Let's get the first question out of the way: Yes, it's her real name.
Sparkle Hayter is a writer now finishing her sixth -- and final, she says -- installment of her popular "Robin Hudson" mystery novels. Originally from Canada, Sparkle now lives in Paris. She likes to write in cafes, just like Hemingway did. She also reported for the Toronto Star as a war correspondent. Just like Hemingway did. (She, in Afghanistan. He, of course, in Spain.) "People keep finding the parallels," she says. "But he was humorless and macho. That's a big difference."
Sparkle's latest novel is set in her new hometown. It's full of humor and Robin's cool not macho. Sparkle moved to Paris five years ago after living in New York City. It was more than just a change of scenery -- it changed the way she wrote. We caught up with her in Paris:
VT: What's different now that you live in Paris, besides the incredible croissants?
Sparkle: Back in New York I used to dig things up and go home to my apartment to work. I'd write really fast to get all my thoughts down before I forgot them. But you miss a little that way. Here it's more immediate. I write on my laptop on location, in cafes, even outside when the weather's good. I'm right in a scene and watching and writing everything as it happens. I hear dialogue. I get color. I get the atmosphere -- the details and the place. If I'm writing a scene in a particular part of Paris I like to go to that part of the city.
VT: Which neighborhoods?
Sparkle: I like the grottier ones. Sometimes Paris is too precious and pretty. I crave industrial architecture. I like the Chateau Rouge area, the immigrant neighborhood where I live. It has lots of cafes, and is gritty and colorful. I also go to La Defense, a skyscraper ghetto in the west of Paris, and the Mitterand Library, which is very modernist. I'm also interested in the underground of Paris. I've literally been in the sewers of Paris.
VT: Do you take your laptop underground?
Sparkle: No, I don't bring my laptop with me in the sewers; that would be a bit too much. It was so vivid the details stuck with me.
VT: Sounds like you're doing a lot of reportage for your novel?
Sparkle: All novelists have to do some reportage. You're allowed to make up everything but you have to have enough factual stuff in there for verisimilitude. I have this world of Robin Hudson but I pour it into stuff that actually exists. So I'm using a lot of place. I make up some of that place, too, of course. But I want to be as naturalistic as possible and capture, for example, the way people talk in cafes and the little things of note in those cafes. I don't want to just present the tourist vision of Paris -- everything all gussied up. I love Paris and it's home in a way, but it's not New York, where the other Hudson books are set. So that makes it more difficult. My character is a fish out of water here. And I am, too, you know. Also, my French is comical immigrant French, so that presents extra challenges.
Sparkle Hayter's books include Bandit Queen Boogie
