Valerie Nieman is the author of the new novel Upon the Corner of the Moon, which focuses on the story of Macbeth. Nieman's other books include In the Lonely Backwater. She is professor emerita at North Carolina A&T University.
Q: What inspired you to write Upon the Corner of the Moon, and how was the book’s title chosen?
A: I first came across the historical facts about Macbeth when I was researching an earlier novel. I knew that Shakespeare had manipulated the Richards and Henrys but did not realize how thoroughly this story had been turned inside-out.
Macbeth was a rightful king in the Celtic tradition and ruled for 17 years, amassing such epithets as “The Righteous” and “the ruddy king of plenty.”
How did he become a villain, and why? I learned that efforts to tar Macbeth’s legacy began even before his death, as Duncan’s son Malcolm Canmore—raised in England and English in thoughts and habits—claimed the throne through primogeniture and then sought to boost his legitimacy.
Others followed, and the Celtic succession by election was erased. Chroniclers turned their pens to the king’s bidding, and grafted Macbeth’s story with various legends and fairy tales to shape a monstrous, murdering usurper.
Shakespeare went looking for a story and found this one in Holinshed’s Chronicles, shaped it to promote the Stuart line, and included the witches that so fascinated King James I.
As to “Lady Macbeth,” we know little more than her name and her father’s name. We do know that she was married to a man called Gillecomgan, who was killed in battle by Macbeth, and then married Macbeth.
I had to do a great deal of speculation in building a plausible life for her, but I always drew on scholarship and hope I’ve not strayed far from what is possible.
The title - ah, titles are always hard for me! Synopses are even worse. This book had cycled through a number of working titles, none good.
My wonderful publisher, Jaynie Royal, combed through the play and found this phrase in Hecate’s speech in Act 3 Scene 5. The goddess will capture that moon-drop to raise illusions and bring about Macbeth’s destruction.
I love how the title brings together the play and the novel, where women’s spirituality, marked by the cycles of the earth and the moon, is a major element.
Q: The writer Nicholas Evans called the book an “entertaining, gripping, imaginative novel which brings to life successfully the brutal power struggles and tensions between old and new in the time of Macbeth.” What do you think of that description?
A: I’m honored by his words. He’s an archaeologist and an expert on the Picts and early medieval Scotland, so if he thinks I’ve been successful in this writing, then I’m truly happy. He cuts to the heart of the plot, which is the clash between old ways and new, in religion and in politics.
“Entertaining, gripping, imaginative” — I will claim that, yes!
Q: What did you see as the right balance between Shakespeare’s Macbeth and your own take on the story?
A: There’s very little of Shakespeare, actually, as I’m working before the events of the play, and hewing to the historical record.
Duncan and Macbeth were nearly the same age, cousins, and raised together at court. The heart of their disagreement was the method to determine the royal succession. Macbeth had the better claim to the throne, in terms of bloodlines, but supported Duncan when he was named tanist (heir apparent).
In the history dramatized in my second book, Duncan becomes king and Macbeth fights beside him as a loyal ally, until Duncan, whose popularity had plummeted because of unsuccessful campaigns, decided to get a win by invading Macbeth’s home territory. That was a fatal mistake.
The truth is that he died in battle, unlike Shakespeare’s version of an old man murdered in his bed.
One element that I did keep in my version: the witches. But not as witches.
In my telling, Gruach or Lady Macbeth was raised among the remnants of a Goddess religion that extended back to the stone circles. The eternal Triple Goddess, maiden/mother/crone, also appears to Macbeth and tells him his future, with the warning to remember her in his success.
Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: I began my research by getting interlibrary loan books. This was in the early 1990s. I would go on to read many, many books, and then add internet sources.
Finally, I made a trip to Scotland in 2014 and spent a month solo hiking—the Great Glen Way, the Moray Coast, Orkney, Iona, and more.
There’s little remaining from 1000 AD—grass-covered ruins, and the Pictish symbol stones and standing stones from earlier eras—but I gained a sense of the landscape. Museums provided a glimpse into weapons and the materials of daily life.
In 2024 I returned to wander in many more locations important to the book, while also spending time in the National Library and National Museum of Scotland.
I was surprised at every turn. Scotland, or Alba as it was then known, was both remote and linked with the larger world of Europe and beyond.
Kings and nobles wore silk from China and knew the fashions worn in Constantinople. Jewels came from the Amber Coast and from Persia. Roman glassware was treasured, and pottery from Italy, and swords fashioned from central Asian steel in the forges of the Rhineland.
New ideas likewise were carried across boundaries, including the idea that the firstborn son of a king would be the next king, regardless of age or ability. The Celtic church founded by Columba and his fellow Irish saints was fading before the centralized Church of Rome. The Vikings established a mercantile economy from Dublin to Kiev.
One thing that surprised me was that the defensive innovations of the Norman realm and the Holy Roman Empire did not arrive so rapidly in the north. The great stone castles and tower keeps that we associate with the British Isles came with the Norman Conquest.
Fortifications in Scotland and most of England in the 10th-11th century continued the ancient ring-fort pattern with earthen walls and timber-laced stone ramparts. The Norse and Danes, master workers in wood, built palisaded forts and huge symmetrical army camps.
I read about new archeological finds every week, and some astonishing things are coming to light — most recently, a matrilocal British tribe where men moved to the woman’s homeland rather than vice versa. Researchers used DNA to verify that unusual social pattern.
Who knows when a new burial will be unearthed or a new manuscript will come to light?
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m three-quarters of the way through the first draft of the second book. I know that much challenging territory ahead of me, however, as the history includes a pilgrimage to Rome, a foundling laid at Macbeth’s door, and a lot of battles. The Last Highland King will be published in Fall 2027.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: This is my debut historical novel, though my previous book, In the Lonely Backwater, does have a good deal of material about Carl Linnaeus. That’s a Southern Gothic YA thriller.
I’ve also written about small-town tragedy, Rust Belt trauma, post-apocalyptic Appalachia, and a couple of novels that might be described as horror/Appalachian/ecojustice. I’m called by a story and follow where it leads.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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