Just as mysterious as most of her novels, Joanne Harris avoids questions about her private life with obstinacy. “I’m not very interesting,” she says plainly. Not quite something you would believe, if you think that the inspiration for her first novel, The Evil Seed, was taken from the inscription of a gravestone. Harris used to cycle to a churchyard in Grantchester while studying at Cambridge, in fact. Not the average hobby, you would say.
Harris cultivated a passion for the gothic and the extraordinary from a very early age. Born to an English father and a French mother, she studied Modern and Medieval languages at college, while reading, among others, Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Ray Bradbury and Stephen King. Her grandmother is rumoured to have been a witch and a healer, but Harris dismisses these allegations as urban legend.
Memories from her childhood go back to Britanny. Three-year-old Harris would go round the markets in the village of Vitré early in the morning or cook sardines on a charcoal brazier on the shore of the island of Noirmoutier. Sometimes she would make pancakes with Memé, her great-grandmother, the woman who inspired Vianne Rocher, the eccentric stranger who settles in the small French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes and opens a chocolaterie just as Lent begins, defying the bigotry of the local priest.
It’s Harris’s most remembered effort: Chocolat, the 1999 bestseller that was later turned into a film, starring Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench and Johnny Depp. Unlike many authors who get upset by a movie rendition of their stories, Harris has always been quite happy with the final result, despite changes to the plot. And unlike many women, she hasn’t fallen for the charm of Roux, aka, Johnny Depp while working on the film.
Notoriety hasn’t changed her much, either. Unlike many writers who enjoy being celebrities, Harris remains discreet and humble. “I’m happy to stay a name on the page, rather than a face on the screen,” she says in a low-pitch but firm tone. This explains why her website features a massive section devoted to her books and a skimpy biography that goes little further from personal data.
Harris is an impenetrable woman. People may label her as “indescribable, awkward, and difficult”. But this is because they have expectations. “They expect me to be like Vianne Rocher,” she says. “But I’m not an extraordinary person.”
A mother and a wife, a bass guitar player in the spare time -she has played in the same band since she was 16, a keen traveller and a red wine lover: this is Joanne Harris, the woman. The writer, though, has already achieved a lot for 45. Her books are translated in over 50 countries and in 2004 she received the International Career Prize of Vigevano City. But she’s still enjoying the pleasure of discovery.
For her latest book, Blueeyedboy, due to come out next April, she has plunged into internet communities to research the way people make friends through the web. A thriller plot will intertwine with a blog-like layout and lots of musical references, marking a shift from her previous books. In fact, she was often criticised for repeating the same literary pattern over and over again.
Chocolat seemed to have set the trend for novels such as Blackberry Wine and Five Quarters of the Orange, where food, smells and tastes are unfailing ingredients. Tastes and smells are particularly evocative because they trigger an emotional response that goes back to our experience of the world as newborns. “Besides, readers understand food,” adds Harris. “In our increasingly diverse and multicultural society, eating remains one of the very few experiences we all have in common; a pleasure, a comfort and a means of expression.”
The love for food is also the reason why Harris co-authored two cookbooks, The French Kitchen and The French Market. Since she started working as full-time writer in 1999, quitting her job as a teacher at Leeds Grammar School, she has written eight novels and several compilations of short stories. Harris doesn’t regret giving up education. “I have taught for 12 years,” she says, “and I think it’s healthy to reinvent oneself every ten or so years.”
So, what’s going to happen next? “Well, I have no idea,” she says. And once again, she’s elusive. Or maybe, her life is just like one of her books: she has a vague idea of the beginning and the ending, but she hasn’t planned the whole journey.
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