In "The Sydney Morning Herald" Sacha Molitorisz profiles Virginia Duigan, author of the new Australian novel The Biographer.
The original idea for The Biographer came not from a nostalgic viewing of The Leading Man but when Duigan was clearing out a cupboard and stumbled upon diaries she had written during her time in London. "The diaries began to bring back to mind times that were particularly thrilling, exciting and exhilarating," she says. "I did a lot of travelling in that time, despite not having much money, by hitching and so on, and went through a part of Tuscany which I found extraordinarily beautiful and romantic. So when I came to write the book I went back there to research it and I did find it the most amazing place.The Leading Man is a film from 1996, written by Virginia Duigan and directed by her brother John. The film featured Jon Bon Jovi and Barry Humphries."I was researching for three or four weeks and it was the kind of place I could imagine artists would be very much drawn to, as of course artists are. Particularly in Tuscany, they're all over the place."
