Swimming with Tigers is set in four different countries in Europe (France, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal). It takes us to three cities (Paris, Amsterdam and Lisbon), to a small town in Catalonia, and all the way through the south of France. Many readers have been kind enough to say how vivid the depiction of place is in the novel, so I thought I would share with you something about my process when it comes to researching locations.
Visiting the locations
To describe a place, I find it almost compulsory to go there first. Also, it’s a great excuse for a holiday! Even though my story is set in the past, seeing the architecture or the terrain and getting a sense of the space helps me describe how it might have looked at the time of my story, and almost always gives me fresh ideas for details of plot and character. Often, I try to walk the same streets as my characters and, since many scenes happen in bars or cafés, I can sometimes have a drink or a meal where they do!
Here I am in the (real) café that opens the book, Le Parisien on Rue du Four in Paris, taking notes with a glass of wine. In case you are wondering about my alcohol consumption, I should explain that the other glass is for my husband, David, who accompanies me on all these trips.
My written notes are as important if not more so than the photographic record. Here’s an example.
You’ll see I have recorded the walking route to get there, some details about the café interior and a possible scene that could take place there (“cafe where V and S meet?”).
The unknowns
Sometimes it’s difficult to know which of the locations will end up in the book and, inconveniently, often a place that ends up featuring prominently is one of the ones I took very few or no pictures of. This is when the Internet comes in handy. I don’t know how novelists managed before the advent of the web (I think they used to phone people up and ask questions), but a lot of my research begins with a Google search and ‘street view’ on Google maps is sometimes the closest I can get to exploring an area I’ve taken my characters to.
Occasionally I can return to a location when I have a better idea of what I need to know about it. I went back to Paris last year and it was surprising to see how much had changed since my original research trip in 2009. Also, the second time I went it was at a different time of year. The crowds enjoying the sunshine in Place Dauphine last spring made it feel completely different compared to the deserted, spooky atmosphere of the area when I was there in the winter of 2009. Had I first visited in the high tourist season and warm weather, I would never have developed my character Suzanne in the way that I did because the haunted, lonely feeling of this important location gave me a clue to developing her character.
Here is Place Dauphine when I first went there in February 2009.
And here it is last year on a sunny day in April.
Historical accuracy
The building on Rue du Four dates from 1870 but I haven’t been able to find out if Le Parisien café existed in 1938 when my characters have their crucial chance meeting there. Famous places like Café de Flore, however, have historical records and are often preserved with the same décor as in their glory years. The surrealists did indeed meet in Café de Flore at the time my book is set, so in 2009 we went in and had a drink there. You can see the red banquettes, brownish pillars and revolving door that I describe in the novel. The floor tiles (out of shot) are the same too.
When we visited last year, it was heaving with tourists so all I got was this outside shot.
Amsterdam
One of my favourite locations in the Amsterdam section of the book is the Art Nouveau Tuschinsky cinema. When I first visited it I knew that my characters would find themselves in Amsterdam and I was determined to set a scene in this gorgeous place!
Here is the beautiful foyer. When I got home I wrote a scene in which Penelope waits for Suzanne in this foyer.
I also found out some more about the cinema and incorporated it into the scene. So, as Penelope waits, she hears the sounds of the grand dances that used to happen in the 1930s, complete with delicious cake.
Here are the stairs in the cinema that Suzanne fell down.
And this is the butterfly motif that I adopted for her character.
Another fascinating leftover from history in Amsterdam is Het Schip, the so-called Worker’s Palace which is a complex of what we would now call affordable homes designed by the architect Michel de Klerk in 1920.
One of the apartments is preserved in period style for the public to see and when we visited in 2009 I knew I had to set a scene there.
It was not until a later draft that I found an opportunity to do so by sending Suzanne to do a modelling job for an amateur painter who lived there. I used loads of details from the apartment we saw, right down to the green tea caddy.
Cadaques
The research trip to Cadaqués near Figueres in Spain was one of our best ever holidays. In 2008, Cadaqués was very remote (I don’t know if that’s still true today) and, after a flight and two train journeys, it was still 45 minutes on a coach to reach it.
Here’s the classic view of Port D’Alguer which is a small beach near the town. It’s through this archway that I imagine Penelope pressing herself against the wall as the noisy children run past her.
I did not make up the detail about the names scratched onto cactus leaves as you see here.
This is the bay where (in my mind) Penelope, at her lowest point, imagines swimming with a tiger.
I did not have any low points on this wonderful holiday. Here I am with a mojito cocktail at a beachside café!
The Final Destination
Lisbon was a fascinating city. We stayed in the Alfama district, the oldest part of Lisbon, where sailors and the poor lived and the Fado music tradition flourished. I imagine it as virtually a slum area in the 1930s and I enjoyed recreating the narrow, irregularly-paved streets in the last part of the book.
The final pages of the novel take place in another historic café, La Basiliera. Here’s the fantastic carved figure just above the double glass doors that play such a dramatic part in the closing scenes of the book (I’m trying not to give too much away!).
While in Lisbon, I spent a lot of time trying to imagine what it would have been like in those times of war when people had to decide whether to flee from Europe to safety in America. Here I am at Santos docks, looking out to sea and trying to think my way into the minds of my desperate characters.
Some music to end with
To end on a high note, let’s go back to Paris. Last year when we visited I was determined to go to the flea market at Saint-Ouen and the renowned café, La Chopes des Puces, where Django Reinhardt played his famous manouche music (or ‘gypsy’ jazz).
I had written a scene set at the café using only what I could find online for visual reference. I invented a link between my character Penelope seeing one of the carousel horses they have there now (although who knows what was there in 1939) and the wooden horse depicted in Leonora Carrington’s Self-Portrait of the same year.
On our first attempt, the café was shut but we tried again the next day and were treated to some excellent music. Here is the carousel horse and then a short film of the musicians, clientele and staff.