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- Author interview - |
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 Interview with bestselling British author Joanna Trollope. The descendant of Anthony Trollope and a #1 bestselling author in England, she is the author of Other People's Children, The Best of Friends, and A Spanish Lover. Her novels The Choir and The Rector's Wife were both adapted for the television series Masterpiece Theatre. Her latest novel Marrying the Mistress (June 2000) is garnering rave reviews. Interview by our South African Editor, Merilyn Tomkins - adams.west@saol.com - Adams Bookshop, Durban, SA. Read our review of Marrying the Mistress Best-selling British novelist Joanna Trollope was in Durban, South Africa in mid-March to take part in The Time of the Writer Festival, organized by the Centre for the Creative Arts at the University of Natal and the British Council. After merely a month, sales of her new novel, MARRYING THE MISTRESS have reached one hundred thousand copies in the United Kingdom alone. Highly articulate, witty and down-to-earth, she won even more admirers of her work, both at the Festival and also in dialogue with pupils of Pinetown girls' High School and Convent High in Durban. Miss Trollope also addressed a breakfast presentation hosted by Esclusive Books in Westville. MERILYN TOMKINS - Tell me about your family, your background. JOANNA TROLLOPE - I come from the rather sordid Westminster Trollopes - Trollope and Colls and all that. I was born in 1943. I have two daughters by my first marriage, two stepsons by my second, and one grandchild. I believe you are the niece of Anthony Trollope. Yes, I am the first member of the family to write since Anthony died in 1882. I cut my writing teeth, so to speak, on historical romances. I wrote about half a dozen before I turned to writing contemporary fiction about twelve years ago. It wasn't until about the fourth of those contemporary novels that I caught on. I came out of the historical cupboard so to speak, and went into the supermarket. You're good at writing about relationships. I expect being involved in a large family gave you plenty of material to draw upon. How did it happen? It all started with THE RECTOR'S WIFE that was made into a BBC series. It was one of those novels that simply grew in popularity by word of mouth. It went into the bestseller list at the bottom and worked its way up to number one and stayed there for a year. Was success heady? I still can't believe it's happening to me. When I see the books on the bookshelf, I feel fond of them, but don't feel they belong to me. Anyway, success came late to me. I was in my forties. So it didn't hit me in the same way it would have if I had been in my twenties. In your forties you are more realistic so, though it's wonderful, it doesn't turn your head. I am interested to know if you feel that being older made you write more convincingly about life. (Joanna thought for a moment, then said carefully) - I do think people write much better fiction after 35 than before, because you know more about life. By my forties I had been a wife and a mother and a stepmother, so I knew a great deal more about human beings. So my observations, my experiences, have coloured my books subtly. We learn all our interpersonal skills from family life and whether you are running a country, or your life, the family is your training ground and of the utmost importance. Young people may be excellent writers but they lack material: life's experiences. The young are knowing, but that certainty about life wears off in the thirties. By the time you reach your forties, you are more humble. Tolerance and humility grow out of realising just how hard life is, and how little you can change and how much you have to compromise in relationships." I have read all your contemporary novels and enjoyed each one. Tell me about your fascination with human misery. (Joanna laughed.) - I'm afraid happiness makes for very boring reading and human frailties are infinitely more fascinating. The thing that makes the reader turn the pages is the eagerness to see a dilemma resolved. It creates a tension that makes for compelling reading. I may wish for all my characters to have a problem free life, but that's not realistic and I would not have a reader left on earth if they had. When I write, I try to draw the reader into the story with me to present a scenario. I don't make judgements on my characters. I leave that to the readers. They have to believe in the characters and, as in real life, they should find them a mix: irritating one moment, and endearing the next. Joanna added, she finds life so complicated that she refrains from attempting to offer solutions or - perish the thought - happy endings. My endings are always ambivalent. I leave it to the reader to decide how it will end. I do receive sackfuls of letters from people pleading for some decisive ending. For instance, in one of my books, I wrote about a girl who has left a man she has been living with and then asks him to take her back. I didn't end the book with him saying no, but I left the reader with the very strong impression he would say no. If a reader is determined he's going to say yes, I'm not going to stop that belief. How long do you take to write your books? I take a year to produce each new novel - nine months to work and three months of feeling extremely peculiar and rather disorientated. Do you have a favourite place to do your writing? My favourite place is at a little table in the kitchen, with my faiithful Labrador at my feet. I use the computer for business purposes, because there is a great deal of desk work for a successful writer these days. Certainly the computer and e-mail have their place. But they are no substitute for the human brain and the human spirit. I'm sure you like to relax too. Do you have any favourite places? I find peace and solace in holiday trips to Scotland. Last year I was enchanted by Arizona’s beautiful landscape. A trip to the Far East and a walking tour in Tuscany are planned for this year. |
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