Nothing like some total last-minute interview prep

So if we go back in time like three years, one of the main books that inspired my diss topic was this book called Vivre me tue by Paul Smaïl. It's kind of a stereotypical "young Arab man writing in French" kind of book, an autobiography full of denunciations of French racism and stuff like that. What sets it apart initially, at least, is that it's rather clever--the author clearly knows more about the western canon than most of the authors writing in this genre today. So the whole thing is written as a modernization of Moby Dick, with the author searching for the great white whale that is integration in France.

Anyway, Paul Smaïl wrote three more books (two more installments of his autobiography) and then a novel, before a VERY interesting detail was leaked: Paul Smaïl doesn't exist. He's actually a 60-year-old French white guy named Jack-Alain Léger. His book just happened to be impressively believable. Ask my mother, I bought the translation for her and made her read it without telling her, and she totally fell for it, haha.

This case is clearly fascinating for a number of reasons. First off, it proved that we as readers have stereotyped expectations of what "an Arab writing in French" should be talking about. The hoax proved rather directly that some sort of model exists, otherwise it wouldn't be available for recuperation/subversion. The other thing it demonstrated was how blind the press was, in terms of reading it at face-value and not really taking time to consider the literary merits of the book. All the reviews and stuff were about his discussions of integration, etc.

Anyway, it's kind of a long story of how I managed to track down this author two years ago, which is a good enough story that it would involve a whole separate entry (let me know if you'd like that story). The important thing, though, is that I did track him down and managed to meet with him when I was in France in Summer 2008. And he talked my ear off. For a good 2.5 hours. Yeah. And it was fascinating--kind of a mix of artistic naïveté (he didn't understand why the press attacked him so cruelly when the hoax was revealed, I was sitting there like, "well, isn't it clear, you made them look like a bunch of idiots?") and strange vendettas (he really has it out for Azouz Begag, which I actually might not be able to blame him for, given how Begag blew me off last fall). Perhaps the most interesting thing he told me was that he started the pseudonym project as a joke and really didn't think it would go anywhere, but then when the first book was such a huge success he was like, "oh shit, I guess I should ride this wave." Then he whipped together plans to write a few more books as Paul Smaïl. He never thought it would work so he hadn't planned for the future of the hoax.

So all that is background. The point of my story today is that I've finally reached the point of writing chapter 6, which is on this whole controversy. I hadn't contacted Léger in a while since I wasn't ready to interview him, but this morning I decided to whip off a quick note to him so that I could get the ball rolling. I got a reply a few hours later, telling me he has a serious neurological condition, that he can't use his right hand anymore, that he's suffering terribly (and there's no treatment nor effective painkillers), and that since he can't write anymore, he's basically sitting around miserably, that his body is shutting down. He concluded by saying he'd be willing to see me but that it has to be in the next few days because after that he's not sure he'll be around anymore. ouch.

How do you reply to that one? I immediately wrote back saying how sorry I was and that of course I didn't want to bother him, etc. Left it entirely up to him. He wrote back suggesting a meeting tomorrow at the same café we met at last time. I wasn't really expecting him to be in good enough condition for that, but whatever, I'll take it. He's definitely a drama queen, so who knows what the real situation is like. All I know is, I now have about a day to whip together an interview that has to count. Because it doesn't look like I'll be getting a second shot. weird weird weird. Fortunately the questions I have are generally pretty clear, so it should be that hard to get organized. Just wasn't quite expecting things to take this sort of turn...