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| Interview with Stella Duffy by Lorna Russell STELLA DUFFY is fitting me in between the dual delights of a trip to the dentist and a hospital check-up. When she arrives at the small café in east London, she says she can’t eat anything yet and her mouth feels all lopsided. She doesn’t look amazingly well so I ask her if it’s causing her pain. She’s says she’s not bothered by the dentist: she’s had a lot of ‘medical problems’ this year so the dentist is a minor matter. It turns out that the ‘problem’ is breast cancer. ‘It’s so bizarre,’ she says, ‘because in the new book the main character, Sofia, has something growing inside her that she doesn’t want, and while I was writing it – although I didn’t know it then – I had something I didn’t want growing inside me.’ The new book, Immaculate Conceit, is a bit of a departure from her usual material. Although she actually has two sorts of ‘usual material’ – her crime novels, which star a lesbian detective called Saz, and her two more recent books, which are what she calls ‘relationship novels’. These two, Eating Cake and Singling Out the Couples, are not, however, relationship novels of the Bridget Jones ilk. (‘I think they’ve got rather more literary merit than that,’ laughs Duffy.) They are about how awful and sad and downright deceitful relationships are. About how couples lie to each other and to themselves. And how the protagonists don’t always get their comeuppance. But what the crime novels and the others have in common is their twists and turns. Duffy is a dab hand at the surprise outcome. So it’s a surprise that Immaculate Conceit is devoid of twists. Especially when it’s about a lap dancer who gets a visit from an angel who has come to tell her she’s pregnant with the new messiah (yes, the angel Gabriel). And with whom she is soon having a full-blown sexual relationship. ‘The miracle in Immaculate Conceit is supposed to be real,’ confirms Duffy. ‘I believe there are probably several new messiahs or saviours out there in the world right now… For the whole interview, read Issue 7 » Subscribe! Go to » Stella Duffy's Method |
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For more on STELLA DUFFY, go to www.stelladuffy.com |
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