SARA FRANKEL
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ment about men-it's only that men are irrelevant for the purposes
of the play.
SF:
What about in your novels?
MS:
I find women most interesting, really-especially strong
women, strong bossy women. I'm not sure I do men so well. But
there are also quite a lot of diabolic men: Sir Quentin Oliver, in
Loitering with Intent,
and in
The Corriforters,
my very first book, there
was Baron Stock .
SF:
I've always had the impression that the energy of your novels
comes from these strong, diabolic characters who impose their wills
on other people.
MS:
Oh yes, I think so. In fact I like to go on and on and see how far
they'll go. The main thing is to be honest, to follow an idea through,
wherever it's taking you - and not to say, oh, my nice gentle lady
readers won't like
this.
SF:
Do you ever find your characters doing things you don't expect?
MS:
I never expect anything, because I begin a book without any
clear idea of where I'm going. I make it up as I go along, largely.
However, I think about the
theme
a long time beforehand; I think
about the environment and the theme. I don't write regularly or
systematically, but I do work every day: something
about
the book,
something toward it. And I'm very particular: you know, supposing
I said the fifteenth of August, 1952, it was raining, well I do look it
up to see if it was raining at that spot on that day. I'm very
scrupulous, extremely. And if
I
don't look it up there's always some
reader who will remember that day, and who will write to tell me
that in fact it was raining.
SF:
So you think that kind of detail is important?
MS:
Yes, because it's authentic. And then within that realistic
framework I can do what I like with the unreal. I play around a great
deal with time, for instance; in some of my books I do away with
time altogether. What interests me about time is that I don't think
chronology is causality: I don't think that the cause of things
necessarily comes hours, moments, years
before
the event; it could
come after, without the person knowing. For instance in
Not to
Disturb,
the servants know absolutely beforehand what's going to
happen, before the people in the room even suspect. They're argu–
ing it out and then they shoot each other and everything, but the ser–
vants absolutely know: they're even arranging who's going to in–
herit what. This is not realism, you know. In
The Driver's Seat
Lise
