Booked Up

The following interview with me appears in the May issue of Vogue Australia:

Lee Tulloch's new book, The Woman in the Lobby (Penguin, $32.95), tracks Violet Armengard, a redhead with a penchant for champagne and Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, as she lies in wait...


What inspired you to write the story?
"Years ago I was in Paris covering the shows for Vogue Australia and I was approached in a restaurant by an Italian woman who wanted to know if I would accompnay her gentleman friend to Capri for the weekend. He was much older than me, with white hair and an eye patch, clearly quite rich and very dashing. I said no, but I always wondered: 'What if?' On my travels, I've often found myself sitting in glamorous hotel lobbies watching the fascinating social interaction that goes on. I observed quite a few gigolos and prostitutes trying to hook a rich man or woman. Women do become the mistresses of the men they meet in bars and hotels. And there's a real culture of this if you loook for it- women who are the 'travelling companions' of rich men. I wondered, what kind of mental leap does it take to sleep with an older or ugly man for his money? And is there necessarily anything wrong with it?
How easy is it to write an erotic scene?
"Extremely difficult. It can take me weeks to write one erotic interlude. The trick is finding the right words, so that the prose isn't too prudish - or too crude."
Have you ever met women like Violet?
"I wanted Violet to be someone we all could relate to - an ordinary Australian woman who abandons her middle-class morality to pursue rich men. She has typical insecurities about her physical and sexual self and tries to find her identity through men."