The 'Proustean' interview
How would you describe yourself?
Dani: I guess I'm moody.
Mike: Easy-going, forgetful, enthusiastic, a bit of a loner.
What are your shortcomings?
Dani: Moodiness, what else?
Mike: I have lots of shortcomings! Procrastination, regarding anything that doesn't interest me. Impatience, regarding everything that does!
How do you like to spend your free time?
Dani: Watching a film, reading, or playing with our cat, Lionello (see photo).
Mike: Ignoring it! I'm too busy to watch the clock, or there's football on tv.
When was the last time that you cried?
Dani: Yesterday, watching Puccini's "Tosca" on Sky.
Mike: Quite often, really. For nothing - every time an opera ends and the singers take their curtain-call, for example. For big things - I just have to see a snip on the tv news. I am highly emotional.
The meeting that changed your life?
Dani: My husband. My cat. My agent. The order changes depending on my mood!
Mike: J. S. Bach, my wife, Lionello the cat, our agent, Leslie Gardner, our editor at Faber, Walter Donohue (strictly chronological order).
The happiest day that you remember?
Dani: The day our agent told us that she had sold the book.
Mike: So far? Hitting no. 3 in the Italian bestseller list with Critique. I'm looking forward to seeing Days of Atonement at no. 1 very soon in the UK, USA, China, Japan, and all the other countries where the rights have been sold...
The saddest?
Dani: Any day spent looking after my father, who has Alzheimer's.
Mike: There've been many. Fortunately, I have strong powers of recovery... That is, I manage to distract myself quickly. I don't think that's a very positive quality, do you?
Who are your favourite writers?
Dani: Charlotte Bronte, Kafka, Patricia Highsmith, Marguerite Yourcenar.
Mike: Classics - Dickens, Melville, the Russians, Shakespeare seems too obvious to name, but there you go! Moderns - Dan Kavanagh, Ken Bruen, Bill James, Elmore Leonard, John King, Jeremy Cameron, Victor Headley, James Ellroy, George Pelecanos, Jasper Fforde, lots of other thriller writers, too.
What are your favourite books?
Dani: Jane Eyre, Memoir of Adrian, Murder in the Rue Morgue, Tales by the Brothers Grimm.
Mike: Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Moby Dick, War and Peace... the Barchester novels.
Who is your favourite painter?
Dani: My father, Giuseppe De Gregorio (see photo)
Mike: J.M.W. Turner, the English watercolourists, Caravaggio, Holbein's miniatures, Dani's dad.
Favourite musician?
Dani: Puccini, Mozart, Dvorak.
Mike: Haydn, Boccherini, Bach, Scarlatti (father and son), Vivaldi, Kapsberger. Mozart, of course. Charpentier, Handel's operas and oratorios. I work to music, so I get through 8 or 10 classical CDs a day! I also like Roger Chapman's Streetwalkers - nasty British rock from the 80s.
What do you like to eat?
Dani: Pizza, Italian bread with prosciutto crudo.
Mike: Pasta in any shape or form. Pizza. Fish. I can't stand meat - when I look at the plate, I hear the lowing of cows, and see the horns!
And drink?
Dani: Coffee, white wine.
Mike: Milk, beer, wine, whisky, water. Never mixed, of course.
Which historical figure(s) do you most admire?
Dani: Winston Churchill and Socrates.
Mike: L. J. M. Daguerre (the inventor of photography). Giuseppe Garibaldi - I have a large collection of original photographs of him, and have done a couple of exhibitions here in Italy.
Which historical figure do you detest?
Dani: All XXth century dictators. All religious fanatics.
Mike: Hitler. How in heaven's name did he get inside the German psyche?
Which 'sins' inspire your indulgence?
Dani: Vengeance.
Mike: My own!
What is your personal motto?
Dani: An eye for an eye. But just in theory. I am too lazy, really.
Mike: Today was good, tomorrow will be better.
