Saturday, September 29, 2012

Charlotte Grimshaw and the Frankfurt Book Fair both feature in New Zealand Book Council newsletter #45

Five Easy Questions with Charlotte Grimshaw

We celebrate the upcoming release of Charlotte Grimshaw's new novel Soon by asking her Five Easy Questions about the book, its characters and what she's working on next.
1. If you could choose five words to describe Soon what would they be?
How about six words: Pillar of the community or criminal?

2. The title Soon hints at something impending, or that’s brewing on the horizon. Is this a strong thread in the novel?
The Prime Minister and his guests are rich, the weather is beautiful, David Hallwright is popular and successful, but trouble is on its way. Soon.

3. Is there a particular character from the novel that kept you on your toes while you were writing him/her?
All the characters kept me on my toes. This is actually a book of quite complicated ideas, not only to do with politics, but also about morality, art and the role of the artist vis a vis art and politics. I’m fond of a line from a Woody Allen film: ‘The artist makes his own moral universe.’  Simon Lampton is trying to enjoy his holiday but there’s scandal brewing, he’s being forced to listen to a child’s story about an obnoxious dwarf and a conscientious starfish, and there’s a writer sniffing about who could prove to be a nuisance.

4. What are you working on now?
For my next project, I’m writing a novel about a man who’s been acquitted of a serious crime. But is he really innocent?

5. What’s on your bedside table?
On my bedside table are short stories by Philip O'Ceallaigh, The Pleasant Light of Day, powerful stories set in Egypt, Georgia and Chechnya. I’ve got A.N. Wilson’s biography of Hitler, called Hitler; I’ve got the new Ian McEwan, Sweet Tooth, which I haven’t started yet, and Machiavelli’s The Prince.



New Zealand at the Frankfurt Book Fair
Numerous events and activities are planned throughout the fair and we'll keep you up-to-date about the goings-on on Twitter and Facebook. Our new Chief Executive Catriona Ferguson will be posting regularly from Frankfurt on our books blog Open Book. She will also post audio soundbites with authors and publishers on the ground during the book fair.
For more information about New Zealand at Frankfurt visit the NZ at Frankfurt website.

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