Joanne Harris author of Chocolat at Perth Writers Festival

Best known for the delectable Chocolat, Joanne Harris has written twelve novels, two cookbooks, learnt classical flute and plays bass guitar in a band.

Her new novel Blueeyedboy has been described as a Rubik’s cube or Chinese Puzzle Box, and after listening to Joanne speak at the PWF she could also be described as a wonderfully thought provoking riddle. With a mind that alternates between migraines and dreaming in colour, Joanne revealed that she recently turned her back on writing. Instead she spent a few years composing online fan fiction under a secret identity. Thankfully she was not lost to us.

Blueeyedboy has been described as a black comedy, a psychological thriller and “a murder mystery with no detective and no apparent crime”. The main character B.B. is a 43 year old hospital janitor who still resides at home with his controlling mother, and lives through a fantasy online world where he is free to divulge his murderous whims. Joanne describes him as her “most complex character to date”, a man who “needs to be unraveled, to understand what made him like he is.”

In writing the book Joanne spent three years researching online communities, or “wasting time on the net”, an exercise she found so addictive that by the end of the book she had to remove herself from all her online accounts.

Written in reverse, Joanne admits that Blueeyedboy was “difficult to write”. There was no overall plan to begin with and as it progressed, three potential endings emerged. Consequently she rewrote half the book after the main bombshell revealed itself later on. Joanne believes that readers should “decide for themselves how the story ends”, and that this “can vary according to their own state of mind”. She adds “please don’t ask me what comes next, I’m usually the last to know” and “in the story as in life, the toughest question to answer truthfully is always going to be: Who am I?”

Interestingly the characters live with synaesthesia, a disorder where colours are associated with certain smells. While not labeling herself a suffer, Joanne concedes that she too associates colours with smells. A gift, or infliction depending on your perception, that was evident during question time when the first person to raise her hand was referred to as ‘the chocolate lady’.

If we hadn’t just been made aware of synaethesia, we could easily have thought this was a stunning piece of subliminal advertising for Chocolat. However this theory was quickly destroyed when the second question was asked by a woman in a sparkly top who hence forth shall be known as “aniseed”.

Watching this did make me wonder though. Were the remaining questions ‘real’ questions, or simply people wanting to know what scent their Target t-shirt or imported Italian twinset projected. Incase you were wondering, no I didn’t ask a question, one because shyness constantly forbids my hand from thrusting into the air at such events, and two because I was wearing a checked blouse and “patterns don’t create smells”, evidently.

So after the brutally honest, enlightening one hour session I was left pondering three things:

Joanne revealed that with Chocolat she imagined Juliette Binoche in the central role, even before she had finished writing the book. However she sidestepped this issue for Blueeyedboy saying it would be an extremely difficult book to turn in to a movie. Still for those of you who have read the book you have to ponder…..who could play BB?. I’d love to hear your ideas?
Whether Joanne does secretly have a book called Aniseed in the pipeline?
What it would have been like going online when Joannes’ fanfic spilled straight from her mind onto the screen each day. Food for thought for all those fanfic writers out there. Even better what a hoot to read some of the disparaging comments left by unsuspecting readers. Surely that must have made Joanne giggle, see red and smell…um….cheery blossoms perhaps?