Newsflash: Avery Hays wins silver at the 18th annual Independent Publishers awards! Congratulations Warren and Adele. Richly deserved.
[facebook]
[retweet]
Who doesn’t love Paris in all her seasons? Today Writer’s Block has been transported back in time to 1910 on the Left Bank within an octagonal building called La Ruche (the Beehive), home to the greatest artistic talents of the time. I’m chatting with Avery Hays (aka Warren and Adele Hays) about their fabulous novel The Sixth and its protagonist Florbela Sarmentos.
RH: Thanks so much for joining me in this special corner of Writer’s Block. Hope you like my re-creation of Florbela and Irène’s apartment in La Ruche. I tried to talk Moishe into joining us but he just kept staring at his painting, brush raised, so I left him to it. This being the heart of bohemia in 1910 I have wine, bread, cheese and, of course, absinthe! What’s your preference?
W: If it’s that cheap Medoc that everyone’s always pouring around here, I’ll take the absinthe, please!
A: I’ll have a green fairy too, please. Mmm… this cheese is wonderful! I wonder if we should lock the door, just in case Diego and Amedeo come barging in. They can smell good food a mile away.
RH: I’ll join you, because life is far too short for cheap wine. *As absinthe drips through the sugar cube, Rowena locks door secretly hoping for a look at Amedeo Modigliani*
RH: Since its release in October this year The Sixth has had consistently good reviews, being called fascinating and enthralling, ‘wonderfully descriptive’, ‘heavily atmospheric’ and a book where ‘creativity meets history’. Your book is all that and so much more. Share with us how you are feeling about those reviews.
WH: It’s all very encouraging. I think all writers are emotionally responsive to critical consensus, to varying degrees, and I’m rather thin-skinned that way. I am very pleased to have such positive feedback to my first historical novel.
RH: For my part the positive review was easy. The Sixth is a delight. Florbela Sarmentos has come to Paris to follow her dream as an artist. We first meet her as she is about to enter La Ruche, an artist’s residence on the Left Bank. You’ve shown La Ruche to be the abode of many aspiring and soon-to-be-discovered artists. In fact, part of the charm of the novel is the supporting cast of Modigliani, Diego Rivera, Marc Chagall (aka Moishe) and the Steins to name just a few – it is a real lesson in the modern art movement. Tell us about La Ruche and its place in artistic history.
WH: The book’s treatment isn’t exaggerated. An amazing number of the top artists of the generation lived in this one, squalid little apartment house on the far edge of the Fourteenth Arrondissement. That includes all the artists you mention, plus Brancusi, Apollinaire, Léger, Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, and others. Incredibly, the building is still there to this day, and is still full of artists! I have no idea how they’ve kept it from rotting away.
AH: It did fall into ruin after Boucher died, but it was restored after WWII and artists once again inhabit the amazing old building.
RH: I was amazed that it does still exist. I wish I’d known about it when in Paris, but it gives me an excuse to go again! Florbela contends with penury, new friends, a different way of life and the realisation that her painting studies at the Cherbourg academy haven’t prepared her for this new world of individual artistic expression. Yet the crux of the intrigue surrounding her is due to her father, a famous writer who is a political prisoner during a turbulent time in Portugal. Why did you give her that background, and how did that background inform the development of Florbela’s journey?
WH: I was lured into this place and time by the romance of all those soon-to-be-famous artists hanging out in one place, but I needed some kind of impetus to get a story rolling, or it wouldn’t be a novel. When I realized that Lenin was also living at La Ruche during this time period, I started thinking about using some kind of political turmoil to get the characters moving. The decision to make her Portuguese was kind of serendipitous. I had been imagining the protagonist as a hot-blooded but highly cultured young woman from the south of Europe… then I realized that the Portuguese Revolution had occurred in late 1910, and the timing was too good to pass up. Thus, Florbela was born.
RH: And we are very grateful for that! One of the first people Florbela meets is a young girl she initially mistakes for a gypsy. She and Irène, a talented sculptor, become fast friends and share an apartment – probably a smart move in the hectic, bohemian residence filled with men. Yet Irène is a mystery. She is so intriguing I kept guessing at her motives for a good part of the novel, and when her true story was revealed, I was completely surprised. Why did you choose to blend her secrets with Florbela’s story?
WH: I added the story of Irène for two reasons. One was that Irène, unlike Florbela, was a real person, and her historical character was so remarkable that I just couldn’t pass her up. The other reason was a matter of counterbalancing Florbela’s headstrong nature. Irène is as bold and willing to take risks as Florbela, but she lacks Florbela’s impetuosity, and is loaded with good sense and intelligence. Given the crazy environment and wild dangers Florbela was going to face, I thought she’d better team up with someone a little more grounded.
AH: I should add that the real Irène did not run away from home and live in La Ruche, as far as we know. But she did attend a school for gifted children called The Cooperative, and Brancusi was her sculpting teacher.
RH: You had me wondering if Florbela was also real because her voice rings very true to a well-educated young woman in 1910. In fact, her narration and feelings reminded me very much of Arthur Conon Doyle’s Dr Watson. How did you go about finding that voice? For example, did you read diaries or fiction from that time, did it come once you’d created the character?
WH: I’ve always enjoyed Victorian novels with strong female protagonists. Florbela owes a fair amount of her character to the writings of Edith Wharton… though there’s probably just a tiny bit of Becky Sharp from Thackeray’s Vanity Fair in there, too. Naturally, since this is a modern novel, she has traces of our own time laced into her as well (writers do that a lot these days; consider the modernized sixteenth century characters in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall). But in the long run, I did no more than launch Florbela’s character and give her a good scare to get her started. She really wrote herself.
RH: Yes, Becky Sharp is still a strong woman by today’s standards. Florbela has a little more compassion than Becky. *Diego and Amedeo are knocking. We tacitly agree to ignore them*
RH: Your depth of knowledge of modern art displayed in this novel is remarkable. I couldn’t resist Googling the artists to see the paintings described by Florbela, and the bohemian parties are so well described that I could smell the absinthe and oil paint, feel the crush of bodies. How do you come to be so familiar with that period of art history? Tell us a little about the sources which were most useful in helping you draw such a vivid picture.
WH: I’ve been something of a nut for twentieth century art for nearly 30 years now. Once you develop a taste for the radical in art movements, you can’t help but find yourself spiralling in upon Paris 1905-1918 (Fauves through Dada) and New York 1948-1965 (Pollock through Warhol). I read a lot, and the world is full of good art books, but to be honest, I think that my most deeply felt impressions of Parisian artistic bohemia around 1910 have come from simply staring at way too many Chagalls and Matisses and Modiglianis, hanging in museums around the world. After a while, you can’t help but try to figure out what was on these guys’ minds.
RH: I’m guessing Absinthe will give us some idea! *we raise our glasses filled with green, as fairies flit about the room* The Sixth refers to the Sixth district in Paris – a place most artists aspire to live. Florbela had only visited Paris as a child and as she becomes familiar with the landscape she describes her mother as having ‘swum through this city as naturally as a fish through water’. As someone who once got lost on the Left Bank, I feel you’ve made the typology of that part of Paris easy to visualise, and 1910 Paris is so alive in this novel it was easy to imagine walking those streets with her. How did you come to have such familiarity with the streets of Paris?
AH: Warren and I first met in the Sixth, at Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, over ten years ago, so it has a special place in our hearts. I have been to Paris half a dozen times and spent most of the time in the 5th and 6th arrondissements just wandering the narrow streets, exploring the stores, gardens, attending the open air markets, and generally soaking up the ambiance of the place. Eating beautiful local cheeses and freshly baked bread like you have prepared for us, Rowena. I have to admit this is the first time I have tried a green fairy though and it’s very pleasant.
We’ve also explored other areas of the city too– the catacombs in the 14th arrondissement, Montmartre, the Marais, a large number of the art museums and galleries (there are so many of them that I think it would take a lifetime to visit them all), the grand parks, and many of the chateaux and palaces around Paris.
I am also a food and wine connoisseur, so in addition to spoiling ourselves at elegant restaurants such as Tour D’Argent we love to eat in the same cafes and bistros that Parisians have been eating and drinking in for hundreds of years. One cannot help but soak up the history of the place.
RH: Absinthe or not, it sounds idyllic. And historical places are so much more interesting when you know these stories about their past. We don’t have that kind of history in Australia. Adele, as A.M.D. Hays you’ve also written BETA Project Avatar, a novel firmly grounded in today. This has also had wonderful reviews and won the 2013 Bronze Medal for the Suspense/Thriller Category from the Independent Publisher Awards (Naturally, it’s next on my reading list). Tell us a little about that book and how that process may have differed from writing with Warren.
AH: When I’m writing as A. M. D. Hays, I tend to produce more modern, high-strung characters, adapted to the frenetic technological environment we all know and love. Writing that way is a lot of fun, but certainly lacks the “vacation in the past” aspect of writing a historical novel. As a team, Warren and I tend indulge our imaginations more, and to dig deeper into the scenarios we’re creating. But personally, I love technothrillers, and I suppose I’ll write more of them.
RH: I’d love to see more of both! So what’s next?
WH: We have a number of historical novels in various stages of completion. Avery Hays will be releasing another novel in the second half of 2014, but at this stage we haven’t decided which one we’ll wrap up and release. Adele is in the early phases of plotting a second technothriller but that will not be released until 2015.
RH: Sounds intriguing. I’ll have to work on my patience until then. So, I hope you are both ready for the…
RH: What is your all-time favourite book/movie?
WH: Book: Train Dreams by Denis Johnson. Movie: Fanny and Alexander by Bergman.
AH: Book: Vol de Nuit by Saint-Exupéry Movie: Doctor Zhivago by David Lean
RH: What are you reading now?
WH: How embarrassing! I’m halfway through re-reading Ulysses. What a geek, right?
AH: Wolf Hall
RH: What is your favourite word?
AH: Kintsukuroi.
RH: What is the best bit of advice you ever got (about writing or life in general)?
WH: Don’t panic.
RH: Great advice! Thanks for joining us today, Warren and Adele (aka Avery). Where can we find The Sixth and BETA Project Avatar?
AH: They are both distributed worldwide by Ingram so you can ask for them in your local bookstore. They are also available online from most book suppliers including
And if you like to read eBooks you can purchase both novels in all the usual formats including Kindle, NOOK, iPad.
Thank you Rowena for such a fun interview. I am enjoying the ambiance here in Florbela and Irene’s studio so much, it’s hard to leave.
RH: That may just be the Absinthe talking …
Find out more about these talented writers at their website, on Facebook and on Pinterest.
You can read more about Florbela, including an afterward, here. I recommend you read the book first as these are much more fun when you know what’s going on.
Wondering what Kintsukuroi means? Literally – ‘To repair with gold’. Take a look
[facebook]
[retweet]