Polly's press & media appearances
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Rediscover your Passion - Go It Alone
Finansmiljøet i London - et Jobbhelvete
Fear and Loathing in the Heart of the city
My Glittering City Career Turned into Golden Handcuffs
Do Women Really Get a Raw Deal in the City?
My High Flying City Job was not worth a Life of Misery
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Poles Apart: A New Novel The Messenger Coming out summer 2008 Tom Price interviews Polly Courtney, author of Golden Handcuffs and forthcoming new novel, Poles Apart. What is the key message you were trying to get across with your latest novel, Poles Apart? There is so much talk about the effect of immigration on British life and culture; I wanted to make people think about it from another perspective: the effect of British life and culture on EU immigrants. Can you name a single Polish university? I bet you can’t. And that’s one of the problems. People over here assume that Poles don’t have degrees – that they can only do manual or menial jobs. In fact, the Polish education system produces some brilliantly qualified graduates. They work in cafés and building sites because that’s where they can get work – at the moment, anyway. That will change, I hope. Poles Apart is something of a departure from Golden Handcuffs, which was based on your own experiences. What made you write about a Polish immigrant? I chose Marta’s story because it was a tale that needed telling. Just as with Golden Handcuffs, I wanted to break a few myths. The square mile isn’t a great place for high fliers. Polish immigrants aren’t all unskilled labourers.
Marta Kowalczyk and Polly I only write if there’s a something worth writing about. I’ve had arguments with agents and publishers in the past about this; they’re always keen for me to write ‘chick lit’, because they know it sells. Books about shopping and handbags are low-risk, but I don’t like low-risk. I want to make a point with my writing. So you wouldn’t say you wrote ‘chick lit’? I don’t mind how people classify my books. Call them chick lit if you like. Everyone said that Golden Handcuffs was an ‘easy read’, which I took as a compliment. Reading’s supposed to be fun… I wouldn’t want people to find it a ‘difficult read’. But I like to think that my novels get people thinking a bit. Can you really write from the perspective of a Polish girl, being a Cambridge graduate from England? It may come across as strange, writing a book from the perspective that isn’t mine. I’m not Polish, and I’ve never migrated to another country. But then again, presumably Ms Rowling was never a young wizard boy… Actually, I think most people can relate to being an immigrant. It’s not the superficial things like language that are the real issues; it’s the sense of being surrounded by people but completely alone. It’s the feeling of not belonging, the feeling that you must be doing something wrong because you don’t fit in. And then there’s prejudice, which I think everyone can relate to – whether it’s sexism, racism, homophobia or just not being part of the club. The real Marta has read several drafts of Poles Apart and her first question, on reading the first few chapters, was: ‘How do you get inside her head?’ How much of the novel is based on the real Marta’s experiences? Everyone wants to know the extent to which Poles Apart is a biography. I would say it’s based loosely on the truth. I met Marta (Kowalczyk) through working with her. She was an intern, working unpaid for nine hours a day at our firm and doing six-hour shifts in a bar to earn money. She needed to build up her English CV before she could get anywhere in the workplace. That was a theme that I lifted and put straight into the book. There are other elements of Marta’s experiences here that I chose not to use in Poles Apart, and equally there are threads in the story that didn’t happen to her in real life. I had to use themes that I was happy writing about myself; hence the bias towards workplace and home life in London. In reality, Marta worked for three years as an au pair doing work that she neither enjoyed nor wanted to do, but that was her gateway into Britain. I opted not to write about this as I felt unqualified to do so. What does the real Marta think about the book? Marta (Kowalczyk) was the first person I told when I realised I wanted to write her story. She loved the idea. She read the first draft of the book, chapter by chapter, as it was written. Actually, something quite scary started to happen as I crafted the story. Every few weeks I would hand Marta a batch of print-offs, and she’d tell me what was happening in her life. We’d discover that I’d just written about her recent experiences – but without realising it. That was weird, but I guess it proves that the book has a realistic storyline. The workplace features quite heavily in both of your novels; is this important to you? My career has always played an important part of my life. I was brought up to believe that I could have done anything. My first job taught me that it wasn’t so easy; that you had to pay a price to achieve certain things. Since then, I’ve thought a lot about the workplace and women’s role within it. I’ve written a few articles for the Guardian on the subject, as I know it strikes a chord with people all over the world. I met Marta through working with her. We had a lot in common – in particular, our outlook on life and on work. We’re both diligent and we both like to get things done. We actually have similar backgrounds – although here’s the difference: Marta’s qualifications are Polish, mine are English. That, in the world of work, makes all the difference. I’d like to think that this will change, over time, as more Poles are accepted in the UK workplace. Your book is laden with stereotypes – most of them British. Is this how you see your compatriots? I sometimes wonder whether I’m truly British; I seem to have a habit of looking at the people around me, the traditions, the idiosyncrasies… and seeing them with a foreigner’s eyes. There’s plenty in the British culture to laugh at, when you think about it. We’re prudish, we conform, we over-complicate things and we skirt about the point like nobody else on earth. I enjoyed writing a book from Marta’s perspective, because she could marvel at everything and everyone through a newcomer’s eyes. You seem to like writing about the ‘defiant underdog’; is that you, inside? I do seem to write about feisty young women fighting against the establishment or society, but I never made a conscious decision to do so. I guess it might be me inside, rebelling through my protagonists instead of for real… I don’t know. Yes, perhaps. I hate rules, but at the same time I don’t like breaking them. That’s the Brit in me I suppose. Sometimes though, there’s a point that needs to be made, and when nobody is brave enough to make it, at least my ‘underdog’ characters are there to do it instead. There is a character in Poles Apart who is miserable in her City job, called Holly. Is there an element of autobiography here? It’s no secret that I didn’t enjoy my time in the City. I was wrong for the job, and so are a lot of other people – some of whom are bold enough to make the leap, some of whom stick around because it’s safe. I feel sad for the people who are still there, leading a life they loathe because of fear of the unknown. My message to those people is: get out. Take a risk. Do something, because even doing something badly is better than not doing anything at all. The Holly character in Poles Apart works as a management consultant, and desperately hates her life. But she’s torn, as are so many ‘high flyers’ in the City. She can’t leave, but she doesn’t want to stay. I suppose it her storyline may be partly autobiographical. Do you write full time? No, and I don’t intend to. My novels are deliberately ‘real’, and I feel quite strongly that you can’t keep things real if you’re living in a fantasy world. I want my characters to resemble real people so that readers think, oh yeah, I know someone exactly like him! I work on a variety of projects alongside my writing – the biggest one currently being a website called Girls in Football. We’re building a place for ‘all things women’s football’. Like most things I do, it has evolved from one of my personal passions. Did you get any backlash from the City, following the publication of Golden Handcuffs? I did get some backlash to Golden Handcuffs – mainly from proud City workers who had read the press surrounding the book, but who hadn’t actually read the book. They were angry that I was ‘tarring the whole City with one dirty brush’. I got lots of messages from people saying how happy and fulfilled they were in their jobs, thank you very much. Actually, they were missing the point. I wasn’t trying to make a statement about the square mile; I was trying to paint a realistic picture of certain parts of the City through the eyes of two naïve, junior employees. I also got some negative feedback from certain ex-colleagues, who recognised themselves in some of the characters. Well, as the saying goes: If the cap fits… It says on your website that you’re a member of an all-girl string quartet. Do you have plans to write about that? I play in an all-girl string quartet, and actually I wrote a book based on it, just after Golden Handcuffs. I’d never let a publisher near it though. It was awful. I only discovered why it was awful after I’d finished the first draft: there was no point to it. It was a sweet story about four girls who had middle-class backgrounds and who led middle-class lives where nothing much happened. It was true ‘chick lit’, and I never want to see the manuscript again. Do people you know worry that you’re going to write about them next? Ha. Whenever colleagues find out I’m a writer, they ask, ‘what do you write about?’ I tell them, ‘the workplace’, and they’re nice as hell to me after that. Yes, I think people do worry that I’m going to expose them in some way, but I see it this way: if you’re worried about your caricature, you probably have other things to worry about! What do you have planned for your next novel? My next novel is underway, but I’m not allowed to say what it’s about. It’s topical, I’ll say that much. And yes, it’s about an underdog fighting for what she believes is right.
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Polly's TV & Radio appearances
From Engineer to Investment Banker to Novelist
Berliner Zeitung Magazin, 2007
I Know the Pressure Matthew was Under
I Sold My Soul to the City - then Wanted it Back
Banker Novel Shows it's not all Success in the City
Taste of High Life in City can Seduce Interns
City Woman who quit City over Sexism admits Lapdancing
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