Note: Text has been edited and may not match audio exactly.
Michael Collina: I'm Audible Editor Michael Collina, and I'm thrilled to be speaking with André Aciman, the very bestselling writer of Call Me by Your Name, to talk a bit about his Audible Original, The Gentleman from Peru. Thank you so much for joining me, André.
André Aciman: Thank you for having me too.
MC: Now I thought this story felt different from a lot of your previous work. It combines elements of magical realism and just a little bit of fantasy into that prose and atmosphere that your fans have come to expect and love about all of your other stories. I wanted to ask, what was it like incorporating these more fantastical elements into The Gentleman from Peru?
AA: Well, usually and traditionally, first of all, I've always avoided magical realism. It's never been a form that I particularly liked. I've read a few books like that and it doesn't agree with me. At least that's what I think superficially, because, clearly, I had a tendency towards it all along. People have dream sequences in which they discover things about themselves, or they have a fantasy of speaking to someone who might even be dead and they continue speaking to them and they even get answers. In their heads, they realize it's fantasy. But the leap from that to real magical realism was something totally new for me.
The other thing that I've done differently here is that I never have, in my whole life, written in the third person. So here I am writing in the third person. In other words, nobody has a privileged anteriority.
MC: Yes, I did notice that. And I know, like you mentioned, all of your previous work has been in first person. What was making that switch like for you? Did you find it difficult to make that jump to third person?
AA: Actually, no. It wasn't difficult at all. I think there was something about the story that needed to be told in the third person, because if you had a first person narrator, then he would not have surprised you by what unravels in the story. He would have known about it, and hiding it from the reader would have been sort of disingenuous. So I felt that a third-person narrator would not know everything about the character, Raúl. He wouldn't know anything about what the other people knew. It would have been sort of objective throughout, which allows the reader not to get any insight into what the motivation is and what the backstory is here.
I spent my whole adolescence in Italy, in Rome, falling in love with one person after another, after another person... For me, writing about these loves feels very natural.
MC: And, actually, now that you brought up Raúl, from his introduction, he's the titular gentleman from Peru. He's pretty mysterious and has almost this magical air to his presence. Do you mind shedding some light on who he is as a character and what he's meant to represent in this story?
AA: I had an inspiration about who he looks like. Usually, as I've said many times, I am blind to what a character looks like, and what are the surroundings? I have no eye for detail and facts. And yet I was inspired because he looks like somebody I've known who is the author of a book called [Memoirs] of an Anti-Semite, Gregor von Rezzori, whom I met a few times and he was extremely aristocratic, but at the same time had a certain kind of bonhomie about him that made him extremely approachable. He was tall, he was old, but he was also very handsome. You could tell he must've been quite a handsome man and he clearly knew it and remembered it. And I think many women were still fascinated by it. So he was a titular figure that I was trying to borrow from reality. Of course, Grisha, as he's known to his friends, is no longer on this planet.
However, there was also something else that is equally mysterious about [Raúl], which most readers may have picked up or they may not have picked up on, is that Raúl is a character that appears in Enigma Variations. Initially this story was going to be the sixth tale in Enigma Variations. But I found myself fighting the whole idea of a magical realism story in this totally different tale. So I eventually cut it out from there and stopped writing it. I'd written about four pages of it, so it was nothing. Eventually I began to realize that there was a future to this story, particularly in light of what had happened many years earlier.
MC: Great. Thank you. And speaking about the length of this audiobook, this is your first Audible Original, and it's much shorter than a lot of your other works of fiction have been in the past. What has it been like writing a story of this length and with audio, particularly, in mind?
AA: It's a good question. First of all, you have to realize where I wrote it. I had just left, I think, Spain and was going to Rome. I had given myself a seven-day vacation in Rome. And before going to Sicily, where I was going to be a judge for several films, none of which I liked by the way. So I was in Rome for seven days and I said, "I've got to do this." This was something that was hanging on me. And, I picked up where I had left off many years earlier, the four pages that I was talking about. And eventually, I just wrote it. In maybe those seven days, all I did was write in Rome and then I picked it up when I was back in New York and finished it there.
It was actually quite easy to write because I enjoyed writing it. I truly enjoyed… the story of the lovers was just so compelling and so beautiful and so easy. Whereas the beginning of the story felt a bit laborious. I had to especially separate the characters. There were so many characters, I had to separate them. I had to give each one its different personality. That was work. Once I started writing about how the two characters fall in love, I was in heaven.
MC: And you definitely made that apparent to all of the readers and listeners. Going back to the point you just made about there being such a large cast of characters in this story, The Gentleman from Peru features a pretty large group of Americans vacationing in Italy. For being such a short story, there are a lot of characters making appearances throughout. But despite its shorter length, there's absolutely no lack of characterization for any of them. And listeners really get a great sense of who each character is and what motivates them. Did you find it difficult fitting all of these different personalities into such a short space?
AA: Not really. I needed a lot of characters because this was a group of friends who got on a yacht. And we're sailing in the Mediterranean and the person who had basically rented the boat was not even able to come because he was busy on Wall Street, but they were all friends who had gone to college in the same year, and so it's a reunion of people. I wanted a group of people, and I wanted them each to spar with one another or be a bit funny with each other. And maybe some of them have had relationships in the past, but those had been completely dissolved. I like the fact, and I mean, it's no secret that the man from Peru is a magician and he allows the boat to stop at the whatever harbor they have in Italy, of course. And, he's inspired, among other things, by Prospero in The Tempest who creates a tempest on purpose to have people come ashore and he basically plays havoc with them. The gentleman from Peru does not play havoc, he just persuades them that he has these capacities.
MC: He definitely does. And since we're talking a little bit more about Italy, like a lot of your previous work, The Gentleman from Peru is very, very atmospheric. It's filled with vivid sensations of the food, the sights, the sounds, and the smells of the setting. And in many ways, it's a nice escape to Italy where many of your stories take place. What is it about Italy and the Italian countryside and seascapes in general that's so comfortable and easy to write about for you?
AA: Well, put it this way: It's kind of a placebo place. Italy for me represents sunshine, landscape, people, of course, eroticism—that also factors in—good food, good wine, the joys of life. Basically, when I write about Italy, I'm really trying to go to Italy. That's what I'm doing. I'm traveling to my own version of what Italy's like. Italy's not really the way I portrayed, but a lot of it is borrowed and altered and fancified a bit, and I love that about Italy. You have to realize that I spent my whole adolescence in Italy, in Rome, falling in love with one person after another, after another person. Not doing anything, just secretly falling in love with them. And, for me, writing about these loves feels very natural. I'm going back to something that I have never forgotten. It's still with me. So writing about Italy is basically going back to Italy with more knowledge of what people are and falling in love on paper as it were.
MC: Well, thank you so much for letting us in on that trip to Italy with you. It's quite an enjoyable trip, I have to say.
AA: Thank you. Thank you.
MC: You've touched on this, but writing is really personal. And you mentioned a little bit of what Italy means to you in your stories. Are there any other little bits and pieces of yourself and your own experiences that you weave into any of the characters and experiences in The Gentleman from Peru?
AA: Yes, because I think that... But, I do believe that a human being is not just one person. We are a cast of characters and sometimes many, many characters, and some of those characters, as I like to say, don't even like each other. So they don't talk to each other, but they're all there. What you do when you're a writer is you're not going to necessarily copy what people are really like—you are taking those characters out of yourself. “If I were born and raised on Park Avenue, this is what I would want to do.” What you do is you transpose that person that you are imagining that you are in fact, because even if you're not born on Park Avenue, you can take parts of yourself and mold them to someone that was born on Park Avenue. And the same thing happens if you're born in Brooklyn or elsewhere or New Jersey or in Italy and France and so on.
We all love having stories read to us. It's a wonderful thing to be sitting or lying in bed, having a story being read to you. It's a gift. It's a magnificent gift.
So they're all me. The signature to me is essentially very easy to recognize: insecurity, reluctance, fear, timidity, all those things. Every one of my characters has it. Some of them hide it, some of them do not. And so, most of the women in my books tend to be, and I like these women, they're very aggressive, they're very strong, they know what they want, and they tell you off if they need to. That's a bit me too, by the way. It's the me I conceal from the real world. But I have a big mouth. And some people have told me, "You should watch what you say sometimes." "Do I really? I didn't know. I thought I was shy." You know, that sort of thing.
MC: It's always interesting to hear how other people view us as compared to how we view ourselves.
AA: Oh, we're always mistaken. We're always, always mistaken. I'm discovering things. I mean, one of the things that one of my sons says to me, and you will appreciate this since you are, in a way, interviewing me, is, "You're the last person who should ever be interviewed." Because I say things that I know I will regret having said.
MC: Well, no need to worry or regret about anything you're saying here. Everything is fantastic. And really beautifully stated.
AA: Have you heard the tape? Because I haven't.
MC: No, I have not heard it yet, but I've read it. And I loved it. I loved reading it.
AA: Oh thank you.
MC: But I really think it's going to be a beautiful experience to listen to.
AA: I know because I know the man who [performed it, Edoardo Ballerini] , I mean, I met him on email, but we've sort of communicated with each other. I used to know his father, and he's perfect. His voice is perfect. So I'm just waiting.
MC: As am I, and actually that's a great segue into the next thing I wanted to ask. So your audiobooks, in the past, have had some pretty fantastic performances. There was Armie Hammer on Call Me by Your Name, Michael Stuhlbarg on Find Me, and now Edoardo Ballerini for The Gentleman from Peru. What has it been like hearing your words brought to life in audio?
AA: It's a strange sensation. There have been some readers, especially in my earlier works, who were chosen at random, I have a feeling, because they didn't get the spirit of the book. But more recently what has happened is that Im always surprised when I have a kind of very mild, minor joke thrown in, and they catch it and they render it in their voice. There's almost an imperceptible chuckle in their reading. The same thing happens when they're reading something that's quite sad, you will notice by the tempo of their voice that there's a halt or a little tug in their voice. And that is magnificent for an... I mean, you need an actor to do that and they've been fantastic. So Michael is amazing. Armie has been fantastic. And I'm waiting to hear Edoardo, but I'm sure he's such a professional that I can't wait. I want to be transported by someone else reading my stuff.
MC: And these performances, they really do always transport you to those settings and those stories. You mentioned you actually knew Edoardo's father?
AA: Yes. He's a poet. I met him when he was... I went for a job interview at NYU years and years ago when I was a graduate student and I never got the job because I was not cut out for it, but I went for the interview anyway and he was extremely charming. Very nice man. I was happy to finally meet Luigi Ballerini, very famous man. He's a poet in his own right. He's written many books and so on. So it was a total coincidence.
I knew Edoardo, but hadn't recognized his name, because I had seen a film that I absolutely adored. And nobody's heard of that film. It's called Dinner Rush. And it's an amazing, amazing film with a fantastic plot. And he's the hero of the film. It's absolutely wonderful. And so another one of my sons said, "Oh, Edoardo Ballerini, you know him." I said, "No, I don't." And he said, "Yes, you've seen him in that..." "Oh my God, that's true." So I'm very happy by the whole thing.
MC: And I'm sure all of the listeners will be too once they hear him bring that story to life. Continuing this train of thought on audio, do you see yourself working on any more audio-focused projects in the future? I know we'd love to hear more from you.
AA: There is another one that I just finished and I think Audible bought it. It's a shorter novella, but it's from the point of view of a woman. She is basically telling her story, and I loved writing that. That came really easily. In other words, how do I know, from a male perspective, what a woman feels? But it just spilled out of me really fast, and I loved writing it, and I adore that story. I don't know that Eduardo can read that, it would make more sense that a woman read it. But I don't know. I mean, it might work. I don't know.
MC: That is so exciting to hear. I cannot wait to learn more about that and jump into that as well. I'm sure it won't disappoint.
AA: I hope not. Everybody says they like it a lot. It's quite gutsy and passionate and, at the same time, very true, I think.
MC: That sounds incredible.
AA: I like writing for Audible, for someone reading it [aloud], because I always write with what I believe is a cadence or a sense that the voice has to stop with a comma, if only for a moment, because you need to stop there. And my sentences tend to be long. So they have an automatic musicality to them and I pay attention to that. It makes it very easy for a reader to be able to read, I mean, if it's a decent reader, and I've had a couple that were not good, but a good reader would automatically pick up what the cadence is and how to rise and how to fall and how to rise again, because the clauses are all sort of concatenated if you want.
MC: There's definitely a lot to a performance and it adds an important layer to the story and the listener's experience of it.
AA: I think so. I think it's extremely important. We all love having stories read to us. It's a wonderful thing to be sitting or lying in bed, having a story being read to you. It's a gift. It's a magnificent gift. And we don't know how to cultivate it much longer because we have automatic voices reading to us. But the act of being read to is still something wonderful. And you're not confused because this man has to sound old, this one has to sound young. An actor can do this in a second. It doesn't effect. So, in many ways, I love being read to, and there are times when I'll ask my wife, "Read me the article in the newspaper." Because it's fun to have something read to you in the paper as opposed to the solitary act called reading.
MC: Definitely very true. Like I said, it's a whole other experience and it's a great one at that. I think it's safe to say that Call Me by Your Name is one of your most famous stories and has a pretty massive following at this point. What do you think The Gentleman from Peru brings to the table for all of those fans of Call Me by Your Name?
AA: It has a story of two characters who are in their youth. It comes very suddenly, sort of imperceptibly on the reader because the reader thinks this is about the gentleman from Peru who is of a certain age, blah, blah, blah… and eventually, suddenly it breaks into something totally different. It's about a young man and a young girl who essentially hate each other. And gradually something occurs.
I like the fact that they're not Romeo and Juliet, immediately attracted to each other, falling in love right away. No, I wanted there to be like a work to be done, for them to realize, "Wait a minute, I hate her, but why am I thinking of her this way? And why do I want to see her naked?" There's all kinds of weird things that crop up in your mind, and it's nice that you have this huge bridge that needs to be crossed before you arrive at that point where, "Oh, wow, these are immortal lovers. This is for all time."
And I think that's what a reader from Call Me by Your Name will immediately latch onto. It's not just a love story. It's a story that says, "Even after I die, I'm going to be in love with you. And I don't want you to die because I want you to be on Earth." It's these kind of very powerful feelings that make the word "love" look pale because it's over and beyond love. It's about passion that has been augmented and incrementally blown up to a proportion that we normally don't think of.
MC: Definitely. And the love between these two characters, it really does feel believable and immortal. And like it's going to last and go on forever. Does that reflect your own feelings on love and relationships in the real world?
AA: In a way, yes. Because there are certain loves... We can be in love with many people at the same time. That's the other thing that we never discuss, is that it's not only one person, it's many people, as Jesus said once, "It's a legion," or he didn't say it. Satan said it. "There are legions of them in us."
And so we have lots of loves and some of the loves go back to when I was 10 years old. It hasn't gone away. If I think about it, which I don't always do, but if I think about it, "Oh my God, I'm still in love with that person. That's weird. And I'm close to 70. And I was 10 years old. So this is like more than half a century ago. This is ridiculous." No, it's not ridiculous. It's still there. And there are many other steps along the way where I feel that, "Oh yeah, this person too, I'm still in love with her."
MC: And that's one of the things that I feel like you hit well in Find Me, which was the followup to Call Me by Your Name. It brought us back to the characters of Call Me by Your Name. Do you see yourself revisiting any of the characters from The Gentleman from Peru in any future work?
AA: I don't know. I don't know. Writing is a weird thing because on one hand there's always the fear that you've run out of stories to tell. I've always had that fear since I was a kid, "Oh, I've only got two poems left and then I have nothing else to write." And I always live with that. At the same time, sometimes you sit at your desk and you begin typing away something, and it starts to have a life of its own by the second page. And you say, "Okay, I'll keep going at this and by fifth page it’s going to die," etcetera. And it doesn't die by the 10th page. And then you’re on page 15, you say, "What's going on?" And so I don't know if I'm ever going to go back to something.
It depends on the moment. I can’t summon that moment. I can’t make it happen. People can’t ask me to write a certain book because I can’t do it, and people have asked me for years to write the sequel to Out of Egypt, which is a book I wrote, my first published book. And, I've said, "I don't think I want to. I don't think I can. There's nothing else to add here." And so I'll never do that sequel, no matter what people say. On the other hand, when I wrote Find Me, I suddenly returned to the characters of Call Me by Your Name. Am I done with them? I don't know.
MC: That's really beautifully said. The inspiration strikes when it strikes. You never know.
AA: And it's not even a big inspiration. It's just sitting at the computer and just typing away and saying, "You know, there's something I want to discover here."
MC: Well, with that, André, I want to thank you so much for spending some time with me today.
AA: Thank you, Michael. Thank you very, very much.
