Q&A with Jane Healey

 

 

 

 

 

Jane Healey is the author of the new novel The Women of Arlington Hall. Her other books include The Secret Stealers. She lives north of Boston. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Women of Arlington Hall, and how did you create your character Cat?

 

A: I was inspired by a 2018 article I read in the Smithsonian Magazine by the brilliant author Liza Mundy.

 

In the piece she interviews 99-year-old Angeline Nanni, the last living member of the codebreaking team at Arlington Hall known as the Venona Project - their mission was to crack the Russian’s “unbreakable” code, in order for U.S. intelligence to read the telegrams going back and forth from Moscow and Russian contacts in the U.S. 

 

With the protagonist Cat Killeen, I wanted to create a character that took this giant risk in taking a vague job offer in Washington, D.C. She left behind a fiancé, her family, everything she had known, to try to find her place in the world.

 

As a member of the team working on the Venona Project, she finds the work that she was meant to do, as well as a found family of friends, a group of people that really understood her for the first time in her life. 

 

Q: The writer Lisa Barr said of the book, “Healey doesn’t miss a beat merging real-life events with fictional flair and plot twists.” What did you see as the right balance between fiction and history as you wrote the novel?

A: The balance between fiction and history is tricky and for me it varies from book to book. I always want to honor the truth of the time, place and events as much as possible of course - I would never change the date of a major event in history for example.

 

But at the end of the day, this is a novel and not a textbook, so the history serves as the backdrop of a story with, hopefully, a compelling narrative arc that keeps readers reading.

 

That’s where my historical author notes come in - I always include those at the back of the book to explain to readers the choices I made regarding fact v. fiction.

 

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

 

A: I did all sorts of research for this novel - books, digital archives, oral histories - just so much.

 

I think one of the things that really surprised me is the U.S. government’s secrecy surrounding the Trinity nuclear test bomb in New Mexico in 1945. There were over 250,000 people downwind from that test bomb, and radiation levels in that area were 10,000 times higher than what was considered safe.

 

Citizens were told nothing before it happened, and after were assured there was nothing to worry about. Of course, that was a complete lie, as many people developed cancer and other health issues as a result of the radiation exposure. I found that pretty horrifying. 

 

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

 

A: I hope readers finish the book with an appreciation of what this small group of codebreakers, mostly women, accomplished - breaking the Russians’ unbreakable code is still considered one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of U.S. cryptology.

 

And one of the underlying themes of this story is if you change your mind, you can change your life, so I hope that’s another takeaway as well. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Ah! I wish I could share but it’s early days, but I hope I can talk about it more in the next couple of months.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I zoom with book clubs all over the country. And I have a podcast called Historical Happy Hour that you can listen to wherever you listen to podcasts - I’ll have more exciting news about the podcast in the new year.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Jane Healey.