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Interview with Joanne Harris

Dan Webster
Staff writer
January 12, 2006

If nothing else, people should know this about Joanne Harris: She loves chocolate.

That, of course, would be easy to assume, considering that her 1999 novel "Chocolat" - which Entertainment Weekly called an "irresistible confection" - was turned into a 2000 movie starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp.

But you should know this as well: Harris has written 11 books in all, dating from 1989's "The Evil Seed," which she wrote (along with two others) while teaching full time. Two of the 11 are cookbooks, and a third is a short-story collection.

Born in 1964 with each foot in a different culture (mother French, father English), she studied modern and medieval language at St. Catherine's College, Cambridge.

As someone with knowledge of several languages, she says that she speaks "Three well … two indifferently and I'm learning another one that I speak very badly at the moment but which I'm hoping to be reasonably conversant at in a few year's time."

That sixth language: Old Norse.

Her books have been published in 40 different countries and her latest, "Gentlemen & Players," a novel set in a school (which she describes as a kind of "Gothic thriller"), is based on her own memories of teaching.

And it is what brought her to the United States on a book tour, a trek that includes Spokane, to Auntie's Bookstore (Jan. 17), for a public reading.

I called Harris, who was in England at the time, and our first connection was problematic. Her voice sounded like a frog caught in a blender (and mine probably didn't sound any better to her).

I called back, and an edited version of our conversation follows.

Webster: So what time is it there?

Joanne Harris: It's half past 5.

W: So there's eight hours difference. My wife usually spends a couple of months a year in Florence, and I'm used to calling her. There's nine hours difference there. But usually it's me calling her at midnight and her answering at 9 a.m.

H: Yes, of course.

W: So, I'm curious: Here you are, a woman who stands between two cultures, England and France, and I'm interested in what the reaction has been to your books in the U.S.

H: It depends on the book, really. There's been a very positive response. What I tend to find is that what I take for granted over here doesn't necessarily happen in the U.S. And that I do tend to get a lot of questions about books that I wrote a long time ago. Whereas over here people tend to take me book by book because they've gotten used to the fact that each book that I do is pretty different from every other book. But I've fond the U.S. very welcoming and very appreciative. There's a huge interest in literature, and there's a huge interest, I think, in both cultures. I think there are a lot of people who like to read about France and who like to read about England and like to think that they're learning.

W: People seem to like the various things that you write about. People like cooking, and who doesn't like chocolate?

H: Quite.

W: How did you like the film that was made of your novel "Chocolat"?

H: I thought it was very nicely done. I mean, I'm not unmindful that it was very small, and perhaps it would have been slightly different if I had been in charge. But, no, I liked it very much.

W: That's the same complaint that I've heard from every author that I've ever talked to who'd ever had his or her book made into a movie.

H: I'm not complaining. I wouldn't have been remotely interested in having any more to do with it than I did because it's not an area that I feel specialized in. I'm much happier letting the film people do what they do.

W: They're two different art forms, aren't they?

H: Absolutely. I was quite happy to enjoy the ride.

W: (laugh) To use your words, every one of your books is different. In the new one, "Gentlemen & Players," tell me how the idea developed and how you came to write it.

H: Well, I think it's a book that I've been wanting to write for a long time. And it has been around for about seven years, since I left teaching full time. I had been teaching for 15 years, and it's an area of my life that's not so easily left behind. I think it was inevitable that, at some point, I was going to turn to that set of experiences, to exploit them and to write some kind of a story. And because I taught in a particular kind of institution, with a particular kind of ethos, I found that it leant itself to a kind of Gothic-thriller treatment, which is what I've written.

W: When you taught, what kinds of things did you teach?

H: I taught French and German.

W: How many languages do you speak?

H: Three well … two indifferently and I'm learning another one that I speak very badly at the moment but which I'm hoping to be reasonably conversant at in a few year's time.

W: Which language is that?

H: Old Norse.

W: Oh, my God. I speak one reasonably well, two remarkably indifferently and a fourth with enough ability to get a quiche and a glass of wine.

H: Well, that's a good start. To be able to speak menu in a variety of languages I find to be very useful.

W: What has the reaction been to this book over there, so far?

H: It's been tremendous, actually. I think it has been the best and most extensively reviewed of my books ever. There's been an overwhelming critical response to it which I find extremely cheering because - I don't know if it's the same in the States, but over here once you've had a certain degree of success and your books are on sale in supermarkets, the critics tend to get a wee bit sneery about what you do. Whereas, this time it seems all of them have come out in force and have said some very nice things. Which is rather good. I've got a solid core of readers who I think are extraordinarily capable of following me to all sorts of areas. I have to say that I was a little apprehensive about this one because … for people who know me only through a few of my earlier books, it may well seem to be a big departure. But it's not, of course. And the public has been very good at embracing these different stories and these different scenarios, and I think I've been lucky in that respect.

W: What do you think is the link between them? Is it your voice, is it your ability to put words on the page? I know that publishers, if not readers, get nervous when an author tends to go away from what everyone knows him or her for.

H: Over here, everybody knows me for doing something different with every book, so it's quite hand to have that reputation … I say different, but what I mean is that the stories are different in that they're not all set in the same place, they're not all the same stories. But the voice is the same. I've spent a very long time establishing a distinct voice for myself, and I think that whatever I write it's still obviously me. I think also that just because I don't set a story in France doesn't necessarily mean that people aren't going to get the same kind of sense of atmosphere, if you know what I mean. One of the things that I've got from my readers is that they like the fact that when I get it right in the stories, I can to some extent make them feel as if they're really there - that I can introduce them to worlds that they're not familiar with and make them real. And, of course, the thing that does link my books is the emphasis on the idea of community, the small community, and the nature of community and how it evolves. And how volatile the chemistry is and how it can fragment into drama or tragedy or farce or whatever with the arrival of just or two key people, which is actually the nature of the kinds of stories that I tell. They are all of them stories about troublemakers and catalysts and loose cannons and people who in some way subvert and disrupt the establishment. This was true of "Chocolat," and it's true of "Gentlemen & Players" as well, which is a kind of reverse "Chocolat," if you like, because the person who disrupts and subverts is the villain as opposed to being the heroine.

W: I'm curious about the differences in the culture in England and in France. There are different national sensibilities, correct?

H: You're absolutely right.

W: Which goes back to my original question about how you're being accepted. Do French readers accept "Chocolat" the way English readers did? Or do they seem something different in it?

H: English readers will either believe that there exists a place like this or they won't depending on whether they've been to France and they've seen one. Now, for French readers it's much more simple than that because of the stronger rural tradition and because of the strong literary tradition in this kind of story. "Chocolat" is instantly recognizable to a French reader. It's less instantly recognizable to a British reader because many British people haven't visited the part of France that I'm talking about and have not come across the kinds of rural sensibilities that I'm talking about. To them it seems … old-fashioned and almost impossible, if all they've seen is big cities. You know, I'm asking them to buy into a tradition which is not entirely theirs. And actually I have to say that they did a very good job of that, because … well, it's not necessary to know about French villages because if you've lived in any kind of village or any kind of community where there are gossips and people who are gossiped about, then you will have got at least half of the story already. The same is true of "Gentlemen & Players." It is a fairly rarified atmospheres even for somebody from Britain, because not everybody has been to a private school, not everybody has known that atmospheres, and yet it must be fairly recognizable because I've had so much mail from people saying, "Oh, gosh, this was like my school." Or, "My school was very different but, you know, some of the people were just the same." I think the cultural side is one aspect of the book, but there is also the human side which is much more universal. Because actually wherever you go people are more or less the same, and the things that are important to them don't really vary all that much from country to country.

W: That's certainly been my experience. Where we get into trouble is when we assume that everything is the same and we don't see the things that are different.

H: Quite. Yes.

W: I admire your ability to write while you were teaching. I mean, how did you manage to do that? To teach full time and then come home and write, that must have been …

H: I just did less housework (laughs). No, I think if you really want to write, then the great temptation is to keep putting it off until you get ideal circumstances. And they don't exist. So if you really want to do it, you just have to seize whatever time is available and really do it. I wrote on trains and at bus stops and in the morning before my daughter woke up and little moments that I could grab. There were never ideal circumstances, but I managed somehow.

W: To do that, though, you must really have wanted to express yourself in words.

H: I've always wanted to write, I've always enjoyed writing and I've always written in that way. It's taken me a very long time to accept the fact that I can now say that I'm a writer and that it's a proper job and that I can claim time, because I still feel slightly guilty when I sit down and work for more than a couple of hours at a time. Because I think, "Well, isn't there something else that I ought to be doing?" I think if you have that kind of experience, it's quite difficult to let go of those feelings. And if you're female, and if there's always something else to be done in the house, then it's even harder. But I've never been used to having all the time in the world and having the space and the opportunity. And so, in a way, it's very good preparation for what I do now because what I do now seems to be … I claw back time to do writing from my other job, which is being a writer, which is jetting around and doing wonderful things worldwide but not actually writing books.

W: Isn't that the case? I've met so many writers who have a hard time on the road getting anything done. I mean, they want to, they try to, but the job is getting up in the morning, getting on a plane, going to another city, checking into a hotel, going out to dinner, doing a reading, going back to the hotel and …

H: Exactly. The opportunities are limited, aren't they?

W: Well, how long is this trip going to be?

H: Oh, it's not going to be very long. I think it's going to be just over two weeks. I don't do more than two weeks at once.

W: And is it all on the West Coast.

H: No, it's everywhere. Usually I kind of zigzag from one side of the country to the other, and this is what I'm doing again.

W: Well, I think we're very fortunate to get you to come to Spokane.

H: I'm very happy to come. I'm always happy to come over here. But after two weeks, I'm done. I have no more intellectual resources after two weeks. I just sit there like a potato and speak in monosyllables. It's terrible.

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