, so it’s difficult. I don’t understand why, but I’ve always written short stories on demand.

ME:  What are the differences between American thrillers and French thrillers other than location, or is location in itself a big enough difference?

SYLVIE:  More than location, I would point to the cultural element. After all, some French novels take place in the United States, and some American novels are set in Italy or Greece, and other locations. Though, thinking about it, Americans live in a huge territory and space counts very much in fiction. A character can change states and still be in his country; ours have to pass borders and deal with foreign languages, so they act in restricted areas usually.

The Americans have a sense of evil we French don’t, and we are naturally more skeptical and more cynical. Evil to us is part of the human nature, not a dark force that “the good people” fight against. We fight against the dark side of ourselves or of society. So we’re often more political in our views. We denounce, but know it has every chance of being a losing proposition.

Of course, generalities tend to be wrong, and every writer is an exception to the rule. So…It’s interesting that many American writers refer to the Old Testament as a source of storytelling. Culturally, we’re more familiar with the New Testament. I would find it hard to explain how that difference actually works, but I’m sure it does. Also, the French are obsessed with style and form and will be less exacting when it comes to the mechanics of plot.

ME:  You say that the part of France where you live–Creuse–has become almost like a character in your stories. How so? And are all your stories set there? (I’d love to post some pictures of Creuse and you in that setting.)

SYLVIE:  I don’t live in Creuse full time–I’m still a Parisian–but I spend a lot of time there, where I have a house that feels like my true home for mysterious reasons.

byhd5JGL3itN0JoqLwLIVnczutjYgzvmS_hBev5RWe8(Her home in Creuse)

It has helped me settle down and taught me that you could look at the same view for years and find it different every time. It’s taught me to slow down and has changed my sense of time. Nature and its toughness force you to think more and go deeper.

92HjWQLw7tGPS-cdsvr8kobVADeEfD_Ou8GmspXAIE0bc2pBErQ4Rk9ajL5aWb87QDXfpO1xali6QDEyneMiWoxUdF_G7wc7CYsQ6mObHoBRKj4gOlijHBZGgMCzMFoeA

IRy-lQV8i50ec2fOf_2udsAHqESR2I1BunlJOYW-WbQdlHKBHGoqkA6XH2-2BaC4g5fOVfykWpRi114tnFmxvo0Cu0EADxKlCz-7yWIZKT2PIZmcrKa2WCvT5wX1NegdYIt took me years to use Creuse in a novel. I could not do so as long as I felt like a tourist. Not all my stories take place in Creuse, but little by little it has infiltrated my work. The setting of a novel is important to me. It influences both events and characters, and I’ve always known that taking the thriller out of the big cities to the countryside would open a new range. So, yes, it works a bit as a character.

ME:  What are you currently working on and where do you do most of your writing? I’d love a description of your writing space or office in the voice of Catherine Monsigny, the protagonist of THE PARIS LAWYER.

TheParisLawyer_cover_F-2-225x300

SYLVIE:  At the moment, I’m preparing for the new novel, LA PLACE DES MORTS, which is scheduled for release in France in February. It’s a sequel to THE PARIS LAWYER (Le French Book hopes to have this in translation soon).

I write in corners, facing a wall. I write in Paris as well as in Creuse; if necessary, I can work in a hotel. As long as there’s no distraction. Hence the wall! I’ve just moved so my new Parisian writing space is not quite in place yet.

In Creuse the study is the only modern room in a very old house. It used to be a separate bread oven, but has been linked to the main building by a glass door. It’s very luminous. It is all white with big black tiles on the floor and it has a high, tilted ceiling with windows that open on the sky, the passing clouds and the occasional sun. Shelves filled with books line the longer exterior wall of the house then make a corner that encloses a big oak table that turns its back to the door, half window pane, half wood, and to the only window that opens on the garden. There are dictionaries within easy reach on the right side, lots of notebooks, and a gas heater on the left against the other wall, which is all stone and painted white.

On the shelves in front of my workspace is an old doll, the portrait of an unknown red-haired Elizabethan youngster, and on top of that, a Dick Tracy doll holds the foot of a lamp that’s never used.

(I can picture it perfectly!)

ME:  Finally, what draws you to read and write thrillers?

SYLVIE:  As I said, I was born in a land of violence and am convinced it drew me to the genre. I started reading in English by reading thrillers. You just have to go on, and they’re usually an easy read. I love suspense and popular literature. It always seemed to me an incredible achievement to write books that grip the reader and hold on to the end. Easy read is often hard write. Good thrillers are accessible and give you more if you dig deeper. They helped me in times of sadness or difficulties and opened me to worlds I could never have known first hand. The same curiosity guides my writing: Unveiling what’s hidden and discovering who I am by understanding strangers and their strange doings.

Again, if you want to know more about Sylvie, look her up at Le French Book, where you can read other fascinating interviews.

(By the way, I apologize for the mixup last Wednesday. I had expected to interview Craig Everett then but due to a miscommunication I’ll be posting his interview on February 13th, after I’ve concluded my interviews with these wonderful French authors.)

Next Wednesday, I’ll be talking with Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen, the writing duo responsible for a whole winemaker detective series, so popular it’s been made into a TV series in France.

Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen

Originally posted 2013-01-23 06:00:53.

“Thriller Thursdays” – French Suspense with Anne Trager

Posted on by

I know I took several weeks off of my regular Thursday column, due to the publication of my book, but I’m back now, focusing again on thrillers and suspense. Before I continue with my reviews of popular thrillers (yes, I finished IN COLD BLOOD and THE DA VINCI CODE . . . reviews forthcoming), I want to expand my scope a bit.

Here in the United States, we tend to forget that other countries have their own bodies of literature. In fact, some of the greatest literature in the world has been produced beyond our borders. With that in mind, let me introduce someone who was determined to bring some of France’s current suspense writers to those whose native tongue is English.

7899058522_6ccf456855

Anne Trager founded Le French Book to bring France’s best crime fiction, thrillers, novels, short stories, and non-fiction to new readers across the English-speaking world. The company’s motto is: “If we love it, we’ll translate it.”

I’ll be interviewing her here today and then, over the next few weeks, featuring some of her French authors as part of my “Wednesday Writer” series. I hope you’re as excited as I am to hear French writers talk about their processes and approach to their art.

ME:  I understand your goal with Le French Book is to bring English-speaking readers French books that they will love in English, but what made you decide to begin with crime fiction? Is that a genre you personally love, and, if so, why?

ANNE:  I love crime fiction, and to be honest, it is just about the only genre I read for my own pleasure. I love the pace, the suspense, when it grabs me by the throat and makes my heart beat faster. Give me a mystery or a thriller and I’m happy, so yes, that is why we decided to begin with crime fiction. Our motto is “If we love it, we’ll translate it.”

But there are other reasons. One is that very little commercial fiction from France is ever translated into English, and that is a shame because there are a lot of really good reads out there I believe readers will enjoy discovering. And finally, our model is to publish e-books first, and well, crime fiction is a very popular e-book model.

ME:  How do you choose your books, and why did you begin with these three–THE PARIS LAWYER, TREACHERY IN BORDEAUX, and THE 7TH WOMAN–in particular?

ANNE:  First of all, we do a lot of reading and take a lot of recommendations from readers we know. I also attend book fairs, meet authors and discuss with agents and French publishers about their current lists. We choose books we think will appeal to an American audience because of their pace and story.

As it turns out, the first books we chose were also very successful in France. My associate, Fabrice Neuman, was the first to point out THE PARIS LAWYER. We both liked the story structure and the writing. The first page just sucks you into both the main character’s past and present.

TheParisLawyer_cover_F-2-225x300

We chose TREACHERY IN BORDEAUX because the whole story and setting revolve around wine (I love wine) and the main character is a food and wine lover in a very French way. It embodies something very culturally specific but also universal that goes well with our brand Le French Book. Also, it is the first in a long series that is a hit on French television, so there will be more books to come.

Treachery-in-Bordeaux_cover_F_1-225x300

And finally, I chose THE 7TH WOMAN because I couldn’t put it down when I started reading it. It gives you a real edge-of-your-seat rush.

images(I’ve bought all three, but I’m reading this one first!)

ME:  You’ve said that your “goal as a translator is to make sure the read in English gives the same shivers of expectation, longing to read more and pangs of emotions.” How long does it normally take you to translate a novel and how often does it require research? Also, do you get a second opinion on whether you’ve succeeded with the translation or not before publishing?

ANNE:  Every novel is different, so it could take a month or two or three or more depending on how easy it is for me to pick up the author’s style and how much research is involved. I like to meet the authors, as well, when that is possible, since the translation is something like getting in their heads and I like to discuss with them if and when we need to make cultural adaptations.

The books usually require research. For TREACHERY IN BORDEAUX, for example, I spent a lot of time reading about winemaking, to get all the vocabulary right, and the city of Bordeaux, for the sense of place, which is one of the novel’s strong points. For THE 7TH WOMAN, I spent time talking with gendarme friends to make sure I understood French police procedure well enough to give an accurate equivalent, and roaming the streets of Paris for atmosphere. And for THE PARIS LAWYER, I talked to lawyers and became rather expert in French legal procedure.

Once completed, all the translations get a second opinion from someone who has read the original in French, and they are all edited by a professional English-language editor to make sure it’s a smooth read. Then they go to beta readers.

(I wouldn’t mind being one of those.)

ME:  When did you first fall in love with France, why, and how long have you been living there now? (Please provide some pictures.)

ANNE:  I first fell in love with France when I was a teenager and was reading Gourmet magazine. To be honest, I was attracted by the good food, which I later found is more than just food, it’s a way of life. I then studied French and went to France as soon as I could. That was in 1985. I never left.

IMG_0858IMG_0901ImageImage 5Image 7

(These pictures bring back memories of my own visit to Paris while on study abroad.)

ME:  Where were you born and raised, and what, if anything, in your childhood or adolescence pointed you toward languages, writing, and publishing?

ANNE:  Both of my parents were linguists (Aha!) and everyone in the family has a thing for language and culture, so learning another language was just natural for me. Then, once I was in France, translation was an obvious step because of my grasp of the language. From there, in order to be a good translator, you need to hone writing skills, and . . . well, that led ultimately to editing a publishing, as well.

ME:  Now I know you plan to publish more than crime fiction. In fact, you are putting out a collection of 52 SERIAL SHORTS. Why don’t you tell us about it?

ANNE:  This is a collection of short stories that don’t quite fit into any one genre. Seven of France’s top writers (the crème de la crème) got together to play a collaborative writing game first developed by the French Surrealists in the 1920s. The idea is that one writer starts a story and then hands it off to the next, who continues it, and so on until all seven writers have contributed to the one story.

The resulting stories are really fun to read, as you follow the authors setting traps for each other and having fun resolving them. They are a real study in creative talent. The stories were published in France in the form of a daily calendar. As we translate the whole collection, Le French Book is giving them away free. Readers can choose to receive a daily installment or a weekly story.

(How fun! I may just have to get together with a group of my writer friends and give this a go.)

ME:  What other genres do you foresee publishing going forward?

ANNE:  We will continue with the crime fiction and we have two spy thrillers in the works right now, along with a health and well-being book.

ME:  How would you compare the role of a translator of fiction with that of an author? Aren’t you, in a sense, also a writer with a writer’s sensibilities?

ANNE:  A translator is a kind of impersonator, who is also a writer with writer’s sensibilities. As anyone who has used an automatic online translation program knows, word for word translations are clunky at best, and well, just plain nonsense a lot of the time. Translating fiction requires understanding the author’s language, intention, plot, story structure, literary techniques, idioms, subtleties, and all the rest, and then writing a linguistic and cultural equivalent for this whole that, as you quote above, recreates for the reader the same or similar emotion and thrill that happens reading the original. You can only do this with a certain ability to write in your mother tongue.

ME:  I would love it if you would describe your own writer’s (or translator’s) space. (And please provide a picture)

ANNE:  My desk sits right smack in the middle of my office. Seven open-backed dark wooden bookshelves going halfway up the wall line the room, the rest of the wall space being reserved to large pictures I never seem to have had time to print and frame. So, when I sit at my desk, beyond my big screen I see that empty wall space in front of me, and to the right is a large picture window that looks out at my own terrace, which becomes my second office in summer.

I see a large evergreen, a walnut tree and a wisteria that is incredibly invasive come the warm weather. Behind me hang drawings done by my daughter, and a large white board I got to help me get organized and that does not actually serve much purpose. The floor space, however, does, and is duly piled up with papers, books, and other miscellanea.

IMG_0369(We didn’t get an interior shot, but she provided this picture of Pibrac, France where she lives . . . this appears to be a church, but if this is her actual home, I’m officially jealous.)

ME:  Finally, what are you currently translating and when can we expect to see it published in English?

ANNE:  I’m finishing up the 52 SERIAL SHORTS. I am also working with our editor on the adaptation of DARING TO DESIRE, which is the health and wellness book I mentioned earlier, and we are proofreading a new thriller translated by another translator, which we will be announcing soon. In addition, I have started translating the sequel to THE 7TH WOMAN. We are looking to bring some of these new books out as early as spring.

(Good! That gives me a few months to get THE 7TH WOMAN read, not to mention the others.)

Again, you can find out a lot more about Le French Book by checking out their website. And next Wednesday, I’ll be interviewing Sylvie Granotier, screenwriter, actor, and author of THE PARIS LAWYER.

SylvieGranotier3-225x300

 

Originally posted 2013-01-17 06:00:00.