Exclusive interview with author Claire King on her new novel about what happiness means
Review by Gabrielle Pantera
“When I first started writing this novel I’d been living in France for ten years or so,” says Everything Love Is author Claire King. “I was living a life that I would definitely describe as happy, but also unconventional. At the time I was working in and around Toulouse, a wonderful city in a beautiful setting, just north of the Pyrenees, but one that is often a hotbed of protests and cultural clashes. I guess the combination of these things, and having two young daughters whose happiness obviously concerns me, led me explore the notion of happiness…what it is and the choices we make when we try to find it.”
The story shows all the sides of love…the fun, the happy, the messy and the sad parts of love as it impacts people. As may be hoped, there is a happy ending to the book. The pacing of the story gets faster as it moves forward. Sometimes it’s confusing as to who is talking. A wish is the lead character could be more vulnerable, more sympathetic to the reader.
Baptiste Molino is a man living on a houseboat on the Canal de Midi. His past is a bit of a mystery. He doesn’t know who his birth mother was. All he has from her is a statue and a violin. Tattooed on her arm was one word, but we don’t know what the word was. He’s devoted his life to making others happy since he can’t be happy himself. He’s afraid if he tries to be happy something will ruin it. So why tempt fate? Sophie, a young waitress at the bar he frequents, wants to help him. As he uncovers clues about his mother, he realizes he has a choice to make.
“As I wrote, it became clear that this story couldn’t be told without love being brought into the equation,” says King. “Love and happiness are often inextricably linked…not just romantic love, but familial love, and love between friends. So in the end Everything Love Is became a grown-up love story. And, a meditation on happiness.”
King was inspired by landscapes, cityscapes, people-watching, her own emotional response to events. “I can’t pin down a single inspiration for the book,” says King. “Although, I must say that I finally decided this was the story I wanted to write after having re-read Voltaire’s Candide. There’s a nod to this in the novel, in the naming of Baptiste’s houseboat.”
To research the topic of love, King interviewed many people. “It was extremely important to me that I handled the topic delicately and with respect, so I spent a lot of time getting under the skin of people with first hand experience of the subject and understanding their experiences as best I could. I can’t say too much without giving away spoilers, but suffice to say that this novel touches on subjects that will be sensitive to many of my readers.”
King’s first novel, The Night Rainbow, published by Bloomsbury 2013, was a favorite with book clubs. “I’m told that there are common threads and themes in the two books,” says King, “not least hope and the tenacity of the human spirit.”
King writes short stories, with many listed for prizes. “The one closest to my heart is Wine at Breakfast, which is a story set in Kiev around the time of the Chernobyl explosion in 1986 and based on a true story.”
King is currently writing a novel set in Yorkshire, England.
King was born in South Yorkshire and spent fourteen years in France. She relocated this year to Stroud, in Gloucestershire.
Everything Love Is by Claire King. Hardcover, 384 pages, Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (December 6, 2016), Language: English, ISBN: 9781632865380 $27.00
