Hot Chocolat
JOANNE HARRIS WAS TOLD HER NOVEL ABOUT A CHOCOLATIER CAUSING A STIR IN A SMALL TOWN WOULD NOT SELL. NOW, 20 YEARS LATER, THE MODERN CLASSIC’S IMPACT IS BEING CELEBRATED IN STYLE, THE AUTHOR TELLS HANNAH STEPHENSON
ENIGMATIC chocolatier Vianne Rocher swept into our psyche in the picturesque, sleepy little fictional French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes some 20 years ago – and today, Chocolat creator Joanne Harris contemplates how life has panned out for herself and her heroine.
The best-selling novel, for those who don’t know it, starts at the beginning of Lent, when Vianne arrives in the village with her six-year-old daughter Anouk to open a chocolaterie in the square opposite the church, to the outrage of the local priest, Father Reynaud.
Yet, despite his protests, she gently changes the lives of the villagers who visit her, with a combination of sympathy, subversion and a little magic.
The Oscar-nominated film adaptation starred Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp and Alfred Molina – and even now, Joanne seems a bit bewildered as to how her little book, written on Sunday mornings between her teaching job and looking after her then-three-yearold daughter, became a global sensation.
“It’s completely unexpected, because I was told Chocolat wouldn’t sell and people wouldn’t be interested in that sort of scenario,” she says now. “Clearly that wasn’t true, and I’m astonished on a daily basis as to how many people are still deeply invested in those characters and those stories – and it’s wonderful.”
Her publishers are pushing the boat out with a new book jacket for the hit title’s 20th anniversary – it’s actually the original jacket, but Joanne has written a new introduction for it. And now there is a new book, The Strawberry Thief, the fourth continuation – not sequel, she is adamant – of the story, which sees Vianne insecure and unsure of the future, as her daughter Anouk has flown the nest.
When the local florist dies, leaving a piece of woodland to Vianne’s other daughter, Rosette, it stirs up all sorts of trouble, as the late florist’s own money-grabbing daughter tries to reclaim what she believes is rightfully hers.
Joanne, 54, admits that Vianne – and indeed of all of the remaining characters – have changed, just as she has in the last 20 years.
“She has changed because I have changed. I’m not quite the same person I was 20 years ago. We are not each other, of course, but we do have a lot of things in common,” says Barnsley-born Joanne.
“We are both the mother of a child. When I wrote Chocolat, I was the mother of a four-year-old and now I’m the mother of a 25-yearold, and you can write from those
perspectives only when you’ve actually been there.”
In the book, Vianne misses her eldest child Anouk ( Joanne’s own daughter is called Anouchka). Similarly, Joanne admits she did feel a sense of empty nest when Anouchka left home.
“Vianne has never really found a place to settle down, so she’s invested a lot of her emotional energy in her children. The idea that one of them is flying off to a remote location is difficult for her to understand and come to terms with.
“I think every parent goes through this to a certain degree, but with Vianne, it’s more intense. Of course, I wrote The Strawberry Thief in the year my daughter was preparing to get married and move abroad, so some of those things have come from me.
“This book is very much about separation and loss and coming to terms with the fact that you don’t have quite the same role as you once did as a parent, and children have to be free to live their lives and do what they want to do. It’s a difficult thing for any parent.”
Born in Yorkshire, the daughter of teachers, Joanne’s father met her French mother on an exchange in Brittany. Growing up, the family spoke French at home and she always felt a bit different.
“There were very few foreigners in Barnsley and we were considered very strange,” she has said.
“As a small child, I remember my mother taking me to school and the other mothers hearing us speaking in French, and moving away. There was a lot of suspicion and a certain amount of fear.”
At Cambridge, she read modern and medieval languages, and had a brief career in accountancy before becoming a French teacher at Leeds Grammar School for boys.
Away from her computer, Joanne is never happier than when she’s walking around the five-acre plot surrounding her lovely Victorian home in the Yorkshire countryside near Huddersfield, playing bass guitar in the band she’s been in since age 16, or simply lounging around.
She writes from a posh stone shed she had built in her garden, where she is not disturbed by telephones, wi-fi or other distractions.
She has no idea – nor does she seem to care – if a Chocolat movie sequel could be on the cards.
“Films rarely get made as fast as Chocolat was made. The process is long and boring and the author doesn’t have much to do with it. It’s not something I get excited about.”
But she has kept in touch with Juliette Binoche, who she sees at events from time to time.
She doesn’t think we’ve seen the last of Vianne Rocher, though.
“It’s not a full stop. It’s a heavy punctuation point,” says Joanne. “A lot of things have been resolved and have come to an end, but I may well go back to that world...”
The Strawberry Thief by Joanne Harris, Orion, £20.