Eyup!
It’s been a while since I’ve done an interviewing indies segment. If you haven’t seen the one I did for A.D. Faylinn, go and take a look, before coming back here. This time we’re going to be looking at the book Maz and Me.
This is the story of thirty-year-old Tony Goodbody and his relationship with an older woman Maz. Whilst the relationship is key to the book, author Sharon Loveday hones in on many aspects of his life. It’s as much romance as it is coming-of-age, adventure, and comedy.
Before we start the interview, I thought I’d release a little titbit she sent me about why she chose such a plain cover to work with.
Sharon said, “It was at a French friend’s suggestion as he said ‘you English have book covers that make it look like choosing sweets from a sweet shop.’ I then looked at many old French books, like Bonjour Tristesse, and found they had plain covers.”


What brought on the idea for Maz and Me?


I was in my early fifties and nearing the end of a Creative Writing and Literature Degree, when I visited Paris to see friends and the seven of us found ourselves stuck in a lift for hours while the janitor of the twelve-storey building was at the evening match of the French/English international rugby final. We had all just left a French restaurant and taken in rather a lot of excellent cuisine and wine. It was a frightening experience being in that lift with little air, and only one empty plastic coke bottle between us for any toilet requirements. Luckily, after our escape, it inspired the idea for the novel. I also decided to set the first few chapters in Paris as it’s a city I love and I do believe it’s easier to ‘write what you know’. Incidentally, the book now has a subtitle ‘Maz and Me: The Young Man Who Took Cannabis to Paris’.


This appears to be your debut novel, as far as I can see. Are you someone who’s always desired to become an author?


My father is an award-winning author and poet (John Loveday), so writing was always talked about at home and I just seemed to gravitate towards wanting to write. I left it rather late in life to study for the degree but somehow achieving that gave me the confidence to try the novel. I thought, ‘let’s try to put all this hard work to good purpose’. I have always enjoyed reading too, there is hardly ever a day when I don’t have a book to hand.


How many of the characters are based off of real people?


I spent a lot of time developing each character from a mixture of people I’d met in the past. As the book is essentially a comedy, I dragged from memory comic phrases friends had used which had caused me to laugh during my lifetime. I then applied these to certain of the characters, especially the main character, Tony Goodbody and his friend ‘Cheddar’. It also seemed necessary to develop a character who would act a foil to Tony Goodbody’s bad behaviour so along came the idea of ‘Jolly John the ex. Copper’ (who is anything but Jolly). When I left college in 1972 I worked in the C.I.D. Department of the local police station, as a mini-skirted 18-year-old secretary, so there was plenty of material to draw from to form this character!
Also, part of my formative childhood was spent living in a school for boys with behavioural problems where my father taught. These boys were often pranksters and, I think, as a little girl living with them, it had a great influence. Many of my short stories (unpublished so far) have incorporated memories of the time we spent living at that school. So, my characters are created from a mix of people I’ve known and been influenced by. I have to say, that characters from films and books have certain influence on the type of character you want to create too. For instance, I love Holden Caulfield from “The Catcher in the Rye”, Benjamin Braddock, Dustin Hoffman’s character in “The Graduate” and say, Will McKenzie, Simon Bird’s character in The Inbetweeners.


Why do you believe Tony gravitates towards Maz so much? I have to admit originally I thought this was going to be a straightforward love story between Maz and Tony with the inevitable happily ever after. Spoiler alert – there are far more twists and turns.


Tony is an intelligent character, aged thirty, who struggles to find the depth of conversation and understanding he craves from his contemporaries. He therefore gravitates towards Maz who is quite a lot older, tolerant, and is the mother of two of his friends. He wants to share experiences, have meaningful discussions, plus he has had erotic thoughts about her since he was fifteen.


There are lots of different facets to Maz and Me. Was it always the intention to balance it between adventure, comedy, romance, and maybe even a little bit of coming-of-age?


Thank you, James, for picking-up on the different facets, it is something I hoped, more than anything, that readers would enjoy. First of all, I have to say, it was a challenge to write in the voice of a young male. There were several things I wanted to achieve in this book:


A mild erotic thread as we watch the developing relationship between Tony and the older woman, Maz.


Humour, through the voice of a young male character as he shares his experiences with us.


To let the reader see Tony actually learn something from his escapades. This is particularly noticeable when he visits the Hay-on-Wye Literary festival and is compelled to have a debate with ‘Jolly John the ex. Copper’. Throughout Tony’s journey in this book, although he misbehaves and has some strange opinions, we see him battle with himself as he tries to combat some of his worst traits.


I wanted to create it as a slightly philosophical look at life and hope the reader would be left with a light feeling. Luckily, some readers have told me they felt ‘warm’ and ‘happy’ during, and after, reading it.




Did you always have a specific ending in mind? As someone who also writes books about ‘life’ I know it can be tempting to continue a story for the rest of a character’s life.


I did have a specific ending in mind. I just wanted to show a young man’s journey to some maturity, where he is not rebelling against convention to the degree that he had been, although leaving an element or two of his character which perhaps need further exploration.


Do you intend on writing a sequel to Maz and Me? If not, are you working on anything now?


I hadn’t intended on writing a sequel but many people have asked me to write one, so I have started…Tony age forty!
If you want to check out Maz and Me, it’s available from Amazon right now. You can also find Sharon on Twitter.
Until next time…
James Farner