I am pleased to welcome a friend and fellow Ricardian, Anne Easter Smith, whose new novel about Cecily Neville, Queen by Right, hits the stores this week.  There can never be enough books about Richard III and his family and I am looking forward to reading Anne’s view of Cecily’s life.   

Q.  “Queen By Right” is your fourth book in a series about the York family. Where does it fit in with the others?

A.    First of all, let me thank you very much for agreeing to let me guest post on your prestigious blog. As you are one of my favorite authors, it is quite an honor to be here! To answer your question, you could call this the prequel to the other three, Sharon. I started, like you, with the story of the real Richard III in “A Rose for the Crown”, and because I had a two-book contract with Simon & Schuster, I chose to write about Richard’s sister Margaret of Burgundy in “Daughter of York.” I followed up on a thread in that book about a “secret boy” Margaret had taken under her wing and wrote “The King’s Grace.” It includes my theory on whether or not Perkin Warbeck, the pretender to the throne in the 1490s, was indeed the younger of the two princes in the Tower, who were supposedly murdered by their uncle, Richard III. (You and I know that was not the case, however!) In all three of those books, the matriarch of the house of York, Cecily Neville, duchess of York, kept popping in and out or was never far from her children’s thoughts when it came to them making decisions, and when she did, you could not help be drawn to her strong personality, notice the influence she had on her children, and be intrigued by the drama of her life. Richard was only nine, George of Clarence twelve and Margaret fourteen when Cecily was widowed. Her oldest son, Edward became king at nineteen, six months after his father’s death, and Cecily guided his steps in those first years of his reign. I end the book with Edward’s coronation, and when I watched the royal wedding last week, I could not help but imagine the young Edward taking exactly the same walk up that astonishing nave to the altar as William did.

Q.  What did you find out about Cecily Neville that you didn’t know from your previous research?

A.   “Queen By Right” takes us to Cecily’s early life when she and Richard became betrothed in 1424 and up to Edward’s coronation. I had written lots about events during the Wars of the Roses, but I had never really delved into why Richard of York chose to assert his claim to the throne when he did. So all of that research meant understanding Richard’s whole life and career. He was orphaned at age four and lived in the shadow of the treason and attainting of his father, and I think it affected his behavior for a long time and caused many of Henry VI’s councilors to shun him–like father like son, they may have thought, and he believed. Like Benedict Arnold during the Revolutionary War, the man was pushed out of the circle of power one too many times and he eventually snapped.  In 1424, when the book starts, England was in the second half of the Hundred Years War (of course, they didn’t know this at the time or that it would be called that!) and how important Normandy was in the scheme of things. England had “owned” it since Willie the Conk (William the Conqueror) was crowned in 1066. Over the next three hundred years, bits and pieces were lost to the French and finally Edward III decided to start fighting for it. It wasn’t until Henry V (“Once more unto the breach dear friends”) won decisive victory at Agincourt in 1415 (three months before Cecily was born) that things began to go England’s way. To get back to your question, though. Cecily and Richard found themselves in Rouen, the seat of the English government in Normandy, a couple of times: once with the king’s household in 1431. If that date doesn’t quite ring a bell with anyone, they are forgiven! It isn’t all of us who know that in May of that year, Joan of Arc was tried and burned at the stake. And yes, Cecily was there. Then I followed the couple to back to Normandy when Richard was governor in the early 1440s, and onto Ireland, where Richard was “ordered” to be lord lieutenant (actually to get him out of the way again). Cecily’s role was very much one of military wife, and that’s something I can relate to, having been one myself! I had not realized how much Cecily had traveled.

Q.  What were the challenges you faced with this book compared with the others?

A.    My biggest challenge was having to start my research from scratch this time. All my other books took place from 1460 and to the end of the century. Now I was in the first half of the century and I suddenly realized I was back in the Hundred Years War, an event I had conveniently buried in my schoolbook memory and had to resurrect. I didn’t know the politics and more importantly, I didn’t know the characters. Most of the people were dead by the time my other books started. Up until then for me, the only duke of Gloucester was our Richard, and now I had to get to know another one–and a very important man from 1420s to 1440s. So instead of borrowing from my knowledge and library of the second half of the 15th century, I was having to build a whole new framework for my story. I don’t know how some authors are able to jump around history so effortlessly! I have been steeped only in the 15th century for fifteen years. Another challenge was creating a character whose personality so many readers have already formed from other sources. Cecily will invariably show up in any book about Richard III, Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret of Anjou etc., but other than Eleanor Fairburn’s 1970s trilogy about Cecily, “Queen by Right” is the only novel about her since then. I truly loved telling her story.

Q.  On a personal note, Anne, which of your characters do you relate to most?

R.   I have to say that Margaret of York is the one that made me want to befriend her. When I was researching her, I was thrilled to know she was tall for her age. Being six feet myself, I know we would have some horror stories to share about our height problems. I was also delighted to know that she was such a bibliophile, as am I. And of all the romantic interests in any of my four books, Anthony would have also been the one I fell for! Although I was also drawn to John of Gloucester in “The King’s Grace.” Both were much too young for me, however 😉

Q.  Are you writing another book?

R.   I never thought I’d ever write more than one, Sharon, so to be writing a fifth blows my mind. I have threatened that this is the last in the York family series, but who knows what might transpire while I am writing it. Someone might jump out at me during my research and say “Tell my story,” so I am hedging my bets. This new one is about Edward IV’s mistress, Jane Shore, who made an appearance in “Sunne in Splendor” I believe. She had quite a dramatic 10 year period in her life that I couldn’t resist, and so, as with my other books, I am showing one of the important men of the period through the eyes of a woman. Even though Edward IV figures in all of my books as a major character, I have not really focused on him yet.

Thanks again, Sharon, for sharing your space with me. I can’t wait to read “Lionheart”!

      Thank you, Anne, for sharing your thoughts with us.   I am delighted that you will be writing about Jane Shore next, as she is one of my favorite royal mistress, second only to Charles II’s Nell Gwynn.  It is about time Jane got a book of her own!
May 9, 2011

I am very happy to reveal here the book jacket for Lionheart, which I think is truly spectacular.   I haven’t always been able to say that about past books, but I think this one is as close to perfect as mortal man can get.   The publication date for Lionheart will be October in the United States, and November at the latest in Australia; I still don’t know when my new British publisher plans to publish it in the United Kingdom, but I will let you know as soon as I do.   And yes, it will definitely be available on Kindle and Nook and in other e-book formats, both in the US and the UK.         I hope you all like it as much as I do!  
April 23, 2011

      Last year, I had a very interesting interview with Laurel Corona, author of Penelope’s Daughter, and received very positive feedback from my readers.  So I am pleased to have persuaded Laurel to stop by again, this time to mark the publication of her new novel, Finding Emilie, which is set on the eve of the French Revolution.  Laurel, as you know, for I quote her often enough, has eloquently articulated the responsibility of the historical novelist in five very powerful words–Do not defame the dead.  
Sharon:  Tell us a little about the book.  Who is Emilie du Châtelet, and why were you interested in her story?

      I am delighted to be able to offer my readers an interview with one of my favorite historical novelists, Margaret George.   Margaret has tackled some challenging and elusive subjects in the past–the megalomaniac Henry VIII, the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots, the fabled Helen of Troy, and the even more legendary Cleopatra, among others.   She has now turned her attention and her considerable talents to one of history’s most intriguing figures–Elizabeth Tudor.     Elizabeth I covers the Tudor queen’s life from the Armada until her death, stubbornly refusing to go to bed and reminding Cecil that “Must is not a word to be used to princes.”  I was fortunate enough to be able to read an ARC of Elizabeth I and I think it is Margaret’s best book yet.  Tomorrow you can read Elizabeth I.  Tonight, though, you can read Margaret’s interview with me.

INTERVIEW WITH MARGARET GEORGE

Why did you write Elizabeth?

I wanted to show the older Elizabeth, the consummate statesman, in the arena.  She had reigned for thirty years before the great crisis of the Armada tested her—and England.  Her leadership was a legend in action.  Following that was the uprising of the charismatic and troubled Earl of Essex—the last time a nobleman in England challenged the throne, but at the time she couldn’t know that.  And then there was the greatest adversary of all, the only one she couldn’t best: time itself.  But she put up one heck of a fight.

 Do you think issues Elizabeth faced still resonate today?

 I think they are as timely as ever.  How to protect the citizens of your country?  How to assure peace so that prosperity can follow?  How to make do on less money than is needed for national expenses?  (Budget crisis!)  How to keep enemy regimes from harming your country?  How to protect against assassination without violating the principles of law and freedom? How to instill courage in your people by example? Last, how to erase the lingering suspicion that a woman can’t lead as well as a man?

 What will the reader learn after reading your book?

That literary Elizabethan England as we think of it was a ‘late bloomer’—Shakespeare didn’t even arrive in London until about the time of the Armada.  When Elizabeth first became queen, he hadn’t been born.

 Do you get along with your muse?  How do you treat her?

Not as well as I should.  I don’t feed her enough.  She needs free time and random input, daydreaming and deep reading.  Instead she gets dull errands, grocery lists, and small talk at obligatory social events.  If she were a dog, she’d run away.

 But when I do get time alone with her, what bliss!  It’s my favorite thing in the world.  At least I don’t take her for granted.  I hope she understands.

 As an author, what is your greatest reward?

 I would say it is split between two things—the joy of spending time in another dimension, another world, learning things I never knew existed, and the deep pleasure of knowing I’m introducing others to it and they are happy for it.

 How long did it take you to research and write “Elizabeth”? 

Technically, five years, but I had already done a lot of background research on that era, had a lot of the books already, and had visited many of the sites.  So I had a head start.

 How do you select your characters?

I am always looking for people who led operatic lives.  Whose private passions have changed—or at least influenced—history.  It helps if they die young and tragically.  In that way Elizabeth is a departure from my other subjects, living to a ripe old age without being sick and dying peacefully in her bed with no regrets.

 Do you have other passions besides writing?

 I compete in national masters track and field meets, 100 meters and 200 meters, and in the long jump. 

 Tell us one of your secrets, something the general public wouldn’t guess.

 I am a Mars fanatic!  I have a link on my toolbar to NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Mission so I can follow what’s going on up on Mars. When Mars’s orbit brought it close to the earth a few years ago, I saw Mars through an historic telescope at an observatory open house.  I eagerly absorb every morsel of new information about the Red Planet.  I collect Mars photos and reread “The Martian Chronicles” regularly.

 If you could be a character in any book, who would you choose?

Scarlett O’Hara.

 If you could ask any historical character a question, what would it be?

 Elizabeth Tudor, were you truly a virgin?

 Favorite line from a book?

  “There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice.”  F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Sensible Thing.”

Margaret, thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview.   You have done justice to this remarkable woman and have given your readers 662 pages of pure reading pleasure, plus a wonderful Author’s Note and bibliography.  For lovers of historical fiction, it doesn’t get any better than that.

After my shepherd Cody died last year, I found it helped to write a blog about him, to write about what a special dog he was.  I am not yet ready to write about Shadow; that wound is still too raw.  But I can write about Shadow’s legacy–the dog sleeping peacefully on the rug beside me. I had become worried that I might never be ready to adopt another dog after losing Shadow, for he was proving to be as loyal in death as he’d been in life, such a loving ghost that I could not bear to bring another dog into my house or heart.   Yet I did want to adopt again.   Eventually I realized what I needed to do—to give a home to a dog that might otherwise not find one. So I went looking for senior shepherds and the search led me to a 9 year old white shepherd in Florida named Hank. 

     We don’t know his history, but he was not housebroken, which makes it very likely that he was always an outside dog.  He’d been on his own for a long time, for he was half-starved, so skeletal that it was painful to look at him.  But then his luck finally changed, for Joan Alexander, a volunteer with Echo Dogs White German Shepherd Rescue, pulled him from a kill shelter on his last day.  Then Becky Dunne was kind enough to offer to foster him.  Foster families are the unsung heroes of the rescue movement and deserve so much credit, for without them, countless dogs could not be saved.  It was obvious that Hank had never been in a house before; initially, he was fearful of any footing except grass and when he first saw a glass door, he tried to walk through it.  But Becky was patient in introducing him to this brave new world; she housebroke him in record time and began to teach him the family rules–no stealing food, no chasing the cats.  He thought that was great fun, but the cats were not too thrilled about it.  After a few weeks, he was ready to go up for adoption and I found him on Echo’s website. 

       I’d been approved for adoption by Echo last year after I’d lost Cody, and so in less than a week, Hank—now renamed Tristan by me—was ready to go to his new home.  The only problem was that it was one thousand miles away.  But Echo has a network of truly amazing people who volunteer for missions like this.  In no time at all, Tristan had fourteen guardian angels lined up for his pilgrimage from Orlando to Aberdeen, MD, where I’d meet him.

        I’d worried that it would be very stressful for him—traveling through eight states in two days, being turned over from one stranger to another.  But Tristan proved to be a trooper, handling it with remarkable composure and élan.  As he began his journey, I posted status reports on my Facebook page—he’s now in GA, he’s just entering SC, etc.  I felt like NASA tracking Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve, and Tristan was soon being cheered on by people from the US to the UK to South Africa to Australia!  The best description of his odyssey came from one of my Australian friends, Glenne Gilbert, who compared it to the passing of the Olympic Torch.

       A friend and I met Tristan on Sunday afternoon in Aberdeen, MD, and I like to think it was love at first sight for us both.  I will be eternally grateful to Lizbeth and Paul, who drove that last lap, to Jonathan and Ronnie, who took him into their home in VA on Saturday night, and to Becky, Joan, Alicia, Sheila, Trisha, Rebecca, Jez, and Trish, who were willing to chauffeur a skinny, elderly shepherd on his way to a new life.  I’d like to thank Jeanmarie, who organized our convoy, and Patrice, who offered to drive hundreds of miles to help out if need be, and Ellie, who met us in MD.   The only catch in an otherwise perfect trip was that we had to drive back to NJ in a monsoon; you know it was bad when I had to keep asking, “Are we still on the road?” 

      But Tristan was worth it.  He is such a sweet dog, as mellow as my Cody, who I called my surfer-dude-dog, smart and curious and very affectionate, brave enough to trust.  He has settled in as if he’d always lived here. He gets along very well with my other dog and I have no cats to tempt him.  He loves stuffed toys, probably because he’d never had any in his years of outdoor exile; he soon mastered stair climbing, and is so well behaved that I stopped using his crate after just three days.  Above all, he is happy, as happy as Cody and Shadow were once they’d realized that they were in a home where they’d be safe and loved.  And it is not always true that no good deed goes unpunished, for my vet thinks Tristan is younger than nine!

       I have such admiration for those who work in rescue.  They see the worst that people are capable of.  They see dogs that have been cruelly abused like Shadow or shamefully neglected like Tristan.  They give unselfishly of themselves for animals that are not theirs, teach them to trust again, and then let them go to new homes.  And they learn the hardest lesson of all—that they cannot save them all.

      This weekend, Joan Alexander, Tristan’s guardian angel, is trying to rescue two white shepherds in Florida—Sheeba, a young female who has been running the streets of Key West, and Pistol, a young male whose owners no longer want him.  They are stunningly beautiful dogs, look like sleek white wolves, friendly and playful, dogs that deserve a second chance.  If anyone in Florida is interested in fostering either of these shepherds, please contact me and I’ll put you in touch with Joan.  And if any of you are thinking about adding a loving, young shepherd to your families, remember that Echo delivers! 

     But even as Joan rejoiced that she’ll be able to take Pistol and Sheeba under Echo’s protection, she learned about a female white shepherd and her three pups, being held at one of Florida’s worst kill shelters.  And until she can find foster or forever homes for Sheeba and Pistol, she can do nothing for that mother and pups even though their time may be running out.  For people in rescue, triumphs and tragedies are spokes on the same wheel.

       Their success stories keep them going, though.  My friend, Annalori Spaulding, is trying to find a foster or forever home for a sweet little girl named Buffy, a West Highland White Terrier.  She was suffering from serious allergies, but has made great progress.  Her problem now is that she wants to be an “only child,” so she needs to go to a home without other dogs.  If anyone would like to know more about Buffy, you can find her photo on my Facebook page, or you can contact me and I’ll put you in touch with Annalori.

       Annalori has three Westies of her own, all rescues.  She recently wrote about how she came to adopt Lily, who’d been used as a breeder at one of those infernal puppy mills, and her account is so eloquent that I want to share part of it with you all.  After you read about Lily Belle, what she endured, and what her life is like now, I hope you’ll think about adoption the next time you want to bring a new dog into your families.  Now, here is Annalori.

       “I work with kids for a living, and not just any kids, but abused and neglected ones.  I work with the kids everyone has given up on, because I want to be the one who shows them that adults are just as capable of giving love as causing pain.  It shouldn’t be a surprise, then, that when I went to Maryland Westie Rescue for adoption in July, 2009, I specifically asked for a puppy mill rescue.  Soon I was contacted about a girl who was nearly seven years old, had been used as a breeder, and had been abused.  I had to drive to Annapolis to get her and wasn’t sure what to expect. 

       “As soon as she was led out and our eyes met, that was it, for she immediately ran over to me and tried to climb into my lap.  Those liquid brown eyes had hooked me and there was no way I was ever giving her back.  She was my Lily Belle.”

        Annalori and her family soon learned that Lily had been abused by men, for she was fearful at first of Annalori’s father.  She’d never been on grass before, having spent her life in a cage.  And she was so quiet because she’d been debarked, part of her vocal cords cut for the convenience of her puppy mill owners.  Annalori says that all she can manage is “a very hoarse, whispery kind of gurgle, which is both adorable and very sad.”  She’d never had toys before and was puzzled by them at first; eventually she began to play with their cat’s toy, so now she has her own pink mouse, which she sleeps with each night.  

       Annalori concludes, “Every time I see her, I remember what she was like when I brought her home, and I marvel anew at the difference that love and patience can make.  Athough she spent her entire life in a cage, she goes into her ‘house’ with wagging tail when we leave because she knows we are coming back.  I may have been the one to rescue her, but I think I got the better end of the deal.  For almost seven years, she experienced the worst of what humans can give, but hasn’t let that stop her from being a happy, loving little girl who shows me by example every day that love itself is a miracle.  She rescued me, too, and for that, I will be eternally grateful.”

       I don’t want to ignore cats—they take that rather badly.  So I’d like to close with a story by Persia Woolley. I’m sure that many of you are fans of her writing and for those few who’ve not read one of her books, you are in for such a treat.   Persia recently moved and was planning to get a cat.  She was thinking of an elegant Abyssinian or possibly a Maine Coon cat.  But when she heard that one of her neighbors had died, leaving her cat in desperate need of a home, she felt compelled to go to see her.  In Persia’s words, she found “a poor old wreck, too fat to walk normally, with broken-down ankles, a listless attitude, and terrible breath from eating nothing but tuna.”  She also had serious kidney and liver problems.  Not exactly the ideal candidate for adoption.  But Persia knew the old girl would likely be put down if she didn’t take her, and she found herself remembering Grizabella from “Cats,” the old stray who got a second chance at life.  So Persia ended up with a cat utterly unlike the one she’d expected to take into her new home.   It took a while, about two months, for her to adjust, for she was likely mourning her former owner, but Persia wrote to me that “One morning I woke up to my face being patted by the gentlest little cloud-soft paw.”   As her confidence increased, her health improved, too, although Persia knows she is probably on borrowed time.  She says that “She’ll never be the bright, sprightly animal I thought I wanted, but we get on well together and tend to grin at the world while announcing, ‘There is a dance in the old dames yet, toujour gaie, toujour gaie.’”

          I couldn’t end on a better grace note than that.  I hope some of you (well, all of you, actually) will check out Echo’s website and their wonderful white shepherds in need of homes.  http://www.petfinder.com/fpm/petlist/petlist.cgi?shelter=IN147,PA752,MO339,NH77,FL1031,TX1106&status=A&age=&limit=25&offset=0&animal=&title=Adoptable%2520Pets%2520from%2520Echo%2520Dogs%2520White%2520Shepherd%2520Rescue&style=10&ref=s9KU_pXEFbsw1ja    Tristan is sleeping at my feet as I write this.  My friend Jim sent him a stuffed duck which has become his favorite toy, and he is using it now as a pillow.   The photo below is one of my boy surrounded by his bones, practically radiating happiness.  All three of my rescue shepherds came frighteningly close to falling through the cracks.  I feel blessed that they did not.

March 18, 2011 

     When one of my new Facebook friends happened to mention that she was a writer, too, I was naturally curious.  Much to my delight, she said she was working on a novel about Nell Gwynn, the most famous and most appealing of Charles II’s mistresses.   Charles has always been my favorite non-medieval king and what little I knew of Nell was all to the good, so I asked Priya if I could have an ARC (advance reading copy) of Exit the Actress.    All I can say is that Priya’s writing career is off to a roaring start!  I loved this book.   Nell is a wonderful character and Priya manages to capture Charles in all his charming complexity.  Her Restoration England is so vividly drawn that I truly felt as if I were an invisible eye-witness to one of the most interesting eras in English history.    Exit The Actress was published this week and is already attracting attention–just as Nell herself did.    So….may I present Priya Parmar and Nell Gwynn.

INTERVIEW WITH SHARON KAY PENMAN

SKP: How did you happen to choose to write about Nell Gwyn and the Restoration period? 

PP: I really fell in love with Nell Gwyn and moved to Restoration London because it was her period but once I got there I was fascinated by the setting.  It is an extraordinary period of shift and innovation.  Charles II returned to England and rather than seeking to punish the country that revolted against and ultimately killed his father, he did everything he could to foster peace and unification and tolerance.  Of course he also dug up the long dead Oliver Cromwell, the man personally responsible for murdering his father and held an execution for his dead body in Hyde Park.

            It was an exciting time to be in London.  Charles II brought ideas and clothes and customs and architecture from continental Europe and set about building a new and wonderful country.  Unfortunately he had plague and fire and raging prejudice to deal with but he handled it all brilliantly.  He invited women to perform on the stage for the first time, founded the Royal Society and he and his gardener, John Rose, grew the first pineapple in England.  He was a thrilling king and his rowdy circle of libertine friends were wild and extreme but all gifted, brilliant people.  And Nell was at the center of it all.

SKP:  This book is not written in a straight narrative style but rather a collection of documents, diaries and letters of the period.  How did you come to write the novel in this format?

PP: The style just sort of presented itself and refused to budge.  I tried to coax it into narrative prose but it was so stubborn.  I think because I had been studying primary documents for so long, first as an undergraduate and then during my doctorate, that I just became fascinated  by stories in their elemental forms; before all the strands of ribbon get woven into a single braid.

            I first met Ellen Gwyn when I was researching my Ph.D.  I read: her bills for shoes and lace and clothes and a bill for a fantastic silver boat shaped bed and her will as well as all the diaries of the period.  A complicated, contradictory, whimsical, genuine, talented, compassionate, layered woman emerged from those bits of paper.  All the contradictions can coexist happily at that level and a real person steps forward.  She can be a woman who leaves huge amounts of money to charity in her will, scolds her son for spending too much money on hats and then goes hopelessly into debt over a Venetian mirror.   

SKP: It is interesting that as a reader, we get accustomed to the writing style immediately and forget it is even there.

PP: Oh good.  I wanted it to feel really natural and not intrusive.  I wanted it to be a fall down a rabbit hole sort of reading experience but I had no idea if it would work or not.  It was a huge gamble!

SKP: And you never second guessed it?

PP: Actually, the first agent I sent it to said she loved the writing and the story and wanted to take it on if maybe I would change the format.  It was the scariest thing I ever did to say no! 

SKP: I am always interested in what parts of characterization or plot an author chooses to fictionalize and what to keep purely factually based.  How closely did you stick to the history?

PP: I kept to the history as much as possible.  Even the bits that seem far fetched are often rooted in fact.  John Wilmot actually did have a servant called Alcock and Charles had a spaniel called Dot.  Even Ellen’s shoes are actually based on her surviving shoe orders!  I really enjoyed tracking down the obscure stuff like the names of the footmen who carried her sedan chair and exactly what the remedy for a cold was circa 1665.  I like when all the small details are right but at some points friends got tired of my beginning conversations with “Did you know that in 1660, ground fox lung was thought to cure a fever?”

            I did have a section from the plague year that listed the people who died near Ellen’s home.  It did not make it into the final book but it was so interesting and heartbreaking to research.  All these people, young women especially, of just her age died; mostly because they were often ones who stayed to nurse their families.  Ellen must have known some of them.

            The most glaring bit of history I chose to dispute was the idea that Ellen was illiterate.  I just didn’t see how it would be possible for her to keep the company she kept and be unable to read.  Also she often had three plays to memorize in a week!

SKP:  Your Nell Gwyn cuts a very different figure from the bawdy, cockney, flirtatious Nell Gwyn we normally meet in popular culture.  You have Oxford rather than London as her birthplace and she is called “Ellen” in your book.  Was that her name?

PP:  No one is sure where she was born.  There are strong cases for Hereford, London and Oxford.  I chose Oxford as it seemed the most likely given her Grandfather’s association with Christ Church and her father’s military history.  There is no evidence that she had a cockney accent at all.  Her looks, dancing, acting and singing were all widely commented upon during her life.  It was said she had terrific feet and a lovely voice but no one ever mentioned a London accent.  Home county accents were very popular at the time, so it was possible she had what was a trendy Oxfordshire lilt. 

            She only signed her name to a few documents and when she did, she used the initials “E.G.” and then her dear friend Aphra Behn dedicated her play to “Ellen Guin” so I decided that Ellen must have been the name she used in her personal life.  As for being flirtatious, she most likely was, but more than anything, she was a woman ruled by loyalty.  After Charles II died, she never took another lover.  I really love that about her.

SKP: First lines always intrigue me because so much hangs on them.  How did you find your first line?

PP: The first line of the Prologue arrived very early and never changed.  It is a moment about collecting yourself and leaping forward, which is exactly what I was doing in writing the book, and so I just wrote the moment I was living.  The first line of the diary was much trickier and kept changing.  I was giving it too much weight and it would not settle.  Finally it told me to go away and just let it be and so I did.

SKP: It sounds like you began at the beginning and wrote straight through.  Did you?

PP: Surprisingly, I did.  I would go back and constantly revise, but I never wrote a scene I had not reached yet.  I am sure it would have saved time if I had but I sort of had to live the book with Ellen and think through what was happening to her as  it was happening in the story.  She sort of moved in and would tell me all about what was going on with her eccentric family and her day at the theatre and her love life.  It felt like having your best friend over for coffee every morning.  I couldn’t write ahead because I could not see that far.  It hadn’t happened yet.

SKP: Do you have a writing routine or any rules for yourself that you follow?

PP: I turn on the computer at the same time every day and only let myself write four pages—however long that takes me.  And then, even if it is going really well, I stop and go off and research.  It is terrible when it falls in the midst of an exciting scene but I know if I leave it alone, I will have something fun to come back to tomorrow…

SKP: And are you working on a new book now?

PP: Yes.  My second book is looking for a title at the moment but is set just before and during WWI.  It is extraordinary to be writing about the last moments during the twentieth century when a world war was unimaginable.  They thought it would be over by Christmas. 

      Thank you, Priya.  I think this was one of my best blog interviews.  Nell has been waiting a long time for someone to tell her story. 

February 4, 2011

HISTORY VS FICTION

     A number of years ago, I attended a writer’s conference in the Midwest, where I was asked to give a speech about writing as a craft.  I said that my aim as a novelist was “to entertain and to inform.”    Later in the program, another writer surprised me by quoting what I’d said, and then declared that her aim was “to heal.”   That seemed overly ambitious to me and so I’ve stayed with my objectives—to make the MA come alive to readers in a way that makes them want to keep turning the pages.  

      As those of you who’ve read past blogs or my Facebook posts know, I am somewhat (okay, very) obsessive-compulsive about historical accuracy.  Obviously a historical novel must draw upon the writer’s imagination, but I always attempt to build a sturdy factual foundation for each book, and if I have to take dramatic license or historical liberties with known fact, I try to play fair and alert my readers to this in the AN.    The real challenge comes in depicting a way of thinking that is often alien to ours today.   I can think of at least five topics in which medieval and modern views have little in common: the concept of religious tolerance, anti-Semitism, the conduct of war, the status of women, and the treatment of animals.  I thought (hope) it might be interesting to discuss how a historical novelist approaches these controversial issues. 

      Anti-Semitism is the ugly underside of medieval life.  In Falls The Shadow, I addressed this, making no excuses, but seeking to root it in the context of the 13^th century.  Anti-Semitism exists to this day; the difference is that in the MA, the Church gave official sanction to it.   My Christian characters were taught from birth to view Jews with suspicion and hostility.  In Falls The Shadow, Simon de Montfort tells Rabbi Jacob that “I was taught that over every Jew, God holds His breath, waiting to see if he will decide for Christ.  How can you give Our Lord such grief?  How can you reject salvation?   It took courage for you to come here.  Yours is a soul worth saving.  Why will you not admit that Christ is the Messiah?  Do you not fear damnation?”    In this passage, I distilled the essence of the medieval view of Judaism.  Rabbi Jacob then reminds Simon of his time on crusade and asks if Simon would have abjured his Christian faith had he been captured by the Saracens.  Simon says he’d have chosen death, and Jacob says softly and sadly, “Just so, my lord.”     The chasm between the two men is too vast to bridge.

      I try to stay true to the tenor of the times, so virtually all of my characters are infected to some degree.  When I needed a character to voice doubts, I had to choose an outsider to make it believable, a character who was a natural rebel and therefore more likely to question even the teachings of the Church—Llywelyn Fawr’s strong-willed daughter, Elen.   In When Christ and His Saints Slept, Ranulf is ambushed and almost killed by bandits, rescued by two young peddlers.  He is naturally very grateful to them, but when he learns that they are Jews, his first reaction is an involuntary recoil, for they are aliens and infidels. “For an unnerving moment, Ranulf felt an instinctive unease.  But then common sense reasserted itself. These men had saved his life.  They had chased after his horse, bandaged his wound, even buried his dog.  What more proof did he demand of their goodwill?”   Because Ranulf is an intelligent, decent man, he is able to recognize that his suspicions make no sense under the circumstances, and he and the brothers, Aaron and Josce, are able to forge a tentative, temporary bond.  

       Religious tolerance was as rare in the MA as the unicorn.   All men—be they Christian, Jew, or Muslim—were convinced that theirs was the True Faith.  In Lionheart, the crusaders and Saracens each refer to the others as “infidels.”    They can respect one another’s courage, but neither side doubts that damnation awaits their foes.   So I have to take care in my novels to acknowledge this bedrock belief, so alien to most of us today.  And to show that they could be less forgiving of sinners than we are.  I recently interviewed a writer friend, Margaret Frazer, on this blog, and I said that she is even more obsessive-compulsive than I am about historical accuracy.   In her medieval mystery, The Apostate’s Tale, Sister Frevisse is confronted with a ghost from their abbey’s past, a nun who’d run away and taken a lover.  I was sympathetic to this woman, who’d been compelled to take holy vows, who’d never wanted to be a nun.   Sister Frevisse was not.  Margaret did not take the easy way, did not have Sister Frevisse embrace the erring sister as many another novelist would have done.   To a nun of the 15^th century, there would be no greater sin than apostacy, for it was a rejection of God, and Margaret was true to that in Frevisse’s uncompromising, medieval judgment.   Had this been my story, I hope I would have been as honest and as brave.    

      We also have difficulty comprehending the medieval attitude toward war.  They glorified it in a way that we no longer do.   It is impossible to understand Richard I without taking this into consideration.  Some modern historians have found fault with him for the very actions that his subjects most admired.  War was a medieval king’s vocation and at that, Richard excelled.   Ours is a time in which we sincerely decry attacks upon noncombatants, although the body count continues to mount in much of the world. During the MA, the Church attempted to shield noncombatants, too—women, children, priests, pilgrims, etc.   But the nature of medieval warfare—laying waste the lands of one’s enemies—all but guaranteed there would be civilian casualties.   And kings, knights, and soldiers accepted this as inevitable.  Some of my characters might regret the burning of a village and its crops, but they would still do it, for that was how their wars were waged.  There was a strain of pacifism in the MA; there were even a few to criticize the crusades.  But we’re talking of a small minority and their views never wielded any influence.   This was an age, after all, in which even bishops rode out into battle, wielding swords instead of crosiers, and no one saw anything odd about this.  (The oft-repeated legend that warring clerics always used maces instead of swords so as to avoid the Church stricture against spilling blood is just that, a legend.)  So to be true to the times, I cannot have my characters reacting to the destruction of a town or the raping of its women as if it were a war crime, the way we would characterize it today.  I do try to take our modern sensibilities into account by not dwelling needlessly upon the atrocities of war, but further than that, I cannot go. 

     Fortunately my readers seem willing to judge my characters by medieval standards rather than ours.   I say “fortunately” because almost every medieval monarch could be painted as a homicidal maniac if we held them accountable to 21^st century standards, and that includes those who enjoy a reputation for mercy and chivalry such as Salah al-Din, better known to us as Saladin.   Even Henry II, who shared none of his son Richard’s zest for battle, ordered the blinding of a number of Welsh hostages without hesitation; moreover, he saw it as a merciful act, since he was sparing their lives. 

    There is obviously a huge gap between the status of medieval women and women today, at least in the industrialized countries.   This can present problems for some readers, those who want their female characters to be strong, to speak up for themselves, to have a measure of control over their own fate.  I am not saying there were not strong women in the MA; there certainly were.   But the restrictions placed upon them by society and the Church severely limited their choices; biology truly was destiny if you were born a woman in medieval times.  There is a scene in Lionheart in which Berengaria’s brother Sancho is contemplating her future as England’s queen.   “He could see that his father took comfort from his certainty, and he was glad of it.  It was not as if he’d lied, after all.  Why would Berenguela and Richard not find contentment together?   The ideal wife was one who was chaste, obedient, and loyal.  Berenguela would come to her marriage bed a virgin and would never commit the sin of adultery.  She believed it was a wife’s duty to be guided by her husband.  And she would be loyal to Richard until her last mortal breath—whether he deserved it or not.” 

      Yes, there were those rare rebels like Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Empress Maude, but they paid a great price for their independent spirits.  It is obvious that both Eleanor and Maude chaffed under their matrimonial bonds, wanting more freedom than their world was willing to allow.  But there is no evidence that they viewed themselves as part of an oppressed sisterhood; they wanted power and autonomy for themselves, not for all members of their sex.   So it would be unrealistic if I were to write of a female character resentful of male dominance, one eager to prove herself as capable as any man.

      It would be even more unrealistic if I had a female character determined to marry “for love.”   Berengaria’s brother Sancho hopes that she finds “contentment” in her marriage.     There were some marriages, of course, that held passion and/or love. By all accounts, Berengaria’s own parents had a loving relationship, and there was certainly passion aplenty in Henry and Eleanor’s union.  But in the MA, marriage was a legal union, recognized by the Church and Crown as a means of getting children and transferring property in an orderly fashion from one generation to the next.  Love was not a component of marriage then, especially marriages among royalty and the highborn, and there were no expectations of finding soul mates, not in the 12^th century.

      Medieval and modern views are even more divergent when it comes to the treatment of animals.  The concept of “animal rights” could not be more alien to them.  People did have pets, at least those who could afford such a luxury.   There is evidence of loved dogs and cherished horses and valued falcons.  While cats were not normally kept as pets, some apparently infiltrated nunneries and the hearts of their inhabitants, for nuns were occasionally scolded for doting on cats and small dogs.   And there was even that occasional free spirit who truly empathized with all of God’s creatures.  It will likely come as a surprise to learn that the notorious French queen, Catherine de Medici, was one of them; see C. W. Gortner’s The Confessions of Catherine de Medici.  

         But—and it is hard for me as an animal-lover to admit this—she was definitely an anomaly.  When daily life is so hard, few can spare sympathy for hungry dogs.  This is especially true in a world in which people believe that God has given them dominion over the earth and all in it.  So when one of my characters is moved by the plight of a suffering animal, he often is vaguely embarrassed by his Good Samaritan inclinations.  When Justin de Quincy rescues a drowning dog in The Queen’s Man, he does it after he “casts common sense to the winds,” and he is motivated in some measure by the tearful entreaties of a small child.  The life of a horse was worth a great deal and the life of a pet dog might have mattered to its owner.  But the lives of animals in general had no intrinsic value and my characters cannot display the same outrage in the face of cruelty that we would.  I do cheat a bit; I’ve never dramatized a bear-baiting scene because I know my readers would find it as unpleasant to read as I would to write it!

         Now it is your turn.  Is it difficult for you to do what I am asking of you—to judge my characters by the standards of their time and not ours?   I know that my “hard-core” readers feel as strongly as I do about historical accuracy, so I am guessing that most of you always make that effort, right?   I wonder, though, if the casual reader does?   Would someone unfamiliar with the MA be repulsed by the description of a medieval execution, with its throngs of avid spectators and its raucous fair-like atmosphere?  Shocked that Henry and Eleanor married their daughters off before they reached puberty?  How far do you think historical novelists should go to make their books palatable to modern readers?  Is it necessary to make the characters in a novel about the anti-Bellum South all secret abolitionists at heart in order to win reader sympathy?   What of a family living in Nazi Germany?    Compared to challenges like that, I have it easy, don’t I?

January 14, 2011

Melusine was up to her old tricks this morning and when I hit the publish button for the new post with the tour itinerary, dates, costs, etc, she took it upon herself to add lots of white space between my opening message and the tour information.  Clearly she has moved over to the dark side full-time.  Anyway, I wanted to assure you all that I did not forget to include the itinerary.  It is indeed there; you simply have to scroll down to find it.
January 4, 2011

     I have a special Christmas gift for my readers, an interview with Margaret Frazer, author of two outstanding medieval mystery series set in 15^th century England.  The Sister Frevisse mysteries feature a remarkable protagonist, a nun who is not at all saintly.  She does not suffer fools gladly, but she struggles constantly to subdue her pride, to adhere to the strict rules of her Order even as the tranquility of their nunnery is disrupted by the unwelcome intrusions of the real world—mayhem and murder.  Margaret’s second series showcases the talents of Joliffe, dashing player in a traveling troupe of actors and sometime spy for the powerful and dangerous Bishop of Winchester, one of the crafty Beaufort clan.  Joliffe appeared occasionally in Sister Frevisse’s books and readers found him so appealing that they urged Margaret to give Joliffe his own series.  Joliffe is a wonderful creation—clever, observant, and resourceful, with an ironic eye and a laid-back charm that I, for one, find quite irresistible.  

      In the interest of full disclosure, Margaret and I have been good friends for a number of years—as you’ll be able to tell by the tone of our exchanges.  But I was her fan before I became her friend.  She is serious about her craft, serious about her research, even more serious than me, and we all know I’m obsessive-compulsive!  The result is a form of literary time-travel. Readers never doubt for a moment that her characters are men and women of 15^th century England.  And because she is realistic in her approach to her plots (a.k.a ruthless), the suspense level is ratcheted up to alarming levels.  We never know if she is going to kill off a character we really like, (And yes, Margaret, I am still holding a grudge for The Servant’s Tale.) or reveal that character to be the killer.  Her newest book is A Play of Piety.  I was delighted when I learned it was coming out in December, seeing it as my reward for finishing Lionheart.  And now, let the interview begin. 

A PLAY OF PIETY is the sixth book in your medieval mystery series featuring Joliffe the Player, a traveling actor in England in the 1400s, but you also have seventeen other medieval mysteries centered on Dame Frevisse, a Benedictine nun, set in the same time period.  Do you ever get asked, “Don’t you get tired of writing the same book over and over again?”

I’ve indeed been asked that, more than once.  I suppose it’s a reasonable question, given all twenty-three books are mysteries and set in the same time period and general place and, yes, I suppose I would get bored writing the same book over and over again.  So I don’t write the same book over and over again. (Subtext: Do I look like a fool?)  With Frevisse, every story is told from two viewpoints: hers and that of the title character.  Since those title characters are drawn from all aspects of medieval English society – for instance from a reeve running a small village to an independent businesswoman in London to the bastard son of a royal duke – I get to look at medieval life from wide variety of viewpoints and levels.  I can’t get bored if I have to move into the minds of people as far apart as a crowner’s very humble clerk and a high-born bishop, an outlaw and a well-off widow of the gentry.  And for me, moving into the minds of people not me is what it’s all about.

The same goes for Joliffe’s books.  They’re only told from his viewpoint, which is extremely low in society and that of an outsider for good measure.  But he’s a man with a craft he enjoys – acting – and because his company of players travel and perform in a wide variety of places, he encounters all sorts of different societal situations.  And of course for him I’ve upped the ante as the series goes on by him taking service as a spy for someone powerful in the government, which serves to take him to France and into a high noble’s household in A PLAY OF TREACHERY at a very dangerous time in the Hundred Years War.  In A PLAY OF PIETY, by wide contrast, he’s working in a medieval hospital among very ordinary people.  For me, recreating such complex but widely divergent settings and the people to inhabit them is a sure way never to never be “writing the same book over and over again”.  It’s people who write the same clichés over and over again who risk getting bored.

From things I’ve heard you say other times, I know you have really deep seated issues with clichés in books about the Middle Ages.

Oh, yes.  I can get very verbal, shall we say, about the clichés used by writers.  So much of what we’re taught to think of as “medieval” – such as streets deep in filth and garbage hurled out of windows and nobody bathing (apparently from the Fall of Rome to the Renaissance)—actually date from Tudor times and later.  And then there are the old standbys of “medieval” life: plague every time you turn around; lawless (and usually lascivious) lords by the bushel-basket full; violence so endemic it’s a wonder anyone dared go out of doors; and women dying in childbirth.  Please – no more books wallowing in the Black Death!  Find a different theme, for pity’s sake! The Black Death has been done (dare I say it) to death.  I won’t even try to refute the notion that all through the late medieval England, year in and year out, violent lords and outlaw bands were romping at will up and down and around the countryside.  Violence happened and there are idiots in every society (for which mystery writers are thankful, of course), and the Wars of the Roses did make for outbreaks of ugliness in the latter half of the 1400s, but I deliberately have my two series set in some decades when English life was going along very nicely, thank you, in order to contrast the shock of a crime against the reasonable tenor of most people’s everyday lives.  A bit more challenging than going for the down and dirty and obvious, but I like the challenge

              The trouble is that so many novelists read general study books of “medieval life” and a simplistic biography or two and let it go at that. Additionally, even if they’ve read a little deeper, they still transpose their own sensibilities into the story and present a distorted view of the times and people.  This is the “Mary Jane Visits the Castle” syndrome.  Or “Cathy Meets the Cathars”.  Or “Brian Braves the Bad Baron”.  There are plenty of chronicles, government documents,literature, and letters (besides those of the obnoxious, overly ubiquitous Pastons) of the time available in print and online, and modern scholarly articles likewise that could help writers move into the medieval mindset, rather than turn their novels into fantasy costume pieces erroneously called “medieval”.

             As for the grotesqueries and stupidities perpetrated in movies – don’t get me started.

Hm.  Yes.  Don’t hold back.  Tell us how you really feel.  Cliches in books set in medieval times really bother you, then?

Really.  Of course an author is free to tell whatever story they want to tell, and that’s fine.  We all have every right to do that, and if an author and some readers are content with clichés, that’s fine for them.  If I don’t like a book, I don’t have to read it.  But I do object to books that claim to be set in medieval times that then make a farce of that claim by doing the most egregiously wrong things.  We all make mistakes, but some things are SO wrong as to reduce the book from historical fiction to what I call “medieval fantasy fiction”.  Worse, personally speaking, is that then a book that strives for greater accuracy of time and place is seen as “wrong” because it doesn’t match the clichés.  Ask me about the editor of a short story collection in which I had a story, who said in his introductory essay that of course my supposedly medieval detective was actually very modern.

All right.  What about the editor of short story collection who said in his introductory essay that your supposedly medieval detective was very modern?

I’m so glad you brought that up.  The detective in question is Reynold Pecock.  He’s an actual historical personage.  The short story was set at a time when he was master of a college of priests and an almshouse in London.  He later became a bishop, and appears in THE BASTARD’S TALE and my short stories “The Simple Logic of It” (presently available electronically from Amazon.com; this is an unpaid advertisement thereunto), “Heretical Murder” and “Lowly Death” (not yet available online).  As an actual churchman of the 1400s, Pecock had the idea that the best way to bring heretics back into the Church was to persuade them by reason to give up their heresy, and to that end he wrote a number of books in, gasp, English, laying out in step-by-step logic why heretics should change their minds.  Some of these books are extent and in print.  If you have an urge to read medieval theology in Middle English, you can.  I did (which explains a lot about me, including why I have so little social life: “ Hi. Want to discuss the theological and political ramifications in Bishop Pecock’s BOOK OF FAITH?”), and I found him a delightful,kindly, occasionally droll man, with a mind devoted to intense logic and perfectly suited to be a detective.  The methods he uses in the stories to untangle crimes is absolutely medieval.  But the editor did not think so, and so in the anthology where that particular story appears, my detective is labeled as anachronistic when he very much is not.       

            Along that same line is a reviewer of THE SQUIRE’S TALE who observed that it seemed the only way a woman could avoid dying in childbirth in the Middle Ages was to never get married.  This was a singularly gratuitous observation because, although there was a pregnant woman in the book, she did not die in childbirth.  But the cliché is so strong that readers apparently see it even when it isn’t there!

On another tack altogether, some of us find Joliffe a very attractive man.  Why doesn’t he have more romantic encounters in his books?

You mean what doesn’t he get more sex?

Yes.

How about: The publishers impose a contractual word-limit on each book, and I have to use so many words creating the time and place believably, there aren’t enough left for sexual encounters, too.

            – or –

Mostly the plots just haven’t had room for plays, politics, murders, detection, and sex, without bending the stories illogically out of shape, just to get Joliffe into bed with someone. 

            – or –

I’m selfish and keeping him for myself.

            – or –

He’s actually getting far more action than it appears, but it all happens between the novels.

I’ve suspected as much.  Tell us more about him.

You remember that Joliffe first appeared in the Frevisse series, back in THE SERVANT’S TALE, and later shows up in THE PRIORESS’ TALE and THE BASTARD’S TALE and then as the title character in THE TRAITOR’S TALE.  His first appearance was supposed to be a one-off but I like him so well that I brought him back in that second and third time but couldn’t interest my agent in trying to sell him in a series of his own.  “The Frevisse series is going well.  Don’t shoot yourself in the foot,” was the way I remember she put it.  So I wrote A PLAY OF ISAAC just to show I could do two series at once.  It sold and Joliffe was on his way.

 Now if you remember his last exchange with Frevisse at the end of TRAITOR’S, you know somewhere along the way true love comes into his life.  Exactly when and how and with whom – I’m not telling.

But that must mean that you know, doesn’t it?  That you have an idea of where the series is going in a long arc, rather than just winging it from book to book.

Yes.  And that’s all you’re getting out of me.  But you may be amused to know that, with Frevisse’s series, someone lately got their master’s degree in English with the thesis that the novels are effectively separate chapters of a single long, multi-volume novel, based on the fact that the main character grows and changes over the course of the series into a deeper and more complex being than at its beginning.  If you’d like to read it, the whole thesis can be accessed from my website (if the link is working properly; let me know if it’s misbehaving again).

But the books can be read individually, as stand-alones, too, can’t they?

Certainly.  I intended them that way and give away as little as possible about past books in later books.  Of course if someone is alive in Book 15, you can suppose they aren’t murdered in an earlier book, but aside from that, they can be read separately and out of order.  One of the best compliments I’ve had comes from people who’ve told me they read the series out of order and enjoyed it so much they went back and read it in order.  That Frevisse, like Joliffe, grows and changes as the series goes on is part of my not-being-bored with writing these books.   

Yet you’ve said you have no plans for more novels about Frevisse.

When I realized my publisher was letting my backlist die, indicating they were losing interest in the series, I decided to bring the story to the end I wanted, rather than leave it to the publisher to chop it at some random point.  That said, I’m working on a brand-new Frevisse short story to put up for e-sale on Amazon.com fairly soon.  And work is afoot to make some of the long out-of-print books available there for Kindle, hopefully one at least before this year is out.  THE BISHOP’S TALE, as things stand now.

That’s good news, anyway.  What about Joliffe?

I’m just finishing A PLAY OF HERESY.  That’s the second book on my current two-book contract.  What the publisher decides then is up to the publisher and whatever arcane formulas the bean-counters come up with to determine life or death for midlist authors.  I will be the last to know.  Given how well e-books seem to be selling – and the fact that I have a son who understands how to turn books and stories into e-versions – that may be where I end up, writing and marketing my own work exclusively online. 

            Hey!  Maybe, with no limit on word-count, Joliffe could end up having more romantic encounters!

     That would work well for me.  As you know from my constant nagging, I’m very much in favor of Joliffe’s having more “romantic encounters.”   Thank you, Margaret, for stopping by.  On your next visit, maybe you can tell us about your intention to put aside your medieval mysteries temporarily to write a novel about Elizabeth of York.   

December 18, 2010