Muddy Stilettos


<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/london/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2024/03/Daisy-goodwin-Author--1024x682.jpg" alt="Daisy Goodwin author headshot " class="wp-image-611" /></figure>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-we-all-know-her-iconic-voice-but-what-drew-you-to-maria-s-story-nbsp-nbsp">We all know her iconic voice but what drew you to Maria’s story?&nbsp;&nbsp;</h3>



<p>Her life was incredible. She came from the middle of nowhere, went to New York, and auditioned at the Met when she was 22. And they tell her ‘You&#8217;ve got a great voice, but we&#8217;ll give you some small parts, and you can work your way up.’ She turned that down. To do that, at 22, to have the sort of chutzpah to say, ‘I&#8217;m going to turn down this unbelievable opportunity because it&#8217;s not good enough.’ I think that&#8217;s amazing. Most young women have self-confidence issues, so I love that Maria was so fearless even in her 20s.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-did-you-choose-the-title-diva-nbsp-nbsp">Why did you choose the title Diva?&nbsp;&nbsp;</h3>



<p>We think of a diva as someone who wants seven different kinds of mineral water in their dressing room. But I wanted to reclaim the meaning in this book because I don&#8217;t think Maria was a diva at all. She was a very hardworking perfectionist who, if she&#8217;d been a man, none of her behaviour would have been considered high-handed or difficult. The things that she wanted and believed in wouldn&#8217;t have been odd in a man, but as a woman, she&#8217;s labelled unreasonable, capricious, hysterical, and diva-ish.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-do-you-hope-readers-will-take-away-from-this-book-nbsp">What do you hope readers will take away from this book?&nbsp;</h3>



<p>There’s a temptation, with someone like Callas, to make her into an operatic heroine and think of her as a maddened butterfly waiting on the shore for her lover to come back. But I want to make it clear that she wasn&#8217;t that. There was nothing passive at all about Maria. Like many female artists, she suffers from having her work overshadowed by her life, in a way that male artists don&#8217;t. Nobody revels in Frank Sinatra’s unhappy marriage; they celebrate his work. But everybody wants to punish Maria by saying she wasted her life with Aristotle Onassis, and I reject that in the book.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/london/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2024/03/Maria-Callas-.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-612" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Maria Callas in Verdi&#8217;s opera La Traviata at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1958, England. Photo: Houston Rogers © Victoria and Albert Museum</figcaption></figure>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-was-the-research-process-like">What was the research process like?</h3>



<p>I hadn&#8217;t realised just how physical opera singing is until I started researching the book and taking singing lessons myself. You can&#8217;t do it from a standing start, you have to go into training, you&#8217;re like a ballet dancer or a footballer. You can only do it for a certain period, you’ll probably run out of puff when you&#8217;re in your 40s or 50s. Because Maria was such a talent, and so precious that she could sing everything she did, that was a real problem. Because when she got to her peak, in her thirties, her voice began to go. And I think that was the real tragedy of her story. Not the affair with Onassis, but losing her superpower.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-you-took-singing-lessons-nbsp-nbsp">You took singing lessons?&nbsp;&nbsp;</h3>



<p>Yes! I couldn&#8217;t write about someone whose life was so much on the stage without knowing what it was like to be that person or just having some sense of it. I mean, I haven&#8217;t sung in a grand opera, but I&#8217;ve got some idea of what it would take now. It’s a proper core workout, you have to use your stomach muscles. Maria used to boast that people could punch her in the stomach, and she wouldn&#8217;t feel it. I can see how true that is now.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-did-you-do-anything-else-to-channel-maria-s-life-nbsp-nbsp">Did you do anything else to channel Maria’s life?&nbsp;&nbsp;</h3>



<p>When I&#8217;m writing a character like Maria I get a bit too enmeshed in their world,&nbsp;my family would probably agree. But they might prefer it to when I was writing about Queen Victoria.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>It was fabulous doing the research, I travelled pretty much everywhere that I wrote about in the book: Paris, Rome, Milan, and Skorpios, the island that Onassis owned. Oh, and I went to the Maxim’s restaurant in Paris, which is almost the same as it was when Maria went there. I also did a bit of method eating by occasionally ordering steak tartare, which she seemed to live off, and I tried to do eyeliner like she did, but blimey, it&#8217;s difficult.&nbsp;</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/london/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2024/03/La-Scala-Opera-house.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-614" /></figure>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-she-had-gorgeous-gowns-did-you-try-any-on-nbsp-nbsp">She had gorgeous gowns; did you try any on?&nbsp;&nbsp;</h3>



<p>No, but I went to La Scala, which is just as grand as you can imagine, and popped into the costume stores there. I got to see Maria&#8217;s real costumes, it was quite moving.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-do-you-have-a-favourite-frock-nbsp">Do you have a favourite frock? &nbsp;</h3>



<p>There’s this wonderful dress she wore for<strong> </strong>Tosca, in Act II, which was red velvet. It has this incredible empire line, and, she&#8217;s got her hair piled up at the back, and it&#8217;s just fabulous. I&#8217;ve been criticised for writing too much about the clothes, but how could I not? They&#8217;re gorgeous.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-stepping-away-from-maria-what-was-your-routine-when-writing-the-book-nbsp">Stepping away from Maria, what was your routine when writing the book?&nbsp;</h3>



<p>I was very disciplined. I&#8217;d sit down to write at least five days in the week, and I wouldn&#8217;t stop until I had written a thousand words. Sometimes that takes a couple of hours, and sometimes it takes all day, but I wouldn&#8217;t leave my desk until I&#8217;d done that. I had singing lessons once a week and listened to a lot of Callas recordings while I wrote. &nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-was-your-writer-s-block-fix-nbsp">What was your writer’s block fix? &nbsp;</h3>



<p>I found boxing very helpful. &nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-really-boxing-nbsp">Really, boxing? &nbsp;</h3>



<p>Yes! Boxing’s brilliant because it gets your energy up and you can punch out the rage and frustration. Then dust off and get back to work. &nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-any-advice-for-new-writers-nbsp">Any advice for new writers?&nbsp;</h3>



<p>Two things: don&#8217;t let perfection be the enemy of the good and all writing is rewriting.&nbsp;There is a point at which you have to let a novel go. Even now I look back at <em>Diva</em> and want to rewrite or tweak it because it could always be better. But there&#8217;s a point where you have to accept that what you have is good enough.&nbsp;</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/london/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2024/03/Untitled-design-3.jpg" alt="The novelist  and screenwriter behind the ITV hit Victoria talks about writing her new novel on Maria Callas, her love of strong women, learning to sing and boxing to beat writer's block. It's a page turner." class="wp-image-613" /></figure>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-books-are-you-loving-right-now-nbsp">What books are you loving right now? &nbsp;</h3>



<p>I’ve been reading a fabulous book called <em>Erotic Vagrancy</em> by Roger Lewis, about Liz Taylor and Richard Burton’s marriage. I also hoovered down <em>Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow</em> by Gabrielle Zevin – I&#8217;ve never played a computer game in my life, but I loved it. I’ve also been utterly obsessed by the Britney Spears memoir, <em>The Woman in Me</em>. &nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-if-you-had-to-write-a-novel-about-a-21-st-century-pop-star-who-would-it-be-and-why-nbsp">If you had to write a novel about a 21<sup>st</sup> century pop star, who would it be and why? &nbsp;</h3>



<p>Adele. She has such a great story because, like Maria, she came from nowhere and made herself into a star through pure astonishing talent. &nbsp;</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/london/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2024/03/123182597_10157867111061051_653482975328995700_n.jpg" alt="The London Library St James London" class="wp-image-619" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The London Library</figcaption></figure>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tell-us-your-favourite-spots-in-london-nbsp">Tell us your favourite spots in London. &nbsp;</h3>



<p>I adore the London Library in St James’. It&#8217;s&nbsp;a jewel box of writing and literature and every time I go in there, I feel like today&#8217;s going to be a good day. I wrote a lot of <em>Diva</em> there and the community is so welcoming. I urge anybody who wants to write to check it out.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-favourite-restaurant-nbsp">Favourite restaurant? &nbsp;</h3>



<p>Maison Francois, which is pretty much next door to the London Library, I discovered it after a long day of writing. I just thought, wow, this is my kind of place. I love it now because, literally when I walk in the team will say, ‘Hi Daisy, how are you doing?’ If you go, there try these incredible little cheese puffs called gougère. &nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-best-art-gallery-nbsp">Best art gallery? &nbsp;</h3>



<p>Sir John Sloane Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields is a real treat. It was designed by Sir John Sloane, who was this incredible architect, and his house is&nbsp;this cabinet of curiosities. It&#8217;s super so playful and has all these trompe l&#8217;oeil bits and hidden doors. It&#8217;s absolutely wonderful. &nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-your-favourite-bookshop-nbsp">Your favourite bookshop? &nbsp;</h3>



<p>Hatchards in Piccadilly.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-your-go-to-for-a-glass-of-wine-nbsp">Your go-to for a glass of wine? &nbsp;</h3>



<p>Bocca di Lupo is<strong> </strong>a really cool, fabulous bar and restaurant. And then Quo Vadis in Soho, which is a member&#8217;s club slash bar, it&#8217;s a lovely spot.  </p>



<p><em>Daisy&#8217;s new book, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/diva-9781035906703/">Diva</a>, is available to buy now. </em></p>


Muddy meets: bestselling author Daisy Goodwin

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