Interview with Jill Culiner
author of Slanderous Tongue

Q This is your first mystery book. What made you decide to venture into mystery writing?

A One of the most wonderful presents I give myself is the liberty to curl up under a lovely warm feather quilt and spend hours and hours devouring a good mystery. And, for me, one of the joys of a mystery is the way it lets me peek through the keyhole of my neighbour's door, sneak a look at another life, get a whiff of dark secrets.

In writing a mystery, I wanted to have the same keyhole-peeking fun. Not just that; I like a nice gristly enigma to gnaw away at. So, this is why I wrote one; it was just another way of giving myself — and others, I hope — a present.

Q In Slanderous Tongue you touch upon many themes, such as the changing face of the French countryside and environmental issues associated with large-scale livestock farming. Can you tell us about this aspect of the book?

A Mention France, folk get dreamy-eyed. Mention French cuisine, they moan with pleasure. But when a famous French magazine did a survey a few years ago, they found most modern French families live on supermarket-bought frozen dinners heated up in microwave ovens. Just like elsewhere, those 'wonderful' French products come from either intensive animal factories or chemical-laced fields.

As far as aesthetics go, the ultra-rapid growth of the do-it-yourself industry has encouraged home-owners to modernize, modernize, modernize; sixteenth-century cottages converted into concrete and PVC villas, new housing developments — well, there they are, charmless but ubiquitous, yellow cement grim, at the edge of every single little village, town or city. And all the while, the increasing pollution of rivers, the insistent use of chemicals on fields, the destruction of trees continues unabated.

So, I think, in writing a mystery set in France, I have followed in the tradition of many French writers of mysteries — Georges Simenon, Nestor Burma, Philippe Huet, Didier Daeninckx, Gilles Perrault, Pascal Dessaint, just to name a few. They all use this very medium as a way of attacking their society, the honourable fight of an idealist.

Q You made the unusual decision to leave your heroine, the Canadian narrator of Slanderous Tongue, tantalizingly unnamed throughout the book. Can you explain why you chose to do this?

A Well, just possibly it's the author herself recounting the real goings-on in a small French village. And, just as possibly, it isn't. That's for readers to decide. By not giving a fictional name to the narrator — that would create distance — the story becomes more authentic, more intense.

Q What aspects of your book do you think will have the greatest appeal to readers?

A It all depends on the reader, of course. For those interested in the old rural French traditions and how — or why — they vanished, that's in the book. So are murder, blackmail, malpractice, humour, intensive chicken farming, gossip and lots of bed-hopping. A bit of something for everyone.