Interview

Chris Martin: Your lead characters tend to be strong women but with a very human edge and an emotional depth. Where does the strength of these women come from?

Lucy Wadham: I've noticed that female characters are harder for me to write than male characters. Because I think I know women better than men, I find I can get bored more easily by a female character. The 'otherness' of men sustains my interest and I find myself becoming more attached to a character like Kader in 'Castro's Dream' than I am to either of the sisters, Alice and Astrid. This slacking off of interest forces me to make the women sufficiently complex to sustain me over the two or three years it takes me to write a book.

C.M: The Arnaga sisters have an unusual bond in the book. Astrid, the eldest, on the exterior is the most together yet inside she is the most lost. While her sister Lola, despite have a rather louche reputation, is in fact pretty tough. How do these complex bonds grow within family?

L.W: The bond between sisters is one which fascinates me. Having four of my own I know the intense mix of rivalry and devotion that comes with being a sister. In a large family like mine each person grows into their separate role. We define ourselves in opposition to our siblings (more than in opposition to our parents). I think that I am what I am because my sisters are what they are. The depth of hatred that I have felt, say for my younger sister, is equal to the love that I feel for her now. It is this type of love that I wanted to convey in 'Castro's Dream'.

C.M: Is it fair to say that personal strength doesn't necessarily make someone a good person?

L.W: I did notice, when I was writing 'Castro's Dream', that I actually began to dislike Astrid more and more as the story progressed. She started off as the kind of woman I thought I might like to be then turned into a control freak incapable of love. It is the nineteen-year-old delinquent Arab who redeems her by teaching her to let go. It is precisely this kind of unexpected shift in a character that keeps me going.

C.M: You explore both maternal and romantic bonds in your books. How do you think these differ for women and how are they related?

L.W: It's not easy to generalise about what constitutes maternal love and what constitutes romantic love but from my own experience there is no fear in maternal love - I mean no fear of rejection. Neither is there the hunger for reciprocity. The fear of loss or abandonment that often comes with romantic love makes children of us all over again. As a mother I have never experienced this type of fear, only the desire to protect and reassure. I suppose this is what people refer to as unconditional love, an idea that I don't really believe in when it comes to consenting adults.

C.M: Both 'Lost' and 'Castro's Dream' are set in the murky world of gangsters and revolutionaries. What draws you to this world?

L.W: I'm drawn to murky worlds because the characters that inhabit them live so intensely. I like to take a character who lives a quiet life like I do and put them into an environment where they are forced to make life and death choices and then see how they fare. Again this is to sustain my interest over the few years it takes to conceive and write the story. I would rather wake up in the morning, shut myself with a cup of coffee into the cupboard in which I write and find myself in the Basque hills or the Corsican Maquis rather than say...a kitchen in Islington.

C.M: You have two terrific villains in Coco and Txema. What was your inspiration for them?

L.W: My own evil side. The reason I enjoy characters like Coco and Txema so much is that they are so easy to imagine. It is not hard for me to conceive bad people. It's the 'good' characters that are hard.

C.M: You are an English writer resident in France. Do you think that you could find characters with enough passion for your work here in the UK?

L.W: Passion in the UK? That is a question that I have been asking myself more and more. Both Corsica and the Basque Country are in many ways surviving archaic societies. Britain has become 'civilised' at the expense of a growing dehumanisation. We read too many magazines in Britain and watch too much of our excellent TV. Our responses to experience are heavily processed. Like our food. Though recently there is a quest for authenticity - both in Sainsbury's and in our lives - but it is a lost paradise. Nick Hornby found passion in the stands of Highbury and I take my hat off to him. While I know there is passion in British life, I'm not sure I'm capable (not yet anyway) of seeking it out.

C.M: The character of Kader in 'Castro's Dream' is interesting. Why did you choose to make him an Arab boy? Surely Arab teenagers are one of the most marginalised groups in modern France?

L.W: Arab teenagers are not only the most marginalised group but the most maligned. I didn't write Kader for political reasons, he just sort of loped onto the page, but my work as a journalist had brought me into contact with people like him and I had been bowled over by their wit and resourcefulness in the face of huge prejudice. All that is interesting about France today comes from this community; particularly in the hitherto struggling domains of music and comedy.

C.M: Itxua says: "There is a price to be paid for seeking involvement with those who play around with death." Do you think that 'Castro's Dream' is all about that price?

L.W: This is a difficult question and I'm not sure I know the answer. I suspect from the small experience I have of such people that the normal emotional responses are smothered with time and that the price they pay is the ability to love. 

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