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Michelle Cameron is the author of the new novel Napoleon's Mirage. Her other books include the novel Beyond the Ghetto Gates. She lives in Chatham, New Jersey.
Q: Why did you decide to continue the story of your characters Mirelle, Daniel, and Christophe, who appeared in Beyond the Ghetto Gates, in your new novel?
A: In fact, Napoleon’s Mirage (Mirage) was supposed to be the third book in a trilogy. Before I embarked on Beyond the Ghetto Gates (BTGG), I actually wrote an entire novel about the Jews during the French Revolution.
I made the (brave?) decision to abandon that book when I couldn’t get the story to work and found myself bogged down in the complex politics of the day. Daniel and Christophe were 9 years old in that first book, working in Uncle Alain’s print shop as apprentices and becoming friends despite Christophe’s rabidly antisemitic mother.
But while I wouldn’t recommend this approach to anyone, having written this novel gave me a head start when it came to both BTGG and Mirage. Ethan, who is a new character in Mirage, was fully fleshed out in that unpublished novel, including his romance with his now dead wife, Adara.
And, of course, I needed to contend with the unresolved romance between Daniel and Mirelle at the end of BTGG. I actually wrote three very different endings for that novel, two of which needed significantly more time to successfully develop them in an already lengthy novel.
I owe the actual ending to my son, Alex, who I turned to when I was well and truly stuck. Of course, I knew that Mirelle needed to end up with Daniel, and the fact that it would take another novel to arrive at that fitting conclusion impelled me to keep writing.
And finally, there was the fact that Napoleon’s next military campaign – the expedition to Egypt – struck me as rich fodder for a novel. I couldn’t send him to Egypt without Daniel and Christophe, could I?
Q: How do you think the characters have changed from one book to the next?
A: Christophe remained the same, swaggering, heroic figure he was in BTGG. He eagerly embraced adventure, whether that was in battle commanding his men or falling in love with a Coptic maiden, harkening back to his infatuation with Mirelle – though this time he married the girl.
At the end of the novel, he sacrifices himself for Daniel and Mirelle, but that rose naturally out of the character already established in BTGG.
Mirelle learned a bitter lesson in Mirage – that her Jewish community would not tolerate her past misdeeds and that, despite her immense managerial skills, she could not overcome either her erstwhile best friend’s devious plotting to undermine her, nor the inordinate French taxes levied on her workshop.
At the end of Mirage, she realized that she had hurt people to achieve her desires in BTGG – and that she was again hurting them in Mirage. Despite this, she had the courage to follow her love into battle in the face of great uncertainty and danger.
Daniel is the most changed of the three, particularly when it came to his feelings toward Napoleon.
From a callow young soldier who hero-worshipped the general during the Italian campaign, Napoleon’s constant disregard of the welfare of both his troops and the indigenous people of Egypt eroded that admiration, to the point where Daniel needed to take decisive action to preserve his sense of morality.
Q: The writer Allison Pataki said of you and the book, “She sweeps readers from the quays of Toulon to the shimmering heat of the Egyptian desert with a transportive narrative of assiduous research and textured, vibrant language.” What do you think of that description, and how did you research the novel?
A: Oh, I love Allison! She’s always been so supportive of my novels and this was a delicious blurb to include with other advanced praise.
In researching this novel, I followed the same basic approach I’ve used with the others. I spent about three months in pure research, using histories, websites, visiting museums, spending time with paintings, etc.
Because Napoleon, emulating his hero, Alexander the Great, took more than 100 savants with him – scientists, mathematicians, artists, and more – I could dip into their material. I owe a special debt to Nina Burleigh’s Mirage: Napoleon’s Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt, as she chronicled how these professionals interacted with the “mysterious East.”
And I was lucky enough to find al-Jabarti’s Chronicle of the French Occupation, which gave me tremendous insight into how native Egyptian Muslims felt about Napoleon and the French troops. I fictionalized the author in the novel and made him a spy for Haim Farhi, another real-life character whose home in Acre I actually visited.
While I haven’t had the opportunity to travel to many of the locations I’ve used in my novels, I was able to go to Israel and to visit several of the places – particularly Jaffa, the Carmel, and Acre – where Napoleon engaged the Mamelukes.
In Jaffa, I stood outside the blue church door where the French soldiers were treated for plague.
At the top of the Carmel, I visited the Stella Maris Monastery on Mount Carmel, where my characters sheltered in Elijah’s Grotto while the Turkish troops slaughtered the injured and ill French soldiers. A monument to the soldiers is actually located outside the monastery.
And in Acre, I stood on the embankment where the cannons still point out to the sea and where Napoleon was handed his first significant defeat.
Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The phenomenon of mirages were first given a name by the French scientists who accompanied Napoleon.
In many ways, all of Napoleon’s ambitions in Egypt – to thwart the British trade routes, to use Egypt as a jumping off point to India, even to emancipate the Egyptians from Mameluke rule – were themselves mirages, distant illusions that Napoleon never realized.
So the title felt appropriate. And it is the first working title I’ve ever chosen that I didn’t have to change in the published novel!
Q: What are you working on now? Will you be returning to these characters again?
A: I have no plans to return to these characters again – unless I try to fix that first failed novel and complete a prequel.
Right now, I’m writing a historical novel based in Shakespeare’s London during his early writing career. There is, of course, a Jewish aspect to it – the main characters are Conversos, Portuguese Jews who are passing as Christians.
I’m excited about it – it returns me to my literary origins, when I wrote a verse novel about Shakespeare and his compatriots, called In the Shadow of the Globe. It’s a rich period of history with such fantastic characters that it’s practically writing itself.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: While Napoleon’s Mirage is a sequel to Beyond the Ghetto Gates, I was careful to make sure that it could stand on its own. So, readers who are particularly interested in Napoleon in Egypt and Israel can start here. Of course, I’d love those readers to then go back and read the previous book!
As usual with my novels, there is a substantial Jewish element to it. Napoleon is said to have issued a Proclamation to the Jews, asking for their support and, in return, promising them a homeland in Jerusalem.
Historians are widely divided on whether or not this actually happened as few copies of that Proclamation survived – and those that did may be suspect. But as a historical novelist I decided that this did, in fact, happen – and devised fictional reasons why so many of the documents disappeared.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Michelle Cameron.
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