With the greatest respect to other authors who have been interviewed on Material Witness before, I think Sara Paretsky is the biggest name ever to grace these pages. Not only has she sold in excess of 10 million books during her storied career, but with her Chicago-based detective VI Warshawski, she is also credited with transforming the role of women in the crime novel.
VI Warshawki is Paretsky's antidote to the cliched and sexualised view of women prevalent in the vast majority of the crime fiction that preceded her, as the author points out in this excellent interview in January Magazine.
Her latest book, Body Work, is the fourteenth in an enduring series that has earned Paretsky a fanatical following around the world. It was recently published in hardback by Hodder & Stoughton in the UK.
Sara Paretsky
Favourite author: As a child, it was Louisa May Alcott; as a young adult it was James Joyce and my current favourite author - just now- is a Russian, Abram Tertz. He was a Soviet dissident writer and his memoir, Goodnight, talked in a such a personal way about his writing life, that it is both historically interesting and also comforting ... for other writers bedevilled by doubt, such as I!
Favourite book: Sally-Skip-Under-the-Bed ... a children's book that I can still repeat, word for word.
Favourite character: When I was a teenager I was madly in love with Peaceable Drummond Sherwood - a British officer fighting in the US revolutionary war. He featured in The Sherwood Ring, and was always in trouble. He was also 'tall, thin and stronger then he looked', which - to this day - is a description that pops into my head when I am describing my own character, V I Warshawski.
Best Book: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, and it will be for quite a while, I think. Although Amy Bloom's Where the God of Love Hangs Out is also an outstanding story of loss and love.
Best Crime city: Chicago is the best, of course. We have everything!
Best Film Adaptation: The Drowning Pool with the wonderful Paul Newman in the lead. It is a terrific adaptation of the Ross Macdonald book - athough the city and plot were changed. What they did manage to do was capture the essence of Macdonald's character and outlook on life, and they understood what lay at the heart of the novel - so it was a brilliant interpretation for a different medium.
Book that gave you the thriller bug: Rex Stout and his Nero Wolfe series.
Author to watch: Tea Obreht, the author of The Tiger's Wife. I hope she can keep it up.
What do you snack on while writing: Anything that is in front of me ... I like salty snacks while I'm writing and there is a great US snack made of nuts and crisps ... all washed down by ice cream.
Who would play you in a film of your life: Not Meryl Streep! Although she'd do my life better then I would. I kind of like Susan Sarandon - or maybe Sarah Bernhardt!
My thanks to Sara Paretsky for taking time out for this interview and (again) to Kerry Hood of Hodder for facilitating.
Publishers wishing to put authors forward for interview can contact me at material.witness@yahoo.com
