Q&A with Gary Krist

 

 

 

Gary Krist is the author of the new book Trespassers at the Golden Gate: A True Account of Love, Murder, and Madness in Gilded-Age San Francisco. His other books include City of Scoundrels. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Trespassers at the Golden Gate?

 

A: Over the past decade or so I’ve been writing a series of narrative nonfiction books about the evolution of various American cities—including Chicago (City of Scoundrels), New Orleans (Empire of Sin), and Los Angeles (The Mirage Factory).

 

It seemed natural, then--after exploring how L.A. came to be in my last book—that I should do the same for its perennial California rival, San Francisco.

 

Both are now great 21st-century metropolises, of course, but they evolved in entirely different ways and at entirely different times. Thanks to the Gold Rush, San Francisco got a much earlier start in the growth sweepstakes, only to be outstripped by L.A. early in the 20th century.

 

But I was also intrigued by the utterly distinct urban cultures that developed in the two cities—so unlike each other that everyone now seems obliged to declare themselves either an L.A. person or a San Francisco person.

 

The key for me was finding a compelling and dramatic personal narrative that would allow me to get at this wide swath of San Francisco history, and so the Laura Fair story was a gift.

 

Q: How much did people know about Laura Fair’s trial--which you write about in the book--at the time, and why is it so little-known today?

 

A: It was a huge story in its day, making page-one headlines from coast to coast. On one level, the attraction was the public’s natural lurid interest in one of the most sensational murders in San Francisco history:

 

In November of 1870, a young, beautiful, but already somewhat notorious woman fatally shot her long-time adulterous lover while traveling on the public ferry between Oakland and San Francisco, right in front of the victim’s wife and children.

 

The murder was about as brazen and scandalous as it could be, and the victim was a prominent lawyer and politician, so the resulting trial was destined to attract feverish attention at least locally and regionally.

 

But there were a couple of aspects to it—Fair’s controversial temporary-insanity defense, the hot-button issues raised in the trial about the sanctity of marriage and the proper role of women in the post-bellum era—that made it blow up into a true nationwide sensation, ultimately drawing into its orbit prominent figures like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Horace Greeley, and even Mark Twain.

Q: The writer Kate Winkler Dawson said of the book, “In Trespassers at the Golden Gate, Gary Krist accomplishes what good nonfiction does best, offering readers a fusion of murder, intrigue, and solid research that shines a light on the dark corners of society.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I’m particularly grateful for the quote because it points to both goals I try to accomplish in all of my city books—to tell the larger, deeply researched chronicle of the city as it developed over time, but to foreground a really provocative human story (in this case, the 25-year backstory leading up to this high-profile murder) that will keep a reader engrossed and turning pages.

 

To my mind, boring the reader is the worst crime a writer of narrative history can commit.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

 

A: I always hope that readers will close my city books feeling the sense of satisfaction you get from having read a really immersive and richly detailed novel. But I hope that people will also absorb some history while they’re at it.

 

And for anyone who lives in, has visited, or is just intrigued by the whole idea of San Francisco, I hope that learning a little about the city's past will enrich their experience of the complex and endlessly surprising city we see today.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I keep telling myself that I’m finished with city narratives, but their allure has proven irresistible, and I think I may have at least one more in me.

 

People have always asked why I don’t write a book about New York, the city I’ve lived in and around for most of my life. Now I’m asking that myself. It’s a big topic, but I think I’ve found a way to make it manageable. But I’m still far too early in the research process to be more specific.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: San Francisco has always been a place unlike any other, and I've tried to drive that point home in Trespassers at the Golden Gate.

 

Somehow, despite the passing of almost two centuries, the city has retained something of its early identity as a place of relative tolerance and openness to nonconformity.

 

It continues to be a magnet for mavericks, eccentrics, counterculturists, and border-crossers of all types, whether we’re talking about the Beat Generation of the post-World War II era, the Haight-Ashbury hippie culture of the 1960s, or the Gay Liberation movement of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

 

But there’s also always been a countercurrent of the kind we saw in Laura Fair’s time--opposition from the wealthy and allegedly respectable, who have their own ideas of what they want the city to be.

 

That's why I love to write about cities. The struggle between the diverse populations of any urban setting is an endless source of conflict and drama, and that always appeals to the former novelist in me.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Gary Krist.