The tear-off calendar that the Meilandjes have put on the market is not a success. In fact, there are still so many of them gathering dust that they will soon be shredded. “That costs money.”
Not everything the Meilandjes touch turns into gold. Although they are successful with their TV soap, biographies and boarding house, people are not waiting for their tear-off calendar. They hoped it would be the ideal gift for the past holiday season, but we’re almost half way through the year and that thing still hasn’t sold out.
Through the shredder
Jan Dijkgraaf, the biographer of the Meilandjes, admits it honestly in conversation with weekly magazine Party. “We also made a tear-off calendar, which turned out to be a flop. Booksellers say that people spend more time at home due to corona and that fewer calendars are needed as a result.”
He continues: “In any case, far too few have been sold and we have a large stock of those things. We lost money on that. We will soon even have to admit money to have those calendars destroyed.”
Three books
Three books about the Meilandjes have now been published: the one about Martien was the most successful, followed by the one about Erica and Maxime. “I now know them all very well and we also want to become friends,” says Jan.
The biographer found the book about Maxime the most difficult to write, because it is largely about abuse. “I did about ten long interview sessions with Maxime; in some of those sessions she was constantly crying. It was hard for her to pull it all back up, and hard for me to sit in as an audience member.”
Arm around Maxime
Jan did not want to comfort Maxime. “Putting an arm around her, you obviously don’t do that as a writer. In addition, she has a real fear of men. Much of her attitude stems from what happened. When she is playing around with her current boyfriend Leroy, it sometimes happens that she freezes with fright and runs upstairs crying.”
He continues: “Luckily they knew me, but I kept thinking: are we far enough apart? Normally you give a sad person a hug or rub the shoulder for comfort, but in this situation you obviously don’t do that as an author.”