Join Katarina Mazetti to talk about BENNY AND SHRIMP, our May book of the month on Tuesday 14 June, 7pm

Katarina Mazetti here

Some answers to questions you have asked:
Yes, I am a ”country girl”, having been married to a dairy farmer in noth Sweden for 20 years Farming is not very profitable in North Sweden, so I worked full time in town (radio journalist), spent weekends and holidays in the cow house and took care of 4 children and all the household work besides. I know what kind of life Desiree would have to adjust to, and I wrote about it in part two of the book, Swedish name ”Family vault”.(not translated into English but is top of the book lists in France right now)
It made me a little aid to see that quite a few of you thought of Desirée as ”egoistic” – (”why does she not give up her job and move to him to learn milking and making meatballs?”) – Benny never even dreams of giving up his own life for her! Those attitudes are not as common in Sweden – or in France for that matter, where it has sold half a million copies and is on stage since 2 yrs back.
As for Harrys question about ”changing” the characters, I thought I did just that – for once, I wanted the man to be the warm, emotional type and the woman a bit afraid of life, of being close to someone, because of her very cold upbringing.
This is also the reason why I brought Inez into the story – if you are too afraid of life, you end up as a spectator, sort of living by proxy.

"it made me aid - should of course be "sad"

Hello again, and thank you for your nice comments!
Answer to Effblinder: Yes, I don´t think there is an objective "correct" truth about what happens around us, we all percieve things differently. And in the differences, everything happens: disagreements, misunderstandings, sympathy...So I try to get into the characters, and look out through their eyes.

Hello Geraldine,
about the graveyard: actually, there are only two places where people from very different backgrounds in Sweden would meet. One is Systembolaget, the official state Liquor store...and the other one is the graveyard. And it did not feel right starting a love story in the liquour store...

Answer to Getmehrt
No, I certainly did NOT expect such a reception of my first novel...I still have to pinch my arm to make sure I am not dreaming. (It has been translated into 28 languages - what in the world do people in Brazil or Thailand want with a story like that?)
Of course, I always learn things when I meet audiences and it is a constant surprise to find that people in different countries react so differently!
(elderly Russian men I chatted with in a radio show in Moscow accused me of being a feminist and thought Desiree was one, too, since she wanted a life of her own..)

About physiscal attraction being a good basis for a relationship - yes, I think it is a very good start. Something that might help you through the tedious process of getting to know each others bad sides...But it certainly takes more than physical attraction to make a relationship last

For Sneetch!
When I wrote my very first book (a story for young people, called "God and I broke up") I locked myself into the bathroom, tried to keep my computer still on the wash basin, while ignoring 4 children fighting, sceaming "Mommy I´m HUNGRY" outside the door. This was the routine for a couple of years. Nowadays, I try to make it a routine to lie still in bed for half an hour when I wake up and let the ideas come to me. Then I jot them down, and if Life does not get in the way of things, I start working on them later on in the day.

Getmehrt:
Oh no, it took years before I considered myself to be a writer at all - I was a happy radio reporter with no spare time...But I acquired a taste for writing (much like sharks acquire a taste for blood, I should imagine...) and wrote three or four books before even thinking af a sequel (you can find them translated into French and German for example, have a look at my home page <www.katarinamazetti.com> , there are some texts in different languages.)
Anyway, the only reason I wrote a sequel was that a company selling very light paper wanted me to ad 25% to Benny and Shrimp - for them to give as promotion to buyers of paper! ("This is how much book you would get for your money if you had used our kind of paper, 25% lighter...") A crazy idea! But I needed the money so instead I wrote 12 different endings to the story! And then of course the characters who had been well asleep in my subconscious stirred and woke up again and wanted to be written about. So there was a sequel five years later, which is selling like hotcakes in some countries now. Don´t ask me why. And don´t ask me why it has not been translated into English.

Geraldine, there are some very nice advantages to official state liqour stores! (they are the only ones licensed to sell alcohol) They buy whole vinyeards of the best, send tankers to Sweden and bottle them here. They say we got better cheap wine than any other country...But as for the Men from Mars, women from Venus thing I do NOT agree at all! Of course they have been brought up into traditional gender roles, but I believe those are really quite superficial and underneath, we are very much alike. The proof being that readers often ask me who has helped me with the Benny parts, that´s how men think - when it is really only me trying to think how I would behave,if I were Benny.