Interview with Gini Anding, Author of Witness by the Church

Gini Anding was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Haddonfield, New Jersey. She majored in French at the College of William and Mary and also received a Fulbright Fellowship to study in France. She has taught at William and Mary, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and the University of Kentucky. Today she divides her time between Middleton, Wisconsin and St. Augustine, Florida.
Tyler: Thank you, Gini, for joining me today. To begin, will you tell us a little about your main characters, Amy and Jean-Michel, and their relationship?
Gini: Amy Page is a well-to-do widow from SC with two grown children. Spending time in Paris on her own, she discovers that she is free to become her own person, someone defined by her own acts and interests. A food writer and Francophile, she revels in daily life on the Ile St-Louis in the center of Paris. Jean-Michel Jolivet is a wealthy member of the French aristocracy, a handsome man-about-town, who has set aside his training as a lawyer to work with the Sûreté, the French government agency similar to the American CIA. The two meet by chance when Amy finds herself involved in a murder and an international ring of jewel thieves. The love affair between Amy and Jean-Michel develops throughout the investigation and continues to grow in the succeeding novels.
Tyler: What about the characters do you think appeals to readers?
Gini: The two main characters are 3-dimensional, with pasts, presents, and a future. Their passion for each other is countered by soul-searching. While Amy thrives on her voyage of self-discovery, Jean-Michel has commitment issues. Amy's enthusiasm for French history and culture in combination with her involvement in the social complexities of life in modern-day Paris provide the reader with insights into the French personality. The secondary characters represent all socio-economic backgrounds, with various interests and pursuits: antique dealer, art critic, chef, grocer, housekeeper, bar owner, toothpaste magnate, computer expert, rehabilitated criminals, police inspector, beautician, theater director, doctor, hotel owner. Like the protagonists, they also undergo change and cope with challenges. The rich tapestry of characters heightens the underlying contrasts between Amy and Jean-Michel. She is intuitive, while he is logical; she constantly digresses, while he is objective and goes straight to the point; she revels in the absurd and he finds it a source of annoyance, if not anguish. As Amy and Jean-Michael's personality differences serve to heighten the romantic tension between them, so do the secondary characters add to the reader's understanding of their complex world and the complications that often engulf them.
Tyler: "Witness by the Church" is the fourth book in your series. Will you tell us about the three previous books? Do you recommend people read the first three books before they read the fourth?
Gini: I think that each of my four Witness novels stands on its own and the series may be read in any order. However, there are carryovers from one novel to the next. The main characters, their close friends, family members, and the residents of the Ile St-Louis reappear from novel to novel, as does the romance between the two principals. From that point of view, the novels are probably more enjoyable when read in order. Each novel lists the cast of characters and the fourth novel, "Witness by the Church," has an appendix that outlines the family trees of the three main families.
Tyler: The story of "Witness by the Church" begins when Amy begins experiencing some mishaps. What are these mishaps and how do they trigger the events in the story?
Gini: Amy is always involved in a major criminal investigation (jewels, drugs, lost gold, a terrorist conspiracy), but it comes about by chance. She is the unwitting witness, who, unbeknownst to her, holds a vital clue. It is her presence at a particular event and her subsequent recall of a crucial piece of information that leads to the solution. Unlike heroines of the traditional mystery genre, she is not an amateur sleuth and she never sets out to help the police. While she may find herself in great danger at times, she never solves a crime or mystery and usually isn't even present for the final unraveling of the plot. For that reason, the solution or resolution of the puzzle takes place off-stage, so to speak. In one novel, she learns the outcome from the newspaper. Jean-Michel and his private team of investigators work with the police in the unraveling of the crime.
While Amy is the primary witness to the crime or mystery at hand in each novel, she also serves as the reader's witness to certain cultural, historical, geographic, and culinary particulars and events, as does Jean-Michel. Many of the secondary characters also bear witness to the world around them: modern art, the Basque heritage, the history of the Templars, problems of running a restaurant, seventeenth-century architecture, the educational and judicial systems. Each novel has actual witnesses to a certain act, but it is Amy who discovers after the fact that she is the most important witness to that act. In yet another sense, the cover photo of each novel is also a means of forcing the reader to witness first-hand some aspect of the Ile St-Louis, for the setting is real; the author's note at the beginning of each novel reinforces the concept of witness, for it is testimony to the actuality of the scene.
Tyler: All your Witness novels take place in Paris. What about Paris has made you choose to use it continually as a setting for your stories?
Gini: All writers learn that it is best to write what you know. I know Paris and the Ile St-Louis well; I've lived there and I continue to visit there every year. The studio apartment on the Quai de Béthune is based on two apartments in which I've lived; the hotel is drawn from my favorite one, as is the restaurant Chez Ma Tante. I do want to point out, however, that the settings of my novels are not limited to Paris. They also have chapters that take place in Hawaii, South Carolina, Malta, places I have visited and explored. All my settings are authentic. The only fictional place is the town of Bourdonville, which is based entirely on a town in southern Burgundy; I merely changed the name, but not the details of its geography and history. In fact, everything in my novels is meticulously researched and documented. A reader can quite literally use my novels as a guidebook. In one sense, one could even go so far as to say that the Ile St-Louis is a major character in my fictional universe. The ATM machine is indeed on that specific corner, along with the post office and the pharmacy.
Tyler: Gini, do you have readers who are actually familiar with the geography of the Ile St-Louis? If so, what is their response to your using their territory as your setting?
Gini: Readers who know Paris well, especially natives who read English, are delighted with my use of the Ile St-Louis. Others who have been once or twice and are planning a return visit write that walking that area is at the top of their list of things to do. Some who've never been tell me that they feel as though they have and hope to go one day. I might also mention that the deputy to the Mayor of Paris has written me a note of appreciation.
Tyler: How do you decide what other locations to use? Do you decide you want to use Hawaii and then go visit it, or does visiting it later inspire you to include it? Do you pick locations you feel will be exotic or appealing to readers, or just useful to the plot?
Gini: I use what I know and places I have enjoyed visiting. I must confess that I never think of Hawaii and Malta as exotic. I would never use a setting or place that I didn't know firsthand.
Tyler: You actually have long been a student of France. Will you tell us a little bit about your academic work, ranging from writing about France to being decorated by the French government? How did you first become so interested in France?
Gini: As a child, I was fascinated by the discovery that not everyone speaks English. My fascination with foreign languages was supported in high school by courses in Latin, French, and Spanish. As an undergraduate at the College of William & Mary, I majored in French and minored in both Spanish and German, in addition to studying ancient Greek. Upon graduation, I was fortunate to earn a Fulbright grant to study in France and from there on my path was set. I earned my PhD in Romance Languages at the University of Pennsylvania and had a full career as a professor of French language, literature, and culture. My academic specialty was contemporary poetry, with a subspecialty on the interrelationship between plastic art and the written word. I publish my novels under my maiden name in order to separate this career from my academic one, during which I wrote five scholarly books, over 40 critical articles, and about 100 book reviews. With my husband, Raymond, who is a French Renaissance scholar, I founded, published, and edited "French Forum," a journal of interpretive literary criticism, and a monograph series. For our contributions to French culture, the French government decorated us twice with the prestigious Palmes Académiques, conferring first the rank of chevalier and then that of officier. We remain partners in my second career as a novelist; my husband does the photography for the covers and serves as my primary critic, copyeditor, proofreader, and general manager. He refers to his "job" as being the CEO of Amy Enterprises!
Tyler: Amy, how would you define your novels? Are they adventures, mysteries?
Gini: My novels do not fit a specific genre. They are multi-faceted and so defy established categories. Each novel has two obvious main plots, the crime or mystery and the romance, but I actually write on several levels at once, mixing those two with the adventure story, the cultural guidebook, the social commentary, the gourmet experience, the historical chronicle, even biography and the geographic gazette.
Tyler: What about this blending of genres and culture and history do you think most appeals to your readers? What responses do you receive about your books?
Gini: The blending of genres, culture, and history pleases my readers because the novels are so different from their usual fare. Several readers say they read each one twice-once for the mystery and ongoing romance, and a second time for the culture and history. Admittedly, the problem is one of classification. Each novel is cross-generic, with two main plots, and is non-formulaic, with a female protagonist, who is not a sleuth. She is not present at the unraveling of the mystery; she remains a witness. Marketing is difficult because the novels do not belong to a specific genre and do not adhere to established whodunit and cozy guidelines. Still, I find that once a reader reads one of my novels, there is a domino effect. My readers like the multi-faceted approach, although I do have cookbook fans who are unaware of the novels. Readers of the novels usually go to my website and become cookbook fans. Some even want Amy and me to do a second cookbook.
Tyler: Much of "Witness by the Church" concerns secrets from the past, going back to relics from the Middle Ages. How is your book different from "The Da Vinci Code" and several other popular books today with a story centered on a quest for secrets from the past?
Gini: "Witness by the Church" differs from all popular books that center on a quest for secrets from the past because it is thoroughly researched and actually represents an "unwriting" of those formulaic novels. Between the lines, my novel points out how such undertakings twist historical, geographical, and cultural information and shamefully misinterpret philosophical discourse and established mythological lore. There is nothing more maddening than to read obvious mistakes and sloppy research in a so-called historical quest or even modern-day mystery novel. I remember reading one set in Paris; the sleuth held onto a strap in the metro car. Egads! There are no straps in the Paris subway! A good read should be entertaining without sacrificing facts. The author Dick Francis once said that the reader should always learn something, even from a mystery novel. He didn't mean learn falsehoods and half-truths.
Tyler: I really appreciate your honest answer, Gini. Are there books similar to yours that you would say were influences, or were there books that were examples of "what not to do" that you built from? I personally think I learn as much about writing from badly written books as well-written ones.
Gini: I appreciate well-written books and find that I have no patience with badly written ones. I always assume that my reader is intelligent. Ernest Hemingway once said that a good day was writing one good sentence. As to influences on my work . . . probably everything I've ever read, but especially the French contemporary novel and new novel, British mystery writers, classical historical sagas, and oddly the prose poem genre. I enjoy words. The two novels that most likely impacted me the most are André Gide's "The Counterfeiters" and John Fowles's "The French Lieutenant's Woman." In the middle of both novels, the "author" sits down and admits that he has lost control of his characters; they have a life of their own. Whenever I get stuck, I try to figure out what my characters would do, and it works every time. In a sense, my novels have a European structure rather than an American one. Marcel Proust comes to mind; "The true life is literature."
Tyler: St. Louis the King becomes central to the story. Why were you interested in him, and why did you decide to include him in the novel?
Gini: Louis IX, perhaps better known as St. Louis, was the leader of two crusades; his life and times are an important page in French history and to this day he is revered as the spiritual father of France. However, he is not a central character in the novel. Amy is enthusiastic about that little island in the Seine, which is named for him, so it is only natural that she be interested in his life and in the church that bears his name and that I in turn use the church as part of the setting and his life to lend credibility to the plot. By drawing on all the known data on St. Louis and the history of the Knights of Malta, I was able to spin an anti-plot, a story that is a mystery on its own terms but at the same time one that pokes fun at those highly inaccurate formulaic quest novels. I for one am tired of hidden caches of Nazi gold.
Tyler: I understand Amy is a culinary expert. What role does food, especially French food, play in the novel?
Gini: Amy's culinary interests and knowledge are part and parcel of who she is and what she is all about as a woman who is launching a career in mid-life. In all truth, Amy is a late-bloomer in terms of the women's movement. Because Amy is an expert in things culinary, I decided to have her discuss menus, table settings, customs, cheese courses, history of certain names of dishes, uses of particular ingredients such as cream, etc., but not to include any recipes. There are lots of series that are cooking mysteries; in contrast, my Witness series addresses food as culture. The famous gourmet chef Escoffier wrote, "Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you who you are." In the first novels, Amy is editing and revising her cookbook; then she publishes it. To show how the fictive and the real intertwine, I did write and publish my own cookbook, "The Amateur Gourmet" (iUniverse, 2005) and I listed her as my co-author. After all, being the author who witnesses Amy's self-discovery led me to finish the cookbook I had actually begun years earlier. I use food as Amy's particular interest because it is one of my hobbies, just as I make sure that she shares my interest in antiques and my background in art history. While Amy is by no means my alter-ego, there is a lot of me in her and she has become a valued literary friend. Again, write what you know, what you really know.
Tyler: I love that Amy is your co-author! What a great way to give credit to a character that has helped to create you while you create her. So what is next for you, Gini? Will you write more books in your Witness series, or do you have plans for other kinds of books?
Gini: I am currently working on a fifth novel, "Witness from the Café"; it deals with the little known world of bioprospecting for plants that can be used to create new pharmaceuticals. Chapter I, like the first chapter of all the Witness novels, starts the ball rolling with a crime to which Amy and others are witnesses, but she is the one who lands in the middle of the drama and is targeted by a ruthless gang for her knowledge, knowledge that in pure Amy fashion she doesn't know she has. The romance between her and Jean-Michel continues. Many readers have asked me if they are going to marry. Well, that would be telling tales out of school. I am also working on an addendum to the cookbook.
Tyler: Thank you for joining me today, Gini. Before we go, will you tell us about your website and what additional information our readers might find there about "Witness by the Church" and the rest of your series?
Gini: My website is quite inclusive in telling readers all about me. In addition, the site contains a list of cooking tips from Amy as well as several recipes. Each time I publish a novel in the Witness series, I change the recipes that are included. Now that the cookbook is in print, Amy and I are posting unpublished recipes and new tips. In one sense, that part of the website is a mini-extension of my novelistic world. I suppose that if I have a philosophy about writing, it is to make the fictive real, as expressed in the author's note to the first novel, "Witness on the Quay." If we can see a purple cow in our mind's eye, then it must be, it must exist. Pigs do fly-you must admit that you've seen them, along with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and leprechauns. All fictive. All real. My Witness series. Amy Page.
Tyler: Thank you, Gini. I think a good novelist's primary job is to make the fictional appear real, and you certainly are succeeding at it. I wish you much future success.
Today, Tyler R. Tichelaar of Reader Views is pleased to be joined by Gini Anding, who is here to talk about the fourth novel in her "Witness" series, "Witness by the Church," iUniverse (2007), ISBN 9780595455027.