Q&A with Grace Dent
1) Inside your extrovert columnist persona, has there always been a novelist trying to burst out?
I've been writing for magazines and newspapers for years, but deep down, I always wanted desperately to write novels. This was for a few main reasons a) In books you can blether on for far longer than in a magazine piece… and believe me, I can really talk once I get going; plus b) I could hide away at home and not interact with lots of slave-driver editors. Oh and wear my pajamas more too. Like Ronnie Ripperton I always get stressed out thinking what to wear- so the laid-back dress code was deffo one of the main pulls of being a novelist; and c) I imagined that once you signed a book deal, the publisher came round with a big truck of money and life was immediately fabulous and filled with eternal happiness. Sadly, I'm still waiting for that truck, but I have splashed out on new pajamas. They're ace. Pink with stripes, from M+S (Marks and Spencer). Lovely.
2) Did your family encourage you in your writing career or did you carry on in spite of their endless putdowns and smart remarks?
Even today my dad still encourages me to get a 'proper job' like as an air hostess or a bank cashier. He called me last October when I was putting the finishing touches to LBD: It's A Girl Thing and asked me what I was up to. I said 'Ooh I'm exhausted Dad, I'm just finishing my book.' He said, 'Oh really love, why what are you reading?' Yes, he thought I meant I was lying on the sofa reading a novel. I said, with a withering tone, 'No Dad, I'm writing my book. I'm got a book deal with Puffin (UK) books? I'm being published in the US and eight other countries!!' 'Ooh are you still on with that author thing?, he said 'I thought that was just another one of your hair-brain ideas...' Gnnnnngn. My parents are both retired now, so they go on a lot of cruises. I have it on good authority from my mum that when he's had too many sherries he bores all the other passengers witless with tales of his daughter who is 'the next Charles Dickens.'
3) When you heard that Puffin (UK) were going to publish LBD, did you do anything weird/wild/unmentionable?
When I heard The LBD was being published, I hadn't actually written it. I'd only managed a few thousand words but they liked it so much they asked me to sign up to write three books. That was quite scary really, I had to psyche myself up for ages to believe I could actually keep going for another 60,000 words. Actually, getting a book-deal wasn't as much fun as I always fantasized it would be, I just felt a bit scared and overwhelmed. Things became much more fun when all the fuss died down and I could get down to writing. That's when you feel totally free. That's when you can get up late, putter about and do a bit of making stuff up for a living.
4) Writers, working by themselves at home or in a study can get away with the most disgusting personal habits. What is your really worst one?
Leaving old coffee cups, half drank glasses of orange juice and snottery tissues everywhere is pretty grim. And when I'm writing a complicated chapter I also tend to live for days on cheap tinned vegetable soup, crackers with marmite and mini-pickled onions. However, I think the most disgusting thing being an author makes me is totally anti-social. Friends call my flat 'The Putney Bunker' as I hide away in it and won't answer my phone as I'm having far too much fun with The LBD inside my head. That's pretty unattractive. And when my friends eventually speak to me, I say things like 'Ooh guess what Ronnie said to Fleur today?!' You have to be very understanding to be friends with an author.
5) Dish the dirt on LBD! Are Ronnie, Claude and Fleur based on real characters that you know or knew at school.
I think most people who know me and have read The LBD reckon Ronnie is very much like me- in the way she speaks and her outlook on life. Obviously, I never lived in a pub, or had a mum who was a chef, but I do tend to natter on in a daft way and have mad ideas. I also put myself down a bit and worm my way out of difficult situations with silly one-liners. When I was Ronnie's age I was equally as obsessed with boys and music too so I find it very easy to write as her…
Fleur is a culmination of all of my tall beautiful female friends. I'm only 5 foot 4 with brown hair, so when I was growing up I quickly realized how you can become quite literally invisible whilst kicking about with your tall blonde mate. I remember sobbing to my mam when I was 13 when the lad I fancied made his way over and asked my gorgeous blonde hugely boobed best mate for a snog at the school disco. I do love Fleur though, I have lots of fun making her so delightfully self-centered and vain. It can be tricky treading that thin line, keeping Fleur likeable as I always want to push her that little bit further and turn her into a complete nightmare.
I love the idea that we all have friends in our life that they get away with murder. And just when you're driven to distraction and want to tell them to get lost, then they'll do something to re-remind you how cool and special they are... and why they've been in your life for years.
Fleur Swan requires patience above and beyond the call of duty as a friend- but she's also a brilliant laugh and very loyal so they let her away with it. I still knock about in London with two girls that I was friends with since I was a little girl in Carlisle, so I suppose I'm proof that gangs like the LBD can last for years.
Claudette is the voice-of-reason in the LBD, she's very loosely based on two different girls I've been friends with whose families were from Ghana, although they were British by birth. I liked their juxtaposition of extreme naughtiness, but with a proper, traditional, religious upbringing, it always made me crack up. No matter how outrageously naughty Claudette is, she'll still be up at 8am the next day to do her Uncle Leonard's, who's got a poorly foot's, shopping.
