The Margot Affair: An Interview with Sanaë Lemoine
The Margot Affair
Sanaë Lemoine’s Paris-set debut novel The Margot Affair has a family secret at its heart. Margot, sixteen, is the lovechild of an actress and a prominent politician, living in the shadows of her parents’ entanglement.
In this interview, Lemoine tells Mary Martin bookseller Suzy about the real-life story that inspired her writing, how delicious food inevitably weaved its way into her book and why the globe-trotting author has a fond connection with Melbourne.
You share that The Margot Affair was somewhat inspired by your own family history in your essay ‘Mi querida Sanaë’. How did the story of Margot come to you? How did life transmute into art?
I started writing The Margot Affair a few months after I learned that my father had a second family. He’d been seeing another woman for several years, while married to my mother, and together they had two sons. In the year following this discovery, I often (obsessively) thought about his other family and wondered what it would be like when we finally met. My younger half-brothers were too young to understand the arrangement. I was twenty-one and struggled to make sense of this revelation.
Creating Margot, the hidden daughter of an affair between a politician and an actress, was a way to explore and give shape to these feelings of loss, betrayal and curiosity. Instead of writing my own experience, though, I imagined the other side, a daughter who was raised in the secrecy of her parents’ affair, and who at some point makes the choice to break free from this secret. My family story felt private and mundane, whereas Margot’s has far greater consequences: both of her parents are public figures, and she doesn’t anticipate how her choices will affect them. That said, like most fiction, the novel began in this personal place, and then the characters took on a life of their own.
The Margot Affair has been favourably compared to Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan, a book Brigitte mentions to Margot in your story. What does that book and the comparison mean to you?
I’ve been surprised that so many readers and reviewers have compared The Margot Affair to Bonjour Tristesse! I discovered Bonjour Tristesse a few years into writing my novel. I read it in two sittings and was completely absorbed by the voice. I loved the mixture of wisdom/intelligence and naiveté/short-sightedness in Cécile, the narrator.
The novel was less a source of inspiration, and more a book that I thought both Brigitte and Margot would gravitate towards for different reasons. I imagined Margot reading about Cécile’s relationship with her father — such a close one, there’s no mother in the picture — when she yearns for a similar connection with her own father. I imagined Brigitte, a ghostwriter, using it as a tool to draw Margot in…
Margot’s mother is an actress and her father is a politician, both with public lives that involve a heightened level of performance and façade. Her parents, of a different generation, are more comfortable in maintaining dual lives. Margot, a modern teenager, is desperate to explode the boundaries between the public and the private. Why do you think she is not as fearful of the risks?
Margot, at seventeen, is too young to be able to see or anticipate the repercussions of spilling her family's secret.
There’s also so much she doesn’t know about her parents’ relationship, given they’re both very private about it. She longs for her father’s legal recognition and imagines he will be forced to recognize Margot as his daughter, once the public is made aware of her existence. She isn’t able to envision other outcomes because she blindly trusts him, believes that perhaps she and her mother, despite being the ‘second family,’ are the ‘loved ones.’ Or maybe because other outcomes are too painful. But she’s also on the cusp of adulthood, discovering her agency and voice, and that’s exciting. It makes her feel powerful and a bit reckless.
Was it difficult to inhabit the mind of teenager a little later in life?
On the one hand, my memories of being seventeen were quite vivid during the writing process. I can remember my last year of high school so clearly—those long school days from 8am to 5pm, studying for the final exams every spare moment, the heightened emotions, the intense friendships. It felt easy and seamless to inhabit that space.
On the other hand, as I moved into my late twenties, it became difficult to always write in Margot’s voice. The novel takes place over just one year and is narrated in the first person. I found myself including stories from other characters and embedding these stories within Margot’s narrative. They almost function as soliloquies or interludes (Anouk describing her pregnancy with Margot, Brigitte talking about her first project as a ghostwriter for a chef).
Paris is evoked so wonderfully. You have lived in places scattered all over the world, and are currently living in New York. Why did you choose this city for the setting?
Oh, I’m so glad you felt that way. Before writing this novel, I wrote short stories that took place in Australia, Japan (where my mother is from), and Argentina (where she lived for twenty years!), but rarely France. Somehow, though, when I started this novel, I didn’t hesitate in choosing Paris as the setting. I think because Paris felt most like home, where my father still lived, and where I’d gone to high school. I wanted a setting that was familiar to me, so I could focus on the characters and their relationships. It was important to describe a Paris that would feel authentic and true to the French characters, while being immersive for an anglophone audience.
I wanted to convey what a Paris winter feels like — damp, grey, cold — so unlike the dry and sunny winters in New York. Or the scent of rotisserie chicken wafting from butcher shops on the weekend. The stiffness of old train handles on the metro. Small details that bring the setting to life without it feeling clichéd.
You wrote this book in English, though you are also fluent in French and Spanish. What informed that choice? Does your multilingual nature impact your writing?
I first learned to read and write in English, and it’s the language I’ve always chosen for writing fiction.
Yes, I do think that speaking other languages (French and Spanish) has an effect on my writing. I feel freedom to play around with rhythm, syntax and word choice — when I was stuck in dialogue, I’d say a sentence in French and translate it into English and go back and forth. The flip side is that I can be self-conscious about my English. I’m often worried that something in my speech will betray me because I don’t feel the complete ease of a native speaker.
You also have a connection to Melbourne. What can you tell us about your years in Australia?
Yes! I moved to Melbourne from France with my parents and brother when I was four. We stayed for eight years. I have such fond memories of my time there. It was a comfortable, sheltered life, with easy access to the outdoors (the ocean, hiking, camping).
I went to a Rudolf Steiner school where I learned to draw, paint, sew, knit, and weave before learning math or chemistry. It’s where I fell in love with reading and writing. The school nurtured my creativity and independence—there were no grades or homework. I remember having a lot of time to read.
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I wanted to convey what a Paris winter feels like — damp, grey, cold — so unlike the dry and sunny winters in New York. Or the scent of rotisserie chicken wafting from butcher shops on the weekend. The stiffness of old train handles on the metro. ’
Previously, you have taught creative writing at Columbia University. What is your best advice for emerging writers?
To keep writing. I know it’s so simple, but just making the time and space to write can be one of the hardest parts of the writing life. There will be rejections and endless revisions, times when you’re too tired because you’re working a full-time job, times when no one else believes in the novel you’re writing.
The other piece of advice is to take your time. It’s fine if your writing is moving slowly. Take breaks and set your draft aside for a few days, weeks, or even months. One of my favorite writing professors liked to emphasize the importance of doing nothing and daydreaming.
You are also a cookbook editor and your Instagram page is filled with gorgeous foodie photos. I loved how food made its way into the novel, in many different ways, adding another layer to scenes and anecdotes. You have even shared recipes from the book on your website. Was it important to you to incorporate food into the story?
At first, the food descriptions weren’t intentional, but because food is often on my mind, it inevitably seeped into the novel. (I wonder if I’d be capable of writing anything that doesn’t include food/appetite/hunger in some capacity!) Food was also a way for me to infuse the novel with sensuality, to create a textured world.
What books and recipes have helped you through this pandemic?
So many! Early in the pandemic I returned to Lydia Davis’ short stories, which I never tire of rereading (one of my favorites is ‘St. Martin’). I read a few really brilliant debut novels. To name a few: It Is Wood, It Is Stone by Gabriella Burnham, True Story by Kate Reed Petty and Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier. I finished The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld two weeks ago and I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s one of those novels that stays with you and makes it difficult to open a new book…
I've been cooking comforting dishes—mostly rice and spaghetti and salads with whatever odd vegetables and fruits I have in the fridge. For baked goods, I almost always turn to Dorie Greenspan. For everyday recipes, I love anything by Meera Sodha.
What are you up to next?
I’m working on a second novel that feels very different from The Margot Affair. It’s centered on a woman in her mid-thirties and takes place in Japan and Argentina. It’s exciting and a bit terrifying, like jumping into a new relationship.
I feel some sadness turning the page on Margot, though there's comfort in knowing that she’s living another life with readers.
Thank you to Sanaë Lemoine for the images. The illustrations featured are from Margot’s Paris by Forsyth Harmon. You can find more information about the artist here.
You can read Suzy’s review of The Margot Affair on our Books We Love page.
$32.99