Joyce Maynard. “I always thought I was writing to save my life”

Just like EleanorWhere happy people lived which won Joyce Maynard the Grand Prix de l’Héroine-Madame Figaro 2022 and critical and public success (85,000 copies sold), the narrator of her new novel, The Hotel des Birds, trying to rebuild himself after the tragedy. As a little girl, Amelia was forced to change her name and run away with her grandmother when her beautiful and carefree mother died in a terrorist bomb explosion… It was in 1970s America, and while she managed to find balance and even happiness, the young woman again fate struck. Wandering haphazardly from bus to train, he eventually reaches a place outside of time and history, a land never named, where he will relearn how to live under the guidance of Leila, owner of the magnificent Hotel des Oiseaux, which is slowly falling into ruins. … An interview with a writer who brings all her talents as a storyteller to bear in a magnificent and moving novel about trial and resilience.

Madame Figaro. – Most of your books take place in the United States. Why did you decide to leave this familiar space? The Bird Hotel ?
Joyce Maynard. – We can see it as a tribute to Guatemala, where I went for the first time when I was 19 years old. I was trying to recover from the end of my affair with JD Salinger, a painful episode I told about And before me, the world. Just like Amelia, I settled in a small village on the edge of a large lake at the foot of a volcano. When I returned there, twenty years later, to visit my daughter, who was studying Spanish there, I felt so good there, so in tune with myself, that I extended my stay and rented a place where I wrote; Terms of use: One day while swimming in the lake, I saw a “For Sale” sign. I bought land, built a house, and began splitting my time between New Hampshire and Guatemala.

This is what you wrote The Bird Hotel ?
Indeed. You should know that once a year I host a writing workshop in Guatemala for a dozen women staying at a nearby hotel. When I went there in March 2020, the airport was closed. The American embassy sent a plane to repatriate the Americans, but I chose to stay. In these difficult times, I knew there was no better place to limit myself than in this house with an extraordinary garden, this lake where I can swim every morning. I invited two of the women from the workshop to join me. I thought we were going to spend a few weeks together, and eventually those weeks turned into six months that were some of the best of my life. Every night we would meet for dinner and I would read the chapter aloud to themWhere happy people lived which I had finished that day. And when I finished the novel, they asked me for another story. It happened Hotel Oiseaux…

How did you start writing this text? ?
I never make a plan. I imagine a character, bring him to life and think about what could happen to him. Here a woman goes to an exotic place she knows nothing about and where she knows no one. What could have brought him there? Tragedy, he is not a tourist, he is ravaged by grief. He needs to live somewhere, and that’s how Leila appears, who manages the hotel. What does this hotel look like? I look around, I see the lake, the garden, the volcano, I hear the birds. Guatemala has more species than any other country in the world except perhaps Costa Rica, where we wake up and go to sleep to birdsong. The novel was born out of the landscape in which I found myself. The country is imaginary, with imaginary currency and partially imaginary wildlife; I thought of Gabriel García Márquez, who invents a South American country he never names. One hundred years of solitude – and at the same time, I drew inspiration from my companions in prison and the villagers to model my characters, and of course Amelia is a woman like me who finds refuge in these places while believing that her wounds are impossible. treat

The novel was born out of the landscape in which I found myself

Joyce Maynard

Did the character of Leila come from your imagination alone? ?
Yes, but sometimes reality catches up with fiction. Guatemala lives on tourism and with Covid the unemployment rate has skyrocketed. With residents without a financial safety net or government support, the situation quickly became dramatic. Now, although I am not rich in the US, I have considerable funds in Guatemala, and I decided to create a construction project for which the men of the village were hired. They built six houses for me and the property I dreamed of is finally a reality and I run it just like my characters do (to see casapalomaretreat.com editor’s note) in an article I wrote New York Times (1), I speak of a wonderful “concrete directness”; I walked up the stairs to the office where I was writing, past the men on the construction site, and I typed on my computer while they hammered or hammered. We moved forward together, and I loved the idea of ​​this exchange of skills, where my writing made their work possible…

The way you gradually read the novel to your friends is reminiscent of Scheherazade and her One thousand and one nights…
I thought about it, and in fact, as soon as Amelia arrives at the hotel, we enter a fairy tale, a fable that reminds of magical realism… Then I always had the thought that I write to save my life. Seven years ago my husband Jim died, it was the worst loss I’ve ever suffered, as I tell it. One day you will tell this story. All the time when he was sick, I did not write anything. But as soon as he died, as soon as I discovered his body, my first instinct was to write. I navigated my way through the pain through writing.

I have always had the idea that I write to save my life

Joyce Maynard

Writing is literally vital to you ?
I am often asked if it is an act of performance. Maybe so, but I don’t think that one should spend money and time just to immerse himself in my catharsis. I want to go out and write for all those who are interested in love, friendship, family, nature, mourning… I want my readers to appear on my pages. What drives me is that there are so many people in France now and I discover that despite the cultural differences we are similar. I don’t count readers anymoreWhere happy people lived came to tell me. “Eleanor, it’s me.”
(1) www.nytimes.com/2023/05/23/travel/guatemala-joyce-maynard-hotel.html