<\/p>\n
Maf, a Maltese terrier, given as a present to Marilyn Monroe by Frank Sinatra became her constant companion for the last two years of her life. Katherine Locke talked to Andrew O\u2019Hagen<\/strong> whose new novel looks at a fascinating moment in American culture through the dog\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n Andrew O\u2019Hagan\u2019s six year old daughter has finally called a halt to the game they have been playing all her life. Her novelist father has become too much of an embarrassment for her. The game is \u2018Dogs\u2019, and consists of choosing your breed and becoming the character. Invaluable research for Andrew\u2019s latest novel The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog<\/em>, and of his Friend Marilyn Monroe<\/em>, told entirely from the perspective of the dog.<\/p>\n It is an unusual subject, with an unusual central character and it raises two very obvious questions. Why Marilyn Monroe and why the dog? \u2018I grew up in a house with no books\u2019 says Andrew, \u2018this was a Glasgow housing estate in the 1970s where books were considered to be for other people\u2019. One day Andrew\u2019s father brought home a biography of Marilyn Monroe and he was immediately captivated. \u2018I had never seen a woman like it\u2019, he recalls. There began a life long interest in the Hollywood legend. He was particularly fascinated by her journey out of poverty and into the most famous woman in the world. \u2018She used art, cinema and literature to aid her passage from small town girl to movie star and I could relate to that\u2019, he says.<\/p>\n Being such a fan, he was delighted when he came across an auction of her personal possessions in New York in 1999. Among the lots were six Polaroids of Marilyn with her dog Maf. The photographs ended up fetching $22,000. When Andrew was looking at the images, he says he \u2018heard the voice of the dog\u2019. \u2018As a novelist you follow those voices whenever you hear them\u2019 he says. He then spent the next ten years researching the project.<\/p>\n His passion for all things Marilyn got him into some scrapes, even risking arrest in Bel Air. \u2018I wanted to walk around her neighbourhood and feel the pavement under my feet\u2019 he says \u2018and LA doesn\u2019t cater for walkers, dogs or wandering writers\u2019. As anyone who has been there will attest, if you aren\u2019t in a car you immediately arouse suspicion. However, those walks and raiding the archives of 20th Century Fox proved invaluable when writing the book. The period flavour is absolutely spot on and it is clear that a phenomenal amount of research has gone into the work.<\/p>\n As well as spending time in LA, Andrew also interviewed many people from the psychoanalytic world in New York. Marilyn Monroe\u2019s analyst, who she saw for many years, was a particularly interesting character who had grown up in Vienna and played with Freud\u2019s daughter. She also became Freud\u2019s patient as a young woman, so her credentials were impeccable. Whether her methods with Marilyn were successful or not remains open to debate. It is this attention to detail in the novel that makes it such a fascinating read and it is easy to see how ten years of research went into the finished product. \u2018As Samuel Johnson says\u2019 quotes Andrew \u2018\u201cIt takes miles of literature to make one little book\u201d\u2019.<\/p>\n So what of the dog? Maf was a Maltese terrier, given to Marilyn as a gift from Frank Sinatra and was her constant companion for the final two years of her life. The puppy was bred in Scotland by the family of Vanessa Bell and imported to the US by Natalie Wood\u2019s mother \u2013 an eccentric collector of dogs and supplier of canines to the stars. There is no doubt that Maf bore witness to a fascinating moment in American culture and politics. In fact, after Marilyn\u2019s death, the dog took up residence in the White House, a period of history that would certainly warrant a sequel. But Andrew says \u2018This is a book you could only write once\u2019. He was drawn by the prospect of the opportunities for comedy that the structure allowed. \u2018Maf absorbs the knowledge and reading of everyone he comes into contact with\u2019, as such he is astonishingly well read and has the insight of a philosophy graduate coupled with the chutzpah of a Scottish boy made good. Can Andrew relate to Maf\u2019s journey too?<\/p>\n \u2018The novel has been described as picaresque by a number of publisher\u2019s and journalists\u2019 he says \u2018 and it definitely is an adventure story told from the viewpoint of the lowliest character. There are some aspects of Maf\u2019s story that I can absolutely relate to\u2019. As previously mentioned, Andrew grew up in a working class home with his parents and three brothers. He was the first person in the family to go to university. His lucky break came when his English teacher pulled him out of class one day. She told him that even though he played the class clown, he had probably read more books than she had. Andrew remembers her as being very old and wise, but looking back he says \u2018she was probably only about twenty-eight\u2019. Miss O\u2019Neil took the young Andrew O\u2019Hagan under her wing and offered him extra English tuition and encouraged him to apply to university.<\/p>\n His second lucky break came when, as a twenty-one year old graduate fresh out of the University of Strathclyde, he landed a job as an editor on the London Review of Books, a post usually reserved for Oxbridge graduates. \u2018This was the moment I began to realise the possibilities of writing and its different disciplines and styles\u2019 he says. His first book, The Missing<\/em> was published in 1995 to great critical acclaim. A non-fiction piece, it explored the lives of people who have gone missing and the families they left behind. His debut novel Our Fathers<\/em> was nominated for several literary awards, including the Booker. Every book Andrew has published since has been nominated, or received, a major literary award.<\/p>\n It is clear that Andrew loves writing in all its forms. He is a prolific journalist and essayist, contributing to The Guardian<\/em>, The New Yorker, The Times<\/em> and The Evening Standard<\/em>, amongst others. Also, reading the scenes with Marilyn at the Lee Strasberg Acting Studio, it\u2019s clear that he holds actors in great regard too. \u2018I\u2019ve had a fantastic time recently working with actors reading scenes from Maf the Dog\u2019 he says. He admits to having something of a showbiz mentality himself and finds working with actors a complete joy. \u2018I think acting is the art most similar to writing\u2019 he says \u2018as it requires the ability to truly inhabit a character and become it. Actors also use language in order to create a reality and that is very appealing\u2019. His third novel Be Near Me<\/em> was adapted for the stage in 2009.<\/p>\n And what of the dogs in his own life? \u2018My dad breeds Irish Wheaten Terriers\u2019, he says \u2018and we have one of his, a seven year old boy called Otis\u2019. However, Otis is taking a break from city life, as he was finding the Primrose Hill traffic too stressful. \u2018He has gone to stay with friends in Norfolk for while. It\u2018s a kind of Betty Ford Clinic for dogs\u2019.<\/p>\n Andrew O\u2019Hagan has received a huge amount of attention for Maf the Dog. The film rights have already been sold and several major actors have been tipped for the lead roles (George Clooney as Frank?), he is not however, going to write the screenplay. \u2018It needs fresh eyes\u2019 he says. When asked if he agrees with the critics who are saying that this is his best novel yet, he replies, \u2018Your best book is always the next one\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Maf, a Maltese terrier, given as a present to Marilyn Monroe by Frank Sinatra became her constant companion for the last two years of her life. Katherine Locke<\/strong> talked to Andrew O\u2019Hagen<\/strong> whose new novel looks at a fascinating moment in American culture through the dog\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[68],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts","tag-katherine-locke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}