David Liss on "Historical Subjectivity"

I'd like to direct your attention to an interview with one of my favorite historical novelists, David Liss (THE COFFEE TRADER, THE WHISKEY REBELS) at the literary blog Three Guys One Book. I especially appreciate Liss's comments about historical fiction being an attempt to recreate a "historical subjectivity," to "get inside the heads of people from very different times." He also answers at length a question about contemporary writers engaging with writers of the past. Poke around the rest of Three Guys One Book while you're there--lots of interesting articles to read!

Winners of Michelle Moran Giveaway

Congratulations to Jessica and Lynn Irwin Stewart, winners in our Michelle Moran giveaway! Jessica has won an autographed copy of Michelle's new novel, CLEOPATRA'S DAUGHTER, which will be released tomorrow. Lynn will receive an autographed copy of the new paperback edition of THE HERETIC QUEEN. Once the winners contact me at juliannedouglas05 [at] sbcglobal [dot] net with their snail-mail addresses, the books will be on their way.

Thanks to all who entered for their intriguing questions! It was fun to read Michelle's timely answers and gain an insider's view into the writing of the books.

Many thanks to Michelle for offering the books and for keeping up with the questions. Let's all celebrate the publication of CLEOPATRA'S DAUGHTER by visiting our local bookstores tomorrow and picking up a copy. Enjoy your special day, Michelle!

Sixteenth Century Quote of the Week

I've decided on a new feature for Fridays--the Sixteenth Century Quote of the Day. Each Friday, I will post a quotation from a sixteenth century writer--poet, essayist, teller of tales--or celebrity--king, queen, politician, ambassador, artist, bishop, or commentator. My hope is that these snippets will shed some light on what people thought and talked about during the Renaissance.

Today's quotation is from the Lyonnaise poet Louise Labé (c 1520-1566), the first middle-class woman to publish under her own name in French (and, coincidentally, the model for the main character of my first novel). I've used this quotation as the opening epitaph for The Measure of Silence:

“Le plus grand plaisir qui soit après amour,

c’est d’en parler.”

“The greatest pleasure there is after love

is talking about it.”

—Louise Labé

Débat de Folie et d’Amour (1555)

Q and A with Michelle Moran

Be sure to check in periodically and read the comment trail on the previous post, where Michelle Moran is answering questions posed by our contest entrants. You'll learn many interesting things about Michelle's books and research.

And please don't feel as though you need enter the drawing in order to ask a question--I'm sure Michelle wouldn't mind fielding questions from anyone, even (especially?) if you've already read her books!

Thanks, Michelle, for checking in so often.

New Releases from Michelle Moran (GIVEAWAYS!)

To celebrate today's paperback release of bestselling historical fiction author Michelle Moran's second Egyptian novel, THE HERETIC QUEEN, Michelle has written a guest post to share with you. In it, she reveals how she became entranced by the daughter of Cleopatra--the subject of her third book, on sale September 15.

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Why Cleopatra’s daughter? by Michelle Moran

It began with a dive. Not the kind of dive that people take into swimming pools, but the kind where you squeeze yourself into a wetsuit and wonder just how tasty your rump must appear to passing sharks now that it looks exactly like an elephant seal. My husband and I had taken a trip to Egypt, and at the suggestion of a friend, we decided to go to Alexandria and do a dive to see the remains of Cleopatra’s underwater city. Let it be known that I had never done an underwater dive before, so after four days with an instructor (and countless questions like, Will there be sharks? How about jellyfish? If there is an earthquake, what happens underwater?) we were ready for the real thing.

We drove to the Eastern Harbor in Alexandria. Dozens of other divers were already there, waiting to see what sort of magic lay beneath the waves. I wondered if the real thing could possibly live up to all of the guides and brochures selling this underwater city, lost for thousands of years until now. Then we did the dive, and it was every bit as magical as everyone had promised. You can see the rocks which once formed Marc Antony’s summer palace, come face to face with Cleopatra’s towering sphinx, and take your time floating above ten thousand ancient artifacts, including obelisks, statues, and countless amphorae. By the time we had surfaced, I was Cleopatra-obsessed. I wanted to know what had happened to her city once she and Marc Antony had committed suicide. Where did all of its people go? Were they allowed to remain or were they killed by the Romans? What about her four children?

It was this last question which surprised me the most. I had always believed that all of Cleopatra’s children had been murdered. But the Roman conqueror Octavian had actually spared the three she bore to Marc Antony: her six-year-old son, Ptolemy, and her ten-year-old twins, Alexander and Selene. As soon as I learned that Octavian had taken the three of them for his Triumph in Rome, I knew at once I had my next book. This is how all of my novels seem to begin – with a journey, then an adventure, and finally, enormous amounts of research for what I hope is an exciting story.

CLEOPATRA'S DAUGHTER: a novel

The death of Cleopatra was only the beginning...

Visit CleopatrasDaughter.com
Check out Michelle's blog at michellemoran.blogspot.com

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Like its best-selling predecessors NEFERTITI and THE HERETIC QUEEN, CLEOPATRA'S DAUGHTER is bound to be an enthralling read. The Library Journal, in a starred review, proclaimed: "Dramatic, engrossing, and beautifully written, this is essential reading, and Moran is definitely an author to watch."

Michelle has generously offered to provide books to two lucky winners: the first winner will receive a signed copy of the paperback edition of THE HERETIC QUEEN, the second a signed copy of the hardback release of CLEOPATRA'S DAUGHTER.

To enter the contest, leave a question for Michelle in the comments section. You could ask about any of her books, her extensive travels, her writing habits, or her insights on historical fiction or publishing in general. Only those entries that contain a question will be considered for the drawing. Please include with your question an indication of which of the two books you would like to receive. Entries must be posted by 11 pm PST on Sunday, September 13. The winner of each book will be chosen at random and names posted on Monday morning, September 14.

In the meantime, Michelle, who loves to interact with her readers, will stop by each day to answer your questions. (Please note: Michelle's responses and the drawing for the books are completely independent events.) It's an opportunity for Michelle to address what's on your mind and for you to pose those questions you've been dying to ask.

Many thanks to Michelle for her presence here and best wishes for a successful launch!

Starred review for SUNFLOWERS

Just want to point out that my friend Sheramy Bundrick's novel about Vincent Van Gogh, SUNFLOWERS (Avon A, October 2009), received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly! Sheramy gave me an ARC of the book and I was completely drawn into this story of Vincent's years in Provence, told from the viewpoint of Rachel, the prostitute to whom he presented his ear. I'll post a review and hopefully an interview with Sheramy closer to the release date. In the meantime, mark your calendars for October 13.

Way to go, Sheramy! Félicitations!

A Novel Enterprise

Although I write novels set in sixteenth century France, the novel, as a genre, was unknown during this period. The Middle Ages had witnessed the flowering of narrative poetry--epics like the Chanson de Roland or Les quatre fils Aymon, romances like Chrétien de Troyes's Yvain ou le Chevalier au lion--and the development of the historical chronicle, such as those of Froissart, but the form of the novel--a long fictional work of prose depicting characters, settings, and events imagined by the author--would not develop until the seventeenth century.

Of course, people have always told stories, especially in pre-literate times when individuals would gather and tell tales to entertain themselves. During the Renaissance, humanist scholars began to transcribe such tales, often setting them in a mimetic framework. A prime example, which served as the model for countless other works, is Boccaccio's Decameron, composed in the early 1350's in the Italian vernacular. The frame story of the Decameron depicts ten young people taking refuge in the Italian countryside from the plague; each day, for ten days, the characters each recount a tale to while away the hours. The first example of such a structure in French is Les Cent nouvelles nouvelles, or "One Hundred New Tales" compiled by Antoine de la Sale around 1456 at the court of Philippe le Bon. Numerous noblemen contributed tales to the collection, although many are borrowed directly from Boccaccio and other Italian conteurs. These often bawdy tales give tantalizing glimpses into the lives of fifteenth-century noble and middle classes.

While the Cent nouvelles nouvelles lacks a frame story, the importance of the mimetic context grew during the sixteenth century. At mid-century, Noël du Fail, a rural aristocrat from Brittany, penned three collections of tales, Les Propos rustiques (1547), Les Baliverneries d'Eutrapel (1548) and the Contes et propos d'Eutrapel (1585). In these works, the frame story depicts in realistic detail the social milieu of the rural peasantry as well as that of the upper classes. Du Fail focuses on the linguistic habits of each group; his tales have been called "dialogue tales" because they strive to recreate the speech patterns of each social group in a conversational way. In their expanding situational context and attention to realistic detail, Du Fail's tales prefigure the larger narrative and pyschological scope of the novel.

Of course, the most well-known of the French tale collections is that of Marguerite de Navarre, L'Heptaméron, published posthumously in 1558, although it had circulated in manuscript form for years. In this collection of seventy-two tales, the interplay between the tales and the tellers is critical. Following Boccaccio's lead, Marguerite strands a group of travelers in an abbey during a torrential storm; each day, the members of the group tell tales to pass the time until the bridge is rebuilt. However, in Marguerite's collection, the characters' commentary on the tales and the relationships that blossom during the conversations that link the tales together became just as, if not more, important than the tales themselves. Marguerite develops a distinct personality for each of her tellers and manipulates their interaction with great psychological insight. Her attention to the psychology of the characters heralds the birth of the novel, which is traditionally attributed, in the French tradition, to Madame de Lafayette's La Princesse de Clèves (1678), a novel set, ironically, in the sixteenth century at the end of the reign of Henri II.

I love the fact that the first French novel is an historical one.

And the Winners Are...

Robinbird and Stuart MacAllister! Each of you has won a copy of Philippa Gregory's new novel, THE WHITE QUEEN, courtesy of Touchstone Books. Please send an email to juliannedouglas05 [at] sbcglobal [dot] net with your mailing information. Many thanks to all who entered and to all the new followers of the blog. I hope you'll return often and join in our discussions.

For those who didn't win, Ms. Gregory's book releases today and will be easy to find in most bookstores. I have a copy that I plan to review in September, so check back then and share your thoughts.

Many thanks to Ms. Gregory and Kelly at Touchstone for making this contest possible!

In the coming weeks, you'll find here on the blog: an interview with author Jules Watson and review of her latest book, THE SWAN MAIDEN; a guest post, giveaway and reader question-and-answer with bestselling author Michelle Moran; the last segment in the story of King François's captivity; a post about his first mistress, the elegant Françoise de Foix; and an Italian ambassador's scathing critique of François's showcase, the château of Fontainebleau. Come back soon!

Book Giveaway: THE WHITE QUEEN by Philippa Gregory

I am pleased to announce that I will be giving away two copies of Philippa Gregory's new novel, THE WHITE QUEEN. The novel, the first in a series set in fifteenth-century England during the Wars of the Roses, focuses on Edward Elizabeth Woodville, Queen Consort of King Edward IV.

Amazon describes the book: "THE WHITE QUEEN tells the story of a woman of extraordinary beauty and ambition who, catching the eye of the newly crowned boy king, marries him in secret and ascends to royalty. While Elizabeth rises to the demands of her exalted position and fights for the success of her family, her two sons become central figures in a mystery that has confounded historians for centuries: the missing princes in the Tower of London whose fate is still unknown. From her uniquely qualified perspective, Philippa Gregory explores this most famous unsolved mystery of English history, informed by impeccable research and framed by her inimitable storytelling skills." The website includes a Conversation with Philippa Gregory which explores, among other things, Ms. Gregory's switch to this new period in British history and the appeal of Elizabeth Woodville.

To enter the contest to win one of the books, please leave a comment telling me how many of Philippa Gregory's novels you have read. Become a follower of this blog and receive an additional entry! Contest closes at 11 pm PST on Monday, August 17; winners names will be posted on the novel's official release date, August 18. Check back to see if your name was drawn and if so, to provide me your mailing address. Copies will be sent directly from Touchstone, which graciously offered the books for giveaway. Good luck!

I hope to post a review of the book some time in September.

Fire and Ice

There's an interesting guest post over at the blog 1st Books by Kate Maloy, author of Every Last Cuckoo. I haven't read Ms. Maloy's book, but I found her discussion of the degree to which authors identify with their characters' emotions as they write, and the comment trail that follows the post, fascinating. Some writers, claims Maloy, have a "splinter of ice" at their core, which allows them to keep their characters at a distance. Maloy characterizes herself as this sort of writer: "I never cried when I was writing, no matter how sad the scene or how intense the anguish of my beloved character, 75-year-old Sarah Lucas." She contrasts this aloofness to writers like Joan Wilder of Romancing the Stone fame, who fully inhabit their characters, crying when they cry, laughing when they laugh, sharing fully in their discomforts and joys. Maloy views her "splinter of ice" as a valuable tool which allows her to focus on craft issues in order to create characters and stories that resonate fully with her readers. "If I had given myself over to Sarah, I'd have been like a surgeon trying to operate on her own child, unable to wield the scalpel for the trembling of her hands."

Commenters on Maloy's post seem split fifty-fifty between the two types of writers. I myself am like Maloy; I've never cried nor become too emotionally involved with my characters. I find this ironic, actually, because in real life I tear up easily and frequently. I think, for me, being in control of my characters and their destinies, choosing what happens to them, removes the sense of injustice or helplessness that causes me to cry in real life when I hear about a person's misfortunes. Like Maloy, I view writing a book as more of an intellectual than an emotional exercise, although, like her, I am striving to create an emotional experience for my readers. I am different from many of my writer friends as far as emotional identification goes; I have a friend who told me she did cry while writing the scene where her main character died, and I've heard of writers who find it difficult to write when a scene becomes too painful. I'm not at all claiming one way is better than the other, just different. It would be interesting to investigate to what degree the sense of author identification with the characters influences the speed or flow of the writing. I can see it working both ways: too much identification could make writing scenes where bad things happen to the character more difficult, yet identifying with the character otherwise might make the act of writing more engrossing and the writer more eager to write.

What are your thoughts on this matter? What kind of writer are you? If anyone's read Every Last Cuckoo, I'd love to hear how caught up you became in the lives of Maloy's characters. Her book, a top five BookSense and an Indiebound pick, won the American Library Association's Readers List Award for Women's Fiction, so she's obviously doing something right!

Sidebar Reorg

Just wanted to draw your attention to the newly organized sidebar. I've divided the links into more descriptive categories and added some sites of historic and literary interest, with more on the way. Next up, the "Labels" list, which has grown rather unwieldy. I hope you enjoy some of the newer sites, and please don't hesitate to suggest anything you know of that might be of interest!

Fiction and the Academe

As a graduate alumna of an Ivy League university who just went through the college application process with my daughter and will soon to embark on it again with my son, I was intrigued when I saw Jean Hanff Korelitz's novel, Admission (Grand Central 2009), on the New Fiction shelf in the bookstore. The story explores the moral dilemma of a Princeton University admissions officer, Portia Nathan, whose encounter with a brilliant but atypical Princeton applicant forces her confront a difficult secret she has carried, alone, since her own college days at Dartmouth. Having served as an outside reader for the Princeton University Office of Admission for several seasons, Korelitz fills her novel with behind-the scenes details that help demystify what admissions officers do as they struggle to put together an incoming class. I must admit I enjoyed this book immensely. After spending so many months reading college guides and application manuals, it was fascinating to see the entire process fictionalized and tied to broader societal issues. The novel's opening sentence has become one of my all-time favorites: "The flight from Newark to Hartford took no more than fifty-eight minutes, but she still managed to get her heart broken three times." If you're looking for some good non-historical reading, give Admission a try. I will definitely be looking into more of Jean Hanff Korelitz's work.

"Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill" at the Tower of London

Catherine Delors reminded me about the fascinating exhibit being held at the Tower of London through January, 2010. "Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill" gathers together some of the world's rarest arms and armor to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Henry's accession to the throne. The exhibit displays complete sets of armor crafted for specific events, including the spectacular meeting of Henry and François I at the Field of Cloth of Gold in June 1520. If you can't visit in person, be sure to check out the exhibition website, which features slideshows, descriptions of various pieces, articles on armor and historic battles, even interactive games! This is one exhibition I'm sad I won't be able to see.

Milestone

Woo hoo, just hit 100 pages on the WIP! There's no turning back now. Forward, march! :)

The Captive King

Last we saw of King François, he had been taken prisoner by imperial forces at the disastrous Battle of Pavia (24 February 1525). French troops, fighting to recapture the duchy of Milan that François's predecessor Louis XII had lost, were surrounded and roundly defeated by Charles V's army. The King of France's captivity at the hand of the Holy Roman Emperor would last a little over a year and color the two monarchs' relationship for the duration of their reigns.

After the battle, François was taken to the Castle of Pizighettone near Cremona, where he remained for three months in the custody of the Spanish captain. Captured companions accompanied him, including his childhood friend Anne de Montmorency (who would remain François's most trusted counselor and eventually rise to the most powerful political position in France). These men were eventually given safe-conducts that enabled them to travel back and forth between Italy and France to negotiate the king's release. François appointed his mother, Louise de Savoye, regent during his absence. Louise established her court at Lyons, near the Italian border, to facilitate communications with her son and the emperor.

If François and his mother had hoped that Charles would quickly release him for a cash ransom, they were mistaken. Charles presented a long list of demands that included paying Charles's debts to Henry VIII, abandoning French claims to Milan and Genoa, and most importantly, ceding the duchy of Burgundy. The emperor planned to seal the settlement through the marriage of his niece, Mary of Portugal, to the Dauphin. Although François appeared amenable to some of the terms, he refused to negotiate as long as he continued to be held prisoner. He forwarded Charles's terms to Louise, who rejected them outright.

Hoping to cut short negotiations made all the lengthier by the distance separating the two courts, François begged for a face-to-face meeting with Charles. In June, he was taken to Spain on a fleet of galleys decorated in his honor, given a royal welcome in Barcelona, then moved to Valencia. He asked that his sister Marguerite be given safe-conduct to negotiate a peace, that he be moved closer to the site of negotiations for easier consultation, and that a truce be declared while the talks were in progress. Charles agreed to all three requests, yet continued to avoid meeting with François in person.

When the French ambassadors met with Charles in Toledo, the emperor continued to dismiss any discussion of a ransom. He was willing to make some concessions in his original demands, but claimed there could be no lasting peace as long as Burgundy remained in French hands. France, however, refused to consider surrendering the region; in fact, François, now in Madrid, made a secret declaration to the French ambassadors that he would never surrender Burgundy freely and that, if forced to do so, his action would be null and void.

Charles almost lost his opportunity to profit from the situation when François nearly died in September from a combination of acute depression, anorexia and a nasal abscess. The French king ran a fever for twenty-three straight days and lapsed into a semi-coma after Charles did, finally, come to see him. Later in the month, the abscess burst and François unexpectedly recovered. Peace talks resumed, this time facilitated by Marguerite, who had arrived during her brother's illness, but were suspended once again when Charles found the proposals unacceptable.

By the end of the year, the strain of the king's absence was growing too great for the kingdom. Louise de Savoye decided to abandon Burgundy and convinced François to accept Charles's terms. On January 14, 1526, the parties signed the Treaty of Madrid. In return for his freedom, François ceded Burgundy and abandoned his claims to Italy. He also agreed to hand over his two oldest sons as hostages until the terms of the treaty were fulfilled. In return, he demanded the hand of Charles's sister Eléonore in marriage, in order to keep her from marrying Charles de Bourbon, the prince of the blood who had sided with Charles during the war. Charles, swayed by advisors who believed the French king could be trusted, agreed. Little did he know that two days before the French king signed the treaty, he had made another secret declaration nullifying the surrender of Burgundy.

Betrothed by proxy to Eléonore in January, François remained in Madrid until mid-February, possibly for health reasons. Charles arrived, and together they traveled to meet Eléonore. A few days later, Charles set off to Seville to marry Isabella of Portugal, and François began the long journey back to France with his Spanish escort. The heartrending exchange of the monarch for his two young sons, which deserves a post of its own, was set for March 17 on the river Bidassoa.

[Source: The material for this post was condensed from R. J. Knecht's account in Renaissance Warrior and Patron, pp. 216-48.]