Anläßlich der deutschen Premiere ihres neuesten Romans (Feuertanz) kam Frances Hegarty nach München, Hamburg und auch nach Berlin, wo wir sie im Kempinski trafen und uns mit ihr über ihr Doppelleben, das Krimigenre und einiges andere unterhielten.
BiN: One day – is it possible with the authorities?
H: Yes. Because what I do is very specialized. It is more sort of semi-academic
reading of papers rather than practice.
BiN: But the day is fixed?
H: Yes, usually I work on Thursdays.
BiN: Was your job the original reason for choosing the pseudonym?
H: Well, it was in an odd kind of way. The pseudonym is my mother's
maiden name. So it is not an artificial name. But when I
work as a lawyer my name is Hegarty, that is my father's name. When
I first started writing I didn't want my contemporary
collegues to know what I was doing. So for all publications I used
my mother's name so that my collegues wouldn't know I was writing romantic
short stories or anything of that kind.
BiN: And when did you decide to choose your real name?
H: Most of my books are written under the name of Fyfield. It was when
I wanted to do something a little bit different to what
I've done so far...
BiN: This leads me to my next question. There is a TLS quote which I
have to translate back into English. It says something like: It is Fancis
Fyfield who writes thrilling crime novels and it's Fancis Hegarty who writes
novels of high literary quality. Do you think one should distinguish between
the good genre author and a good mainstream novelist?
H: No!
BiN: And would you like to comment on the quote?
H: On that, yes. The style in both of my books is exactly the same.
You know, I don't condescend because it's a novel of
crime. The difference in writing as Hegarty is that I don't have to
include any of the things that would go into a crime novel, like
a murder, like policemen, like an investigation, things which commonly
would go into it. But I don't think there is really an
essential difference in the style between Hegarty and Fyfield. And
I dislike the way that certainly in Britain it's assumed that as
a genre novel it must be simple, it must be populous, it must be poor.
That's not the case. The new wave of genre writers write
easily as well, they are literary writers, they are first of all these
good novelists, and that's what I think I have to be. You know,
it's very snobbish. But it's always been that way, the ideas that as
a genre novel it cannot be as good as the literary novel, which of course
it can. It is often much better.
BiN: Concerning the genre you have been called – I don't know whether
the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has invented this name or whether
it was a British newspaper, but you were called the Countess of Crime and
in one article they wrote: Now she joined the rank of P.D. James and Ruth
Rendell. Do you feel you've got a position in a hierachy or do you compare
yourself with other authors?
H: No, it's pointless, because I'm going to do one thing and they are
going to do other things. And the title 'Queen of Crime',
'Countess of Crime' etc is purely an invention of publicity people.
It is a convenient tag. It means nothing to me one way or
another. The first Queen of Crime was Agatha Christie and people are
always making comparisions between other writers and
her. I don't think it's a hierachy. If there's any hierachy between
us, it based on sold copies. And if anybody was to be called
'Queen of Crime" in this day and age would be Minette Walters in terms
of a new way of popularity. But it's so tatty, it's pretty
meaningless. I don't think we have that one two three.
BiN: Talking about other authors also working in the genre, are there
any other crime authors alive or dead whom you admire?
H: Particularly, alive, I admire Ruth Rendell and obviously I admire
P.D. James and obviously I admire Michael Dibdin
enormously. And I love Minette Walters' books. But of the older genre,
just say one the of the first to inspire me was Simenon,
George Simenon, with both the psychological novels and Inspector Maigret.
I like them. But otherwise, before I started writing
in this genre which I did almost by accident I didn't really read it
very much. You know I would rather go for the classics. I
think in an odd kind of way when you are writing in the crime genre
Jane Austen is as much an inspiration because it's all about
observation. I admire anyone who writes with a fine sense of detail
and atmosphere.
BiN: So can you think of any authors having an impact on your work?
H: No, I can't think of any particular author who I'm aware has had
any impact on my work. I've got no one role model or no
one person that I'd like to think I based myself on but if you read
as much as I've always done I think there are influences which come on
you which you don't know. You don't know that they happen... Just in the
same way when I am writing... if I can't
write and want to losen up a bit there are certain people that I would
read who by reading certainly makes me start writing
again. John LeCarré would be one to a point because I think
his English is so beautiful, his writing is so beautiful. So I'm always
influenced by anybody who would write beautiful English, that is very very
good English. But I'm not aware of one person, I am probably influenced
by many. I don't think I copy anyone but I think I am probably influenced
by many.
BiN: I have read two of your novels, Shadow Play and Half
Light (Die falsche Madonna und NachtAngst, Anm. d. Red.)
There is one aspect in particular which reminded me of Charlotte Armstrong.
Especially in Half Light. The first half of Half
Light was, I have to admit, one of most frightening reading
experiences I ever had and it was totally dark. I felt somehow that
things went directly towards some kind of catastrophe, some kind of
tragedy. But then something happened right in the middle
of the book as Frances and Emily somehow raise their courage and decide
to fight the menace and then the second half of the
book for me was much lighter and much more optimistic, even though
there is still a lot of tension. It ends much nicer than I'd
ever had expected after having read the first half. So, are you optimistic
in the end?
H: Yes. I think I'm often seen as quite a bleak writer, a sort of kind
of dark writer, but essentially, yes, I am optimistic. I believe in people
being able to make their lives better, being able to redeem themselves.
But in order to redeem themselves, to make
their lives better, they have to go down in order to come up. Just
in the same way as in this current book (Feuertanz, Anm. d.
Red.) the character of the daughter in the book is to go almost down
to hell in order to learn and then come up.
BiN: Do you mean it as a desciption of the world or do you think it
is a wish: It would be nice if people grew morally by making experiences
like that.
H: It would be nice. Of course a lot of the time people don't grow
morally at all and bad experiences simply make them worse
or blind. But I certainly believe it's a large proportion of people
who do grow because of bad experiences. And I want to
portrait that. Suffering can be a cure, suffering can be something
that takes the mask off your face. So in that sense I am
optimistic.
BiN: Did you intend something like that when you started on the book?
H: We are talking about Half Light. I started Half Light
myself in a very very bleak mood. My father had just died and it was
very bleak. But there is a point: I quite enjoy the bleak, I like the
darkness. Now you would say: life is not entirely like this.
There is light as well. But at the beginning of Half Light I
didn't know what was going to happen to Elisabeth. I never know
what is going to happen to these people. I hope that in a sense they
work it out themselves and let me know. And she had to
come up as an isolated character who has to find out why she is the
way she is by having this awful experience.
BiN: Do you never figure out the plot before?
H: No.
BiN: You just have an idea about the characters?
H: Yes. I usually have a situation that I want to describe. I see what
I am dying to describe but I don't know where it's going to
go, maybe one or two scenes. And they cast the characters. And then
I start, go up one bright alley and go another one. It's a
very very torturous way of writing.
BiN: At which point do you know how the book is going to end?
H: About two thirds of the way through it I can usually see it. It
is a sort of blinding flash of light of how it should end. And then
to finish it I go back to the beginning and make the first half correspond
to what is to come.
BiN: So it's more fun for you...?
H: I don't know whether it's more fun. It's very depressing because
when I don't know what's happening I get terribly angry.
And I have to go away and leave it and come back. I think it would
be much easier if I could plot it. Sometimes I try. But if I
made a plot I'd abandon it after twenty pages. So I say they are real
novels of suspense because I don't know what's going to
happen till they're nearly at the end. Sometimes I got right to the
end and changed my mind about who would have committed
the murder. Then I have to go back and do it again.
BiN: In terms of pages or sentences: which percentage did you change?
H: Probably about a quarter of it. But it is not a question of rewriting
great big chunks, it's a question of going through and
changing little bits. You have to do it very carefully rather like
a surgeon without erupturing anything else, without causing injury
to what's left. So I'd probably say a quarter of it or less.
BiN: Is this kind of rewriting harder than writing the first draft?
H: I think it's easier than writing the first. It's like you have the
material there, it's got its shape. You can see the end in sight. But
in the beginning when you're in the dark you can't see the end and
you think you'll never be able to do it.
BiN: Do you write always at the same time of the day? Is there any kind
of regularity? Do you force yourself to go to the desk? Do you write by
hand or do you use a word processor?
H: Both, the word processor and also if I'm stuck I go back to the
manual and then back to the word processor. I'm not very
good at discipline. When I am in the middle of a book or beginning
a book I set a target of how much do per week. Quite often at the end of
the week I haven't done that. So the next week you set yourself a bit more
and fail to do it yet again and then
suddenly the guilt is so bad. But in an ideal world what I like to
do is get up very early in the morning and work a good solid
three hours before there's any chance that I have a temptation to go
to my telephone and phone somebody up and make them
speak to me There's no chance at six o'clock in the morning that I
can phone my friends and suggest that we have a cup of
coffee. The shops are closed so I can't go out and do that. So that's
ideal when I come very close to do it. And that's when my
mind is very clear.
BiN: When do you get up in real life, when would you get up in the ideal
world?
H: In real life, in ordinary life, I start by eight o'clock in the
morning.
BiN: That is pretty early.
H: That's pretty ordinary. But in the writing phase I get up at six,
especially in the summer when there it's lighter and then I begin two or
three hours before I can be distracted because there is nobody to talk
to, they are all asleep.
BiN: I would like to talk a bit more about the genre. The genre boomed
particularly in the last decade. Do you think there are any special reasons
for this boom?
H: I think there are posivite and negative reasons for this boom. One
of the negative reasons which caused the crime genre to
grow is, I think, a disaffection with those who read novels, a growing
impatience with the literary novel which has gone away
from the first tradition of the novel, the first rule of the novel
that it must tell a good strong story. The literary novel certainly in
England and elsewhere has become more self-engulfed, more about anxiety
and more removed from mainstream experience
which leaves the field open for someone who writes a good strong story
to gain more of the leadership. And it has always been
the rule of genre fiction, of crime genre fiction, that above anything
else you must have a good story which the reader will begin
at the beginning and is able to follow to the end. That's basically
the rule of the novel, the rule of the novel which has been
ignored. The literary novel becomes more like a long essay and more
difficult to read. The real storyteller is the person who
makes people listen and the crime genre writer is going to do that,
always has to do that.
The other thing that makes the genre boom is the fascination with extremes
of human behaviour. We love to read about
extremes of human behaviour, of trying to identify with those extremes
of human behaviour for safety. And a thing which
encourages the genre to grow is the fascination with violence. Because
we all understand it to a certain extent. We are writing in a murder story
about violence. Everybody has some understanding of violence. Anybody who
has had a hand lifted against
them at school understands violence, and also they understand dishonesty
to a certain extent. We have all seen a thing we want
to take. So crime novel writes about things which people can understand,
extremes of what people can understand, and it
writes about life and death. And in these days it is expanded to write
about its own society, always at some selection of its own
society which people want.
BiN: Up to these days there have always been some trends and fashions
starting with the golden rules and locked-room mysteries and going on to
the spy novels. Do you think there is a trend one can identify today?
H: I think there's no single one, there seem to be several trends because
there is the locked-room story which still goes on and
the trend more towards the psychological story which is such a wide
trend you can't even give it a name. But there is also a
trend toward a much more sociological novel. But I think one of the
trends that I see emerging now which is fascinating is a
trend towards a different type of hero, a different type of central
character. In the earlier days the hero in a crime novel or a spy novel
would be a sort of champion, the enemy would be the enemy of the states
or an enemy of society, and now the enemy is
seen as something different, often the enemy is seen as the state,
or as society. The hero becomes increasingly fighting against
authorities, against society, against the state, against the powers
of big industry, and I think this is a trend you see very much in
American literature. Just think of Carl Hiaasen or Elmore Leonard.
The hero being the ordinary man, the little person who is
going to become a lion which is I think a marvellous trend. The hero
is no longer larger than life. That's the trend I see.
BiN: Do you think that nowadays also the motives for crimes have changed
in the crime genre?
H: Well, the motive for the bad person in the crime novel is always
something quite clear-cut. I know in my other life a lawyer
dealing with murder cases. He who would always say to you there are
really only ever three motives. One is sex, one is money, one is power.
And we have probably the most terrific merge of the whole which is boredom
or frustration. But power, sex,
money – that's it.
The interview took place on September, 17, at the Kempinski Hotel
in Berlin. The interviewer was Steffen Huck. The
transcript was edited by Christine Mühlbach.