There’s a lot of moral ambiguity in what comes next, but…can we really blame Florence? Was it easy to sympathize with your main character when writing her–or did you struggle with this dilemma as readers surely will?ĪA: By the end of the book, Florence has crossed a line that I think (or hope!) few of my readers would cross.
NS: A recurring question for readers throughout WHO IS MAUD DIXON? is: What would you do in Florence’s position? Florence gets an opportunity to imitate an anonymous best-selling author who is living the life of her dreams before she goes missing. I don’t think anyone should use Maud Dixon as a model for how to live, but she does remind us of how liberating it can be to stop caring what other people think of you. I’m someone who spends a lot of time worrying about being polite, and it was a kind of catharsis (and just plain fun!) to write about someone who cares nothing for social niceties. But Maud’s personality-arrogant, ruthless, unapologetic-was my own creation. I was fascinated by the global obsession with her identity, which reached a pitch after her Neapolitan novels were published. Who did you draw inspiration from when formulating this character? Was it from one major place or a cumulation of people and ideas?ĪA: Perhaps not surprisingly, it was Elena Ferrante who sparked the original idea for Maud Dixon.
NS: In an interview you described Helen, the Maud Dixon herself, as “a more extreme version of a lot of the sharp, ambitious women” you’ve worked with.
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