Accidental Tourist
Ever wondered what it's really like to be a jet-setting novelist? Marian Keyes takes us with her on a flying visit to Germany and Austria to promote her latest book and tells it like it is behind the 'glamorous' scenes.
We've collected our baggage and are speeding away in a taxi 10 minutes before were supposed to land. God, I love German efficiency. It's easy to make fun of the Germans (go on, try it if you don't believe me) but I'm very fond of them. Have arrived in Hamburg for a five-day publicity tour to promote the German version of Last Chance Saloon (called, for reasons which remain obscure to me, 'dandelion, but anyway...) and it's going astonishingly well so far. Starting when we turned up at the Lufthansa desk and the actually had us booked on the flight!
At 10.15 we arrived at the hotel Vier Jarheszeiten (apparently the second best hotel in world) and are shown in for five-room suite which is bigger and far nicer than our house at home. "By the livin jingo", exclaims himself (who has been let come with me) "we've landed on our feet this time!"
A knock on the door and a waiter is carrying in a bucket of Veuve Cliquot. Another knock and a woman is presenting me with an armload of flowers. Another knock and both himself and myself are invited to select a fancy shower gel - he picks Hermes, I pick Tresor. Just as I think I've died and gone to heaven, there's another knock on my door and it's the arrival of my schedule for the next five days. That wipes the smile off my face, let me tell you. Busy is one way of describing it. Inhuman might be another.
Free time to wander around the shops of Hamburg - but they are all closed! I thought Germans had a reputation for being hard workers. Well, I'm here to tell you it's a cod. All sorts of fabulous shops are not a single one of them open. Scratched pathetically and whimpered at the door of the Prada shop. (Actually, I'm only showing off here. If it had actually been open I'd have been way too intimidated to cross the threshold.)
Met Yvonne, the publicity girl who will be travelling with me and minding me for the next five days. Luckily, she's a dote. And then, it's show time! The minute the first interview started I remember with the sudden sinking heart a) how much I hate doing interviews and b) how much harder it is doing it across the language divide. If you say to an Irish journalist, "I'd love to have children but you can be damn sure I'll be mainlining heroin at the birth," they don't tend to reply, "heroin? But I am vorried vot it will do to your baby." And when I hurriedly explained to Fritz that I don't actually intend to mainline heroin, it's just that I'm not keen on pain he looks at me in confusion and says, "Ah! So it vos a lie?"
"No," I explained desperately, "Not a lie. A Joke! Funny. Hahaha." but my attempts to do a charade style enactment of a joke falls on barren ground.
I'd also forgotten how much more seriously German journalists treat interviews with authors. For a start they've all read the book (almost unheard of in England or Ireland.) and their questions are so much more intense. "Vot is the secret of your happiness?" several of them asked. While I mapped around trying to come up with an answer, I yearned for a journalist to ask me what my favourite colour is.
That night we have dinner with the woman who translates my books from English to German and I'm so happy to be with someone who speaks fluent English that I almost burst into tears.
Interview after interview after interview. They just kept coming. Before I was finished with one journalist another would be hovering in the doorway looking meaningfully at me. And every single one of them had been to Ireland on their holiers. "Yes, I know Letterfrack."
"Yes, I know Doolin." "Yes, I know Buncrana." (I said those sentences a lot during the course of that long, long day.)
There was a time when I used to think there could be nothing nicer than talking about yourself all day long. But since I've become a writer and started going on publicity tours I've changed my mind. It'd actually sends you temporarily bonkers. In the midst of my umpteenth conversation about how the Celtic Tiger has changed Ireland (with specific reference to Letterfrack, Doolin or Buncrana) my head lifted and I heard my voice echoing from far away. My first out-of-body-experience of the tour.
When the last interview finished my mouth was cotton-wool dry and I was as dazed and exhausted as if I'd been without sleep for several days. I never wanted to speak to anyone else for as long as I lived, but instead I had to put on my party frock and repair to their Abaton cinema where myself and a famous German actress calls Ulrike Kriener were doing a reading.
To my great delight over at hundred people turned up. (I have done readings in Ireland where five people have showed and three of them are homeless men in who've come in for a sleep.)
Doris from the publishers gave the assembled audience a big long introductory spiel about me, but it was all in German so while they writhed in hilarity, I remained sitting on the stage wearing an uncertain smile. What was she saying about me that was so funny? Was it my big arse? Or my skirt?
The reading kicked off. Ulrike read in German and I read in English and the audience laughed, which was great. Afterwards when they were invited to ask questions they all went very coy and silent but a few of them came up afterwards for a chat. It was the high point of the day. Then went for dinner with Yvonne, Ulrike and Doris. A couple of journalists came too, so I had a few more conversation about Ross's Point and Westport. Finally, collapsed into bed at midnight.
Jesus Christ Almighty. On a flight to Munich. Have no memory of it. Presume I was still asleep.
Came to sometime around 10 o'clock when we arrived at our hotel suite. It was fabulous and peculiar - I was awake enough to register that. Even though the hotel was a big, business type place with marble lobby, swimming pool and Louis Vuitton shop, our suite was done out like (an enormous) Bavarian woodcutter's cottage. All rough hewn wood, low ceilings, high little windows and chintz Austrian blinds.
But no time to savour it, as I had a hairdresser's appointment. My hair is a problem - in its natural state it so frizzy I could pass for a member of the Jackson five and only a high-calibre hairdresser can blow-dry it straight. My own attempts are laughable, which doesn't matter so much in the privacy of my own home but it matters a lot one I'm going to be on telly (as I am later this evening.) I don't want to scare the horses.
An hour later I skip back to the woodcutter's cottage, delighted with my new shiny hair, ready to start on the interview treadmill. "23 people could sit in this room," himself greeted me with. "I've counted."
A couple of over-the-phone radio interviews followed, (mercifully in English, they hell of "simultaneous translation" was still ahead of me in Berlin) then two-hour long newspaper interviews, and then! A Cancellation! An hour to stagger around the Marienplatz gawking at the Munich people, wondering what it was like to be them.
Back for three more intense interviews, then I scribbled on some make-up, drank the red bull that himself insisted I have and off to Cafe Mufthalle for that evening's reading. TV Munchen were doing a documentary on me which meant I had to smile constantly from seven till midnight in case they filmed me looking knackered or distracted.
Once again people turned up, once again they laughed (particularly at the introduction. It is my arse) and once again they all looked shyly at their shoes when they were asked if they had any questions.
After the reading we went for dinner (still being followed by TV Munchen's cameras, have you any idea what it's like eating a hamburger and chips, or where that your every mouthful is being filmed. Actually, what a great way to lose weight!) and at 12.30 finally got to bed. (TV Munchen finally said good night to us at the door. I'm sure they would have happily come in and climbed into bed with us if we'd been game.)
It was snowing, the wind was howling and himself said, "we're in a Bavarian cottage and the wolves are prowling around." With that he fell into deep, slumber, while poor suggestible me lay awake, with fear for most of the night.
It's official. I have died and gone to hell. I've never been so tired in my life. Slumped against the plane window, we flew over snow-covered forests en route to Vienna. Vienna is gorgeous, the hotel suite with its upstairs sitting room and tented day- bed is delicious, but I'm too tired to care.
A couple of interviews before lunch, then got taken out into the snow-swirly streets by a photographer. The "fabulous, fabulous! charming fabulous,!" he encouraged, as he clicked away and I slowly froze to death. Only when the tips of my fingers had fallen off the cold did he let me back to the hotel (said that later to a journalist, who stared closely at my hands, then fixed me with that, "do you take me for a right eejit?" look.)
At 1 o'clock we had lunch with the Irish Ambassador to Austria. Oh the joy of being with an Irish person! Said "feck," "yoke" " Divil the bit" and "ride me sideways" many times, safe in the knowledge that I wouldn't have to attempt to provide a 50 minute explanation.
Back to hotel for more interviews. Asked by one smart-arse journalist why all Irish people drink so much. Thought of a great reply - five days later, of course - which is, why are all Austrians nazis?Then at 5.30 we repaired to Molly Darcy's Irish bar for that evening's reading. We were due to start at six, but I warned Ulrike and Yvonne that if there were Irish people involved will be lucky to get going by half-six. "The man who made time made plenty of it," I tried nervously, but they just didn't get it. And sure enough, because Molly Darcy's were very decently providing the audience with sandwiches the reading couldn't start without them. At ten past six word came that, "the sandwiches are being cut". The Austrians and Germans were beyond incredulous (you'd think that after all their holidays in Kinsale and Castlegregory that they'd know what we're like.) By contrast, I was thrilled and for a few minutes I savoured the fantasy that I was at home. At twenty-past the first of the sandwiches made their appearance and by half- six (just like I'd foretold) we were under way. No official dinner that evening - hurray! Try to walk around Vienna to see the sights by night, but we were driven back by snow. In bed and asleep by 10 o'clock.
Thursday 7.30 am.
Vienna AirportEn route to Berlin. In the taxi to the hotel we passed a bombed-out old church "what's that?" I asked "a monument to the futility of war," Yvonne replied.Two press interviews, then off to Deutsche radio for a live interview with their version of Gerry Ryan. En route, we passed a huge abstract sculpture. "What's that?" I asked. "A monument to the sorrow of war," Yvonne replied.The interview was a pure disaster. The idea was that the German Gerry Ryan would ask the questions in German, they'd be translated into English and spoken into headphones I was wearing, then I'd reply in English and the translator would translate it into German. By due to a technical hitch I could barely hear the English translation, so I couldn't answer the questions. And when I attempted to anyway, I could hear the translator's speaking in German in my headphones which it was like having a peculiar echo on the line. God it put years on me, I thought it would never end!Going back to the hotel we passed a crowd of people gathered around something on the ground. "What are they doing?" I asked. "They are looking into the empty, underground library," Yvonne said. "A monument to the sadness of war."Two more interviews, then out for that nights reading. On the way we passed a big silver building. Yvonne told me it was the Jewish Museum. "A monument to the abhorrence of war."The reading went great, the best yet. On the way home we passed a crisp packet lying on the pavement. "What's that?" aghast. "A monument to the great grief of war," Yvonne replied. "Oh no," she recovered herself. "It's a crisp packet."Then home to bed. And never speaking to anyone ever again.