Five minutes with author Angela O’Keeffe
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It’s Paris, 2020. A writer is confined to her hotel room during the early days of the pandemic, struggling to finish a novel about Hortense Cezanne, wife and sometime muse of the famous painter.
But the gaze of our sitter changes, and Hortense watches the writer, with unintended stories coming to the surface.
This is a taut, tightly-woven, almost-thriller, which makes us look at the stories we tell, the histories we think we know, and the layering of art and life.
We took five minutes with Angela on the eve of the release of The Sitter.
Did the idea for the book start with a fascination with Paul Cezanne and lead you into thinking about Hortense, or were you already aware of her/their life?
I came across some of the Hortense portraits in a Cezanne exhibition in Paris in 2017. I was struck by her deceptively empty gaze, and how such a gaze is actually filled with possibility. This is part of the genius of Cezanne. The museum label beside one of the portraits stated that Hortense and Cezanne had had an unhappy marriage, and that Cezanne had once said, flippantly, “My wife only cares for Switzerland and lemonade.” I knew from that moment that I wanted to write about her, and more importantly, that I wanted to write from her point of view. I wanted her to speak.
When/how did the idea of setting the book during the pandemic arise?
In The Sitter, Hortense is a character in a book that a writer is working on. From early in the writing process I knew that the writer and Hortense are together in a hotel in Paris, and that they are sort of stuck there. But I couldn’t come up with a plausible reason for them to be stuck. Was it jet lag? Probably not. An illness? Possibly. Then the pandemic came, and suddenly there was not just a reason, but this wonderful (for the book, at least!) backdrop to one of the novel’s central questions: what might be redeemed from personal catastrophe?
There’s a slightly magical realist element to the book (with the protagonist communicating with a long-dead Hortense Cezanne)—how did you balance the magic and believability of this?
From the start Hortense was alive and present. I had no sense of, “Oh she’s been dead for a hundred years and I have to make this believable.” It simply was. Being a writer is a bit like being an actor, I think. There’s this doubt that lives in you—that’s a necessary part of creating—but also a tremendous confidence and optimism. You have to step forward and meet the moment, which is, really, about reaching the reader, connecting with the reader. I think it’s important not to underestimate where a reader is willing to go.
The role of Hortense as sitter (for her painter husband), is reversed and her observation and gaze brings out stories of our protagonist. Can you tell us a little bit about your intentions here—without any spoilers?!
Hortense as a character in a book that a writer is working on, seemed to me a kind of continuation of her role as sitter/subject for her husband. But when that book is abandoned, in favour of a story from the writer’s own past, Hortense gains agency. I’d been thinking about what happens to a character when a story is abandoned. Do they go on living in some way? Can they become a sort of rogue presence in the next story?
And so, Hortense becomes the interrogator, as the writer works on that next story, the one who is keen to know what, where, when etc. At the same time, she is interrogating her own past, seeing it with fresh eyes. She speaks directly to the reader. It was important that the reader be the one she turns to. The reader is her co-conspirator in a sense.
What’s on your TBR pile?
I recently loved Jen Craig’s novel, Panthers and the Museum of Fire (re-released), so the next logical thing is to read her new one, Wall. I’m also keen for Alexis Wright’s Praiseworthy, and Wifedom by Anna Funder.
The Sitter is published by UQP and available now through all good bookshops. Angela will be appearing at the Canberra Writers Festival on August 18.
Feature image: Angela O’Keeffe. Credit: Camille Walsh.
