Interview: Hilary Mantel

 8.  Hillary Mantel:  The Art of Fiction No: 226, published in The Paris Review, Issue 212, Spring 2015.  Interviewed by Mona Simpson.

“I only became a novelist because I thought I had missed my chance to become a historian.”

This is an interview with the two-time Booker Prize winner for the first two books in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies.  The final book of the trilogy is The Mirror & the Light.  She wrote A Place of Greater Safety, a historical novel about the French Revolution, completing it when she was 27 years old!  Add her many contemporary fiction books, her memoir Giving Up the Ghost and innumerable essays; she was a prolific writer.

Reading the interview, I also learned that Hilary Mantel thought Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson was the perfect novel.  HM's words:  "Kidnapped I read probably every couple of years at least. It never loses its magic for me."  A bit further on she adds, "Kidnapped is perfect. There’s nothing in it that shouldn’t be there, nor is it lacking anything. I know Stevenson modestly said it was just a story for boys, but it’s actually a perfect novel."  I had never read Kidnapped so, of course, I had to read it for the first time.  I liked it and, by then, knowing what HM thought of the novel made me feel very smart.

Hilary Mantel died on September 22, 2022,  Ever since I read Wolf Hall in 2013, she has occupied a place as one of my favorite writers.  Along with millions of others, I was shattered when I learned of her death.   After finishing The Mirror & the Light, I couldn't help myself and wrote my own amateurish tribute to her when I discovered her omission from the list of famous and important people who died in 2022 by a prestigious American news organization.  I came across this Paris Review interview when I was working on that piece.  Throughout her writing career she maintained a busy media presence, so there was a treasure trove of videos, addresses, interviews and awards presentations, etc. to go through.  The depth of this Paris Review interview (it's very long!) revealed her enormous intellect, skill, wit and generosity and made it one of the best.

I keep another blog titled (un)published where I put my own tribute to HM titled Omission:  Hilary Mantel is not forgotten.  Sheepishly, I add this to the excellent PR interview.  I didn't check beforehand;  hopefully, all of the links still work.

Book links copied from Barnes & Noble website. 

Afternote February 24, 2024

I learned today (while listening to a podcast) that the Paris Review was founded in 1953 by Peter Matthiessen, Harold L. Humes and George Plimpton, with Plimpton also serving as the first editor.  It is, apparently, according to the podcast, the best source of literary interviews even now.  I've only read Hilary Mantel's interview in the Paris Review.  Based on this, I am inclined to agree.