Historical fiction set in 1920s OXFORD
Isabel Costello on Paris and Provence
19th May 2021
Isabel Costello on Paris and Provence.
I owe my love of travel, books and languages to my mother, who was a French teacher. And as a strong sense of place is something I hope for as a reader, it’s not surprising that my two published novels are set in France, as it’s always been such a huge part of my life.
Unlike my debut Paris Mon Amour which is set almost entirely in the capital, my new novel Scent shows perfume-maker Clémentine in two very different places and phases of her life, charting the repercussions of an intense same-sex love affair 25 years later. In the contemporary story (2018) she is 46 and has lived in Paris for decades but the earlier strand plays out over a long, hot summer in her native Provence.
I have spent a lot of time in Paris and it always stirs strong memories and emotion, from the moment I get off the Eurostar at the Gare du Nord. Above all, it makes me want to tell stories. Clémentine lives in the 6th arrondissement, the neighbourhood I know best, where I’ve experienced many of the things which crop up in my books: love, temptation, despair and wild happiness. In my early twenties I used to spend hours with friends by the boating lake in the Jardin du Luxembourg (the metal chairs were just as uncomfortable then), and in Scent, Clementine crosses it daily between her apartment and her perfume shop in one of the area’s characteristic narrow streets, full of tiny boutiques you won’t find anywhere else. Her balcony at home, inspired by a specific building I took a fancy to, plays an important part in the story.
I am just as taken with the tiny moments of drama and mundanity as by fabulous window displays and panoramic views – a day in Paris can be anything: a cop show, a romantic movie and a work of art in quick succession. It sometimes feels like cheating when readers ask how I bring it to life, when so many of my brushstrokes are the result of direct observation. With each of my protagonists, I’ve learned to see the city differently, through their eyes, not mine, and not those of a tourist. Clémentine and I share a love of long solitary walks, especially along the banks of the Seine.
When people tell me they ‘love everything’ about Paris or France, they may expect me to feel the same, but it’s not like that. Beneath the clichés these are real, complex places with real and difficult issues to contend with. For me, a strong sense of place encapsulates society and culture as well as physical location, and I want to convey that alongside the style and romance.
The earlier setting in Scent is the Lubéron area of Provence, which I fell massively in love with 22 years ago when my eldest son was a baby. Since then my family has returned many times, most often to a simple vineyard gîte right at the foot of the low, hippo-shaped mountain between Avignon and Aix-en-Provence. Clémentine’s childhood home and that of her rich neighbour/boyfriend Ludo are closely based on this spot, a stone’s throw from where Peter Mayle wrote A Year in Provence. It was only a matter of time before this heavenly place found its way into my fiction, and I relished capturing its natural beauty in all its colour, scent, heat. (I didn’t realise until the novel was finished that almost all of the Provence chapters take place outdoors.) As a sea lover, I couldn’t resist a coastal angle – Racha is visiting from Marseille and Clementine is a student there, and it certainly helped being able to write a lot of the book on my oldest friend’s terrace with an unbroken view of the Med and the first of the Calanques (fjords).
Due to the pandemic I haven’t set foot in France in almost two years and I miss it, and my friends who are like family, so much. But editing the novel took me back to Paris and Provence and I love hearing that it’s taking readers there, wherever they happen to be.
Isabel Costello
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