MY SPLENDID ISOLATION
WILLIAM BOYD Novelist
The bestselling author of ‘Any Human Heart’ on his craving for human contact and writing a TV drama about the Notre-dame fire What I’m watching:
Every night I watch one episode of Ozark (Season 3) with my wife, Susan. No binge-viewing allowed, that way we can stretch it out. A wonderfully dark show – venality at every turn, up there with Succession – and superbly acted. I’m also working through odd DVDS that I’ve bought and haven’t yet watched. Richard Lester’s Cuba (pre-castro, starring Sean Connery in possibly his greatest role), Paddy Chayefsky’s The Goddess (triple screenplay Oscar winner – this is his least known film; inspired by Marilyn Monroe), and the collected BBC films of the late, great Alan Clarke. One of the most innovative of British filmmakers who died far too young.
What I’m listening to:
For some reason, I seem to be listening to American minimalism. Philip Glass, Steve Reich, John Adams. I find the relentless ostinato loops oddly soothing. This has led me on to lighter ambient music: Brian Eno, Penguin Café Orchestra, Lubomyr Melnyk. I can see Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream waiting for me on the musical horizon.
What I’m reading:
I have about 10 books on the go, picking up one or another as the mood takes me. Evie Wyld’s tremendous new novel, The Bass Rock, is a powerful and beautifully written narrative of male violence and the three women who endured it. Then Sam Wasson’s The Big Goodbye, all about the making of Chinatown, possibly my all-time favourite film – the most perfectly calibrated, complex thriller with two stars at the apex of their incandescence, Jack Nicholson and Faye
Dunaway. I’m halfway through Hugo Vickers’ biography of Gladys Deacon, Duchess of Marlborough, The Sphinx – the most extraordinary, rackety life. My reading challenge is Jonathan Sumption’s magisterial four-volume history of the Hundred Years War. A lot of it took place in the part of France I’m most familiar with – Aquitaine in the south-west.
What I’m working on:
I’ve recently delivered a new novel, Trio, set in London, Brighton and Paris in 1968, a pivotal year. It will be published in October – and, of course, I find myself wondering if the crisis will be over by then. While I wait, the other aspect of my writing life takes over – screenwriting. I’ve just started a four-hour drama for TV about last year’s horrendous fire at Notre Dame. It’s the most intriguing challenge. The four hours of the dramatisation effectively cover the start of the fire and its extinguishing – and therefore the saving
I’m finding American minimalism oddly soothing
of the cathedral. So it’s virtually real-time.
What I can’t wait to do once this is all over
Human contact. It will be strange and wonderful to actually be with family and friends, rather than the virtual intimacy that we experience now. And I’m also looking forward to going back to France. We were there just before Covid-19 attacked us and I find I keep thinking that perhaps we should have stayed on instead of returning to London. But France’s “confinement total” is much more Draconian than ours so perhaps London is the easier place to be for the duration. Our eventual return will be the symbol that the crisis is over.