Exclusive Interview with British author Jasper Barry about a forbidden love in 19th century France.
Rating: Three Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“I decided to write my own nineteenth-century novel,” says The Second Footman author Jasper Barry. “Only with a contemporary twist. The central love affair is between two men. The novel is set in France partly because, unlike in England in the nineteenth century, homosexuality between consenting adults in private was not a criminal offense. I wanted to avoid an Oscar Wilde-type martyrdom scenario.”
Max, the main character in The Second Footman, is an equal opportunity seducer. He doesn’t care if you’re a woman or a man. However, his motives are unclear. The servants seem more serf than servant, with two French revolutions forgotten. The story is one of ambition, of the second footman’s schemes to rise higher by whatever means. His greed is mellowed by the philosophy and of love of the Marquis, who becomes his patron and lover.
In The Second Footman, Max lied about his age to get the job he wants. Before long the duchesse de Claireville notices how handsome he is and takes him to her bed. He becomes her lover for a short time, displacing the first footman Michael. Max is not planning on being a footman his whole life. He’s got big plans, a scheme that requires he find an aristocratic patron who will unwittingly become his accomplice in perpetrating a fraud. Max is educated and well-read. Armand de Miremont becomes his patron, but Max starts to have feelings for him and it’s confusing for him and his plans.
“The affair allows me to explore a number of things that interest me as a writer,” says Barry. “I like writing about sexual obsession, the power of the thing as yet ungained. Then there’s the power-balance in the relationship itself. You would think the rich aristocratic older man holds all the cards, but in practice Max can break Miremont’s heart and destroy his reputation if he pleases.”
“I’ve always loved the nineteenth-century novel. I like the way the characters, whatever hand fate and psychology have dealt them, must negotiate a hierarchical society with rigid rules about morality, money and class,” says Barry. “There’s usually a love affair, an element of mystery and plenty of period texture.”
“I started off optimistically thinking I wouldn’t have to do much research, as I’d already written a book set in roughly the same period,” says Barry. “Part of my work as a journalist involved writing about grand houses. But of course I was kidding myself. I ended up doing a vast amount of reading…European and French history, French nineteenth-century novels and poetry.”
“Research is also a wonderful excuse for trips to Paris,” says Barry. “I’ve walked around it as I walk around London, not sight-seeing but trying to get a feel for the different arrondissements and how the city fits together. My specialty seems to be getting hopelessly lost in the Bois de Boulogne. Last spring I also revisited Venice. An incident in the second novel of the trilogy requires me to know how long it takes to walk from the Campo Santo Stefano via the Chiesa di Santo Salvatore to the Caffè Florian. My research has also taken me to Munich and Dresden, but who needs an excuse to travel? I would travel all the time if writing and caring for my partner permitted.”
Barry is writing Book Two of the trilogy, set in France in 1882 to 1883. Book Three begins in 1890, the start of the Belle Époque. Barry has been a writer all his life, first in advertising and then as a journalist. He’s published four novels under another name. Apart from his years at boarding school and then at Cambridge University, he’s lived in London all his life.
The Second Footman by Jasper Barry. Kindle edition, File Size: 1135 KB Print Length: 488 pages Publisher: Matador (February 5, 2013) Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc. Language: English ASIN: B00BC08NME, Text-to-Speech: Enabled $3.99
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