Sensuality and City: A Conversation with Francesca Giacco

22 Aug

“Paying close attention to the senses is an essential part of how I write and how I experience the world. Whether it's the taste of a ripe tomato, the rush of ocean water against skin, or the feeling of kissing someone new for the first time, these are the sensations that unite us - they're indicative of life and what makes us human.”

Where did the initial inspiration and motivation for Six Days in Rome come from when you first put pen to paper?

The novel is a celebration and exploration of many things - traveling alone among them. It's something I've done a fair amount of, and the experience is unique and fascinating to me, how I can be walking through a foreign city and through my thoughts and memories at the same time. I wanted to capture that sensation with this kind of narrative. The question I was always trying to answer was, what if a few days alone in a foreign city could capture an entire life, at a pivotal moment?

Just a quick question - Why Rome?

I have a relationship with Rome that's always been a bit hard for me to define. I've been there at different times in my life - with others and by myself. And it's always given me an overwhelming sense of calm and peace, like I'm where I'm supposed to be at that particular moment. I think setting the novel there was, in a way, an attempt to examine that relationship and more fully understand it.

As your novel follows Emilia over six days only, its entire plot is somewhat limited by its temporality. Could you tell us a little bit more about how you found the process of writing a novel that exists within a definite timescale?

Initially, the timeline was intended to provide structure to what is a very interior narrative. But it also gave me some freedom to play with how Emilia's past influences her present, and vice versa. It was always very important to me to weave the two together and not lose the reader in the process, and I think the confines of the six days helped with that.

You have a wonderful ability to conjure evocative senses through your writing and how these senses impact emotional experience. Was this always an important aspect to your writing? And were you influenced by any authors whose writing focuses on the sensory?

Paying close attention to the senses is an essential part of how I write and how I experience the world. Whether it's the taste of a ripe tomato, the rush of ocean water against skin, or the feeling of kissing someone new for the first time, these are the sensations that unite us - they're indicative of life and what makes us human. It just makes sense to me to try to capture a place or a person using those sorts of details. And Rome is an especially sensory and evocative city, lending itself to this kind of description. There are many writers I love who pay close attention to the senses - Hemingway, Salter, MFK Fisher, and Elena Ferrante, to name just a few.

I've read that the character of Emilia's dad was influenced by Leonard Cohen. Could you tell us a little bit more about how you managed to translate a famous musician into a fictional character? And why did you choose to do so?

I've always been fascinated by relationships between famously creative parents and their children (especially when those children are creative themselves). Leonard Cohen's influence was a coincidence at first - when I was starting to think about this story and these characters, I heard an interview with his son, Adam, who'd put a book together in tribute to his father. I found the way he spoke about his dad to be so interesting - reverent and loving and a little envious, especially as Adam is a musician in his own right.

Around the same time, a museum near my apartment in New York put on an exhibit devoted to Cohen's life and music (he'd died two years before), and I became enthralled with how charismatic and challenging he seemed. I was able to use elements of Cohen that resonated and deepened who Emilia's father was to me, while adding my own details and traits.

Six Days in Rome explores ideas of creativity, with Emilia, her ex, Michael, and her father, all working in creative industries. What ideas did you want to explore about the nature of creative success and what defines success in an artistic sense?

Creative success is so subjective - it means vastly different things to different people. In the novel, Emilia's father subsists on adoration and fame, while her mother is perfectly content to paint every day and share her work with no one. Their definitions of success are diametrically opposed. Emilia is dealing with a lot of shame because her own achievements (and she is a successful artist - no small thing) don't align with what she's been taught to value.

The larger reality I was exploring is the fact that our lives, even if we're lucky and achieve things we want, rarely look the way we dreamt or hoped they would. That can be painful and hard to accept, but part of growing up is learning to embrace it. I think, by the end of the novel, Emilia is starting to.

Which other artists and creators, not necessarily authors, have had an impact on your work?

Art and creativity, in so many forms, are intrinsic to this story, so both were on my mind constantly. I thought a lot about the relationship between artists and muses when exploring Emilia's parents' dynamic - Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen obviously, but also Lucian Freud and Celia Paul, Rodin and Camille Claudel. I also followed and paid close attention to certain artists on Instagram, who informed and inspired Emilia's approach to the platform.
Music is an important influence on me, and plays a large part in the book, too. There's a lengthy Six Days in Rome playlist that captures the specific mood I was trying to amplify on the page.

Could you share with our readers a few authors you're enjoying reading at the moment?

I've read such wonderful books lately – all of them written by non-U.S. writers, which I love. Just a few: Dirt Music by Tim Winton, The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard, The Promise by Damon Galgut. One exception to that is Democracy by Joan Didion, her detachment and devastating cool on full display.

And finally, do you judge a book by its cover?

I do, probably more than I should! I'm definitely guilty of being swayed by my own preferences and biases when it comes to covers, but I've also been surprised enough (pleasantly and otherwise) to know that appearances can be deceiving.

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