Summary

Again jumping ahead by 15 minutes, Chapter 16 opens with M sitting across from his publisher in a pub following the reading. The publisher pressures M to sit down with the interviewer Marie Claude Bruinzeel, but M is reluctant. He has been interviewed by Bruinzeel before and knows her to be the most savage kind of investigative reporter. He imagines Marie Claude asking him about his mother, and flashes back to his mother’s death once again. He reluctantly agrees to the interview after attempting to dodge it by claiming that he is working on something new (an announcement that his publisher seems to view with more hesitance than enthusiasm). A mention of a photographer elicits a groan from M, as he recalls the eccentric ways in which previous photographers have attempted to create “something special” and creative, before they inevitably settle for photographing him...