An Interview with Nina de Gramont

The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont reimagines the disappearance of mystery author Agatha Christie. The story—told through the eyes of Agatha Christie’s husbands’ mistress--captures the reader’s attention by combining fact, fiction, drama, revenge, and murder. Join me, as I talk to Ms. De Gramont about her most recent novel.

Stepping into the office of Nina de Gramont, I find a writer’s utopia: so many books on the shelves, posters of her books on the walls, and a large print of The Christie Affair displayed proudly on top of her bookshelf. She had a candle burning previously, which provided a homey feel, and asked me if I minded waiting as she heated her coffee. I told her I didn’t mind, wanting extra time to gaze around the space. When she came back, she gave me a cookie. Macadamia, my favorite.

We began by talking about her writing process. "The most important part of the process is letting my imagination run wild when I'm creating the initial draft. Then, applying a rigorous attitude toward revision and being willing to discard things and add things and mourn things. It took me 5 years to write the book," she said.

This idea of adaptation from person to fictional character was riveting to me. She stated she led with her fictional idea of Agatha Christie rather than the factual idea. “I didn't research extensively until I had written the first draft, so I started with my imagined character and added traits and events rather than doing it the opposite way. Except, of course, for the disappearance; that was something that happened. But I didn't know that much about it when I started writing about her.”

What surprised me the most about de Gramont? She wasn’t a die-hard Christie fan. “She wasn’t super precious to me,” she shared. de Gramont explained that she felt she had the freedom to create the character she wanted for her story. “If you learn too much, you end up regurgitating outside source information on the page instead of creating your own story.” Once, she tried to write a novel about Emily Dickinson, someone she loves and feels interconnected with, and it wasn’t something that could be finished. “I was so attached to the stories I knew and how I felt about her that I couldn't make up anything,” she said. Through the writing process and research focused on Christie, de Gramont felt she had discovered someone new.

As a young writer who finds the writing process stressful more times than not, I asked de Gramont if she could relate. Her answer was, in fact, not at all, which caused me stress about finding writing stressful. "I wrote the entire book before I sold it,” she said. “So, I mean that experience has always been kind of entertaining yourself. It's between you and the page, so I don't think I found it stressful. I was definitely concerned about getting historical facts correct but found that more immersive." However––much to my relief––she did mention the release was nerve-wracking. She said she didn't sleep, waiting for the reviews to come out of the shadows. Then again, it was still an exciting time for her, and sleep came back eventually.

de Gramont likes being by herself in a room with a project. She said if you let your mind wander too far on the idea that people will see it or if something will come of it at all, you'll burden yourself. “For me, when I'm involved in that process, I just feel involved in the process,” she said simply.

Calling it “obscure,” de Gramont said the first book of Christie’s that she read was Endless Night––after her first draft was done. “The thing that struck me the most was she has this Jane Austen ability to round out secondary characters with one line," she said. "I thought it was very enviable.” de Gramont knew she wanted to add “a variety of homages” from Agatha Christie’s novel to her work, so upon this realization, she began to add that trait of Christie’s to The Christie Affair. Pleasantly surprised by Christie's wit, she mentioned the dialogue of her novels, but also the cleverness of the plot and the hilarity of the scenes.

“You have a lot of fans here,” I said. “We're all in awe of how quickly this earned its place, but how much work was put into this book exactly?"

“I spent about a year editing it with my editor," she said, "and then I spent longer than that editing it on my own. But once it was acquired, there was another year or more editing and back and forth with versions and more than that if you count copy edits and proofs."

Then, she mentioned the work that comes after the book is out. de Gramont said The Christie Affair had much more of a marketing campaign than any other book she’d ever written. She’d never even had a marketer before. “It was crazy compared to previous books,” she said. It came out in England ten days before the American release, so she was doing lots of articles, Q&As, and Zooming with booksellers. There were also three types of promotion boxes sent out to booksellers and social media influencers on Bookstagram and Book Tik-Tok. These boxes contained items personalized to de Gramont’s writing and her character. “Agatha Christie wears lavender in the book, so they made this lavender soap,” she showed me, and I was unable to contain my excitement. I do have this plant tattooed on me twice, after all, and I found the thought process of this gift box incredibly creative.

de Gramont smiled when I asked her about making it on Reece Witherspoon’s Monthly Book Club. She was so happy to have achieved it and had fun during the following functions. "It gave the release a fantastic boost. I'm sure it got into many more hands than it would have landed in otherwise,” she said. She was also sure that it was because of the book club that it landed on the New York Times Bestseller list so quickly––within 10 days of its release. “An amazing piece of luck,” she said. “That's just an incredible amount of instant publicity.” She also noted how amazed she was with the people she got to work with on the book club team. “It was all these wonderful, smart young women and they just made it really, really lovely.”

To my disappointment, she did not get to speak to Reece Witherspoon. In Reece's book club, they do an adult book monthly and a Young Adult novel quarterly. The Y.A. overlap with de Gramont’s was Anatomy by Dana Schwartz. The two women got along well and hosted a Zoom club event together; de Gramont talked highly of Schwartz, and Schwartz was a guest speaker in de Gramont’s grad class. If anyone is interested in getting to know the concealed royal figures not often talked about in history, give Schwartz’s podcast Noble Blood a listen. The connections that can happen after the release of a book are fascinating and inspiring.

Books can lead to film or TV shows—and such is the case for The Christie Affair. I asked de Gramont how she felt about The Christie Affair becoming a television series, and she told me that the script would be in her inbox any day now. “I'm really excited,” she said. A burning question I had: was she worried they would, well, mess up her story. I know I’m not the only one who read a fantastic book, got so excited to see the film adaptation, and was immensely let down. For me, it was every Y.A. novel I ever read, and I like to call this phenomenon my villain origin story. As a writer, I would be worried that a T.V. version of my work would be a letdown to my audience. de Gramont had a more positive outlook. “Let’s say they made a terrible movie or terrible TV show based on the novel,” she said, “the novel stands on its own.” She noted all the bad movies made from Pride and Prejudice, and that no one connects that value of the book to them. On another note, a TV series that airs will increase readership.

Well, we will all be excited to tune in. The screenwriter’s name is Juliette Towhidi, known best for Testament of Youth (2014). de Gramont is a fan of Towhidi’s work and has seen other adaptations done by her. “She's just a brilliant, sensitive, artful writer,” she said, “so I have faith.” Both de Gramont and I are interested in how the novel will be portrayed in a series and the style Towhidi chooses to write it. de Gramont believes it will have to be structured differently than the book, but overall, feels better with a series rather than a movie. She said it will include a more “captured spirit of the novel.”

When I asked her to speak directly to the writing students at UNCW, she told me: “remember that your ambition to become a writer started with your love of reading.” The craft of that sentence struck me. It’s easy, especially in college where you'd like to end your days with something mind-numbing and reach for the rectangular blue light. However, she wants writers to know that they should read “like a maniac.” Try different genres, and writers, and keep going.

By Valors McRae

Editorial Assistant

Valora McRae has been creating books since she was a toddler with double sided tape and smelly markers. She will graduate in May with a BFA in Creative Writing, an English minor, and a Publishing Certificate.She hopes to help people with their own written creations in the publishing industry.