Q&A with Alyssa Wees

 

 

 

Alyssa Wees is the author of the new novel Nocturne. She also has written the young adult novel The Waking Forest. Also a librarian, she lives in the Chicago area.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Nocturne, and how did you create your character Grace?

 

A: I began ballet lessons when I was 4 years old, and continued training through college. When I graduated I decided to focus on writing, but I’m still a ballerina in my soul and I’ve long dreamed of writing a book featuring ballet.

 

I knew it would be a fantasy, but it took me a while to find my way to the story. I had an idea about a girl in a failing company that gains a mysterious patron, and little more than that. Once I decided that the story would also be historical, the pieces really began to click into place. 

 

Like Grace, I come from a Sicilian family that settled in Chicago only a few generations ago. As I delved into my family history, the character of Grace became clear to me: a girl torn between the land of her ancestors and the city she knows and loves, between life and death, between the past and the future.

 

There’s something about the beauty of ballet set against the harsh backdrop of the Great Depression that I found really compelling, and it’s this tension between the two that really drives forward the story and Grace’s development. 

 

Q: The writer Ava Reid said of the book, “In Nocturne, Wees robes the classic story of Beauty and the Beast in lush prose and infinite splendor. It’s a fever dream of a novel, surreal and intricate, and enchanting in every way.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: It’s a beautiful description and I’m so humbled by it! Truly, it’s the best feeling when someone reads what you’ve written and just gets it. At its core Nocturne is a Beauty and the Beast type story, but it’s not only that and Ava Reid really nailed this aspect of it in her blurb. I especially like the description of “fever dream.” It’s perfect. 

 

Q: Did you need to do any research to write the novel, and if so, did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: I have to admit that research is not my favorite part of writing. I’m usually too eager to dive into my imagination and make things up as I go along, and I feel that research just slows me down!

 

I was researching my family history for my own enjoyment, not even thinking of writing it into a story, when I stumbled across some interesting facts about the neighborhood in Chicago where my grandparents grew up, the same neighborhood where Grace spends her childhood. It was called Little Sicily and no longer exists, as it was torn down and rebuilt (it’s now Cabrini-Green).

 

Little Sicily was nicknamed “Little Hell” for the flames from the factory furnaces that would light up the night, and there was an intersection down the street from my grandma’s house called “Death Corner” where mobsters would sometimes leave the bodies of the victims they’d shot. Like, what?!

 

This was all a teensy bit before my grandma’s time—Grace was born about a decade before her—and the Mafia murders would’ve died down by the time she was a teen in the 1940s, but I really regret not asking her a ton of questions when she was still with us about this neighborhood and her experiences.

 

I miss her every day, and fashioning Grace’s story was a little bit like having a conversation with her. My grandfather died before I was born, and I’m sad that I never got to know him and hear stories of his life firsthand. This is my way of feeling connected to them. 

 

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 did have an idea of the ending, but no idea how I would get there when I started. I never outline—part of the fun in writing, for me, is finding the story along the way. The story itself grew and changed, but the ending—the feel of it, if not the actual how of it—never wavered.

 

Nocturne’s ending may not be a typical happily ever after, but to me it’s cathartic. It’s what Grace needed, and what she’d been dancing toward all along.  

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I have another book coming out with Del Rey sometime in the near future! I’m hesitant to reveal too much about it yet, but I will say that it is entirely unconnected with Nocturne in just about every way.

 

It tells the story of a mother and daughter and their journey through an enchanted wood, as well as exploring the meaning of the stories we pass down from generation to generation and how those stories shape us. I’m really excited about it and I can’t wait to share more.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: My young adult fantasy, The Waking Forest, came out in 2019. It’s a fantasy story about sisters, foxes, and the thin line that separates dream from reality. If you need something to hold you over after Nocturne and before my next novel, I’d love it if you’d check it out!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Lauren Edmondson

 

Photo by Cassidy MR.Photography

 

 

Lauren Edmondson is the author of the new novel Wedding of the Season. She also has written the novel Ladies of the House. She lives in Northern Virginia.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Wedding of the Season, and how did you create your character Cass Coventry?

 

A: I thought writing about a wedding would be a useful way to illuminate how people like the Coventrys are extraordinary, their famous name an instant draw to online gossip and mainstream press.

 

On the other hand, planning a wedding can be an acute stress point for even the most functional of families, so the event was useful in bringing out just how hilariously regular the Coventrys are, concerned both with things existential—careers, love, life’s purpose—and mundane—Instagram followers, outfit choices, knick-knacks.

 

I thought it would be so much more fun, and complex, to have our main character Cass caught between this past and present, still saddled with the name and the thorny, problematic family legacy, but no longer welcomed into the corridors of power—economic or social.

 

It’s no mistake that Cass is a middle child, scrunched between her more famous siblings, initially unable to see a place for herself in the family or in Newport.

 

I also loved how she is a photographer, more comfortable behind the lens than in front of it, and it was really enjoyable to explore how she reacts when she is thrust back into the spotlight.

 

Q: The writer Meg Mitchell Moore called the book “Elin Hilderbrand meets Edith Wharton.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I am so flattered by it! My goal is to write books that are fun and engaging, as well as rooted in the thorny realities of navigating family expectations, money problems, and romantic relationships. I am honored that Meg compared me to both these stunning authors.

 

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 generally knew how the novel would end, but--as my editor can attest--we made tons of changes along the way in order to make the plot lively and interesting to readers.

 

Q: The novel is set in Newport, Rhode Island--how important is setting to you in your writing?

 

A: Before I knew the characters, I knew I wanted to set the story in Newport. This “city by the sea” is more than just the place where the story takes place; it is the reason for the story.

 

I loosely based the fictional Coventrys on the Vanderbilts, who, like many Gilded Age families of the time, took to Newport to build their spectacular summer “cottages,” only to lose their grip on the grand, unsustainable mansions as federal income tax was codified in the Constitution, cheap labor became not so cheap, and spheres of society moved out of Newport.

 

How families like the Vanderbilts saved, or lost, their historic homes was of great interest to me, and kickstarted the novel. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Another fun and dishy read - this time set in elegant East Hampton, New York.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Find me on Instagram at @MrsLaurenEdmondson. I'm also happy to Zoom with book clubs, and love connecting with readers.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Feb. 22

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Feb. 22, 1892: Edna St. Vincent Millay born.

Q&A with Rebecca Makkai

 

Photo by Brett Simison

 

 

Rebecca Makkai is the author of the new novel I Have Some Questions for You. Her other books include the novel The Great Believers. She is on the MFA faculties of the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe and Northwestern University. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write I Have Some Questions for You, and how did you create your character Bodie Kane?

 

A: I started writing this book in early 2019, but I'd been thinking about it for years. Originally, I wanted the whole novel to comprise what ended up being the last quarter of the book: high school classmates reunited (but sequestered) in a hotel, waiting to testify in a retrial and having to face the mistakes of the past.

 

I ended up needing to back up -- not to 1995, when their classmate Thalia Keith was murdered -- but to 2018, when Bodie Kane returns to teach for two weeks at the Granby School in rural New Hampshire and starts to realize that the wrong man might be in prison. 

 

Bodie grew slowly as a character. Since I'm someone who starts with plot, I usually end up reverse-engineering my characters, finding the people who would be the most vulnerable to the circumstances and the most susceptible to change. I needed her to be a pretty powerful adult who felt absolutely disempowered as an adolescent -- so that being back on campus places her somewhere right between her past and present selves.

 

Q: You write, “I have lived for twenty-one years on the campus of the same boarding school that I attended as a day student in the 1990s,” adding that your fictional Granby “is a very different place.” How did living on a boarding school campus affect your creation of Granby, and do you have any other favorite novels set at boarding schools?

 

A: I was determined to make the Granby campus not only a different from the one where I live, but fully a product of my imagination. I made and adjusted maps over several years, moving things around to where I needed them to be.

 

I also worked out a tremendous amount about the history of the school, largely by reading up on the histories of New England schools of around the same vintage. Some of that history made it into the novel, and some lives only in my head and in my computer. 

 

I have many favorite boarding school novels, but the one I'm always putting in people's hands is Pamela Erens's The Virgins (Tin House, 2013). It's a beautiful novel with an unusual narration. It's also a quick and hypnotic read, perfect for a rainy weekend.

 

Q: The author Rumaan Alam said of the book, “Both a deeply satisfying crime story and a thoughtful, even provocative, novel of ideas, I Have Some Questions for You narrates one woman’s interrogation of her own past while in turn posing difficult questions directly to its reader: about sex, power, privilege, and the ambient violence of contemporary American life.” What do you think of that description, particularly in relation to the issues Alam mentions?

 

A: Well, he can do no wrong, so he could have said just about anything at all about my book and I'd have been happy. But yes, I think he gets it exactly right. My job as an author is not to preach at people or to answer questions; it's to take questions I already have and then complicate them with narrative.

 

And those are indeed the big thematic questions of the book. If I were being thorough, I'd add race and class to the list. (Why did I take on so much?? I have no idea.) 

 

Q: How was the novel's title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: It came along quite late in the process; we were almost at copy edits when we settled on it. The working title had been "Ninety-Five" (as in the year) -- a title that meant a lot to me but that would have done very little to telegraph the tone or subject matter of the novel to someone browsing a bookstore table.

 

"I have some questions for you" was already the first line of one of the book's later chapters, and to me it captured that tone I just mentioned of complicating thorny issues -- plus the "you" gets at something else important, which is that this book, while told in the first person, is addressed to a certain character.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I'm working on something set in WWII-era Germany (although it's neither a war book nor a Holocaust book) and I was able to use my Guggenheim fellowship to travel to Germany this past fall for research. Right now, it's in what I think of as a "marination phase" -- I'm busy with publicity and travel, but I'm always working on this new book mentally. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I'm very excited about the audio version of the book. Julia Whelan is the primary narrator, with JD Jackson reading one chapter. They're both brilliant, and I was able to listen to a bit of the book the other day (not too much, or I'd want to edit again) and I was so happy. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Rebecca Makkai.

Q&A with Nick Tabor

 

 

Nick Tabor is the author of the new book Africatown: America's Last Slave Ship and the Community It Created. He is a journalist whose work has appeared in a variety of publications, including New York  Magazine and The Washington Post Magazine.

 

Q: How did you first learn about the Clotilda, the last slave ship of your book's subtitle, and at what point did you decide to write this book?

 

A: In 2018, HarperCollins was publishing the book Barracoon, which consists of Zora Neale Hurston’s interviews with Cudjo Lewis—one of the last living survivors of the Clotilda voyage.

 

My editor at New York Magazine wanted a story on what had become of Cudjo’s descendants, so she asked me to track them down. It was no easy task.

 

But when I eventually got one of them on the phone—it was Garry Lumbers, who was living near Philadelphia—he told me pretty forcefully that instead of writing about the descendants, I ought to be focusing on the Africatown neighborhood.

 

Garry had a wonderful childhood there, but he felt that in the present day it looked like a “war zone”—with industrial pollution and lots of abandoned houses. He wanted to know how it had gotten to be that way.

 

I did visit and write a piece about the neighborhood’s condition, and later I also wrote a chapter on Africatown for a book published by The New Press.

 

But it wasn’t enough. Garry had posed a profound question, and I wanted to answer it. I wanted to piece together the connection between the slave ship and the present-day pollution.

 

How exactly had Africatown been singled out as the place where all these factories would be sited? I thought that if I could explain that, it would reveal a lot about how environmental racism works everywhere. At the end of 2019 I moved to Mobile to do the research full time.

Q: The writer Jane Dailey said of the book, “Alternately enraging and inspiring, Africatown connects the history of slavery, industrial pollution, labor exploitation, movements for environmental and political justice and--always--the power of hope for the future.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I appreciate Jane’s comment! I admire her work, and she certainly described what I was trying to do.

 

In a way, Africatown isn’t only about a single community; it’s also a sweeping history of structural racism, particularly in the South. I set out to show how one thing led to the next, in a 160-year progression. But because Cudjo and the other characters are so riveting, it doesn’t read like a textbook.

 

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

 

A: I lived in Mobile while I was writing it, and before the lockdowns started I was in Africatown almost every day—visiting the churches, volunteering on cleanup days, attending meetings, interviewing people.

 

I also spent time in many libraries and archives, from the dusty stacks at Union Missionary Baptist Church (which the pastor, Rev. Derek Tucker, was kind enough to open up to me), to the Library of Congress. Every author has to play to their strengths, and one of mine is a capacity for exhaustive research and reporting.

 

There were many surprises. But perhaps the most memorable discovery was the one I talk about in the Netflix documentary Descendant.

 

For years, people had been looking for the remains of the Clotilda, in Mobile Bay. There was a rumor that the descendants of Timothy Meaher—the businessman who brought the enslaved Africans to Alabama in 1860—knew where the ship was, and had intentionally misdirected at least one person who was looking.

 

I thought I’d never be able to prove this. But then I found a letter, sent from one member of the Meaher family to another, that seemed to confirm it all. It’s the kind of moment an investigative reporter lives for.

 

Q: How do you think the history of Africatown affects its residents today?

 

A: Well, lifelong residents of Africatown grew up surrounded by pollution—in the air, in the ground, in the fish they caught from the rivers—and it seems like a staggering number of people from the community have died of cancer. That pollution is the result of decisions that were made over many decades.

 

And the Meaher family, which still owns a lot of the property surrounding the neighborhood, has made money by leasing and selling land to the factories (although I should add, the younger generation of Meahers has recently started a dialogue with the shipmates’ descendants, and we don’t know where that will lead).

 

But you can also see the history reflected there in ways that are more encouraging. There’s an incredible tradition of storytelling in Africatown that goes back to the shipmates and the oral culture of West Africa. There are culinary traditions and other practices that they’ve kept alive. The church founded by the shipmates is still alive and well.

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: In the short term, I’m writing a couple pieces that are linked to Africatown: one on the author Albert Murray, who grew up there, and another on the Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation, a now-forgotten organization that forced the National Park Service to start recognizing Black history sites, back in the 1970s. I also have some longer magazine stories in the works.

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: It was an honor to have descendants, Africatown residents, and activists who are fighting for the neighborhood trust me with their stories. I hope they all benefit from this book.

 

Also, I can’t praise the documentary Descendant highly enough; I think everyone should see it.

 

The director, Margaret Brown, and I collaborated throughout the time we were working—mostly in informal ways, though I was also commissioned to do some work for the film. Research and writing can be lonely endeavors, and my regular conversations with Margaret always helped me keep perspective.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Tara Ison

 

 

 

Tara Ison is the author of the new historical novel At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf, which takes place during World War II. Her other books include the story collection Ball, and her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Tin House and O. She is Professor of Fiction at Arizona State University.

 

Q: What inspired you to write At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf, and how did you create your character Danielle/Marie-Jeanne?

 

A: The inspiration comes from my stepmother – when I was 12, I learned she was a hidden child in WWII Hungary, and ever since I’ve been intrigued by what that experience must have felt like.

 

She was only 5 at the time, and remembers very few details: the coldness of the water in the church font; the man she was living with taking her to the beer hall in the evening and sitting on his knee; learning new Catholic prayers and a new name (which she has forgotten.)

 

Her caretakers were kind to her, but she clearly remembers being told not to cry, ever, and never to talk to a policeman – even at 5 she felt the pressure of this, of not making a mistake. She was fortunate to lead a relatively safe experience; when the war ended her mother found her, and eventually they emigrated to America.

 

But it isn’t my stepmother’s story at all. I changed the setting from Hungary to France – a history and culture I was more familiar with.

 

And I wanted my character, Danielle, to be an adolescent, as I think that’s already a developmental stage fraught with anxiety over identity; at 12 she’s old enough to struggle with the psychological complexities of living a dual identity, and to understand what is at stake – while not fully understanding herself, or the larger implication of her own behavior and choices. (I’m just realizing now – Danielle begins at the same age I was when I learned about my stepmother’s history…)

 

In the beginning Danielle is a rather spoiled and selfish young girl, very secular, cosmopolitan, and comfortably shielded by her loving parents from the horror of what is happening - but after her father is killed on a Paris street by Germans in the early days of the Occupation, and her mother “leaves her” with Catholic farmers in a small southern village, her trauma begins, and she has to struggle for ways to psychologically, then literally, survive.

 

The irony is that in a way, as she becomes Marie-Jeanne over the course of the novel, she becomes more loving and self-sacrificing – while at the same time, through the influence of extremist right-wing propaganda, gradually transforming into a rigidly devout Catholic, and an anti-Semitic fascist. I wanted to explore how that transformation can happen.

 

And we’re seeing the rise of this ideology all over again, now. I didn’t set out to write a political novel, but I’ve realized how disturbingly timely it was.

 

Q: As you mentioned, the novel is set in World War II-era France--how did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

A: So much research, yes! Fortunately, I love research – it’s often more fun than writing, for me, but I can still tell myself I’m “working on the book.”  Plus, you never know what you might find.

 

I thought I knew a great deal about collaborationist Vichy France – but as I read histories of WWII France I was stunned to learn the extent of that collaboration.

 

For example, the French Police began rounding up Jews for deportation before the Nazis even asked them to, in order to prove their “loyalty” to the Germans, who they were sure were going to win the war and conquer the world. Or, initially, the French “definition” of who counted as Jewish was far more extreme and punitive than the Nazis’ – again, so the French could prove their loyalty by turning over as many Jews as possible. All of these things became important points in the book.

 

But I also realized how critical the setting in France was, in other ways; the country was virtually split in two, between those loyal to the Free French, French independence, the Resistance, and de Gaulle, and those who believed collaboration with Vichy, the puppet French government, was the only way to assure France would not be “conquered” in the same way as Poland, and that France would be able to walk “hand-in-hand: with their German friends. This national split in identity is very much what my character Danielle experiences.

 

I read shelves and shelves of books throughout the writing of the novel: histories of WWII France and the Occupation, books on Catholicism and Judaism (I’m Jewish, but not especially knowledgeable), and several studies of the psychology of hidden children.

 

Many have written memoirs or novels about their experiences, which are extremely varied – what these children went through relied on so many variable factors. There are also many documentaries and films that explore the topic. I wanted my story to honor the experience, but at the same time be unique in its dramatic circumstances, intention, and approach; I’ve never seen the story of a hidden child told in the way I’m doing.

 

I also traveled to France when I could – my reading comprehension in French is good enough that I could find the archives, libraries, and museums extremely useful. And actually visiting the area makes a difference; I’d read about the horrendous massacre of the village of Oradour-sur-Glane, but it wasn’t until I walked through the preserved ruins that its power really hit me, and it became a critical part of the story.

 

But immersion in French life, breathing the air my characters breather, is also so important for those tiny sensual details that create verisimilitude and bring fiction alive: the feel of paving stones underfoot, the look of sunflowers curling at the end of the season, the quality of the light in a small French village.

 

Q: The writer Robert Olen Butler said of the book, “At the Hour Between Dog & Wolf is a thrilling novel, not just as a splendid read but as a deeply resonant work of art driven by the central yearning in the greatest literary narratives: the yearning for a self, for an identity, for a place in the world.” What do you think of that description, and what do you think the novel says about identity, particularly during wartime?

 

A: I’m so grateful for his generous comments on the novel – and I love his focus on home and identity, as this is the core theme of the story. I wanted to novel to capture how fragile identity is, especially during wartime.

 

The power of fascist ideology is that it starts by instilling fear – of the Other, of losing what you have, of losing your home, of your very identity being stripped of meaning. That fear can turn people into someone they may never have believed they could be, empowers people to do things they may never have thought themselves capable of.

 

Q: How was the book's title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: In my head the book was just “The Hidden Child” for many years, until I came upon a French idiomatic expression: “entre chien et loup,” between dog and wolf, meaning twilight, or dusk. It immediately resonated for me, both its lyrical beauty but also the reference to transformation, the subtle shift from light to dark.

 

It’s very integrated into the novel – Danielle remembers spending Sundays with her father, how at twilight they would stop and look at the sky, and he’d ask her to tell him the exact moment the dog becomes the wolf – and those subtle shifts make it impossible. Just as Danielle’s psychological transformation into Marie-Jeanne is a slow, creeping process. So: At the Hour Between Dog and Wolf.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Putting together a new collection of short stories, and a hybrid nonfiction project about my mother. Ready for a break from the novel form!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: We can’t forget. We can never forget.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Feb. 21

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Feb. 21, 1940: John Lewis born.