The ways of the Muse
‘Miniaturist’ author Jessie Burton discusses her new novel
English author Jessie Burton, whose bestselling 2014 debut novel, “The Miniaturist,” sold over one million copies worldwide, is crossing the pond with her new book, “The Muse,” and will give a talk and book signing in Westerly on Wednesday.
As in “The Miniaturist,” Burton explores the world of art in this historical novel, moving between three decades and the lives of its two central characters — Odelle Bastien, a Caribbean émigré to London in the late 1960s, and Olive Schloss, a painter living 30 years earlier in a small Spanish village at the start of the civil war. The two young women are connected by a painting with a mysterious past.
Burton talks about “The Muse” and her rapid rise to literary fame in the following Day interview from her home in southeast London.
Q. Assuming “The Muse” isn’t based on a true story or people, how did the concept of the novel evolve for you?
A. I knew that at its heart “The Muse” was about creativity — what it means to have a muse, or be one, and how to handle one’s talent. I wanted to explore the dual performances of the private creator and the public artist. But I also wanted to write about normal Spanish people experiencing the upsurge of civil strife within their own village. And I wanted to explore England’s relationship with her former colonies. The third point of the triangle is art: it pins those
two other personal interests of Spain and English colonialism together.
Q. Why did you create these two main women characters, Odelle and Olive, and why living in London and Spain a generation apart?
A. Odelle and Olive are two sides of the same coin of “Artist.” They are explorations of what it means to create, the cost of that, the ambivalence of possessing what other people consider to be a “gift,” and how to manage that gift in the public arena. As I said, I’m interested in Spanish history, so Olive gets sent to Spain. I needed to set the action 30 years on, so that’s why it’s a generation apart. There are characters that appear in both sections. London because it’s my birth city and the nexus of immigration and so much of English identity. And because it’s fun to write.
Q. Can you talk about the painting and the excitement and mystery surrounding it?
A. The painting is a beautiful, long-lost masterpiece by the artist Isaac Robles, presumed to have died in the Spanish Civil War. It’s re-interpreted by whoever comes into contact with it. There are five paintings in total in the novel, as we progress with the artist’s perception of life and their rapid artistic development. The main painting that is “rediscovered” is a key that unlocks so much of Odelle’s own life for her, leading her to love and self-discovery, as well as deepening her own imaginative powers.
Q. Can you also talk about women’s art being “mis-attributed” to men as a theme in the novel?
A. We think the male has natural authority in the public sphere because this has been the case for millennia. And so it has happened in the history of art creation and marketeering that women’s work has been mis-attributed to men. In the art markets, women’s work has historically always sold for less, with rare exceptions. Women painters are less prominent in art history, and less numerous. Women have often been disregarded as anything other than muses — unable to create works of “genius” themselves. We always are described as “women writers,” “women artists.” I’ve even been called a “lady novelist.” It is a persistent and enraging state of affairs. Maybe I felt like turning the tables a little, and twisting the real reasons as to why Olive is “hiding” behind Isaac. Olive doesn’t lack confidence in her talent, she just lacks confidence in the art market, which, when you think about it, makes her pretty savvy indeed.
Q. “The Muse” is described as a book about “the ways in which the tides of history inevitably shape and define our lives.” Is that an important theme in your fiction?
A. I think our lives are those tides of history. Life, or history, is what happens when personality meets circumstance. We are shaped by historical events, which are often out of our control. But we also define those very events, within that seeming powerlessness. We tell the story after the event, we reconstruct memory and narrative. It’s a two-way street.
Q. Both of your novels are filled with secrets, suspense, passion, drama. Do you find that your earlier career in acting/live theater influences your writing?
A. Probably, yes. Many characters have an innate theatricality to them, and I know lots of actors who really love my books! I often see chapters as “scenes” (with) people coming in and out and populating the pages, coloring them deeply. I have been told that the dialogue feels “real,” and I do read my books aloud about five or six times all the way through, to get that sense of authenticity and vivid presence of these people talking.
Q. Were you stunned when “The Miniaturist,” your first novel, was such a huge success so fast? Did it encourage you or worry you that you had such a high bar to meet with The Muse?
A. Yes, I was stunned, in a sort of slow-motion way. Only after a few months did it really hit me. Everything was transformed, but I hadn’t caught up with it. I was psychologically exhausted, and that is not a great condition to be in to nurture bloody-mindedness and self-belief, both qualities needed to write novels. But I always wrote regardless. I never attempted to replicate the external success of “The Miniaturist.” High bars, prizes and sales figures have nothing to do with the act or the craft of writing.
Burton will also be at R.J. Julia Booksellers, 768 Boston Post Road, Madison, a 7 p.m. Thursday. The event is free, but registration is requested online at rjjulia.com or by calling (203) 245-3959.