Questions & Answers
Who would you say your readers are?
My aim is to write novels my friends and family will love
and admire. Unfortunately, they are not easy to please!
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The titles to Tales of Passion, Tales
of Woe and The Last Great Dance on Earth were decided
before the novels were written?
Yes. For me, the title comes first. It's almost a magical
thing, something that's given to me.
For both the second and third book in the
Josephine B. trilogy, you credit book clubs for giving you editorial
feedback. How did this work?
When I was an editor of young adult fiction,
I made it a practice to give a manuscript I was working on to
a group of teens to read and discuss. I invariably found these
discussions helpful. Writing the first book in the trilogy,
I passed various drafts of the manuscript around to friends
and family to review, but I thought with longing of those reader
groups I had used as an editor. I wanted something like that—I wanted an impartial critique—and after meeting with a
book club it occurred to me that that was the type of
group I was looking for. Book clubs are ideal: book club members
take reading seriously and are in the habit of analyzing what's
right and what's not right about a novel.
So for both the second and the third novel,
I arranged for book clubs to read a draft. They taped the discussion
and sent it to me. I learned what was working and what was not.
I can't imagine publishing a novel without it.
(See Sandra
Gulland's daring experiment.)
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How long does it take you to write a novel?
Three to five years. The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows
of Josephine B. took four and a half years, Tales of
Passion, Tales of Woe three. The Last Great Dance on
Earth was written in two and a half years, but much of it
had already been worked out. It takes about six drafts, and
the first takes a year.
(See The Story
Behind the Story.)
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Why Josephine?
Decades ago I read a short biography about
Josephine, and was, quite literally, swept away. I immediately
started collecting books about her, and the more I learned the
more fascinated I became. I'd never been interested in history
before, and suddenly, I found myself hooked. Josephine's life
was magical, romantic, and extremely dramatic—extraordinary,
really: she went from a somewhat impoverished rural life on
an island in the Caribbean to becoming Empress of the French.
It was a tumultuous and important period in history, and she
was right at the centre of events throughout most of it. And
too, Josephine herself is a sympathetic individual, loving,
humane—she's easy to love. She wasn't raised to be a queen,
so it's not hard to imagine how terrifying it must have been
for her, and to admire her courage in bowing to the demands
of a very public life. She made an excellent empress.
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There must be a great deal of research
involved.
An enormous amount. It never ends. But it
is the research that is
so stimulating, that inspires the writing. Part of what intrigues
me is the puzzle—trying to find out what really happened.
This is particularly challenging when researching the life of
a woman. You have to sort through all the assumptions that have
been made about her—the sexist assumptions, if you will.
When I began writing, I assumed that the scandalous stories
I read about Josephine were true, but the Josephine I discovered
through my research is not the Josephine most historians describe.
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Are you saying that Josephine has been
misinterpreted by historians?
In general, yes. If Josephine dined with a
man it was assumed she was having an affair with him. The assumption
has been that a sexual relationship is the only relationship
a woman might have with a man, whereas in fact, Josephine was
a woman who had many close male friends. Today we would say
that she networked. She was a skillful lobbyist, businesswoman,
diplomat.
Many historians have chosen to take the least
charitable interpretation of her actions. If she claimed to
be ill, they say she was lying—whereas in fact the evidence
suggests she was quite ill. If she made an excursion, it is
stated that the purpose of the trip was to have a romantic liaison—whereas in fact the purpose of the trip was diplomatic. And
on and on it goes.
(See Animating
History and Regarding the
cause of Josephine's infertility.)
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What is fact
and what is fiction?
This is a difficult question to answer. I
usually ask: "For example?" Specifically, I can say
yes, Josephine owned a disagreeable dog named Fortunè,
or that yes, she escaped Martinique under cannon fire, but in
general…?
In general, the facts are the bones of the
story, the fiction flesh. I tend to be obsessive about accuracy—so my novels are based on fact as much as is possible. Aside
from the details of daily life, the specific dialogue, much
of what happens in the novels has a basis in some historical
text. I comb journals, memoirs and letters collecting nuggets
of information much in the same way some people collect stamps.
When Josephine and Alexandre marry, for example, and one of
the men in Alexandre's regiment is unable to attend because
of "an indisposition" going around Versailles, there
is, in fact, "an indisposition" going around Versailles
at that time.
Facts can be misleading, however. Many accounts
are contradictory, suspect, or difficult to judge. When Josephine
was in prison, for example, did she in fact tell her cellmate
that she would not die, that she would become Queen? Did a woman
outside the prison window signal that Robespierre was dead?
This is a story Josephine liked to tell, so I'm inclined to
believe it, but to what extent might she (and others) have created
fictions of their own?
Robespierre said, "History is fiction,"
and I have to agree. The line between fact and fiction is a
very difficult one to define. The more one delves into the past,
the more fact sometimes resembles fiction and fiction fact.
My intent has been to use fiction as a tool, as a means of knowing
Josephine and experiencing her world. It is important for me
to feel that my fictional history could, in fact, have happened.
While writing, I think of my evolving novel as one might view
an archaeological dig: with each draft I want to dig down closer
to "the truth." To that end I have respected facts
as welcome signposts in a wilderness. In the process I have
also come to regard certain "facts" as fiction. In
the realm of scholarship on the subject of Josephine, many questions
remain.
(See Animating
History and The Puzzle of
History.)
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Did a fortuneteller
tell Josephine that she would become Queen?
There are references made May, 1797 issue
of Le Thè. It intrigues me that Josephine's extraordinary
life was foretold. It makes me wonder: Is it possible that there
is such a thing as destiny? Was Josephine destined to be a queen?
Was it an accident that Napoleon's years of greatness coincided
with the years he was married to her?
(See Was Josephine
the key to Napoleon's power?)
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Why does Napoleon stand
with his hand in his vest?
I've been told that the hand-in-vest pose
was popular in the 18th century, yet I've only seen four men
portrayed in this way: an aristocrat (whose name escapes me),
Josephine's first husband Alexandre, Josephine's son Eugène,
and Josephine's second husband Napoleon.
Is it not significant that three men in Josephine's
life are portrayed in the same way? It is likely that Josephine
would have been involved in the portrait sessions, helping to
select a portrait painter, suggesting clothing, a setting, etc.
And it's entirely possible, in my view—given the portraits
of her son and first husband—that she was the one to suggest
that Napoleon pose with his hand in his vest.
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What is your next novel going to be about?
I'm writing about three women in the Court
of Louis XIV, the Sun King. It covers the last half of the 1600s,
a period that is just emerging from the Middle Ages. It is a
dramatic, passionate story about love and lust, sacrifice and
greed, good and evil. Will it be one novel or more? I'm not
sure.
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