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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
Now I'm joined by Andrew Sean Greer, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Less, who's with us to talk about his new novel Villa Coco. You're welcome to the show, Andrew.
you so much for having me.
Delighted to speak to you. You know we're expecting a heatwave there. I think you have very high temperatures where you are too. This book makes me feel like I'm on my summer holidays.
Chapter 2: What inspired Andrew Sean Greer to write Villa Coco?
Was that the intention?
Yes, I wanted to make a kind of charm novel that would take people away from not only the heat dome here, but from from present worries.
I felt a bit anxious, though. I mean, reading about our hero, he's on this gap year. It sounded like a wonderful idea, but he's trapped in in chaos and madness, isn't he?
He thinks he's going to take a job that will finally take life seriously. He's very young, 21 or 22. And he thinks Italy is what place could be more serious than Italy. And he arrives and it's, of course, utter chaos.
You live in Italy, don't you? Part of the time, at least.
Yes, I live in Venice.
Very nice. What drew you to Venice, do I need to ask?
Well, I thought you couldn't live in Venice. I thought it was like trying to live in Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disneyland or like Vulcan or something. But you're allowed.
We talk a lot about America on this program and in this country, particularly since the second term of Donald Trump began. And I know the first time you left your home and you went out to try and find people to talk to them about what they felt about Donald Trump and about their lives in general. How do you feel about him now?
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Chapter 3: How does the protagonist's journey reflect real-life chaos?
He looks around and he sees still all kinds of possibilities and freedoms, and that's heartening.
Yeah, well, and I hope that he is right in his instinct about America because we always have so much fondness for the country here. Tell me about your relationship with Ireland. I understand you spent some time here, a good old driving trip.
When I was 30, a friend and I set up some kind of tour where we got a car and a map and a list of B&Bs and we were let go and there were no cell phones or email in those days. So we would just stop at a pub on the Dingle Peninsula and call ahead and we would say, Mrs. Keys, are you there? We're coming. And we would set it up. It was so wonderful. We lost two side mirrors on walls on roads.
And how did you find the Irish people?
Really wonderful. Mrs. Keyes, whoever she was, was always there with rooms for us. And I just, I will always remember just the sun coming out and looking at the water and the green and it was so magical.
I'm glad you had that experience here. And your characters, your fictional characters, they often feel like slightly out of step with the world, but really recognisable at the same time. And I think our hero in Villa Coco very much fits that bill. How did they come to you? Are they modelled on yourself in any way?
People always ask that and I have to say yes. Just because I feel very out of sorts with the world. I'm sure a lot of people do. But in a humorous way. I do the wrong thing all the time. And I'm able to trip over a step and laugh about it with the people who are already laughing at me on the street. But...
I exaggerate it more in my characters because it helps because then they have to transform, not to fit into the place they're in, but to find their own selves and be confident in it.
And writing comedy in the way that you do, do you have to bounce this off somebody or a little test group of readers just to find out whether it works? Or do you have the confidence in your own work where you write something down and you go, yep, That's it.
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Chapter 4: What are Andrew's thoughts on living in Italy versus America?
I'm happy. And off it goes out into the world.
That's both. I mean, I think a lot of comedy only happens the first time you write it. And if it doesn't work, then you have to scrap it. But some of it, I need advice. I have a great friend, Daniel Handler, who's a novelist, and he is the funniest person I know. And he will tell me about the timing. It needs to go faster. That's what he always says. And I always take his advice.
And the Baroness, I love her, this 92-year-old woman who's as mad as a box of frogs, but also very clever. Who is she? I mean, did you model her on somebody that you have met in your life?
I do have a beloved friend who is now 100 years old. She really changed my life and opened my eyes to art and history and a sense of humor. And then I exaggerated and fictionalized from her, as I do all of my characters, to create someone maybe with a little more colorful past and older. Older than 100? Seems impossible.
And I really wanted to highlight the idea of making a funny story out of something in your life, not just for the people who are listening, but for yourself to sort of master it.
Yeah, I love that she is. I mean, I felt shocked when she revealed her age, when she said she was 92, because the way I had imagined her, so in other words, the way she is described and the way she behaves, she's not like somebody you would expect to be 92. She doesn't behave in that way, does she? She has a lot of youthfulness about her.
I think that's true of many people I've met over 80. Some of my most interesting friends are over 80 and they definitely, they stay youthful out of curiosity and a sense of humor and sort of their wide capacity for the history that they've had.
There's so many people that they can contact and call up and stay with that the world is sort of open to them, but they have to keep making younger friends.
Well, Andrew, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you and I hope we can welcome you back to Ireland and maybe lose some more of your wing mirrors at that stage when you do get a chance to visit us again. Andrew Sean Greer there, Pulitzer Prize winning author on his new book, which is called Villa Coco. Back after this break.
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