Fast Confession - Writer Petr Macek: The book was originally intended for Maestro's birthday, Ivana hasn't read it
Petr Macek meets famous people every day. And he has cordial relationships with many of them, well above standard for a journalist. As a result, stars are usually not afraid to entrust him the details of their lives, which he, as a write, puts on the pages of his books. His latest work is a book about the legendary music star Karel Gott, who has recently crossed the rainbow bridge. The book Takový byl Karel Gott: Nejslavnější český zpěvák očima přátel a kolegů (This is what Karel Gott was like: The most famous Czech singer through the eyes of his friends and colleagues) will reveal much that you haven‘t known about the Maestro yet. Petr talked about how the book was created in an interview for LP-life.cz.
How long did it take you to prepare your most recent book about Karel Gott?
This book was very specific. It is necessary to admit to the reader that a part of it was created already during the Master's life, because several of the interviews included in the book were intended for his birthday. They were made in the spring. We approached about fifteen personalities back then, who gave an interview on the topic of Karel Gott, and these were then issued in a publication from the Blesk Extra edition, entitled Our Karel.
Naturally, after Karel died, many more interviews were made, and these were already commemorative. And at a certain point we thought it would be nice to put all these interviews together and compile a representative collection of 35 interviews. Moreover, the birthday stories published in the book have been supplemented and extended, because we were no longer limited to a certain length. So Maestro's fans definitely won't be buying something they already have at home for the second time. On the contrary, they'll get plenty of new information, dozens of unique photos and a book in a luxury edition, large format, on a nice paper and in hardcover.
Who came up with this idea?
It was kind of self-evident. The interviews are very nice, people could be interested in them, we were swamped with positive feedback. At the same time, we didn't want to undermine the fact that Karel Gott had written his own biography while he was still alive, which is hopefully being prepared for publication.
But as a journalist, I've been meeting him throughout my entire professional life, as well as a number of people who have walked with him on their career paths, some a shorter, others a longer stretch of the journey, some way in the past, others in the recent years. We selected a person from each of these periods and asked them to tell us, how they perceived Gott at the given time, what they experienced with him, how he behaved, and so on. Or what, in their opinion, were Gott's strengths and weaknesses, what he was like in private…
I admit that after his death, we didn't reach out to the personalities whom we'd already interviewed in the spring for his birthday again. Their memories wouldn't have changed after three months. And it seemed nice to me to use the interviews that had been made during his lifetime, to keep them in the present or in the future tense. They express a kind of hope and optimism that Karel would recover from his illness.
Moreover, it is interesting that the people I interviewed after his death were still talking about him in the present tense. Nobody wants to talk about him in the past tense, because Karel Gott was, is and always will be with us - because he is truly immortal thanks to his songs. Thanks to what he achieved here, the imprint he left in each of us.
And who was conducting the interviews?
I don't want to take all the credit, so I'm using the plular form. Míša Remešová helped me with one interview and I also cooperated on some of the interviews in front of the camera with my colleague David Turek.
After all, many journalists have already written about Karel Gott, for example Míša Remešová was one of the people who walked alongside him quite a long stretch of the road…
By the way, Míša Remešová is one of the people who speak about him in the book, because I wanted to get a journalist's view as well, how she perceived him and what chemistry was between them.
What did she tell you?
A lot of things. The interview is about ten pages long. She told me why she had such a cordial relationship with him. She is actually perceived as his court journalist, or at least was until a certain point. She walked with him for twenty-five years, since the founding of the Blesk daily, actually, until the present days, that is, until his death. So she explained how that happened, why she had this cordial relationship with him, what their cooperation had been like in the past and how it changed over time, what Karel Gott was allergic to when he authorized interviews, what words she wasn't allowed to use… Lots and lots of things.
And what was he allergic to?
For example, she told me that Karel Gott was very adamant about not saying that someone was "terribly excited about something" because the word "terribly" had a negative connotation. So they are very excited about something or really excited about something, but nobody can ever write that they are "terribly" excited about something.
In Fast Confession, you told me you'd already written something and Ivana wasn't quite comfortable with it…
I don't know if I want to go deeper into it. When the book was published in the spring, Milan Drobný also had an interview in it. I asked what their relations with Karel Gott were at the moment, because they hadn't always been splendid. And Milan replied that they had already talked it all out. And he mentioned a fabulation, but specified already back then, that it was someone else's fabulation and vendetta – I don't want to name that person. Even though it was presented along with the fact that it was all made up, this sentence became the source of great displeasure. But since this new book is to be commemorative, respectful to Karel Gott and his family, we have omitted this whole section from the book.
Aren't you afraid that Ivana Gottová might have a problem with the new book?
I fully respect Ivana Gottová. I'm aware of the fact that she wants to honor her husband's name and memory and have a certain level of control over it. But as I say, what we published is not Karel Gott's biography. It is a mosaic of various angles of view of different people from his circle. Here, with all due respect, Ivana Gottová shouldn't find anything to disagree with, because it's nothing but subjective opinions of various people, from which the reader can put together his or her own opinion on what Karel Gott was like. As a colleague, as a friend, as a human being.
Whenever someone's writing a book, they're doing their best to have it published by Christmas, it's quite logical. How do you explain that Ivana Gottová has not yet published the autobiography written by Karel himself?
I have no idea.
But as an author of many books, what do you think based on your own experience…
There can be two reasons that might delay the publication of a book. Either a marketing plan that might count on the book being published for a certain event, like an anniversary or a birthday. Or the book isn't fully finished and some adjustments are still being made. But I really don't know which of the alternatives it is.
What happened in the Blesk newsroom when information came that Karel Gott had died?
Time stopped for a picosecond, and then a huge machinery of system-ready operations started. In the newspaper, one needs to be prepared for everything. We knew what disease Karel was fighting and what his current condition was like. And as much as we all wished for Karel to be immortal, we also knew it was an unrealistic wish. So the tasks had been given in advance. At that moment, each person in the newsroom represented one wheel in a machine that had to react quickly and had to start reporting the information and everything related to it to the Czech Republic.
I know you said you didn't have a private relationship, but how did it hit you on a personal level?
I think there is no one in this republic who wouldn't be touched by it. Of course, as a journalist, you have to process the information for someone else first, for the reader, and then you can start processing it inside you. I remember the moment when I was sitting in the subway about three days later. And only then did I realize that Karel Gott was really gone.
We certainly weren't friends in our private lives, but there was a kind of respect between us - hopefully mutual – as journalist and artists. We often saw each other at social events such as the Czech Nightingale or various concerts, launch parties, performances. We conducted a series of interviews on these occasions, I made a number of reports with him, and he also appeared in programs where I worked as a screenwriter, either for Nova or for Prima. He was answering my calls as long as he was healthy, it was always easy to make an arrangement with him. There was a friendly relationship between us on a professional level.
And I can't forget to mention that I was sent to his wedding in Las Vegas as journalist on behalf of Blesk and Aha!. The day after it became public that he had gotten married, I was already sitting on the plane with the photographer, without having the slightest clue where we were going to find him. And he really didn't want to be found at that time! After a full day and night of searching the city, we got news from Prague that he was likely to be heading back. So we drove to Las Vegas airport - and in a few minutes we see him walking toward us with Ivana and little Charlotte.
He was a little puzzled, but since he was really leaving, he didn't mind it. While at the airport, we made an interview, took photos, and received a number of recommendations about what we shouldn't miss in Las Vegas. He gave me the itinerary of his honeymoon, all the places he visited. And we really made the same stops, following in his footsteps, the photographer and me, so I can actually say that I experienced his honeymoon!
Do you think if you didn't have the employer you have, you'd ever make this happen? I mean, publishing so many books…
I had been writing books before I started working for newspapers. And I don't think that my workplace makes the journey easy for me. I published my first book when at 18 when I was in high school. Maybe also the second and the third. Now I have about 25 books, and this isn't me boasting, it's a fact. I was publishing books even while working for TV Nova, I was publishing them while working in Aha!, and I'm publishing them now, too. My work as a journalist has nothing to do with it. My books are also published abroad, where nobody knows what Blesk is.
Many people who have written a book and want to publish it say they'd rather start their own publishing house, because otherwise they wouldn't make any money. Does that apply to you? That you write more for joy than for making a living?
I don't do it for money. For me, it's a business card of sorts, a marketing tool that you give to colleagues and friends: "Hi, I have a new book." In our country, or at least in my reality, it's not something to live off pf. The money you make on it will buy you a coffee or a vacation. I'm not churning out ten books a year, and those that I do get out sell in thousands, not hundreds of thousands. I do it because I enjoy it. I actually run away from troubles in the real world into imaginary worlds. Sometimes I write detective stories, sometimes comics. These are the things that I enjoy. It's a form of autotherapy for me.
Tell us about the comic. After all, a book about a deceased celebrity and a comic... That's two completely different things.
I think that if you've got letters in you and feel the need to put them on paper, then you either have what it takes, or not. And if you have what it takes, then the form in which you process it, whether it is fiction, biography or even a movie script, is actually just a craft, a way in which you arrange the letters.
And since writing is also my job, I try to rest my brain by switching between different types of writing. When I am tired of newspaper writing, I go and relax by writing something else, for instance detective stories. And when I'm tired of writing detective stories, I try to write something else again. Biographies of people I like working with, and so on. I keep jumping from one topic to another, but because it always activates a different part of my brain, I can write practically non-stop. That's how it happened that I created the biography of director Václav Vorlíček, a historical novel with Sherlock Holmes, a fantasy novella or a book on the occupation on August 21, 1968 more or less at the same time.
And because I've always been a fan of comic books, I teamed up with artist Petr Kopl and suggested that we try to create an adventurous, superhero comic, like Avengers or Spider-Man. We've just had a comic about Pérák published, which is a legendary Czech hero from World War II. According to legend, he was a real man fighting the Nazis. He sabotaged them and defended the oppressed Czechs against the German malevolence. We took this character and tailored a new story for him that took place during World War II. I like to say that he's something like a Czech Indiana Jones.
The comic book is called Pérák: The Eye of the Future and has recently been published. If you have children at home who love comics, are interested in Czech history or if you'd like to present it to them in a palatable form, it's the ideal Christmas gift.
