Author Interview

[Mariah]

I'm thrilled to be hosting American Historical Novels this week. My latest book is DEATH OF A SHOWMAN, the fourth in the Jane Prescott series, set in 1910s New York. In this installment, Jane heads to Broadway! I'll be sharing pictures of my research, song lists, a giveaway, and other fun things through the week. But I thought I'd kick off with the AHN interview with Rebecca Rosenberg.
Rebecca: What inspired you to write DEATH OF A SHOWMAN?
Mariah: SHOWMAN is the fourth in my Jane Prescott mystery series, set in 1910s New York. Jane is a lady’s maid who works for shy, insecure Louise Tyler who’s just starting to make her way in New York society. The series progresses year by year, using the big historical events of the year to inform the mystery. This time, we’re in summer of 1914. Originally, I had planned to have Jane and the Tylers in Vienna for the assassination of the Archduke. But it seemed more appropriate to have the carefree young Americans at home, so they return from Europe to find Jane’s ex-boyfriend, Leo Hirschfeld, is about to open his first Broadway musical—and that he’s gotten married. Louise is persuaded to invest in the show, which is being produced by the abusive, bullying Sidney Warburton. Warburton is murdered. There are many suspects, and for most of the book, it’s sleuthing, romancing, singing and dancing…until war is declared in the next to last chapter.
Rebecca: Can you give us insight into your writing process?
Jane lives rent free in my head, which is fine because she’s wonderful company. I write every day. Mornings are my most productive time. In the beginning of a book, I research the events of that year in New York. I know some of the “soap opera” beats, and those scenes go on note cards. I write freely anything that comes to mind for a few weeks, while I rough out an outline that starts off like jacket copy and gradually grows into a stack of scene specific notecards. I keep my “new page” count low to reduce stress and my editing/revision process is constant. Like a day’s assignment will be “two pages write” “three pages edit.”
Rebecca: What type of research did you do for writing DEATH OF A SHOWMAN
The setting for SHOWMAN is Broadway. I am a New Yorker born and bred who grew up doing standing room. I know a lot about the golden age of musicals and anything in my lifetime, but I was not as familiar with the Follies/Irving Berlin era. I read Shall We Dance, Douglas Thompson’s biography of Vernon and Irene Castle and Better Foot Forward: A History of American Musical Theatre. I watched Funny Girl, which was not so illuminating, but fun. I spent a lot of time at the wonderful Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center or what I call the Lincoln Center Library. The best part was I got to tour the Belasco Theatre, built in 1907. I’ll be posting pictures of that later in the week.
Rebecca: Did you find anything in your research that was particularly fascinating or that helped shaped the novel?
It became clear that the musical was still pretty raw, more a revue featuring big acts and hit songs, stitched together with a loose story. The show in the book is based on Berlin’s Watch Your Step, a ragtime musical which was seen as quite bold and innovative. With a mystery, it’s all about the characters’ secrets and researching various vaudeville acts gave me lots of ideas of who these people could have been at earlier stages of their lives. Performers are constantly re-inventing themselves at this time and it’s a brutal business. People become famous…and disappear. Whatever happened to “The Egyptian Enigma” or “The Celebrated Cherry Sisters” or “Zoltan the Mighty”? So many possibilities, as Sondheim says in Sunday in The Park With George.
Rebecca: What was your favorite scene to write?
There’s a scene after the producer is murdered where Leo, Louise and Jane visit his widow to make sure she won’t throw them out of the theater and will keep supporting the show until it opens. She has five “little Warburtons” and is herself extremely theatrical, flinging sodden hankies here and there. Nobody liked this man, least of all his wife, so I went full on with the pantomime comedy of it. It was huge fun. This book is also the first where the is it love story takes center stage and I loved writing all the romantic scenes.
Rebecca: What was the most difficult scene to write?
The scene where the murder takes place was tricky. It happens in a famous theater district restaurant known as Rector’s. The Castle biography gave me a wonderful sense of how the restaurant looked and what it symbolized to people. But every member of the cast is there, it’s a crowded room, Jane is dancing. She sees this bit of argument, hears that flirtation, but it was a lot of moving pieces leading up to the gunshot.
Rebecca: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
Around seven. I tried writing a spy novel like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It was about six lines typed.
Rebecca: What has been your greatest challenge as a writer? Have you been able to overcome it?
Getting that first novel published was hard. I wrote three novels, put them on submission, never got anywhere. It took me ten years of nonstop writing to get anywhere. And staying published, getting someone to buy a book a year, is hard—especially if you want to be paid more than a token advance. Even a token advance can be hard to get.
My advice is: stick with the writing. Work hard at it. But if a project or a genre isn’t getting you where you need to go, consider changing. I started in contemporary adult fiction because I thought I should. Got nowhere for ten years. Switched to young adult; second editor bought it. Ten years later, I couldn’t manage the change in YA trends. And I wrote a historical that I loved. So I made another change. That started the Jane Prescott series, which has given me more joy than anything. You can write other books, tell other stories.
Rebecca: Who are your writing inspirations?
There are the writers I worship: A.S. Byatt, Margaret Atwood, Ira Levin, P.G. Wodehouse. And working for Book-of-the-Month Club, I met a lot of writers. Some of them seemed bored or unhappy in their careers. When I met Robert Harris, I was struck by how much he enjoyed his career, how grateful he was for it. No surliness or pretension. Just “I’m a lucky man to be making a living doing what I love.” And I thought, If I ever get a chance, I want to be like that.
Rebecca: What was the first historical novel you read?
There was The Witch of Blackbird Pond. And one that made a huge impression on me was Rosemary Hawley Jarman’s The King’s Grey Mare. That woman channeled the Middle Ages like she wrote in a trance. I can’t see the characters of the Wars of the Roses other than as she described them.
Rebecca: What is the last historical novel you read?
Last historical was Courting Mr. Lincoln by Louis Bayard, which I adored more than anything since Lincoln in the Bardo. Last historical mystery was The Stills by Jess Montgomery which is beautiful and riveting.
Rebecca: What are three things people may not know about you?
Both my parents worked for the New York Times; they met there. So reporters tend to be very attractive people in my books. I love basset hounds, but have become corgi-curious. I’m short. I like short dogs. I’ve been drinking Twinings Earl Grey tea in the morning since I was eleven.
Rebecca: What appeals to you most about your chosen genre?
Murder is an excellent lens through which to view history. So many key events involve taking life—either intentionally or through criminal neglect—from the Titanic to wars to the murder of the Romanovs. Mystery and history involve similar questions: what happened? Who was responsible? Why did they do what they did? Why do people resort to killing? Why don’t the rest of us care more when they do?
Rebecca: What do you like to do when you aren't writing?
I’m a big walker. I read in the bathtub; I take lots of baths, my one big environmental extravagance, since I don’t have a car. I’d hang out with my teenage son if he’d let me. I love eating Greek food with my husband. And yes, I watch a lot of television.
Rebecca: Lastly, will you have more projects together in the future?
Yes! I am in a rare state of career security. I’m hoping to do the fifth Jane Prescott, but currently I’m working on The Lindbergh Nanny, which is a true crime novel about the famous kidnapping, told from the point of view of the baby’s nurse, Betty Gow. She was a young, attractive Scots woman. She came under suspicion. Her boyfriend was suspected. It’s a fascinating case! The book will come out next year.
Stay tuned to American Historical Novels this week for more from Mariah Fredericks