Q&A with Scott Martelle

 

Photo by Margaret Mercier-Martelle

 

Scott Martelle is the author of the new book 1932: FDR, Hoover, and the Dawn of a New America. A longtime journalist, his other books include The Madman and the Assassin. He lives in Rochester, New York.

 

Q: What inspired you to write 1932? Why did you decide to focus on that year and that election?

 

A: I’ve long had an interest in the Great Depression and American history in the first half of the 20th century. And, of course, politics.

 

Both the Depression and the 1932 election -- FDR’s first run for the White House -- have already been the subjects of countless books, so I thought it would be interesting to try to write a book not about those things, but around them.

 

I settled on overlapping simultaneous narratives of events from that critical year to try to capture what it was like for average Americans to live through it, using the 1932 presidential campaign as the main through line.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: The research posed some interesting hurdles. COVID struck as I was working up a proposal for my agent, Jane Dystel, and the closure of libraries and archives made it impossible for the kind on hands-on research I like to do.

 

So, I did as much as I could online and in email exchanges with various institutions to gather what I could before things loosened up and I was able to make in-person visits to the Hoover and Roosevelt presidential libraries, among other places.

 

I borrowed some devices from John Dos Passos’ USA trilogy and was able to piece together the newsreel segments (quick details of news events that didn’t warrant a fuller narrative presence) from online databases, and similarly was able to cull diaries entries that had been digitalized at different archives and libraries.

 

The biggest surprise to me from the research was how much the campaign to repeal Prohibition influenced the politics of that year. 

 

Q: The Washington Independent Review of Books review said, “Martelle does a masterful job in 1932 of telling the story of the Hoover/Roosevelt face-off, fleshing out events with timelines, the personal diaries of ordinary citizens, and copious details about farms, industry, and generalized anger to illustrate just how split and destitute America was at the time.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Aw, shucks? In all seriousness, it was a very warming review to read. It’s nice when a critic succinctly captures the gist of what an author is setting out to do, and appreciates it. 

 

Q: How would you describe the similarities and differences between the election of 1932 and this year's presidential election?

 

A: It really is an apples-and-oranges thing. In 1932 we had an incumbent who was incapable of addressing the economic crisis that befell him, challenged by a rival who was selling himself and a vision for a more robust federal response to the Great Depression.

 

This time around, we have a capable incumbent and, while these are challenging times, conditions are nothing like the Great Depression. And, of course, we already know what the opposition candidate is capable of.

 

One key similarity is in the popular divide. I was taken while working on the Prohibition portion of the book with how similar those battle lines were to the fight over abortion rights today. It’s like the descendants of both sides in the Prohibition fight are squared off over abortion. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Still pawing the earth for a new subject. I’ve come up with a few ideas but for various reasons nothing has gelled into a book-length project.

 

After I finished the manuscript for 1932 my wife and I moved from Southern California back to her hometown of Rochester, New York, and that, as you might imagine, was quite time-consuming. But we’re settled in and I’m optimistic I’ll stumble across the right subject sooner rather than later.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: That the future stability of the nation could well hang in the balance of the November elections. But, well, we all know that already. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Scott Martelle.