Guillaume Musso has been the most read author in France for eleven years. It is translated into 45 languages. With his 20th novel, Angelic (Calmann-Levy), published on September 20, the novelist climbed to the top of the sales chart before being overtaken… by himself with the paperback version of The stranger of the seine. Launched this Monday on France 2, the event miniseries The Girl and the Nightadaptation of new campus eponymous sold more than 2 million copies worldwide, is the first television adaptation of one of his works. Meet the phenomenally successful novelist.
Can you present the novel “The Girl and the Night”?
When I pitched the novel to my editor, I told her I wanted to do ” Twin Peaks in the country of Pagnol”, something choral in a microsociety, a high school in the south of France, with a missing girl who fascinates everyone. My first reference was the movie Laura by Otto Preminger, where everyone talks about Laura, who is dead, and everyone tells their truth about her. There, everyone tells their truth about Vinca. I also assume that of David Lynch.
How did this adaptation project come about?
I spend my time refusing adaptations. Every time one of my books comes out, I get about thirty requests, but often for the wrong reasons. Producers want to buy the No. 1 selling book, without artistic vision. The basis is the meeting with Sydney Gallonde [le producteur de la minisérie]. He offered to adapt one of my novels before going to see Harlan Coben. It didn’t happen, but we became friends. I had always said to myself that I would like to do the first series adapted from one of my novels with him. Sydney has read all my books. We thought for a long time which one to adapt and why to do it? From the time there was this novel, The Girl and the Nightwe thought it was time.
And why this novel in particular?
This novel is a suspense over two periods, with constant round trips between today and twenty-five years ago. This novel takes place where I grew up, in the south-east of France. It opened the door to memories of adolescence. This book has found a very wide, intergenerational audience, in very different territories. There is a very universal side to this story that is both local and international. The school is inspired by the international center of Valbonne where I taught. I wanted us to shoot there. Everything was in place for it to make sense.
How did you collaborate on this adaptation?
Sydney offered me to write the series, but I’m not a screenwriter. I am a novelist, I love the form of the novel and I was not ready to take the plunge. For two years, we spoke every two days with Sydney: he sent me the texts, we collaborated on the choice of actors, broadcasters, etc.
Don’t we feel dispossessed when his novel is brought to the screen?
The idea was to respect the spirit. And after and Will you be There ?, two of my novels have already been adapted for the cinema. I’m not an interventionist novelist in the sense that I don’t feel like the guardian of the temple. I don’t want my adaptations to be simple images, but I’m quite curious to see what another creator can do with my novel. The spirit and roughness of the novel have been respected, it’s mission accomplished. The rest are details. I’m sure readers will be pretty happy.
What is the spirit of the work “The Young Girl and the Night”?
It’s a novel about the complexity that we all carry within us: the desires, the ambiguities, the ambitions, the torments, the resentment, the impression of not being in one’s place, that of having passed by his life and the question: “Is there room for maneuver after a certain age”. This is the heart of the novel. I try to understand and not judge my characters. The series captures that well. We pose the characters and we understand why everyone had a good reason to behave as they did. It echoes the book and it is successful.
In your opinion, what were the main challenges for the screenwriter?
This is a novel told in the first person, it was necessary to find a choral side to the narration.
Did you put a little of yourself in this writer who leads the investigation?
Yes. I’ve always thought that writing a novel is about investigating yourself. You learn a lot about yourself. It is a very personal novel without being autobiographical. I have never killed anyone… The detective story is pure fiction. But there are a number of questions, problems, feelings that echo the student that I was able to be. It was innovative in my writing to accept this personal part in my novels.
How does it feel to see your characters embodied on screen?
I participated in the choice of actors, the consistency of the interpretation, the universe, the sets. So I was perfectly at ease. I found the characters I had in mind.
People consume more and more fiction, is it more difficult to write for an increasingly informed readership?
Clearly! I consider myself in competition with series and platforms. I want that when one of my novels comes out, that the reader wants to find my novel rather than connecting to Netflix or other. After that, it is also challenging. People are more open to complex forms of storytelling. The Girl and the Night takes place over two eras, and it’s very fluid to go from one to the other. Twenty years ago, it might have been more complicated for a whole bunch of spectators. Today, all this is commonplace, because many series do it. Since there are good series, you can sometimes be jealous of an idea. It makes you want to put constraints on yourself to try to surprise. I like this idea of emulation in the dramaturgy, the way of telling stories.
Do the series feed your creativity?
Everything makes flour in my mill. Everything feeds me: my experience of fiction, books, films, series… The gestation of a book is always slow and lasts several years. It’s still very fragile. Angelic is my 20th book, and just because you’ve written 19 before that doesn’t mean you’ll know how to write the 20th. It is often said: “There are three main rules for writing a novel, unfortunately, nobody knows them”. There are methods, skills, but no rules. A successful novel is like a successful love story. A successful love story is when you meet the right person at the right time. A successful novel is when you have a good story and you are at a point in your life where you are able to tell it in a fair, relevant and innovative way.
You don’t want to write a screenplay like Frank Thilliez or Marc Levi?
The urge is there. Afterwards, you have to have a good reason to do it, find the right project, and the right partner. That takes time. Requests abound. My criteria is: “Do I want to watch this as a viewer? If it’s no, there’s no point in doing one more series. I don’t need this to live.
What is the intention of your new novel “Angélique”?
I wanted to start with a very ambiguous, troubled character. I’m a big reader of Patricia Highsmith. She knew very well how to stage these villains that we love to hate like Mr. Ripley. I’ve always wanted to dare to do that. There is a part of transgression when you get into Angélique’s head, and you tell it in the first person. You are taking a risk, you have to find that voice. I also wanted to assume a strong dramatic irony, namely an asymmetry of information between what the reader knows and the character. As in an episode of Columbo, the reader learns more things very quickly than the character. How to keep a very strong suspense, with this constraint? I strongly believe in creative constraint. At the end of 20 books, we launch more and more complicated challenges. This is what provides the excitement and the desire to open your computer in the morning.
Your British editor believes that your uniqueness comes from the fact that your readers have the impression of solving the enigma themselves…
I really care about this immersive literature. I try to take care of the details of the atmosphere. Simenon said: “Instead of saying: ‘It’s raining’, say: ‘I’m wet'”. When I write, by small touch, I try to bring the reader in a kind, not of metaverse, but of fictional reality, which will make as if you were in a book of which you are the hero. It’s a legacy of Hitchcock. I write my characters as Hitchcock films his, at the height of men.
Tell us about your creative process…
As a teenager, I discovered Kieślowski. He found filming tedious. The real creation, the exciting moment, was in front of the editing table. Same for me. Writing the first draft is painful, long, hard work. The creative work comes when I have 500 pages and, like a director, I do my editing. I wrote 4 versions of the end of Angélique. Then I wonder which one works best. When you make this decision, it forces you to go back, to rewrite scenes. As with a Lego game, we move the bricks and at some point, we have the castle built! We are happy to have reached the end and that the foundations are holding up.
Raymond-Chandler Prize in Italy, “The French master of suspense” according to the New York Times. How do you explain that in France part of the criticism and the literary prizes snub you?
I don’t analyze it. I have the chance to occupy today the place of which I dreamed at 15 years old. At 15, I read Pagnol, Barjavel, Stephen King, I wanted to tell stories and I dreamed that readers were waiting for them. I occupy this place! I meet a lot of young people who want to write, none of them say to me: “I want to write to get a prize”. For me, there is zero problem. I love being where I am, I’m happy like that. I never dreamed of awards or rave reviews in scholarly journals. It’s very good that all this exists, but it’s quite foreign to me. I will not trade my position for another.
“Angélique” is your 20th novel, how do you see the evolution of your career as a writer?
I was lucky that readers follow me in very different genres. My first novels were supernatural novels, there was a time a little more thriller, and now it’s more intimate novels, let’s say, psychological suspense novels. This is what interests me at the moment T, at 48 years old. I was lucky enough to keep readers, and to see many more arrive, especially at the time of confinement: I received many messages from young people, confined to their parents, who discovered me in the family library. I made a junction between several generations. This delighted and amazed me. As I grow older, having the impression of writing somewhat tortured and dark books, I sometimes wonder if there is not a misunderstanding. When the thing lasts, we say to ourselves that there is a need for novels that are pleasant to read, playful, but which stir up slightly darker themes. I spoke about this with Pierre Lemaître, because we have the same vision: we are proud that our novels attract readers who read us for different reasons. A purchased book is read by three or four people, my books circulate. In our fractured society, there are few cultural products that bring people together. That a concert, a football match unites, I find that beautiful. I am happy to bring my stone to this building.
What challenges do you want to take up in the future?
You can never know. Each time, I have the impression of arriving perhaps at the last book. I always have a hard time getting back to it. A new book is to find yourself barefoot in front of the Himalayas! I have no career plan, things just happen. This uncertainty is the beauty and the excitement of this artistic activity.