For her second novel, Maud Ventura chose to approach the theme of celebrity in the same tone. “It’s perhaps the last great taboo for those who are. No actress or singer, actor or singer, will tell you that they wanted to do this job to become famous.”
In the center of FamousCléo, who has known almost always that she wants to become one. More than five hundred pages of an interior monologue, “we are in the head of the one who admits this desire, unspeakable in an interview”. If we had to characterize Cléo, we would say that she is unbearable. “I prefer that a reader finds my character unbearable rather than insipid. I do not write to please the reader but to make them react. I would say that she is die-hard. For the better and for the worse.”
In joy and pleasure
Unlike the majority of writers who research before writing, Maud Ventura dove directly into her fiction: “I create my character, I want him to stand on his two legs. Then, to go further and be believable, I need to accumulate material.” She watched a number of documentaries (notably on Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift), listened to American podcasts, “a mine of information”. As this was not enough for her, she met famous singers who agreed to answer her questions. French speakers? “Oui”. Based in France? “I won’t say more”. “I needed to get validation from a singer (Angèle, perhaps?, Editor’s note) who tells me: ‘what you are describing is exactly that’.”
We imagine that, to develop this character whose personality becomes more and more outrageous, Maud Ventura must have had a lot of fun. She confirms. “I write with joy and pleasure. It’s my compass. When writing the first pages of my novel, I was jubilant, I laughed. As if I was falling in love with my subject.”
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A Normale graduate with a background in philosophy and a management graduate from the Haute Ecole de Commerce, Maud Ventura, in a relationship with an engineer, admits to having a fairly structured life. “To preserve my privacy, I stop working around 6-7 p.m. and I force myself not to write on weekends.” She therefore had to be unfaithful to her character: “I missed him. On Sunday evening, I had butterflies in my stomach. I went to bed with a smile on my face, telling myself that the next day, I was going to find him again.”
In two places in the book, we can read: “with fame, it’s not me who changes, it’s the eyes of others”. “What is fascinating about fame is that it is both everything and nothing. When it happens, it disrupts all aspects of one’s existence. It changes the relationship with money, with loved ones, with what the person experiences, what she does with her days It affects everything, the relationship with the body, the appearance And at the same time, it’s nothing If she’s all alone on a desert island. at the beginning of the novel, fame does not exist.”
On this desert island, the watchword is disconnection. The heroine may mechanically slip her hand into her pocket, but she will find nothing there. In this regard, what relationship does Maud Ventura have with social networks? “It’s a communication tool with my readers that is completely beyond me. I can spend several hours there. There are dozens of messages per day. I respond to each one because it makes me happy, but the question also arises of know how far I can do it.”
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The funny life of celebrities
Maud Ventura specifies that the choice of her subject is an exaggeration in itself. “I chose hyper celebrity. I didn’t take a French singer who becomes famous, but opted for the American super popstar, number one in the charts.” Taylor Swift ? “Oui.” How does she view her support for Kamala Harris? “I imagine a table of 15 consultants, with its 15 lawyers, its 15 specialists in media communication, where each word that will be said or written will be weighed. She can’t afford to just post something on social media that says, ‘I support Kamala Harris.’ Nothing is done over the leg, it’s fascinating.”
Do writers become famous? If they are successful, are they famous? “In literature, fame does not come into play, believes Maud Ventura. Nobody knows who I am. When I meet my readers, they only talk to me about my book.” An incredible luxury, she considers, to only approach her work, which she did not realize before this book. “A famous actress, we’re going to want to know if she’s still in a relationship with Bidule Truc or what her morning beauty ritual is. No journalist has ever asked me what my day cream was, if I was more into yoga or pilates .” To support this degree of anonymity, Maud Ventura takes as an example an anecdote that she often tells in interviews. “One day, while I was on the Brest-Paris train, a woman sat down next to me. She took My Husband out of her bag and started reading it. I was so happy! I wondered how I was going to react. I interrupted her to tell her that she was reading my book. I signed it to her, we took a photo and that was it.
Maud Ventura almost gave the title to her novel A funny life. “Fame means very great joys and very great sorrows. But governed by other rules of the game. As if celebrities lived on Mars, that it was no longer the same physical laws that applied to them .”
⇒ Famous | Roman | Maud Ventura | The Iconoclast, 540 pp., 21.90€
Mon mari, My Husband, Mio Marito, My husband…
In addition to its success on the French-speaking market, Mon mari also has a good international audience. It has already been translated into 17 languages – including Thai, Korean, Persian and Hebrew. This notoriety takes place in a particular context. The novel will be published in 2021 in France, but the publishers have the text a year earlier. We are in the middle of a pandemic. The Iconoclast team has a favorite with this book: “We started to pitch it with a video because the literary fairs had been canceled following Covid”says Sophie Langlais, literary agent. Three hundred to four hundred people received it. “Generally, we start with small circles (scouts, scouts), people who read all the books in French and recommend them to foreign publishers”specifies our interlocutor.
The countries that generally respond the fastest to obtain translation rights are France’s neighbors: Italy, Germany, Spain. But for My husbandthe Americans reacted quickly, notes Sophie Langlais. It was printed in 35,000 copies, which is a lot, she says, providing an explanation: Oprah Winfrey loved the book. She talked about it in her Book Club. “It’s a bit like the Holy Grail for the United States. She doesn’t necessarily do it for translations.”specifies the agent.
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Each market has its own codes and formats
The title My husband has almost been literally translated into every language. Famouson the other hand, will experience adaptations. “In English, it will be Make me famous and not Famous quite simply. We hesitated a lot. We were thinking about Taylor Swift song lyrics. We also had a long discussion with the author. She’s a great pro.”continues Sophie Langlais.
We were able to see this when we pointed out to Maud Ventura a characteristic of her style (a burst of words in the same sentence: “I am a war machine, a fighter plane, an atomic strike, a nuclear submarine, an assault tank, a helicopter”). She informs us, in this regard, that she is reviewing the English text of Famous with American translator Gretchen Schmidt. “I sometimes change the order of words to go from smallest to largest”notes the novelist who masters the language of Shakespeare.
As for the covers, if My husband has experienced many different ones, the Anglo-Saxon market (Australia, United States, Great Britain) Famous will focus on just one. “To facilitate the message on social networks”specifies Sophie Langlais, even if each market has its graphic codes and formats.
Is Maud Ventura supporting the release of the book abroad? “When my schedule allows for it, yes. Like Italy. But it just came out in Germany this week. I couldn’t go there. There’s talk of me going to the United States, next summer, for Célèbre, but that remains a question mark. If it’s right when I decide to write a third, my priority will always be to move forward with my work in French.”
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