Elisabeth Rhoads is the author of the new novel Haggard House. She lives in California.
Q: What inspired you to write Haggard House, and how did you create your character Adam?
A: Haggard House, while my debut in terms of publishing, is actually the third novel I’ve written. Like many authors, I had to get through those “practice” novels—although I certainly didn’t think of them like that at the time—out of the way, before I could write something and polish it to a level that I felt comfortable releasing into the world.
The first novel I wrote was a Hallmark-style romance. I made sure to hit every trope in the genre, but it wasn’t terribly creative. My second was a dystopian novel. It was much more creative, but structurally, a mess.
The concept of Haggard House came to me just before bed one night, when I had the image of a woman finding animal heads at her door, and the subsequent mystery behind their appearance. I immediately knew I had to write it.
Interestingly enough, Adam, the protagonist, was the most difficult to write, and had the most evolution as a character. In fact, it wasn’t at first apparent to me that he was the protagonist. One of the early drafts that I shared with my brother, was very dominated by Adam’s mother, Sarai.
My brother asked me an insightful question: “If you had to pick one character that this story is about, who would it be?” I had to think about it a bit, but I came to the conclusion it was Adam. That helped immensely in refocusing the story.
However, that was just a start. No matter what angle I wrote the story from, I couldn’t get Adam’s character. He never seemed quite right. It wasn’t until I was close to the final draft, that another insightful early reader sent me a copy of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, and suggested that I think about the possibility of writing each of the characters in first person, as Faulkner had done.
I had thought of this possibility before, but never wanted to do it because I knew how much work it would be. I realized I had to at least try it and see if it worked. As soon as I switched into first person, that’s when things started to work. Before that, the story had felt like magnets, with all the poles opposing each other. But as soon as I made the change, the poles aligned, and the pieces came snapping together.
Q: How did you research the novel, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: Writing Haggard House has been a process of finding myself in situations where I didn’t want to do something, only to discover that the only way to move forward was to do the very thing I was avoiding.
I had done some half-hearted research, but the first editor I worked with told me I needed to do more before it was even worth paying her to help me. I knew she was right, so I did quite a bit of research at that stage.
I had no idea what I was doing, but I think it helped enormously that I already had the manuscript. If I hadn’t had the framework of the story to narrow down what I needed to know, I think I would have been too overwhelmed to even get started.
Some of the more specific research I did was in the chapter-by-chapter work. For example, there is a chapter with an old fur trader and his wife. It was very common for fur traders to take Native Americans for wives, so I did a lot of research on what tribes were in the area at that time, what their culture was, what kind of clothing they wore, what they ate, etc.
I read about three books on the Menominee people, and drew myself a picture of the woman’s clothing based on what I read, for just one chapter of the novel.
I also went broad. I spent a lot of time reading the Michigan Historical Collection volumes. Many of the narratives in this collection are first-hand accounts of Michigan residents in the exact timeframe in which my story is set. I wrote lists of words people were using, places they frequented, animals they came into contact with, etc.
One thing that surprised me was a reference to a certain kind of bread I came across in The American Woman’s Home by Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe. The bread is called salt-rising or milk-rising bread. The way it is described in the book is nothing short of disgusting.
I had to know more about it, so I researched and found an article in Popular Science that says the bread rises due to the growth of bacteria, rather than yeast. And just which bacteria? Clostridium perfringens, a pathogen associated with gangrene. The good news is, when you bake the bread, the bacteria is killed off, and you’re left with something safe to eat.
The bread made it into the novel; under another name I discovered for it: milk-emptyings bread. I also made the bread myself, and fed it to my husband (with some protest on his part). It wasn’t bad, but it made our apartment stink for days. It goes without saying, my husband is very patient.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I knew from the start how the novel would end, and this has been something I’ve noticed has been an indicator of whether I will be able to finish a story or not. The exact circumstances of the ending changed a bit, but the ending itself was there from the start.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: As with many authors, many of the ideas and struggles from the characters in the story have mirrored my own. I hope what readers take away from the novel is hope—that no matter what they may have gone through, or what ideological mazes they may have gotten caught up in—there is always a way forward, even if it’s not easy.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on a new novel, set in roughly 90 AD Rome. It started as a kind of adventure novel, but now it’s taken a turn towards a time-travel romance. What it will end up as in the end remains to be seen. I’ve learned to be open to the process and not to try to control the outcome.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I’ve been learning Japanese for over six years now (although with admittedly slow progress), and one of my goals is to have Haggard House translated into Japanese. I’m far from being skilled enough to do it myself, so after the novel is published, I plan to find a translator and work to get Haggard House into Japan!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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