Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Readalikes
Claire Messud is a recipient of Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Author of six works of fiction including her most recent novel, The Burning Girl, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her family.
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Q: In The Emperor's Children, the introduction of a few outsiders into the
world of the main characters drastically alters the lives of everyone. What were
their lives like before the appearance of Bootie and Ludovic Seeley on the
scene?
Well, Marina had been living at home for the better part of a year, trying to
get her book finished; and Julius and Danielle were living pretty much as they
had done for some time, each in their apartment. But the three of them spent a
lot of time together – more time than they do once the book is underway -- in
the way very close, old friends do when they are single and childless.
Q: The first chapter is called "Our Chef is Very Famous in London", which
gets to the heart of things that a reputation one place may not carry to
another. What made you decide to start the book with that?
Danielle – like Marina and Julius also, albeit in slightly different ways –
is very much a New Yorker. Her whole sense of the world, post-college, has been
focused entirely on New York. I wanted to begin the novel in a rare moment, for
her, in which she has some perspective on her own life, some sense of its
provincialism. All our lives are provincial, no ...
Chloe Aridjis was born in New York and grew up in the Netherlands and Mexico. She received her PhD in nineteenth-century French poetry and magic shows from Oxford, then lived in Berlin for five years. Her first novel, Book of... (more)
If you enjoyed:
The Woman Upstairs
Try:
Asunder
by Chloe Aridjis
Sarah Blake is an American writer. Her debut novel Grange House, set in Victorian era Maine, was published in 2001. Her second, The Postmistress, a story set in Second World War Massachusetts and London, was published in 2010... (more)
If you enjoyed:
The Emperor's Children
Try:
The Guest Book
by Sarah Blake
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