France seen from elsewhere – Douglas Kennedy: “France is the country of nuance”

He writes every day, everywhere, in the metro, in the RER (“No driver, it’s not my style”), in cafes, but he writes especially in his small apartment in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, not far from the Jacques-Bonsergent metro station. Eighty square meters, a battery of pens (Lamy) often green, stored in a case, notebooks neatly lined up on the table, at least three, two for taking notes, one for his diary. His name is Douglas Kennedy.

He is the most Francophone and Francophile American writer I have met. For the series that Match commissioned me to interview foreign novelists about their vision of France, Douglas Kennedy is certainly the easiest to access, the most immediately close, warm, devoid of comedy. I had known a Ken Follett in a suit and tie in an old English club, steeped in history and tradition. Kennedy is different: black jacket, black T-shirt, wearing glasses and speaking impeccable French, with only one verbal tic (the adverb “honestly”) and words that he himself considers a little dated (“My slang is that of the 1970s”). With him, it’s the Parisian bistro, the street, the terraces, the small stationery in the rue de Lancry, the frequent stops in the shops, the constant approach of everyday people. His very recent work (published at the beginning of May) is entitled: “Men are afraid of the light”, a rather dark novel, in a Los Angeles without charm, but heavy with mysteries, fundamentalist sects and irrational violence.

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I never stopped writing, even when I practiced other professions

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“I have written a lot about my country. I crossed it from side to side. I saw people moving in their search for happiness or blind in their convictions and their limits. »
It’s a huge bestseller. He fascinated all audiences with his “Pursuit of Happiness”, his “Man who wanted to live his life”, his “Woman of Ve”. More than twenty books. News. Children’s books. Travel stories. He is prolific, a graphomaniac (“I’m already on my next book after the next!”). He has been writing since he was 8 years old.
“In New York, at school, I had written a short story, that of a child who loses his mother in a supermarket and who is very satisfied. The teacher, Mrs. Flack, said to me: “It’s a bit Freudian, all that!” I never stopped writing, even when I practiced other professions. She was right for Freud. I wanted to run away from family and habits. »

So he did everything, theater manager in New York, journalist in Ireland, author of radio plays for the BBC in London. But his art of storytelling, his ability to describe men in their weaknesses and misfortunes, the inventiveness of his romantic situations very quickly made him a successful “storyteller”. “The release of this new novel leads me to do 25 to 35 signing sessions, as many interviews, the presidency of a book fair in Limoges, another in Nice, then in Vannes, in Brittany, from 10 to June 12. I like this. At 67, I like to exercise my curiosity, I have only one motto: “Everything is bearable as long as you have a return ticket.” »

He was married, then separated, and has two children. Her daughter, 26, has just completed her first novel. ” Already ? Is writing in the family genes?
– Not really. My father was a businessman. He often went to Chile, to take care of a mine. One day, I had already fled the hostel, we were in Dublin, he had come to visit me and, after a few “saketini” [c’est la version japonaise du dry martini de James Bond, avec du saké], we were well lit, he said to me: “Did you wonder why I went there so often? Well, guess what, I had another life. I was an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA. Santiago station.” It surprised me, but I saw in it only the confirmation of my vision of life: if every life is a novel, who is the novelist? Well, it’s yourself. This is a lesson I learned here in France.
– What else did you learn from us?
– So many things. That there is never any truth, Pascal formulated it better than anyone. That life is complicated and complex. That you have to accept your weaknesses and write your own destiny.
– You can also do it on American roads, which you have traveled often.
– Yes, of course, and it is moreover a story of thwarted destinies that takes place in “Men are afraid of the light”. Another lesson, learned here: you have to know how to laugh at everything. In Amarillo, deep in Texas, my notebook and pencil on my knees, I was reading the “New York Times” in a Smokey Joe’s bar – all the bars are called that, there. They looked at me funny. A guy who reads the “New York Times” and takes notes? Suspicious ! A guy came to see me, he was wearing a T-shirt with on it: “Fuck Biden and fuck those who voted him” [“Que Biden et ceux qui ont voté lui aillent se faire foutre”]. I politely pointed out to him that he had made a spelling mistake: he had to write “Those who voted for him”, [“Ceux qui ont voté pour lui” et pas “ceux qui ont voté lui”]. He didn’t like it at all. Me, I still laugh about it. »

Douglas Kennedy waves his hands around his face. He sometimes has the gestures of a child who still marvels at the surprises of existence. “I love football, he adds without transition. I admire tennis. I watch everything. A writer must love sports. There are all the metaphors of life. Discipline, work, and the unexpected. There is something hypermnesic about him. He can suddenly start lining up the names of the NBA teams currently playing in the playoffs.

We met at the Hôtel du Nord, Quai de Jemmapes, on the banks of the Saint-Martin canal, the sores were all seated facing the Grange-aux-Belles footbridge, enjoying the beautiful sun and this singular tranquility, glass in hand, postcard of a certain life in Paris. The owners of the place themselves have been able to preserve and maintain the spirit of what was the title and the setting of a historic, even mythical film, signed by Marcel Carné, shot in 1938. Kennedy takes a long and slow pleasure in scrutinizing the portraits, black and white photos, hanging on the walls of the hotel. There is Arletty and her “atmosphere face”. There is Jouvet who “returns from Port-Saïd without ever having been there”. You can almost hear Henri Jeanson’s lines. There is also Jacques Prévert, the cigarette in his mouth. A whole past that revives Kennedy’s soul as a cinephile, a “cinema nut”, these are his terms.

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French cinema has created in me a desire for France. I happen to chain five films…

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“Me, if I was told, choose the two places that suit you the most in France, I would say, first, the bistro, and immediately, or at the same time, a cinema. I loved your movies so much. I discovered it at the cinematheque of MomA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in the 1970s. From the age of 13, I would spend hours watching films that looked nothing like in American cinema. Not that it displeases me, the cinema of my native country. So, I’m crazy about westerns, John Ford in mind, and Anthony Mann. But having been able to admire first Henri-Georges Clouzot and his “Quai des Orfèvres”, which I consider a masterpiece, later “Jules et Jim” and “Ascenseur pour l’échafaud”, and then “L ‘last year in Marienbad’ – all of this created, how can I put it, a ‘desire for France’, a desire to see and experience a country where such works are born. And to frequent dark rooms.

Also read. Douglas Kennedy: “I am breaking with the America of my roots” – The day when…

– Which ones in particular?
– Small cinemas. Those who remain. Action Christine, Saint-André des Arts, Champo. With my son, when he comes to visit me, we sometimes do five films in a row, it’s doable by starting early. So, the other day, we had an American orgy: Kubrick, Scorsese, the monsters. There is no other city in Europe where the cinematographic offer is so diverse and so rich.
– Do you sleep very little?
– Not at all. I do my seven hours. But I have a full life. Writing is present all the time, of course, but it has never prevented me from visiting, on foot, the 18th and 3rd centuries, the 20th and 11th centuries, the 6th and 1st – there is not a district whose streets and cul-de-sacs I don’t know. »
To walk. He traveled through every district of Paris, on foot, day and night, even in the suburbs (“I know Saint-Denis well”). He is the great surveyor of the asphalt, the stroller of all the streets (those around the quay of Jemmapes, in particular). There is, in this man, a bulimia of life, an appetite, another name for what is his driving force: curiosity. See everything to try to write everything.

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In Paris, I like to sit in a bistro and stay there all afternoon without being asked to leave.

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“Let’s go back to France.
– Your country is a mini-continent on its own. It is the most complete country in Europe: it has everything, three seas, mountains, the English Channel and Haute-Savoie, Auvergne and the Pyrenees, wild spaces and an incredible variety of customs of a village to another. Nothing is alike, except for a few kilometers. Although there are similarities.
– Which ones? What do you think the French spirit is?
– You will make me align the plates. But never mind, let’s go. Well, respect for culture, individual freedom, rejection of conformism and American-style religious puritanism. I like being able to sit down at 1 p.m. in a bistro and stay there until 6 p.m. without being asked to leave. In New York, that would not be the case. “Time is money.” There, you have to have a project, rules.
– There is also a cultural life in the United States, come on! You have great artists!
– Sure. I love my country, but I don’t like a certain hypocrisy. But it is beautiful, my country. Except that nothing, for me, replaces the bistro, the conversation: everyone is there, within sight, observation. I see stories there. I create it. I was nourished by Louis Malle and Truffaut, Flaubert and Ravel, Debussy and Balzac, and Simenon, even if he was Belgian! And then, what do you want, here, we know that for most questions there is no answer, we accept the idea that everything is not black or white, but rather gray. We love nuance. For me, France is the homeland of nuance. »

Also read. France seen from elsewhere – Ken Follet: “I like the cruelty of Balzac”

As he likes to tell and tell, to remember, he evokes a dialogue, in Maine, in the United States, with a friend who, coming out of a divorce, charged the ex-husband with all the sins. Kennedy strives to tell him that, perhaps, the wrongs were shared. Her friend, then, explodes: “No nuance! He says you have to admit doubt. “I struggle with doubt,” he admits. Her friend: “No! You have lived in France too long, she reproaches him. You have intellectualized yourself too much. And Kennedy responds: “It’s true! Douglas Kennedy, faced with a good croque-monsieur (“I don’t like star food, I only like simple things”), bursts out laughing: “Yes, France has definitely corrupted me. »