Jojo Moyes Meet the Author

Now it's time for Meet the Author.

There is something about Louisa

Clarke, Lou, that has turned the

novels of Jojo Moyes into

international bestsellers. She's a

heroine whose life appeals to

readers who do not want to let her

go. Now after me before you and

after you, Kums Still Me, in which

Lou fetches up in New York in a

different worlds, as personal

assistant to a socialite whose rich

family holds out a few secrets. What

will happen to Lou's old boyfriend,

paramedic Sam, when she meets and

falls for an American who bears a

spooky resemblance to an old flame

she knew before Sam? If you are a

reader who follows blue, you will

want to know. Welcome.

What do you think it is about Lou

that makes us such a compelling

character for your readers?

I think

she's every woman, the fact she is

on the surface such an ordinary

person makes a very easy for a wide

variety of people to identify with,

but she also has an inherent

goodness. Not necessarily a

niceness, because she can be sharp.

But there is no us narked to her and

in an age of snarkiness, people find

that refreshing.

In this book she is

transported to a new job in New

York, and she finds herself in a

family, a slightly weird family, of

course, because that's what stories

are made of, and she is thrown into

the social world of very rich New

York life. Of course, it squarely

completely beyond her experience.

Part of the joy of having a

character you can revisit is to put

them in an alien landscape. There's

not much more alien than the fifth

Ave social world. Something I found

interesting about Louisa's position

is that when you enter the world of

the very rich or the super-rich,

they are people who have become

accustomed to having people living

around them, they are observed at

all times yet they have to live as

if they are not. There is that

inherent tension between the people

who are serving them and the people

who are living, that I find really

interesting.

Without going into

details, I don't want to spoil the

plot for those who will enjoy

reading the book, but it all comes

unstuck for her in a pretty to

refine way. It's sort of put back

together again which fulfils your

reassuring criteria, but I like the

description of the Everywoman,

because you do sense that this is

somebody who is going through

something we can all imagine. We can

feel what it's like for her.

Exactly, when I might Louisa I try

to really put the reader into her

shoes. You feel things as she feels

them, it's almost like, I don't

know, inhabiting somebody's skin in

that's quite different if you are

writing in third person. I found it

very easy to pull people along with

Louisa.

We are inside Louisa, Lou,

her love life is a bit of a mess in

this situation, in New York. Sam on

the paramedic, who is her man back

in London, he turns up. That's all

very nice but she has an encounter

with someone who reminds of another

man.

I don't think it's too much of

a spoiler to say Josh reminds her of

will, but when I speak to people you

have lost someone, they see them

everywhere. That can be quite

discombobulated, because I think you

don't just see them in the street,

you project onto them, and I think

that is something that happens a bit

in this book.

Do you ever find

yourself getting a bit fed up of

her? This is the third outing,

clearly she's very successful so you

are fond of her in that sense, but

do you everything, oh, I must think

of something else for her to do?

That's it, this is the third book,

from the day I was writing but two I

saw it as a trilogy, a horseshoe

shaped trilogy. So that is it. I

actually felt really sad to let her

go because you know what it's like,

some characters come to life

immediately, others you can write

off a book and still not be entirely

sure who they are and that can be

really frustrating because they

don't lift off the page in the right

way. With Lou, as with well in the

first book, they landed fully formed

in my lap. I knew what their

responses would be in any situation

and that made it an easy thing to

write.

It's a great gift for an

author to have that sense of the

character, fully formed. How did

that come about? What was it about

her that allowed you to have that

clear idea of how she would respond

to any challenge?

It was quite

bizarre, I sometimes have scenes

into my head and it was the scene in

the first book where they are

dancing at a wedding and she is

sitting on his lap, a man in a

motorised wheelchair, she slow

dances with him at a wedding to the

appalled fascination of the other

guests, and he says to her, because

she's sort of year, you would have

never let those breasts so close to

me if I hadn't been in a wheelchair,

and you said you would not have

noticed my breasts if you were not

in a wheelchair. And in that moment

I knew who they both were and how

well they understood each other.

It's interesting that you describe

that seem almost in filmic terms.

Are you one of those writers who

almost imagines in a way that you

are behind a camera, which is moving

and picking up scenes?

Absolutely. I

had to play a seen through filmic

Lee in my head to see if it will

work. I lie on the floor of my

office and run through lots of

different varieties.

There are

writers who, and is quite difficult

to understand this, but you don't

see it in that way, don't see it

like a stage with people walking in

and off and the camera moving. But

they have some sort of different

mental process. It's quite a

difficult thing to grasp.

I'm always

fascinated by how other writers do

it because you just never know. I

don't understand writers who don't

plot, I can't imagine the fear of

stepping off into the unknown and

not knowing roughly way your

characters will land.

Some writers

say they are terrified by the idea

of having it all written out, with

the Ark of the story or whatever,

cliche we choose to apply. They must

set off on the white ocean and see

where the boat ends up. You can't do

that?

I have a rough idea. Four

times out of five, it will deviate

quite significantly.

You will invent

things as you go.

Characters run

away with the plot and all the rest,

but I have to have a rough idea of

theme if nothing else. My constant

question to myself is, what is the

story really about?

I'm sure if

there were a group of readers here,

they would say to you, if they were

keen on the books and had enjoyed

them, they would say, why are you

taking her away and they would ask

you the inevitable question authors

are doomed to answer, what happens

to her afterwards?

I quite like the

idea that that might be in the

reader 's imagination. Me before you

was an odd book because it was

peculiarly open ended, we ended up

with her walking away in a street in

Paris, and I found I kept asking

myself the question, what would

happen to you after being part of

such a catastrophic life changing

event? If you were part of somebody

ending their life, you could not

walk away from that with a bouncing

off stride. Even if you thought you

were OK, it would come back with a

terrible kind of profound resonance

in your life. The question, that was

really the question. What happens

next? But I feel like she's done

now. I don't want people to think

I'm flogging a stripey legged dead

horse, so I might revisit her in a

short story one day.

Our!

But as

novels go, that's it.

Readers are

free to imagine she lives more or

less happily ever after.

I think

they will have to read the book and

the side.

Jojo Moyes, author of

Still Me, thank you very much.