Ask the Author: Kate Manning
Answered Questions (7)
Kate Manning
Elaine! It's an honor to hear that you and your book group are reading My Notorious Life! It's does seem to provoke lively discussions. But how cool and creative of you that you are making a special menu. Off the top my head, you could make Boxty in the pan (lotsa recipes online) or Irish soda bread. Axie and Charlie shared a bag of cherries! always good for summer. Oysters? they were so plentiful in NYC of those days, as was Corn on the cob sold from street carts. No one ate much in the way of fresh vegetables. So, that's all I got. I'm always happy to zoom with a book group, so let me know.. thanks for the query! Best, Kate
Kate Manning
Hello Jan, thank you for your question and apologies for not finding it sooner! I would imagine that your relative helped a woman end an unwanted pregnancy by supplying medication abortion (herbs like tansy or ergot) or a surgical abortion--in those days without anesthesia--which was a common form of birth control. Then as now, most women who chose abortion were already mothers and sought to limit the size of their families for the sake of their health and wellbeing of their other children. I am guessing the PA laws were passed as a result of the work of Madame Restell (model for Axie Muldoon) and other midwives, abortion providers who advertised. In most of the country for most of early US history, abortion was legal till 'quickening'' and, while often risky, still less dangerous than childbirth. Sounds as if your relative was imprisoned for helping a woman, or women. And thanks for reading My Notorious Life! all best, Kate
Kate Manning
Hi Lynne, I'm so honored you've decided to read the novel in your book group, and I love your question. I do see Axie as a hero--one who, like many people who do brave things, is accidentally drawn into taking risks because she is motivated by compassion, a sense of duty based on her own lived experience. She understands 'the complexities' of women's lives. And, too, she has always been outside of 'proper' society, and as a kind of outlaw, sides with the powerless, even as her activity earns her infamy, as well as money--for which she does not apologize. Just as we are stunned today to see our rights being eroded, Axie never quite believed that the law would catch up with her, or that the consequences would be so severe. I do hope we are not in for another era like the Victorian 19th century. Hope you have a lively conversation. Cheers!
Kate Manning
Hi Lynn,
Well thanks so much for these kind words. Your own project sounds fascinating! Let's see--there's a list of the books I used for research in the acknowledgments section of My Notorious Life (the "Clinical Lectures" was the most important and you can find it at Project Gutenberg online. I have lost track of the links to other sites that helped me. But in my travels I have discovered the marvelous Dittrick Museum of Medical History in Cleveland. Check out their website and give them a call and I'm sure they'll steer you in the right direction. Good luck and all best, Kate
Well thanks so much for these kind words. Your own project sounds fascinating! Let's see--there's a list of the books I used for research in the acknowledgments section of My Notorious Life (the "Clinical Lectures" was the most important and you can find it at Project Gutenberg online. I have lost track of the links to other sites that helped me. But in my travels I have discovered the marvelous Dittrick Museum of Medical History in Cleveland. Check out their website and give them a call and I'm sure they'll steer you in the right direction. Good luck and all best, Kate
Kate Manning
How very kind of you to send me this message, it's wind in my sails on a day of struggling over a page and a paragraph. I'm so glad you liked My Notorious Life. Christina Baker Kline and I had a good time talking about the Orphan Train era and the astonishing history of the 1850s at that wonderful Tenement Museum. If you're in NY I recommend a visit. Since I don't have to include a question mark, I'll put in an exclamation point: Thank you Ellie Barrett!
Kate Manning
For a new novel, I'm working on channeling and shaping a voice from the past that's not the same voice from the past that came to me in my last novel. It's a challenge. Luckily, the story's set in a different era, and this is a different character altogether, with a different temperament, vocabulary, and origin, and so the possibilties for a distinctive narrative vernacular are rich, and, as always with a new project, a little scary. But if it weren't a little scary, I wouldn't be interested in keeping at it.
Kate Manning
My Notorious Life was inspired by an 1890s photograph of a fierce-eyed little girl, a street waif holding an infant. I started to make up a story about her, imagining her as an Irish immigrant, one of the 30,000 homeless kids that lived on NY streets in the 1800's. This led me to stories of the Orphan Trains, and the plot of the novel followed from this fascinating but little-known history.
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