Alan [The author] said... Hello, all.
Evil Editor said...Hello, thanks for coming. Usually the longer chats are those for books we didn't like, so I have a feeling this will be a shorter one.
Robin B. said...I've marked my copy of this novel up so much with favorite lines, it looks like I happily studied for a test.
Dave Fragments said...I did like the book and I already sent it to a 12 year old niece.
Sylvia said...I liked the book and am giving it to an 86-year-old friend.
Alan said...I'm happy to hear you gave the book to a 12-year-old reader. I've had mail from readers ranging in age from 8 to 95.
Mother (Re)produces. said...I just finished the book; I had to order the English version, so I haven't had a chance to pass it on to my kids. I can't imagine any child not wanting to be Flavia, though.
Robin B. said...Agree, Mother Re, about kids (of all ages) wanting to be Flavia.
Evil Editor said...So, Flavia is an international sensation?
Alan said...Flavia is doing very well internationally, thanks. At the moment, she's appearing in 34 countries and in 31 languages.
Mother (Re)produces said...The German translation has been well received, to be sure.
Alan said...I did a reading/signing tour of Germany in October. The second book had just appeared in paperback and jumped onto Der Spiegel's bestseller list in about a week. It was wonderful: I had an entourage of four, including a puppeteer! I'm very proud of the German edition, by the way. It's a beautifully designed book .... and its fans are pretty special, too.
Mother (Re)produces said...Puppeteer! Did the puppet yell 'Vale' and jump a lot?
Alan said...One of the puppets (she was a boozy ballerina) climbed into the laps of the gentlemen in the audience, which brought great hoots of laughter from their wives. The event in east Berlin was in a 1930's dance hall that was right out of "Cabaret". I wish you could have seen it.
Evil Editor said...Puppeteers should be a staple of all book readings.
MC said...This was meant for the adult market, right? I was fascinated to see Middle and High schoolers gobble it up.
Alan said...Yes, it was aimed at the adult market, but was also meant for (as they say) anyone who likes that sort of thing.
Dave Fragments said...I liked Flavia's voice. She has a certain snideness that is endearing in a storyteller. And being a scientist who wants to see more scientists come into the world, I like her preoccupation with chemistry. The younger kids might need a dictionary, but by high school they should have that vocabulary. I like that she deduces things. She thinks.
Alan said...I'm glad you like the science in the books. I wanted to recapture that huge surge of power and competency one feels at 11.
Robin B. said...What I loved most of all about your book, Alan, was the voice of Flavia - never too much - just right. She took me right into her world, and kept me there. The story was wonderfully drawn.
Evil Editor said...She's a character one would never tire of. Though that may change when she hits her teens.
stacy said...I adored Flavia. I remember feeling precocious. It was terrific to feel that again, even through another character.
Sylvia said...I loved the fact that although I knew Flavia was unreliable, I was never more than a step ahead of her in solving the mystery. I quite happily followed her on wrong turns.
Alan said...Yes, Sylvia. I follow her on her wrong turns, too! When Flavia walked onto the page, she came equipped with house, family, village, history. I've tried to describe them as I see them, but that doesn't work. I had to learn to shut up and let Flavia describe her world. It's been a lot easier since then.
fairyhedgehog said...I forget she's an unreliable narrator. I got confused by the "Vale" incident, that she didn't know how it was pronounced even though she'd heard it not read it. Or am I misremembering?
Mother (Re)produces. said...No, FHH, you're not. That 'Vale' thing drove me a bit nutty too.
Sylvia said...I was confused by the Vale reference too. I read it as Vail and then when she saw Vale and explained that's how HB had pronounced it, I was a bit surprised.
Alan said...The "vale" utterance hinges upon several different points: she hears Horace Bonepenny say it, and then, during his "confession" she hears her father say it. She also talks to Dr. Kissing. Only one reader, so far, has noticed that the word is in the singular: "vale!" - not "valete" - that Twining was addressing one particular person.
Mother (Re)produces. said...Twining? But he was already dead.
Alan said...Yes, Twining was dead, but his actions were reported by Father. We also had Miss Mountjoy's (the niece's view of things) as well as the retired Dr. Kissing's.
Mother (Re)produces. said...Ok; I'll have to go back and re-read that part; I thought it was Horace who yelled 'Vale' just before he pushed the already dead Twining off the roof...
Sylvia said...Flavia was so interesting to me because I did not find her easy to like at the beginning, she's very condescending. But the small things - the reality - shines through in tiny touches. Her sister's piano playing, missing her father, the details of her mother. They made my heart ache even before I understood the girl in any sort of sensible way.
Mother (Re)produces said...Yes, that's true. I did find Flavia hard to like at the beginning. I still hope to see her get taken down a peg someday, but I find her fear of admitting she's wrong, or has misjudged someone very real for her age. I have to be honest, I worry about the relationship with her father. He was obviously hurt enormously by his father sending him to boarding school, so I suspect he must be trying to open up a bit to his daughters, but finds it impossible without Harriet...
Sylvia said...MotherRe, I thought the father was badly broken both by his father (no role model) and by the loss of his wife. Still, there was never a doubt that he loved his children and was very protective of them. But because he was so flawed, the girls were equally protective of him.
Mother (Re)produces said...I know Sylvia; I think that's not unusual in real life; I just meant that he does talk at length about how his father's distance was so painful to him, I'm kind of waiting for him to figure out how to make good for his daughters. I think he just can't figure out how, given his age and generation and does it by giving them what he thinks they need-piano, literature, or a lab.
Dave Fragments said...After WWW1 and WW2, Britain contained lots of broken or half-broken men. There are quite a few in the literature. Worse yet, the period after WW2 in Britain was a time of deprivation and sacrifice. It wasn't so in the USA where the economy boomed thanks to the industrialization of big cities and the GI Bill.
Alan said...Without giving away any secrets, I can assure you that there's much much more to come about Father - in fact, about all the family. We really only get glimpses of them as Flavia sees fit to reveal.
Sylvia said...Yes, I love that. Little touches - her memory of them passing silly notes during the lectures - kept reaffirming the deep connection between the sisters even as she's telling us that it's her against them. The familial relationships were never in doubt, for me. I'm looking forward to reading more - and it's nice to hear there's quite a bit more to come.
Mother (Re)produces. said...Yes, I knew there must be more. I love the way the girls band together when it really counts, and try to kill each other as a hobby. (Did I mention I have three daughters?) This is very real.
Alan said...Mother, Best regards to your three daughters. I hope they're kinder to one another than the de Luces. I also had two older sisters.
Mother (Re)produces said...Aha! So you're Flavia! :) Yes, they are much kinder than the de Luca, but they do fight, sometimes passionately over meaningless little things; I just meant the shift to being friends again is immediate and 100% when it needs to be.
Dave Fragments said...One thing that did hit me like a brick was the confession by Flavia's father about his friends at the school and the magic. I don't know too many father's who would be that confessional to their 11-year-old daughters. There was more behind that scene than Flavia and him in a room.
Alan said...Yes, there is much more between Father and Flavia than meets the eye. It's important to remember that each book is, so to speak, just one slice of the pie. Not all will be revealed until the end of the last book.
Evil Editor said...Maybe he thought he was talking to Harriet.
Dave Fragments said...Well, EE, I think that Flavia is really unreliable. She's a kid telling HER story and no one else's. She never lets on to her sisters being involved and in the end, they rescue her because they are observant too. There's a wonderful 11-year-old biased vision that we see things through. Part of solving the mystery is seeing the truth behind her somewhat limited vision.
Alan said...I suppose, in a way that Flavia is 11 and in another way, she's 45. I was like that as a I kid, I hate to admit.
Mother (Re)produces. said...Why do you hate to admit it? I never met anyone who grew up completely evenly. I prefer to look like I'm 45 and act like I'm 11.
Robin B. said...Oh, that's interesting - about Flavia and her father. Well, now I absolutely have to keep reading! One of my favorite things about this novel was how, even and especially in turmoil, Flavia's thoughts make you smile. on page 305 of my American paperback version, after 'Pemberton' has her just about cornered, Flavia says, about being told to kick a man in his Casanovas, "the only problem was that I didn't know where the Casanovas were located." Ha! That was wonderful, and it said so much about Flavia.
Evil Editor said...What did you mean, the "last" book, Alan? Has the number of books been set in stone?
Alan said...There are six books presently contracted for. The third is being published next week and I'm at work on the fifth. Will there be more after that? I don't know. The publishers hope there will. Only Flavia knows for sure! But there's a definite six book story arc (I hate that word).
Evil Editor said...I've read all 45 Nero Wolfe books (twice). It would be nice if you could churn out 45 Flavia books.
Sylvia said...The setting and description were wonderful too. Some books (I think especially focused on young protagonists) could take place anywhere; the story has a location but you could pick it up and drop it someplace else with only a minor edit job. Sweetness is so entrenched in its place and time, you couldn't possibly move it, you'd rip out the heart of the story.
Robin B said...How did you decide on the title, Alan?
Alan said...Robin B -The title came before the book - by quite a long time, in fact. I didn't know what it was or what it meant. I put it away in a notebook, and when I was well into the first Flavia book, I realized that I already had the title.
Robin B. said...Alan, that's wonderful about the title coming to you a while back and sitting in your notebook until you were writing the novel. Your brain must've been mapping this story out long before it 'told' you about it! I have also come to loathe the words 'story arc'. That said, I'm now dying to find out about the father and daughter under-the-scene story, so there you go! What I really loved about your opening was that it took its own time - there was no big fanfare - Flavia was trapped in a closet, and she calmly figured her way out of it - and this told the reader everything, well almost everything, they needed to know. Then, in the next scene, we find out in an elegantly 'simple' way, the family set up, ages and all, beginning with the pig tails needing to be put in their 'regulation position'.
stacy said...The keeping her fingers arched while her sisters tied her up told me everything I needed to know about her. And I have to say, being the youngest of three kids, I experienced a lot of my own "adventures" with my siblings - though I was not nearly as resourceful as Flavia. She's wonderfully confident.
Sylvia said...I agree with Robin, the opening scene was brilliant - immediate action and then the explanation, which told us so much about Flavia in such an interesting way.
stacy said...What cracked me up about the opening was that I assumed she was going to be this international spy or something (I knew nothing about the book before reading it). And she turned out to be eleven! I had to laugh at myself for that one.
Robin B. said...I loved the pace. Your novel's popularity tells the tale, doesn't it? The supposed new, must-be-quick-and-sharp way to do fiction doesn't always please the senses of readers.
Alan said...Robin B I'm glad you like the pacing. The book is set in 1950, and couldn't possibly be written to conform to today's pace. It tends to be enjoyed by patient people. :)
Dave Fragments said...Today you would have to deal with cellphones and internet. Almost no reason to go talk to anyone or search a library... It is the journey of discovery that makes a mystery.
Robin B. said...Flat out, I loved this book. I adore her world - the way she wear her mother's clothes that were almost removed in the Purge, the way she locks herself up in her sanctum sanctorum, her actual thinking 'cap...
Dave Fragments said...I've always noticed in most mysteries I've read that something else is happening in the background and almost out of sight of the main character. There are other forces moving around the main character and almost completely out of his or her control. Flavia gets a leg up on the authorities because she found the body. Had she not launched herself into solving the mystery but reported everything to the authorities, the inspector might have found the killer first.
Alan said...Dave, That's true - but then there would have been no story - and no Flavia. I actually tried writing from a third person viewpoint and it simply didn't work. That's when Flavia showed up and took over.
Dave Fragments said...Of course. I didn't mean that as a criticism. I meant it as a compliment. And that POV makes the book. Flavia telling the story is the fun part. No matter how unreliable she is, she's fun.
Sylvia said...Flavia gets a leg up not only because she found the body. She overheard the night-time visitor and saw the jackdaw with the stamp. She had a lot of inside knowledge that wasn't shared. That's what made me laugh when she crowed about how much cleverer she was than them, when really she had a much stronger starting point. I'll give her full credit for noticing the slice missing out of the pie though. That wasn't just luck. And she's a great bluffer - even when talking to herself. My son is like that, too. It was interesting to see from the inside.
Evil Editor said...You know how when you find that special book or movie that strikes a chord with you and you think, No one else could possibly appreciate this to the extent that I do, it's mine!? This is one of those books. Of course you always find out millions of other people feel the same.
Anonymous Alan said...Evil Thanks for your kind comments. The response to Flavia from around the world has been absolutely overwhelming. There are days that I wake up and wonder if I'm in the right body! The books are bestsellers in Taiwan, Norway, the Nehterlands, Japan, Germany - it's humbling to receive such heartfelt letters and to realize that all people, everywhere, have the same problems and aspirations.
Robin B. said...Agree EE - that's exactly how I felt about this book! The 'it's mine' feeling - it's now part of me. This type of book is seldom written.
Evil Editor said...May we assume someone wants to put Flavia on the big screen?
Alan said...Re movies: There have been many offers for movie rights, but as I keep telling them, it makes me extremely uncomfortable to think of someone working my garden while I'm still planting it. I'm responsible to Flavia - and the de Luce family - not to betray them. So maybe someday - but not now.
Sylvia said...Oh yes. Even if you have them planned, it would be very weird to write them while someone else is translating the beginning to screen.
Alan said...Sylvia Exactly!
Mother (Re)produces said...If they try to turn Flavia into a boy, do shoot them for us, ok? I think the world needs a can-do girl.
Robin B. said...Agree, Mother Re. Don't let anyone change the characters or the flavor or the era in a movie, please!
Alan said...No danger of turning Flavia into a boy! I am blessed with the world's best editors. I told them once, "If I ever suggest doing something like "Flavia Goes to Paris" or "Flavia In Hawaii" - shoot me!
Blogger Mother (Re)produces. said...You mean like 'Flavia de Luca and The Arc over the Shark'?
Alan said...That's great "The Arc Over the Shark". May I use that?
Mother (Re)produces. said...No! No! On no account! You promised you wouldn't send her to Hawaii! ;) Of course you may.
stacy said...I was glad to see that the inspector was not exactly a bumbling detective himself. That was refreshing.
Sylvia said...I agree Stacy. If Flavia had been surrounded by incompetent adults, I would not like the story half as much. The fact that she was resourceful and had access to information and avenues that they didn't worked for me.
Robin B. said...I agree, Stacy, about the detective. I liked him, and expected him not to make a mess of things. It was also nice to see him treat Flavia with respect. In the end, when he's drinking tea in her lab, that was a gorgeous scene. Close to two equals.
Mother (Re)produces. said...True, I think part of the fun is that she gets (even if grudging) admiration from adults, which is a position that a lot of 11yos would like to be in...
stacy said...I loved that she used that adult dismissiveness to her advantage sometimes, though.
Alan said...Stacy, Like many 11 year olds, Flavia is a master manipulator - perhaps by necessity.
Evil Editor said...I wonder if the detective, now that he has a new appreciation for Flavia's detecting talents, will be consulting her on his toughest cases.
Alan said...Again with Inspector Hewitt - and his wife, Antigone - there's much more to come.
Mother (Re)produces. said...Ha! Well, with a name like Antigone, that was a bit of a dead give away, wasn't it. I liked the inspector.
Robin B. said...Oh yes, I forgot the inspector's wife was named 'Antigone'. I need to go back and do my due diligence, looking at the myths and stories with these names! I enjoyed the conversation re the name Ophelia, in the novel, that Flavia had with the Dr.
Dave Fragments said..."Antigone" is a name from a bygone and lost era in Britain.
Sylvia said...you've completed three out of six, right?
Alan said...Sylvia, Yes, three out of six are now complete, and I'm at work on the fourth. Enjoying it hugely.
stacy said...I'll be keeping up with the series, as well.
Dave Fragments said...Like I said at the top. I enjoyed the book and had fun with the characters. It's a comfortable read. I'm going to go off an order the next two. I might not read them until late summer but I'll have them around for those dread times when I need to relax and recharge the batteries. When I started this book, it inspired my own little writing binge. the more I enjoy the book, the more I find ways to s write my own silly little short stories.
Alan said...That's great, dave. I encourage you to go for it! The ones who succeed are the ones who never quit.
Dave Fragments said...As someone once said to me: That's the law of the pushover -- "if you push hard enough and long enough, she falls over."
stacy said...Alan, I read your interview at the back of the book. I was amused at how Flavia literally walked onto the page. Is she easy to keep writing, even into the fourth book? She's such a strong character, it seems like she would be. I can't wait to give this to my 14 year-old niece. I think she would really benefit from reading about a girl with such confidence.
Alan said...Flavia is never difficult to write. As long as I don't try to take over and express any of MY ideas! It's a listening process.
Robin B. said...I am so happy that this is the first of a series. I'd seen the second book when I was on Amazon ordering this one, so I knew there was at least a sequel, but now, that's not enough.
Alan said...Robin B, Yes, book three "A Red Herring Without Mustard" will be out on Feb 8th. It's gorgeous - it simply glows! They've also gone back to a hard cover, as with "Sweetness."
Alan said...In conclusion, I might point out that the only one that Flavia treats as an equal is Dogger.
Sylvia said...I should have put in a good word for Dogger too. I saw Flavia as protective over him as her father.
Robin B. said...Mmm. About Dogger - I'll reread parts of the novel with that in mind.
Dave Fragments said...PS - Dogger seems to be Auntie Mame in disguise.
Alan said...Dave LOL!
Evil Editor said...I think you've answered everyone, Alan, and gone above and beyond.
Mother (Re)produces. said...I can't wait to see what my eldest daughter (whose middle name is Flavia, by the way) makes of the book!
Robin B. said...Thanks so much for talking with us today. This has been pure pleasure.
Alan said...Many thanks for asking me. I look forward to hearing from you all again.
Sylvia said...Thank you for coming to talk to us, Alan!
Robin B. said... Amazon pre-order, here I come!
