BAD FAITH author Carmen Callil speaks with Terrance Gelenter

BAD FAITH, the haunting tale of the French Eichmann, Louis Darquier de Pellepoix was triggered by Carmen Callill’s discovery that her therapist was his abandoned daughter.

 
TG: How long after the death of Darquier's daughter did you begin to write the book?
CC: Twenty-eight years later–I began my research in 1998.

TG: Why did it take so long to write or publish?
CC: I had a full-time and demanding job until 1995…I was a book publisher in charge of the publishing house Chatto & Windus and also chair of Virago Press, so I had no time.

If you mean why did it take me eight years to research and write it, well the research took me a long time and I knew almost nothing when I started. I had to research in France, Australia, Spain, Belgium and Germany. All that took time and many byways falsely explored!!!

Then French is not my native tongue and although I can speak and write and read it I am not brilliant in any area and doing all of the research in other languages took time.

And finally, I wrote the book in two-three years. All that said, I am an obsessive, inasmuch as all book publishers have to be–too much attention to detail-but now I’m glad I did because it’s a difficult subject and I had to get it right You can’t fiddle around with generalities with a subject like this.

TG: Did you have difficulties gaining access to French archives?

CC: No,none. They have rules to protect private individuals but I was not denied access to anything except for one file at Nanterre. I think it was because I wasn’t an academic but an academic with access got me the papers.

TG: And finally, how did the writing of this book change you?
CC: I don’t feel I changed at all. I know I should but I don’t. That is a complicated question that I can’t answer!