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got all the accoutrements of the 20th century, but not the 21st, which is what I think makes it somewhat intriguing. In the 1960s people looked cool, they drove cool cars and their lives were similar to ours, but it was a completely different world and that’s what keeps drawing writers back.
Two of your previous novels, Any Human Heart and Restless (Bloomsbury, 2006) were both spy novels, did that experience help when it came to writing your Bond novel? I’m very familiar with writing spy novels and I’ve written a lot about John le Carré as well, so I’m very comfortable with that world, which made the Bond project very attractive to me. All my novels have strong narrative, it’s something that I do instinctively, tell a compelling and intriguing story as well as everything else. Narrative is something I’m drawn to anyway, so
adversities and real love. My brief to myself was to make it as gritty and realistic as possible”
it was not an issue to think of the scrapes Bond could get into, the problems and dilemmas he could face and so forth. Narrative is the grist to my mill. Te key thing to me was to go
back and re-read everything Fleming had written and get his take on his creation, as it is absolutely fascinating what’s in the novels. Tere are 14 Fleming books so there was a certain amount of diligent work to do, but once I was happy with that I could sit down and write my own story and fit Bond into that narrative. He has some interesting love affairs and there is a very interesting villain, as
you would expect. But they are all very real, grounded in the real world, nothing fantastical or grotesque about them; Bond is a real spy, on a real mission, encountering real adversities and real love. My brief to myself was to make it as gritty and realistic as possible.
Many of your novels have been reworked for film, television or theatre—do you enjoy the adaptation process? I do and I’m hugely involved. I write the scripts myself and am often an executive producer, so I’m there from casting to post-production. It
Bond is a real spy, on a real mission, encountering real
gets me out of the house and it’s good for my soul. You either get fully involved or not involved at all, there isn’t a middle ground. I prefer to be a benign influence behind the scenes but I enjoy it enormously. A writer’s life is quite solitary and I think you live a more interesting life when you collaborate, so being involved in adaptations is great. Te slightly selfish, cosseted world of the writer is not necessarily the best one to be in.
A novelist and screenwriter, William Boyd is the author of 17 books, in 1981 he won the Whitbread First Novel Award for A Good Man in Africa, in 1982 he was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction for An Ice-Cream War and in 2006 he won the Costa Book Award for Restless. William Boyd will be in conversation
with the Times literary editor Erica Wagner on Monday 15th April, 11.30 a.m., at the English PEN Literary Café. Te event will be followed by a book signing at midday.
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15 APRIL 2013 | THE BOOKSELLER DAILY AT LBF 15
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