Q&A with Katherine Reay

 

 

 

Katherine Reay is the author of the new novel The English Masterpiece. Her other books include the novel The Berlin Letters. She lives outside Bozeman, Montana. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The English Masterpiece, and how did you create your characters Lily and Diana?

 

A: While I was inspired by the 1999 Thomas Crown Affair and the classic Hepburn movie How to Steal a Million, the idea started with an article a friend sent me about a famous art forger who had just been released from jail. Instantly the story emerged — and writing from that perspective was so much fun!

 

As for our leading ladies, Lily and Diana, I envisioned Diana first. She was strong and clear very quickly, on two levels — her backstory and her persona. And those are very different! Lily came along in tandem and, in many ways, her character runs both parallel and perpendicular to Diana.

 

And, although I “saw” Diana first, I knew from the start The English Masterpiece was Lily’s story.

 

Q: How did you research the novel, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: The most dynamic part of my research was a trip to London and an interview with the chairman of an insurance company that is part of the Lloyd’s syndicate.

 

It was that trip and the insights gleaned into the insurance classification of art, the movement of art, and its evolving nature as an investment from the 1970s into the 1980s that really framed the story. It provided the propulsion for Lily’s chase for the truth. 

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Lily and Diana?

 

A: Complex and fascinating. Diana is Lily’s mentor and her boss on the surface, but it’s all the undercurrents in their relationship that make them interesting. Diana has trained and formed Lily in many ways that, until deep into the story, Lily herself doesn’t fully grasp. Lily wants to be Diana, and yet does she really know her?

 

Q: The novel centers around a Picasso painting that might be a forgery. Why did you choose Picasso as a major focus of the novel?

 

A: Picasso was — and to a great degree remains — the world’s most famous artist. An icon. His 1960 showing at the Tate Gallery was the world’s first “blockbuster” art show and his death shook everyone in the spring of 1973.

 

Not only that, Picasso is also history’s most forged artist — I guess when you span all those artistic movements, forgers have a lot of bandwidth with which to work — so he was a natural for this story on many levels.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: In my head it’s titled The Undercover Bookshop and it’s a split-time story with a London bookshop, a spy, a young mother, a young doctor and her sister who runs the bookshop, and a four-generation mystery stretching back to 1950. I’m not sure, however, that the title will stick as I’ve only ever titled one of my own books, Dear Mr. Knightley.

 

Q: Anything else we should know? 

 

A: Simply thank you! I am so delighted to be here today to share The English Masterpiece with you and I hope everyone who reads it has a wonderful time! 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Katherine Reay.