Guide

Lidia Gualdoni - When and where did you meet Jane Austen for the first time? What did she show you, as a person and as a writer?

J. K. Fowler - I read Austen for the first time when I was about fourteen years old. I loved her for the romance. As I’ve gotten older and read her again (and again) I’m less convinced that she writes romances. She’s more complicated and darker than I originally thought. So that’s one thing she’s taught me as a writer — that there are ways to tell a story that allow for many interpretations without being obvious about it.

- Before they start your book, readers have to know all the Austen’s novels, or you wrote your book also to make readers curious about her and her novels?

I hope you can enjoy my book without knowing Austen. My book is a contemporary novel about contemporary people with contemporary problems. They just happen to love Austen. But if you are familiar with Austen’s work, I hope my novel has some special echoes and resonances for you.

- In your book, every character has his own opinion about Jane Austen, her novel and the reason of her modernity: which is yours?

No one loves Austen more than I do. But all the opinions of all my characters about Austen are really mine. Even when they contradict each other.

- Do you think a book can change your life? And if yes, how can it do that?

I know a book can change your life. You can find yourself in a book and you can lose yourself there, too. The marvelous nonfiction book of last year, Reading Lolita in Tehran, shows how important books can be when little is allowed in the real world and the imaginary world is the only freedom left.

- In your novel, Sylvia and Allegra talk about the possibility that characters have a secret life, that even the author doesn’t know. Does it happen to you?

Everyone has a secret life. Why would this not be true just because you’re imaginary?

- And about the happy ending: it seems that you love it, don’t you?

I do love happy endings, but I don’t love them if I don’t believe them. Too often a writer tacks on a happy ending by ignoring the seriousness of the characters’ problems, by pretending in easy solutions. To write a happy ending that doesn’t pretend life is easier than it is, is very hard! Believable happy endings tend to be temporary things. If the story went on longer, the happy ending (which wouldn’t be the ending any more) might unravel.

- In Italy, Book Clubs are not very popular: can you tell us some reasons to organise them?

This is what I love about book clubs: they take you to new places in your reading that you might not have found on your own; they take you out of your comfort zone. Sometimes you love the new books you read, sometimes you don’t, but it doesn’t matter so much, because you have a place to go and complain about them. I also love to hear how different books look to different people. It’s easy to forget how much the reader contributes to the book. Sometimes you can hardly believe they read the same book you read. This is especially important for writers to remember.