Joël Dicker: "I live success with great pleasure"

• Interview Joël Dicker: "The reader, in the end, is the one who always decides"

• Miniseries The Truculence of Love According to Jöel Dicker

"That morning, the fate of a small New Hampshire town would be turned upside down," reads the second of 592 pages.

And immediately, the classic resurfaces with all its ingredients: the Atlantic coast of the United States, an unexpected crime, a broken young life, the deranged town...

.

Ten years after the worldwide success of

, the French-speaking Swiss author returns to New England imagery, memories of his family vacations in Maine, and his extraordinary talent for suspense with

, the new chapter of the trilogy published by Alfaguara that includes

noir novel

Interview.

Donna Leon: "You don't have to kill someone to be a terrible person"

• Writing: IRENE HDEZ.

  VELASCOMadrid

Donna Leon: "You don't have to kill someone to be a terrible person"

Interview.

Jo Nesbø: "Russians prefer to live in a powerful country feared by their neighbors"

• Drafting: IRENE HERNÁNDEZ VELASCOMadrid

Jo Nesbø: "Russians prefer to live in a powerful country feared by their neighbors"

After Geneva and 'The Riddle of Room 622', we return to the East Coast of the United States, to detective novelist Marcus Goldman and the other characters in 'The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair'.

Why did you decide to write a trilogy, and why is 'The Alaska Sanders Affair' number two, between Harry Quebert and 'The Baltimore Book'? 'The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair' was an unexpected success, which came after my previous books were rejected by publishers.

It was such a success that I wondered what to do next, and a sequel seemed like the easiest option, too easy even.

But I had a trilogy in mind, so I went straight to number three, 'The Baltimore Book,' leaving room for the second volume, which I would write, perhaps,

without knowing when.

It was a way of continuing with those themes but leaving me some freedom. In addition, the three books can be read independently, without necessarily following the order. Yes, it is a trilogy but each volume has its own life, it is not mandatory to have read the previous ones to follow the plot. Again we find Goldman dealing with the consequences of stardom.

How much of himself did he put into the character?

After a decade selling 'bestsellers' all over the world, at only 36 years old, have you made success a habit? I couldn't compare Marcus to me... Perhaps the only parallel is that your relationship with others changes, because they love you. They know, but you don't.

Under normal conditions, when someone calls you on the street, you turn around being sure you recognize him, and if by chance that doesn't happen,

there is an embarrassing and unpleasant moment, you try to remember quickly and avoid the blunder... After the success of my books, I am recognized in everyday life, something that gives me pleasure.

I no longer feel awkward about not knowing the name of the person who greets me.

But I would not say that I have gotten used to it, but rather that this aspect is already part of my identity.

Instead, like Marcus, I sometimes wonder if people greet me or the writer, who are still two different figures.

When you read a novel and you like it, you have the feeling that you know the author, that you can get into his head. Is that an illusion? I think so, because the reader has a completely constructed image of the writer, based on his novels. , in fiction.

Reality is something else.

But having said that, I live success with great serenity and pleasure,

it is an experience full of good will, the people who stop me on the street tell me things like "I loved your book", the readers are very affectionate, every time it happens it is something that moves me a lot and gives me strength to continue .

But the success is not mine, but of my books, it is not the same.

Anyway, ten years ago I almost felt like I had to apologize, now I'm still not used to it but I accept it.

Also, I know it may not last forever, so I better enjoy it while it's there. This novel also plays a lot with jumps in time, with 'flashbacks'.

Do you use an outline, a work plan? No, not at all, I have never done it.

I write without following a fixed line, the story goes a bit by itself. Does that mean that the characters have an internal coherence that drives them to do certain things,

as if they came to life and were emancipated from the creator? I don't know, I believe more in the fact that in certain cases a character returns to action because the author and the reader have become so fond of him that they want him to return.

The most important moment is when a character is no longer there, because perhaps the scene has changed, but the absence is so great that they have to be brought back into the story. Do you sometimes leave a character in the course of the story because you don't Was it interesting enough? Yes, I do it a lot.

In the end there are two categories of characters: the essential ones, those who have a character and a deep meaning in the story, and those who exist only to say or do something functional, as extras.

It reminds a bit of the world of cinema: there is the cast of characters, with a well-defined identity, and then the extras,

They are useful but nothing more.

It is a distinction that is created while I am writing. Time is a fundamental element in his novels.

Are the present and the past just a literary tool or is there something deeper in this obsession of yours, especially with the past? The past allows you to really tell the present.

The question is not so much what the characters do, but why they do it.

Let's say you kill someone.

In itself that does not say much, it is a fact.

The interesting thing is trying to understand why.

If you kill someone and they arrest you and you confess you are not immediately convicted, there is still a trial, justice looks into the past to understand why you did it.

To rob the victim or to defend yourself?

To understand a fact it is inevitable to go back into the past, and in some cases an image very different from the first impression is reached.

Going back to the past, in my opinion, is the only way to give the characters the opportunity to explain themselves, and the reader the feeling of entering their intimacy, of knowing them. Without revealing too much about the novel, here the engine of the plot from the beginning is also the murder of a girl in the prime of life, Alaska Sanders, as Nora Kellergan in 'The truth about the Harry Quebert case'.

Why this fascination with broken youth? Good question: it actually means something.

A fear, perhaps.

The fear of a brutal stop, the fact that the promise of a life will not be fulfilled, remaining in time.

It is a reminder of the fragility of life.

At twenty, one has the feeling of being invincible, immortal, but unfortunately anything can happen.

It is my way of reminding readers that it is better to appreciate life,

never take her for granted. A kind of exorcism? It's possible.

It's an interesting point that I'm still pondering.

One of the consequences of writing without an outline, without a predetermined plot, is that I notice certain aspects when they are done, at the end.

The phase of reflection, of observing with a certain detachment, comes when the novel is finished. This volume is also quite long, almost 600 pages.

It seems to go against the current trend of speed and brevity.

Is it an answer to the frenzy, an opportunity to immerse yourself for a few hours in a different reality, in New Hampshire, on the other side of the world? I don't know if this is an answer or if it represents my belief that everyone likes a good story, being transported for a while, on an adventure.

That has been the history of literature for centuries.

When I see the success of television series today I can only think with pleasure that it all started with The Count of Monte Cristo, centuries ago.

That is the origin.

I am convinced that we are still attached to that power of literature, to the pleasure of being taken to a different universe from the one we live in every day.

When this happens, you want the pleasure to not stop right away, it's good to have some time to take advantage of it.

I think if the novel ended early, the readers would be unhappy, they would have a sense of frustration, I imagine. He is now an established bestselling author, a special kind of writer.

Over the last ten years, his books have sold millions of copies and have topped the charts right out of the box.

his images and his style are recognizable, readers begin to say "I'm reading a Dicker" instead of the title, as they would say "I'm reading a Grisham" or "a Follett".

Do you think that he has achieved a definitive identity as a writer, or that this is just a phase before moving on to something else? I don't know, so far I haven't asked myself that question.

I don't think much about what readers expect of me, I don't write to fulfill an expectation.

The book appeared in France in March, now it comes out in Spain and other countries, for a few months I am very happy to dedicate myself to meetings with readers and interviews, but then in July I will shut myself up again in my own world.

So far I have managed to put a real distance, clearly separate the two figures of the writer who is a public figure,

who ensures the promotion of the book, and the writer who writes his novel.

I just turned 37, I've been writing since 2012, this is my sixth novel in ten years.

I suppose that as I go forward in life I will have a different vision of things.

In these ten years, in this first stage, I looked for myself as a writer and I realized that I wanted to write what I liked to read, which were adventures.

But I still feel like I'm at the beginning of my career.

We'll see.

What is certain is that I do not want to force myself to change just to surprise or to be able to say that I am eclectic.

I will not write a book of poems just for the sake of it, but only if I feel pleasure in doing so. 'The Alaska Sanders Affair' also represents his debut as an editor, after the death of Bernard de Fallois, to whom he pays homage before beginning the story .

The publishing house he founded is called Rosie & Wolfe: what does that name mean? It means reading and writing.

Rosie was a family friend who gave me the desire to become a reader and Wolfe was my grandfather who wrote a book at the end of his life that made a huge impression on me and made me want to do the same.

It seemed to me that Rosie & Wolfe told a personal story and also expressed the publisher's mission: to get people to read and write. So will Rosie & Wolfe publish authors other than Joël Dicker? Yes, but not too fast.

I think we will publish two or three titles a year, to be able to defend them.

I want to be able to say to my readers, 'I am convinced that this book is worth reading.'

The catalog will be made in time, there is no rush,

and besides, there are so many books coming out in France that sometimes I think it would be better to publish only the necessary titles. Do you still read a lot? Yes, I'm not afraid of being influenced, on the contrary, I think it's good for me, it feeds the writing process. What have you read recently that you liked? The last book that made a deep impression on me, just before the Covid lockdown, is '1793' by the Swedish writer Niklas Natt och Dag, author of a trilogy that continues with '1794' and '1795 ', set in Sweden.

An extraordinary writing force.

Just before the Covid lockdown, it's '1793' by Swedish writer Niklas Natt och Dag, author of a trilogy that continues with '1794' and '1795', set in Sweden.

An extraordinary writing force.

Just before the Covid lockdown, it's '1793' by Swedish writer Niklas Natt och Dag, author of a trilogy that continues with '1794' and '1795', set in Sweden.

An extraordinary writing force.

Conforms to The Trust Project criteria

Know more

• literature

• black novel

• novel

• Swiss