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09-03-2006 A Chat with Cara Black

By Scott Jones

A Chat with Cara Black

Intro: Cara Black is the creator of Parisian investigator Aimée Leduc, a tough and charming specialist in corporate security whose cases in various neighborhoods in Paris uncover fascinating aspects of both the city’s history and Aimée’s complex past. Her books have been praised by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, The NY Times, and the Macavity and Anthony Awards, among others. Her seventh book in the series, Murder on Ile Saint-Louis, is due in March, 2007 from Soho Press.

Scott: Thanks for joining me today, Cara. One of the things I like most about your books is that they take place in parts of Paris that many tourists don't know about: Belleville, the Sentier, Clichy, to name a few. Do you go to a part of Paris that interests you and try to find a story to tell there, or do let the story determine which part of the city becomes the setting?

Cara: The place needs to speak to me, so in a sense I think you hit the nail on the head when you asked if I go to a quartier in Paris that interests me and find a story. Finding the place works in mysterious ways sometimes. I discovered the Sentier district by pure chance: I'd missed the bus and ended up walking. All of a sudden I was in a district of dilapidated mansions, their courtyards filled with sweatshops, the upper floors taken over by software start ups, and the streets were lined with hookers. Further on was Les Halles, once the produce market, now a 70's shopping blight, and the St. Eustache cathedral. But what really intrigued me were these narrow hilly streets, unusual for Paris, which I discovered were built over 17th century walls and even before that medieval landfill (refuse city dwellers threw over the royal walls). I just loved the mix of new and ancient, and started thinking what if Aimée...

Scott: Once you have that idea for the story and start developing it, do you research more about the neighborhood to see how its history and its present might shape the crime Aimée gets involved in? If so, how closely do you stick to what you learn, and how often do you find that you need to ‘adjust’ the facts a bit to allow the story to grow in the direction you want to take it?

Cara: Researching the neighborhood is the best part of my job, Scott. I get to pound the cobblestones, talk to electricians, a waiter in a cafe and old ladies sitting in the park. Often I visit the quartier's historic associations, interview a policeman or policewoman and take them to lunch and otherwise become a sponge trying to soak up as much as I can. Once I get a sense of the quartier and its historical background, I set about weaving the details in the story. Often it's a jumping off point for Aimée, for example a place where she'd investigate or look for witnesses to a crime. In the new book, Murder on Ile Saint-Louis which comes out next March, I spent a lot of time on Ile Saint-Louis talking to the cheese seller who knew the island gossip and the second hand store owner who now sadly has sold his shop. One afternoon, I bought a coffee for a homeless woman who was in the local café-tabac and she offered to show me where she lived under the Pont Louis Phillipe bridge. This was November and it was freezing but she told me all about how the homeless survive during the winter which was heartrending and ended up in the book.

Scott: Have you ever had the chance to meet any of these people again and show him or her the finished book? If so, what was that experience like?

Cara: Some of the characters are composites, their stories and pasts weaved from a chance conversation or a person on a long bus ride that I watched (of course, I'd taken the bus in the wrong direction and had ample opportunity to observe!) But Murder in the Marais, my first book, came from the story I'd heard of my friend's mother who was a hidden Jewish girl during the German Occupation during WW2. The strange thing was my friend and I lost contact for years and when I began to write the story I couldn't find her. So it gave me a license to fictionalize parts of the story. When I found my friend years later after the book was written and published (via a detective friend who found her) she was amazed that I'd used her mother's story. She had trepidations but after she read it, she said she wanted to tell her mother about it and her mother actually liked the story that came out of her experiences. I've met her and she's been very kind and seems to have no problem that I fictionalized events.

Scott: That must have been gratifying. On your website there’s a picture of you speaking at Brentano's—how many of your French readers do you get to meet, and what do they say about your books and your depiction of Paris?

Cara: It's been an experience to read and talk at bookstores and events in Paris. Mostly my readers come from the large English speaking community who frequent English language bookstores; The Red Wheelbarrow, Shakespeare and Co, Brentano's, WHSmith and members of the American Library, the British Women's Commonwealth book group (very British, I'll have you know). The French readers I've met all seem to like Aimée and find her au courant, as they say. Several French readers were surprised that I wrote about the Sentier district, the wholesale garment area, and said it opened their eyes since they didn't know it well or at all. I didn't know about the Sentier or its historic roots and associations until I delved into research and found great details, ie., where Mozart lived as a young prodigy now was the Yahoo Europe headquarters, the old mansion of Madame de Pompadour had been carved into offices for startup software companies and its basements garment sweatshops where Turkish and Africans worked. I love that overlay of history and time. Often, a reader comes up to me and has a great story to tell about their grandfather's experiences in the war, or how the building they live in belonged to a count's family etc. It's fantastic when that happens. I feel so lucky and privileged when they share their stories and I get to hear another story of the many stories of Paris. I still pinch myself sometimes and thank my lucky stars that I can go to Paris, find stories and write about them.

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