Katherine Blake--a pseudonym for the author Karen Ball, who has written more than 25 books for children--is the author of the new novel The Unforgettable Loretta Darling. She lives in London.
Q: What inspired you to write The Unforgettable Loretta Darling, and how did you create your character Loretta?
A: Thank you for asking. Loretta leapt into my head fully formed! I sat down to write the first 3,000 words of a novel, my hands hovering over the keyboard as I stared at the notorious blank page. All I knew is that I wanted to write something set in Golden Era Hollywood that was “a bit crime-y.”
In the meantime, over lockdown I’d started to watch YouTube makeup tutorials to fall asleep to. Diving into the Internet rabbit hole, I discovered the makeup artist Lisa Eldridge, who owns an amazing collection of vintage makeup.
In one of her videos, she explained how Hollywood had moved from black and white to Technicolor, and that makeup artists of the time needed to start mixing new potions from scratch.
They’d used green face paint for black and white filming, but clearly that could never work with Technicolor. They had to start again. And there was that word, the bottle’s label spilling over into my imagination…
Potion.
It set my imagination on fire. Well, anything could go into a potion. Poison could go into a potion. And I was off! All I needed was a heroine who had a strong and unapologetic voice. Instantly, my fingers flew across the keyboard and there emerged Loretta, demanding that her story was shared!
As an author, I’d been told, “Find your voice, find your novel.” And Loretta had a BIG voice. Lucky me.
Q: How did you research the novel, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: Oh my gosh, the research was fascinating! And I did A LOT of research!
I was incredibly lucky to stumble across the still only existing anthropological study of Hollywood, called Hollywood, The Dream Factory, published in 1950 by an author with the best name in the world, Hortense Powdermaker.
Hortense had done a lot of exploration into other cultures and then decided that her next study should be about … Hollywood. She interviewed hundreds of people from waiters to studio executives and asked all the questions that I desperately needed answering – where did stars live, how much did people earn and what made the hierarchy work? Hortense helped me so much!
The surprising element was discovering the details of Japanese internment camps that existed in America during the Second World War. American Japanese communities were torn from their businesses to go and live – or be incarcerated – in camps which were often neglected trailer parks. They stayed there until the end of the war. (There’s a fascinating article with incredible photos here.)
Once they were liberated after the end of the war, they had nothing left. But some of them brought their agricultural skills to the nearest place possible – Hollywood – where they became gardeners to the rich and famous. Then, incredibly, some of them were talent spotted to become actors in the studio system. One famous graduate of these internment camps is George Takei of Star Trek fame.
Q: The writer Tania Tay said of the book, “Absolutely loved this romp of a book, but it also has some serious messages about how women were (and often continued to be) treated as sexual fodder in the film world...” What do you think of that description?
A: Tania is spot on! The #MeToo movement was a huge inspiration for The Unforgettable Loretta Darling.
In the early days of writing, I was encouraged to finish the novel as quickly as possible in case this hunger for gender politics disappeared.
Spoiler alert! I didn’t finish the novel quickly and #MeToo didn’t disappear.
Every few months, a new and terrible story would emerge. I understood deep in my gut that this wasn’t going anywhere. Back in the day, women had to find their own power by often being manipulative, discreet in their machinations or find their own moral codes. That’s what my main character, Loretta, does. But I was interested in how this forced behaviour informed the female psyche in the 1950s and continues to do so.
Now, thankfully, there is more opportunity for women to be open and transparent about past or current abuse, but that still takes a huge amount of bravery. I hope this is a theme in The Unforgettable Loretta Darling that will resonate with every reader, making us all think about where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re headed.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?
A: I had so much FUN writing Loretta, and I really want readers to have fun reading! You can always tell when an author is enjoying their work and that travels down the pages, through the reader’s fingertips and up into their own heart and soul. Novels are a conversation between author and reader and, in this case, I hope it’s a joyous, page-turning chat between friends.
I also want readers to see that, yes, there is hope. Life can be hard, men can be bad, but a sprinkle of tenacity, a pinch of determination, and a large dash of work ethic can take a person a long way. I am almost – almost! – as stubborn as Loretta and I’ve always tried not to let others tell me that I’m not allowed to do something.
This is a quality that works extremely well as a writer. Be you. Be determined. Go for it! What’s the worst that could happen?
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am deep in a new novel set in 1960s London publishing, where an overlooked editor’s eye for detail makes her the perfect person to solve a murder.
Again, the research has been fascinating, helping me explore a whole other world of books in a time of huge social change, with dollops of murder and intrigue thrown in. I can’t tell you much more than that because – yes, since you ask! – I am a Pantser!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Did I mention my dog? A miniature schnauzer called Ella, who is the love of my life? Yes, you need to know about Ella. She is stubborn, tenacious, and relentless. Sounds…just like an author.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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