Baldacci under scrutiny

I read and re-read this Sydney Morning Herald interview of David Baldacci and damned if I don't  keep arriving at the conclusion that Daphne Guinness, the interviewer in question, doesn't really care for the author very much. Maybe it's exchanges like this:

At this point, if he were a character in Hour Game, he'd be obscenely sliced and gutted by a hooded killer, and his alter ego Sean King, ex FBI, with his partner Michelle Maxwell, ex FBI, (and alter ego of Baldacci's wife, Michelle) would be hot on the trail of whodunit.

So yes, Sean King is Baldacci, and Maxwell is Michelle. What an interesting marriage that must be, although in the book they are simply "becoming" romantic. Baldacci laughs.

As for the vivid sex scenes, he says he's been married 14 years, he has kids, but "I've certainly had relations in the past and I know the nuts and bolts of it, if you will". More laughter.

He is so upbeat you could kill him. Of course with sales of 40 million books worldwide, the improbability of not being successful is enough to make anybody heave with merriment.

Or others like this:

Baldacci is a chatterbox. Imagine him at a dinner party, guests drooling over his words, the coq au vin congealing, his hostess getting madder, his wife sending signals to shut up and he still tick-tocks over Hour Game's autopsied bodies ("Never passed out at the sight of one but I passed out at my wedding"). Or the wildly long SUV car chase ("I was on pure adrenalin writing that"). Or the pole-dancing ("I researched that giving a speech in a strip club").

Suddenly our interview becomes a writing class. He holds them from time to time. Dialogue, he says, is the hardest thing to do. "It's not connected dot style, not A-B-C-D-E-F-G, it's A-TO-D- BACK-TO-C-OVER-TO-F, that's how people talk."

And: "Staring at a blank screen for hours is not productive. Go out play tennis, do some gardening, because real writers think about it regardless."

And keep chapters short. "You control the reader more." Whoa! Is he a control freak? "You need to be sometimes. My wife controls some things because she is better at them than I am."

Hard to say, but it seems she's got a problem with his endlessly cheerful personality or something. Very, very strange.

Comments

[Jim Winter]

Remind me never to grant this woman an interview without her first swearing out an affidavit that she is, indeed, on some mood-controlling substance like Prozac, because clearly, the woman has issues.

[Ray]

It's a good job Baldacci is relentlessly cheerful, because she's mean. Really mean. I hope I never come into contact with her. I'd probably burst out crying.

[Ron]

Doesn't David Baldacci know artists are supposed to be tortured?

Of course, the fact that this woman thinks miniature armoires that can hide your computer from view when you're not writing are notable also speaks volumes.