For the first time in 12 consecutive years, Guillaume Musso is not France’s most-read author of the year. He was overthrown by Mélissa Da Costa in 2023, for the simple reason that he did not publish a book that year.
Journalists always throw statistics around when writing about him. For example, the 21 novels he has written, 20 of which have been bestsellers, the 34 million books he has sold, and the 47 countries for which his work has been translated.
His latest, Quelqu’un d’autre (Calmann-Levy), published in March, is already on track to make 2023 an anomaly. The psychological thriller about a murder on the French Riviera has, yet again, topped the charts and captivated readers.
He admits to juggling 20 embryonic novel projects at the same time. Behind the stats lies a close relationship with readers (who often admit that he “joins them during their holidays”), but a more complicated relationship with critics. He is almost always snubbed by the Paris literary scene.
Behind the stories lies the strong influence of French and European crime, sci-fi and fantasy novelists, but also those across the Channel and the Atlantic.
Finally you were toppled off your throne! Do you feel a tiny bit sad?
(Laughs) I didn’t write a book in 2023 so how can I be sad? If Kylian Mbappé no longer plays for PSG, how can he be Ligue 1’s best striker? Seriously though, writing is not a car race or a boxing match. I’ve always wanted my novels to be read, but that’s not at the front of my mind when I write. In fact, I think I’ve been successful precisely because I’ve never tried to be.
I have only one method: write the novel that I would like to read.
You have always said that there is no recipe to your success. Why should we believe you?
Ad
I’ve been lucky enough to have readers who come with me through completely different genres of writing. I came to writing from reading. When I write, I am both the writer and the reader of the story. My thinking is that if it interests me, maybe it will interest others.
A large part of your job must be trying to give the reader what they want...
I have a passion for stories and fiction. Why do I like reading so much? Because when I was younger, it was a way of escaping my everyday life, to live lives other than my own. As Umberto Eco said, “He who does not read lives a single life; he who reads lives 500 or 5,000.” I want to tell stories that take me elsewhere. The novelist is never very far from the reader. If I can distract myself from reality then I’ve managed to do the same for my readers.
You have a very regimented routine. Can you put any of your writing success down to working 9-5?
This way of working came about because I wanted to organise my family, relationship and professional life. I never work from home because that’s an area reserved for the family.
It is also important to show that there is work and a schedule behind the creative process of writing. I have never liked the cliché of the writer struck by divine inspiration. It is precisely because I work that inspiration comes. It’s a real job. And it’s important to show that to children.
One of your readers, who happens to own a bookstore, said: “Guillaume Musso brings people into my shop who would otherwise never set foot in a bookstore.” Do you find that touching?
When you are read by so many different people, they do not read you for the same reasons.
A bestseller draws a variety of people, from the teenager who reads crime fiction to the French teacher who likes the quotes at the beginning of the book. You bring together many people, including those who don’t read much. That is gratifying. Of course it is.
Your typical reader has changed over the years. In a 2009 interview you mentioned a Korean college student and a German trucker…
It remains true. I noticed when I visited South Korea that my readers there are still very young.
What do you know about your English-speaking readers? It is often said that you are read more by women. Is that still the case?
Novels in France, all of them, are read more by women, but that doesn’t mean that men don’t read.
In England and the United States mainly, it’s the sophistication of the novels that comes through. My novels are quite hybrid. They are at the crossroads of several genres.
My originality comes from blurring the boundaries of defined genres. I mix crime, psychological thriller and a bit of fantasy.
I build plots around cultural and social issues, whereas Harlan Coben or Mary Higgins Clark’s novels are more concerned with plot. On the whole, my American and British readers seem to enjoy my latest genre, the psychological thriller.
It took me a week to find one of your readers, as if reading your novels was something to be ashamed of. One even told me she felt judged by others while reading your book on a beach. How do you explain this?
I have never encountered that before. That reader should be more assertive about her choices. There are maybe three streets in Paris, near Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where there is snobbery. The people I meet in France have never mentioned this to me.
Paris Match asked you in 2009: “Does it hurt you when people say your books are not literature?” You said: “I take France with its system of values as it is.” What are they?
What I have just told you. That there can be a certain snobbery in Saint-Germain-des-Prés is neither new nor surprising. So what? It’s not news to you either!
No, but I find it interesting that a minority has such an impact on your readership…
I gave you my answer. I write novels and take pleasure in writing them. The way they are received by critics in three streets of Paris does not interest me. I have been doing this for 20 years. This is old news.
Is a bestseller all about a good story?
His latest book 'Quelqu'un d'autre' (Somebody else)Calmann-Levy
I do not know. Some are based on other ingredients. We are the only species to ask for stories. Look at children when they go to bed. What do they ask for? Stories. Because they want to be scared or taken somewhere else.
I also care about dramatisation – the mechanics behind storytelling. There has always been a desire to build a good story – that’s the skeleton. But a novel isn’t just mechanics, it’s also flesh.
The flesh is the writing, the rhythm, the style, the way the elements are put together to bring out the emotions. The author and screenwriter Pierre Lemaitre says that writing a novel is about appealing to the intellect through the emotions. A novel is first and foremost about emotion.
Your favourite novel is Jane Eyre and your favourite author Patricia Highsmith. You consider Agatha Christie to be ‘the queen of the thriller’ and your childhood was spent reading Stephen King. Are English-speaking novelists better storytellers?
Let’s just say that 19th-century sagas were mostly written by French writers, namely Victor Hugo or Alexandre Dumas. There were times when French literature did not focus on stories. We had the Nouveau roman genre in the 70s for instance, a sort of Noir that was socially and politically charged.
There has been, similarly, a tradition for storytelling in English-speaking countries that, as you mentioned, sparked my imagination when I was about 20.
You used the English word ‘storytelling’. Have you ever wondered about its connection to the UK or the US? Is it the language, the culture, or its relationship to history or religion?
It is all about the emotions for me.
You have mentioned all these English and American authors but there is a French counterpart for all of them. Belgian writer Georges Simenon is the other writer who influenced me the most.
I am more touched by emotions than by the conciseness of language or the cultural values of one country. The emotions that moved me the most as an adolescent were the most basic – love and fear.
And do both cultural and emotional influences still guide your reading?
I was raised by an open-minded and curious family where my mother, a librarian, would make me read Marcel Pagnol, Stephen King, Marcel Proust or Honoré de Balzac.
Culture was always seen as a pleasure, a source of richness. That’s what I try to pass on to my children.
Culture, in the broadest sense of the word, has always brought me a great deal of comfort. I’m grateful to my parents for having given this to me. It is a mighty force in our modern world.
A school in Antibes, where you were born, was named after you last year. You said: “It is worth every prize”. Were you being sarcastic?
No. I was being sincere. It is where my parents live, and in a place where from the age of 16 I cleaned the beaches of Juan-les-Pins and to which I always brought a novel. To see that 30 years later, just 50 metres from where I worked, a school has been named after me is powerful, unexpected, symbolic and joyful.
Was it curiosity that made you travel to New York at 19? Many of your stories are set there...
I was an economics student in New York. There was this desire to get as close as I could to what the American model was about, to see it for myself. It was 1993, the Berlin wall had fallen. For four months I sold ice creams alongside Eastern European workers who were pursuing the American dream. It was very educational.
It is true that many of my novels are set in New York, less often over the last ten years. Maybe because I go infrequently to the United States since becoming a father. Maybe also because I don’t understand the country as much now.
Your next novel will be a tribute to Agatha Christie. Is it still at the front of your mind?
The idea would be to write a ‘whodunnit’ sort of story as a tribute to Agatha Christie, but in a modern way. I think I was a bit presumptuous when I announced it. It’s turning out to be harder than I expected. Despite that, I still definitely want to do it.
Read more: ‘Offensive’ parts of Agatha Christie novels in French to be changed
There’s always a balance between desire and the ability to write, which is linked to what happens in your life. A good novel is like a love story where you find the right person at the right time. A good novel is a good story, but it’s also a good moment in your life.
Does this mean we should anticipate your unexpected disappearance in the next few months, similar to what happened to Agatha Christie?
People see me for one month every year, when I’m on tour for my latest book. After that I return to my lair and to my writing rituals.
