Journalist, film critic and writer, associated in particular with the Figaro and on “Masque et la plume”, a program on France Inter, Éric Neuhoff has published around thirty books, often with titles and distinctions. In 1996, he won the Prix des Deux Magots for his book: Daddy’s beard then the Interallied Prize for The little Frenchwoman in 1997. In 2001, he received the Grand Prix of the Académie Française with A crazy good, and the Renaudot Essay Prize in 2019 for (very) dear French cinema. Today he publishes Literary start published by Albin Michel.
franceinfo: Literary startis the love story of a couple of 21st century editors that lasts, in which nothing alters the bond that unites them, not even their daily life, their routine. Is this story somewhat yours?
Eric Neuhoff: A little, but not that much because the couple that lasts, I have never known that. That’s why I wanted to make a novel out of it, that of a man and a woman who stayed together all their lives. And then, I have never been an editor, but it is an environment that I know a little and which has been described very little in French novels. I wanted to be interested in it because it seemed to me, more or less, to belong to the past, old-fashioned publishing, paper, love of books. I find that all of this is tipping over in another galaxy.
When does writing enter your life?
Very early. I remember having written in a notebook, I must have been seven, eight years old, a western called The Adventures of Billy the Kid. It must have been about ten pages, but I can’t remember how it ended. Then there was still a big dip for a few years, and it came back by finding a collection of articles by Jean-Louis Bory in volume at 10/18, when I was in second or first, who was called The accomplice night, a collection of his papers on cinema. I thought he wrote very well. I heard it on the program “The mask and the feather”, and suddenly, I said to myself: ‘I have to become a film critic’. And the other click to write books is when I read in senior year Little words of love by Patrick Besson, who was exactly the same age as me. I said to myself: If he can do it, it’s time to get started.
Listening to “The Mask and the Feather” on the radio and being a part of it today, what does that mean to you?
It’s both wonderful and then, it’s funny to be in this forum. It may also mean that when you want something, you get there. Otherwise, that means we didn’t care that much.
“If I hadn’t succeeded in being a film critic, journalist, writer, I would undoubtedly be under the bridges. I could not have done anything else, I was not made to work.”
Eric Neuhoffto franceinfo
What did your parents leave you?
My parents left me the image of a united couple, who never divorced. I hadn’t thought of it, now that you remind me of it, maybe it’s a kind of ‘hi’ to them. I remember car trips on the national road 20 to go from Paris to Spain, the stops in the small hotels on the side of the road, the flashing lights which made an infernal noise. There was no speed limit or seat belt. One was sleeping in the back seat, the other on the floor. It was quite beautiful, we got down on our knees looking out the back window, we had the impression that it was our whole story, the past receding. In any case, when we went on vacation, it was the school year to which we said ‘goodbye’ for two and a half months because the holidays.
There is always this notion of time which passes in Literary return.
The tragedy is that we understood almost everything by the age of 20 and the rest is rubbish. Yes, you have to keep this part of innocence that you have in yourself because life manages to nibble on it and more and more, and the day when there will be none left, I believe, it will be terrible and terribly boring.
What does writing do for you?
A breath and then writing books, it allows me to love new people, to invent others.
You were accused of misogyny, sexism with your essay (very) Dear French cinema. What do you think of the #MeToo movement and do you have a feminist side?
Me, I wait and I push the actresses, since #MeToo started from a movie story, to file a complaint, but now. Yes. They must file a complaint against the directors with whom they tour, now and not 30 years later. This issue of prescription has a perverse effect. We get the impression that the people who are accused, in the last 30 years, have behaved impeccably if we do not file a complaint against them. So I say to the women: go ahead, leave the sets if you are harassed by the director or even someone else and file a complaint. Now you don’t risk much and on top of that, the guy will take it.
Are you happy ?
Yes. I believe. It would be wrong to complain. I earn my living doing what normal people think of as hobbies. It’s really indecent, almost. Read books, come and talk about them. But that’s maybe what I like least, coming to talk about a novel, it’s the most difficult thing in the world. I remember when I went to Bernard Pivot, I was so bad that I sold even less than when I was not invited.
What’s next?
I will write a novel which takes place in the provinces in the 1970s, still melancholy perhaps, which will be called Cahors in the rain. Me, I need the title, but especially the first and the last sentence and then we fill in the blanks. It’s very easy.