We find in A savage animal all the ingredients that have made your novels successful: a labyrinthine plot, numerous twists and turns, constant back and forth between past and present and, above all, a breathtaking suspense that makes the book impossible to put down. Do you think that as an author, when you have found a formula that works, you should stay faithful to it?
It is true that we find here a narration which is dear to me and which belongs a little, in my opinion, to the oral tradition, perhaps because I come from a family where I was told a lot about stories – Andersen, the great Russian tales… I think there is something a little close to that in my books. It’s my signature and it’s a summons from the reader to whom I say: come and sit with me by the fire, I’ll tell you a story. And the reader who has already read me, when he buys my new book, he expects this invitation, he is somewhat ready for it. He expects to read a somewhat thriller novel that will take him into a story and take him out of his daily life. And I think that [cette construction] It also helps to capture the reader’s attention.
You have set almost all of your novels to date in the United States, rather than Switzerland. What made you want to build a plot that takes place close to home this time?
Being in Geneva, where I was born, where I still live and where I have spent most of my life, is the very special pleasure of being at home and also being able to share this life with my readers. It was a desire, almost an obvious one, which took hold straight away. I didn’t have the idea for the book yet, but I knew straight away that the setting would be Geneva, because I wanted to return home.
You still take the opportunity to make several nods to Quebec…
Quebec is an important country for me. I know Montreal particularly well, where I am often – my wife is from Montreal and I now have part of my family in Montreal. There is not much holding me back from taking the next step of writing a book set in Quebec and Montreal, other than the great difficulty I would have with the language!
At the heart of the novel, there is this seemingly perfect couple that everyone envies. Why did you want to show that, sometimes, even under the most beautiful veneers – and the most beautiful areas of Geneva – lie truths that no one would have suspected?
It’s a book that takes place in Geneva, but with a story, facades and appearances which are, deep down, very universal things: everything that we don’t tell, this obsession with always appearing in the best light. , the image that we have constructed ourselves and that we send to others, different or a little distorted from reality to appear better than what we are. For example, the characters of Sophie and Arpad, at the beginning of the book, are shown to be somewhat of the perfect couple. But in fact, that’s not how they present themselves; that’s how they are perceived.
Your novels are always clearly set in time, which allows the reader not to lose track when you go back 10 years or 20 days to tell part of the story. Do you write from a detailed plan?
I always don’t have a plan when I embark on the adventure of a book because I have the impression that it gives me a form of freedom, which for me is very important. The plan comes as I progress through the book and begin to understand what I’m doing. At that moment, little by little, the plan takes shape and I go back to consolidate, redraw, refine.
Do you already have a new novel in the works?
I always have ideas, several avenues, and I don’t yet know very well which one will be the right one. Then all of a sudden, something clicks. I’m really bad at DIY and one of my ordeals is coats of arms or furniture from IKEA, where you think it’s very simple. When I start to assemble them, I always find parts missing; but after the panic, after the mess, after this feeling that I will never succeed, all of a sudden I understand what I have to do, everything fits together and I have the feeling of being the handyman of the year, the hero of the hammer and the screw [rires] ! When everything becomes clear like that and everything is obvious, that’s the beginning of the book; but I’m not there yet.
A savage animal
Rosie & Wolfe
400 pages