Robbie Murphy, the writer who inspired my writing journey, was the driving force behind the workshop I led at the Embassy of Portugal on November 26. I began the session by acknowledging her classes at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Robbie (Roberta) had a unique ability to understand my earlier writings, and her insigths were, in the long run, transformative. Six attendees joined the workshop and, magically, we quickly connected.
This led to the formation of a monthly online writing group, which I will be leading in Portuguese. It will be called The Robbie Murphy Workshop in Creative Writing. Robbie, I'm carrying the torch!
IMAGE BY INÊS TIQUE. THE EMBASSY OF PORTUGAL, WASHINGTON, DC
The Library of Congress's PALABRA ARCHIVE boasts a rich collection of nearly 800 recordings featuring poets and prose writers. Established in 1943, the archive houses audio recordings from authors across Latin America, the Iberian Peninsula, the Caribbean, and other regions with Luso-Hispanic heritage. Represening 34 countrie to date, the collection offers readings in Spanish, Portuguese, English and a variety of other languages.
Among the collection's treasures are recordings by Gabriel García Márquez, Pabro Neruda, Jorge Luis Borges, Jorge Amado, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Lídia Jorge, and Casimiro de Brito. For further details go to https://guides.loc.gov/palabra-archive.
LOC RECORDINGS ARE USUALLY MADE AVAILABLE TWICE A YEAR
PLEASE COME BACK AT A LATER DATE TO HEAR JULIETA'S VOICE
Julieta introduces Michelle Cameron's author interview by Leslie Carroll. Napoleon's Mirage, a sequel to the award-winning Beyond the Ghetto Gates, was just released by She Writes Press. There was a packed audience and an entertaining and informative discussion.
Photo by Judith Lindbergh.
CLICK TITLE TO READ INTERVIEW
Launch of Leonor e José (Minotauro, Almedina Group) at the Embassy of Portugal, Washington, DC. Presentation by Ambassador Francisco Duarte Lopes. Friends from Boston, Atlanta, and New York joined in.
A highly engaged audience asked questions about Eleonora's time in prison, Suor Amadea, Lady Hamilton, and Sally Hemings. Last but not least, we discussed the challenges of having a novel translated into one's native language by a professional translator.
The following day, an American friend wrote: "I loved being in Portugal with you last night!"
CLICK TITLE TO READ "THE SEDUCTION OF WRITING" in ENGLISH
Grémio Literário is one of Portugal's most prestigious clubs. Founded in 1846, its headquarters are located in Loures Palace, in the Chiado quarter of Lisbon. Cultural sessions feature writers, historians, musicians, politicians, and others. In September 2022, the Grémio was awarded the "Cultura Sem Fronteiras" Trophy in the literary category, "for merit and recognition in promoting the enhancement of Lusophone culture." Lusophone culture applies to countries that speak the Portuguese language.
The President of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, Professor José Luís Cardoso, presented Leonor e José.
CLICK TITLE TO READ "THE SEDUCTION OF WRITING" IN PORTUGUESE
"Rebel Empress: A Novel of Imperial Rome" is the third book of the Theodosian Women trilogy.
"Absolutely riveting novel… Athenais will remain with me for a very long time. A truly remarkable heroine in a truly compelling story."
Stephanie Cowell, American Book Award Recipient, author of The Boy in the Rain and Claude and Camille: a novel of Monet.
CLICK TITLE TO READ INTERVIEW
JR: Beyond the Bukubuk Tree is a story we've discussed before, inspired by your uncle you suspected was homosexual. You explore emotional truths in your novel. Can you discuss the value of exposing those truths for both the writer and the reader?
LG: I wanted to convey two emotional truths: the beauty of Rabaul, which has a quality of enchantment as it nestles between active volcanoes and lush green flora, and the conflict between love and tradition during wartime...While I never met my uncle, family anecdotes suggest that he was conflicted about his sexuality...I felt a deep connection to his unspoken pain. Sharing this truth in fiction allows readers to connect with characters on a deeper level.
Secrets about Beyond the Bukubuk Tree are hereby revealed. Keep reading!
CLICK TITLE TO READ INTERVIEW
AM: What is the one habit you believe contributed the most to you becoming a great writer? (i.e. perseverance, discipline, play, craft study).
JR: JOY, undoubtedly. I love what I do, despite the challenges. So, I decided a long time ago to live with those challenges: puzzles in my mind that I am yet unable to solve and that I want to put down on the page.
One thing is a draft — the other is a finished product, something you like and are, somehow, proud of.
Joy requires courage, that silent quality.
This is the enchanting Aynalikavak Palace in Istanbul, also known as the Shipyard Palace, it was repaired and radically altered by Sultan Selim III (1789-1807)
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BE: What is one message you would like readers to remember?
JR: I would like readers to achieve a higher level of spiritual awareness upon reading Eleonora and Joseph. Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel taught us that it is worth fighting for democracy and creating a free and open society. Eleonora's message is unequivocally valid today: speak the truth, exercise a moral code of conduct, and be engaged!
This peacock perches majestically in the stone stairway of the Ajuda Botanical Garden, where Chapter 13 of my novel Eleonora and Joseph takes place.
CLICK TITLE TO READ INTERVIEW
This interview with Isabella Rosselini is so brilliant that I don't have words to describe it. "I just play," she says.
Talking about reinventing yourself! I am currently writing a second novel, and my literary journey has been the fun that Rossellini describes.
The Lancôme picture is remarkable, it clearly illustrates the fleeting appeal of youth.
CLICK TITLE TO READ INTERVIEW
As the awarding announcement states: "There were thousands of entries from around the world and your book was selected for its high-quality writing, design and market appeal."
CLICK TITLE TO SEE LIST OF OTHER HONOREES
In the October 2023 edition of the FLAD Translation Program - announced in January 29, 2024 - six works were selected, whose translation into Portuguese and English the Foundation will sponsor.
Eleonora and Joseph is one of them. Congratulations to all!
CLICK TITLE TO READ ANNOUNCEMENT
JR: "I would like to ask: what in your view is the most important aspect of translation?"
VH: "Translation is an art. I can no more explain it than a pianist can explain how to interpret a classical piece. Many things come together to make a kind of magic. One has to be good with words. I can say that I always take the author seriously."
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The Maincrest Media judge says:
"The contents of Eleonora and Joseph are in line with other highly regarded books in its genre."
CLICK TITLE TO READ JUDGE'S ASSESSMENT
Literary Titan interviews Julieta about Eleonora and Joseph, as well as her work-in-progress.
LT: What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?
JR: I have just returned from Istanbul, where my next novel takes place. It's another historical novel, the set-up is Constantinople in the late 18th century. I had a great time, and a dear Turkish friend helped me enormously, but I am dealing with an artist whose work is far greater than his extant oeuvres. That is not what I was expecting...
CLICK TITLE TO READ INTERVIEW
It is my pleasure to soon join the company of great authors such as Herman Melville, Gustave Flaubert, George Sand, Edgar Allan Poe, and Primo Levi.
What an honor!
ELEONORA AND JOSEPH WILL COME OUT IN PORTUGUESE IN THE FALL OF 2024
Selim III opened a window to the West in the Ottoman Empire, and for this he paid with his life. He was assassinated by the Janissary corps, the very military institution he wanted to reform. Among others, reforms took place during his reign in the fields of military instruction, the rise of the Ottoman press, and the opening of diplomatic missions to the West. Despite his many wives - whose names are well-known - he was succeeded by one of his nephews, since he didn't leave an heir.
CLICK TITLE FOR A BOOK RECOMMENDATION
To visit this city - and "its monuments of unageing intellect" - is indeed a spiritual journey into eternity. I love Yeats reference to the sages as the singing masters of one's soul, and the ideia of the soul growing strong as the body wanes.
CLICK TITLE TO READ YEATS'S POEM
It's special to see that Eleonora and Joseph is a Fiction Winner @ Hollywood Book Festival 2023.
Based in the capital of show business, the Hollywood Book Festival aims to spotlight literature worthy of further consideration by the talent-hungry pipeline of the entertainment industry. A panel of judges determines the winners based on the following criteria: The story-telling ability of the author, and the potential of the work to be translated into other forms of media.
Congratulations to all other winners.
CLICK TITLE TO SEE OTHER WINNERS
As if this was possible! Some authors say that trips intended to visualize the past are useless: new buildings substitute old ones, people dress differently, routines have been modernized. But I believe in the feeling of a place, and I would never write about a location I hadn't visited again and again.
As Allison Pittman says: we travel for the soul, not the manuscript.
Image: Yeni Camii and The Port of İstanbul by Jean Baptiste Hilair, Pera Museum
CLICK TITLE TO HEAR ALLISON PITTMAN's WORDS
Both Prince José (image to the left) and Selim III - the Ottoman Sultan who reigned from 1789 to 1807 - were born in the same year, 1761. They both had a rigorous palace education, based on same of the principles of the Enlightenment.
Image taken from the cover of the José D'Almeida Rodrigues Prize awarded to João Pedro Ferro for his book Um Príncipe Iluminado Português: D. José. Centro Nacional de Cultura, Lisbon, 1989
CLICK TITLE TO SEE WHERE TO BUY BOOK
Fort Clatsop marks the arrival of the Corps of Discovery Expedition to the Pacific Coast of North America.
Thomas Jefferson, who was responsible for the trip, asked Correia da Serra to retrieve in Philadelphia the Lewis and Clark's diaries that were in the hands of Dr. Benjamin Smith Barton's widow. Dr. Barton - a university professor deceased in 1815 - had been helping Captain Lewis to classify the specimen he drew in his journals.
Correia obliged. Unfortunately current books about Fort Clatsop do not mention Correia's contribution to helping Jefferson reclaim the dairies.
CLICK TITLE TO READ PASSAGE FROM ELEONORA AND JOSEPH
CLICK TITLE TO READ MY POEM
Eleonora and Joseph is proudly wearing its Grand Prize Badge.
Congratulations to all Grand Prize Winners in the various categories (Chaucer, Hemingway, Mark Twain, etc), and congratulations to all First Prize Goethe Winers.
So happy to be in your company!
CLICK TITLE TO SEE FIRST PRIZE GOETHE WINNERS
This is the highest prize of the Goethe Awards.
Books reaching the Grand Prize of the Goethe International Book Awards for Late Historical Fiction, the Chanticleer website states, have made it through a very tough competition and won against some great books. The website continues: These are novels with that extra spark of excellence.
CLICK TITLE TO HEAR MY WORDS
I arrived to be inspired, a pilgrim from Sintra, Portugal en route to Bellingham Bay, Washington State. I particularly like this definition: (n) A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about his/her self, others, nature, or a higher good through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim usually returns to his/her daily life. Pilgrimages frequently involve a journey (or search) of moral or spiritual significance. A person who makes such a journey is called a pilgrim.
CLICK TITLE TO READ THE GUARDIAN ARTICLE
AMELIA HILL, 25 FEB 2023
ABOUT THE NEW IMPACT OF OLDER FEMALE WRITERS
These two historical novels, out of print a long time ago, were re-edited by Relógio d'Água Editores. The books were presented by Ambassador Fernando Neves, followed by a lively debate at the Lisbon Cinemateca Portuguesa.
CLICK TITLE TO READ INTERVIEW
Eleonora da Fonseca Pimentel strikes again- a poet and revolutionary! But Eleonora is not alone, other female characters have equal talent!
CLICK TITLE TO SEE LIST
Congratulations to all Finalists! I'm honored...and blown away! I plan to attend the Award Ceremony on Saturday, April 29th, Bellingham, Washington State.
CLICK TITLE TO SEE THE OTHER FINALISTS
Proud member of the Steering Committee for ten years now!
CLICK TITLE TO SEE LINKS
Karen A. Chase, Lars D. H. Hedbor and Kris Waldherr presented their ideas on the topic. The event was great and had 41 ZOOM participants.
CLICK TITLE TO HEAR RECORDING
The Goethe Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in post-1750s Historical Fiction. The Goethe Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).
CLICK TITLE TO SEE THE OTHER CANDIDATES
The Goethe Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in post-1750s Historical Fiction. The Goethe Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).
CLICK TITLE TO SEE THE OTHER CANDIDATES
This is a magnificent church in whose surroundings part of my novel-in-progress is located. The Portuguese official version states the area is the location where the 1758 attempt on the life of King D. José (1714-77) took place. The church's design is by the Italian architect Giovani de Bibbiena, with construction starting a couple of years after the failed incident.
Up the hill and three blocks away is the Ajuda Botanical Garden, which functioned in those days as the vegetable garden that provided fruits and vegetables for the royal family living nearby at Barraca Real (nowadays called the Palace of Ajuda). In Eleonora and Joseph, I place in this garden the last dialogue between Joseph Correia da Serra and his son Edward, before the latter departs for Paris to study medicine.
CLICK TITLE FOR A DETAIL ON THE FAILED ATTEMPT ON THE KING'S LIFE
It's twice now that I find myself enjoying the same themes as artist and writer Barbara Chase-Riboud. The first was when looking for information about Sally Hemings in her novel of the same name. Now, it is with a deeper understanding of the life of women in the harem of Selim III, the Ottoman Sultan who reigned from 1789 to 1807.
CLICK TITLE TO READ EXCERPT
The Goethe Book Awards recognize emerging new talent and outstanding works in post-1750s Historical Fiction. The Goethe Book Awards is a division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs).
CLICK TITLE TO SEE THE OTHER CANDIDATES
I'm taking a break for reflection. Hilary Mantel died recently, what a loss not only to literature but to humanity. Simon Schama, the cultural historian, praised her on Twitter, "Incomparable feel for the texture of history. " So true, but Schama writes that way, too.
On BBC Mantel said that writing leaves you in a state of jittery vulnerability.
CLICK TITLE FOR A MOVIE RECOMMENDATION
I am in a celebratory mood, grateful to those I get in touch with daily on various platforms. As I am currently writing about so-called non-Western societies around the Mediterranean Sea during the 18th Century, it is never too late to remind readers of the time period I am plotting about: the Enlightenment.
It's fun to dress with the colors of Eleonora and Joseph's cover!
Composition by Manuel Liquito.
CLICK TITLE TO READ
FOR THOSE WHO ENJOY THE 18TH CENTURY, LIKE ME!
Sister Monica Clare in The New York Times, May 19, 2022
This is an hilarious article about Sister Monica Clare, CSJB, who posted on TikTok about the humongous pockets of nuns' traditional habits. Sister Monica shows and describes the various provisions she carries with her everyday, making her look pear-shaped (as the picture indicates).
This immediately brought me back to my character Sister Amadea della Valle in Eleonora and Joseph, and how Amadea passed on, unseen, parchment paper, a jar of ink and a quill pen for Eleonora to write a memoir in her prison cell.
CLICK TITLE TO READ EXCERPT, CHAPTER 12
This is the logo of Moscow State University, founded in 1755.
Caged is a short story in my collection, On the Way to Red Square. It describes the stifling of a researcher at the institution, someone I met in Moscow in 1983.
To impose their power, the Soviets tore apart the very soul of their own population. In reality, people in Russia can't be called citizens because the concept doesn't apply to what I saw.
If anything, repression has only increased with Vladimir Putin's current cruel and unjust war in Ukraine.
I have no doubt Ukraine will be free from Russia one day.
CLICK TITLE TO READ CAGED
Long Live 8th of March! by Oksana Pavlenko, in the National Art Museum of Kyiv, depicts Ukrainian peasants.
When Alliluyeva Returned is a short story in my collection, On the Way to Red Square. It is a vignette of Stalin's daughter's 1984 return to Moscow from the West. She moved into the Kremlin neighbourhood of her youth, around the corner from where we lived.
Putin is the Stalin of the twenty-first century. Experts in totalitarian oppression inside and outside their own borders, both men embody a long political tradition of autocracy in Russia. Democracy, as imperfect as it is, must prevail in Ukraine.
CLICK TITLE TO READ WHEN ALLILUYEVA RETURNED
Yasnaya Polyana, Clear Field, Leo Tolstoy's estate near Tula, Russia.
On the Trail of Tolstoy is a short story in my collection, On the Way to Red Square. It is a vignette of the people I met in Moscow, 1983-1986.
The story describes the inner workings of a totalitarian system, and the share of bullies, true-believers, and fanatics that sprang under the Soviet regime.
CLICK TITLE TO READ ON THE TRAIL OF TOLSTOY
I took this picture on July 4, 2017, as I watched the East River fireworks in Manhattan to celebrate American independence.
Ukraine will be free again one day, I have no doubt.
Flames for a Revolution is a short story in my collection, On the Way to Red Square. It describes the KGB I saw in Moscow on November 7, 1983, the school where Vladimir Putin comes from.
CLICK TITLE TO READ FLAMES FOR A REVOLUTION
Monticello's vegetable garden and Pavilion.
Thank you all for the inspiration and generosity with 'Eleonora and Joseph', you made the book possible!
There are revolutionary women like Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel, and there are revolutionary sites - Jefferson's garden, and its history, is one of them.
As the sun set, I once sat in the pavilion hearing the mockingbirds. The place was as empty as this image - and the feeling is indescribable!
CLICK TITLE TO READ EXCERPT, CHAPTER 5
Mantel's picture in The Guardian, June 3, 2017.
As I start a new novel, I quote Hilary Mantel in the article above:
Facts are not truth, though they are part of it – information is not knowledge. And history is not the past – it is the method we have evolved of organizing our ignorance of the past.
CLICK TITLE TO READ THE GUARDIAN ARTICLE
RS: "I'd love to hear how being from Portugal influenced your writing."
JR: "It influenced me greatly. A writer cannot run away from her or his past but must embrace it. Writing is like breathing, it's the sum of you."
...
RS: What is the last great book you read?
JR: A Place of Greater Safety, by Hilary Mantel.
CLICK TITLE TO READ INTERVIEW
CENTURY OF LIGHT AND DARK: EIGHTEENTH CENTURY HISTORICAL FICTION.
Julieta discusses the tumultuous times of the Enlightenment in both Europe and the United States. In particular, the establishment of the Neapolitan Republic of 1799, as well as the close friendship between the Abbé Correia da Serra and Thomas Jefferson.
Stephanie discusses what is known in Portuguese tile art history circles as the tailend of the "Great Joanine Production", as well as the contributions of Africans and their descendants in the tile arts at the time of The Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755.
The event was moderated by Professor Silvia Chicó, the University of Lisbon.
CLICK TITLE TO HEAR RECORDING
THE DAYS OF PLAGUE, ANTHOLOGY. Participation by 272 authors - in various languagues - from 58 countries. Prose, poetry, short story, chronicle, letter, and diary.
"New York, New York – I've been living with this refrain in my mind since I got back to the city, five years ago now. But today, March 20, 2020, I stopped hearing Frank Sinatra's voice. The city finds itself besieged by an enemy as lethal as it is invisible."
I left New York the following day, but with a finished manuscript of Eleonora and Joseph.
CLICK TITLE TO READ NEW YORK, NEW YORK
The Consolations of Life in a Yali. Display at The Museum of Innocence, Istanbul. The museum was awarded the title of European Museum of the Year in 2014.
"...I am starting a novel that incorporates your views: that art and money combine in ways that are set to pleasing the eye and can lead to awe-inspiring plots. I am not going into details for the moment; I will only mention that I found a narrative for a work of art that I saw in Istanbul in 2013. It is an extraordinary piece, dating from the late eighteenth century, and that makes me shiver every time I look at its reproductions."
...The beginning of a novel is a state of elation, and I feel very much at that threshold!"
CLICK TITLE TO READ INTERVIEW
Books and the World: Julieta Almeida Rodrigues
Thomas Jefferson wrote the epitaph for his tombstone. In character, he didn't want to be remembered as President of the United States, Vice-President, Secretary of State, or Ambassador to France. The obelisk mentions one of the accomplishments he was most proud of: Father of the University of Virginia.
Eleonora and Joseph describes how much Jefferson wanted Joseph Correia da Serra to head the Department of Natural History (which included Botany), once the university opened.
CLICK TITLE TO HEAR RECORDING
Exhibit Faire, courtesy of Rose Spears, Marketing Director.
A full week of exciting opportunities to be inspired and connect with other historical fiction novelists!
CLICK TITLE FOR MY VIEWS ON THE CONFERENCE
National Archives, Torre do Tombo, Lisbon
I read Eleonora and Joseph to celebrate one year of publication. And while I deleted the word trial from Chapter 13, I kept Correia's confession to the Lisbon Inquisição inside an interrogation procedure. This is a mere detail in my story, but of relevance to me. I recently looked at Cadernos do Nefando, Abominable Sin Book, in Torre do Tombo. Here, I didn't find conclusive evidence that he was subjected to a trial.
We (historical novelists) want a plot to be plausible, but we also want the accuracy of the historical fact - which, sometimes, is virtually impossible to find.
CLICK TITLE TO HEAR RECORDING
Dragon tree (Dragoeiro) in the Botanical Garden of Lisbon, under which shade Correia da Serra and his son Edward sit and talk in Chapter 13 of Eleonora and Joseph. Image by courtesy of the blog, A Portuguese Affair.
"Little by little, however, I realized how the study of botany was at the core of who Correia was and how this was, undoubtedly, the activity that gave him the most satisfaction and pleasure. This is also where his major contribution laid. Thus, it is no accident that the stamp that came out in Portugal with his effigy, names him as a botanist and not a diplomat."
CLICK TITLE TO READ INTERVIEW
Stephanie Dray says: I think this might interest readers of #ribbonsofscarlet!
(Ribbons of Scarlet: A Novel of the French Revolution's Women. By Stephanie Dray, Allison Pataki, Heather Webb, Sophie Perinot, Kate Quinn, E. Knight, and Laura Kamoie)
https://www.instagram.com/p/COX_QvRqY0t/
Correa Pulchella is in the background, a plant named after Correia da Serra. Composition by Manuel Liquito.
CLICK TITLE TO READ JULIETA'S REVIEWS OF DRAY'S WORK
L'Hermione, the French frigate where Admiral Latouche-Tréville brought the Marquis de Lafayette to America.
"Besides this stupendous credential (to be elected deputy to the Tiers-État in 1789) - of the outmost importance to the Neapolitan revolutionaries - the Admiral had served in the American War of independence. The French had given him the immense privilege of transporting aboard L'Hermione the Marquis de Lafayette during his second voyage to America. The frigate also carried supplies, munitions and troops to help Americans fight for their independence."
CLICK TITLE TO READ ESSAY
"Believe me, it required a leap of faith for me to engage in a new, lengthy project, something that required a new set of literary tools. I recall being in my office in my former Washington, DC, house, and looking out the window toward the backyard with its small wooden gate. How I loved that view, it was the quintessence of domesticity! The Enlightenment came to mind immediately, my favorite period in history. I wanted the novel embedded in a philosophy of liberty, something that Voltaire so well knew."
CLICK TITLE TO READ INTERVIEW
New York Public Library
As to the access of primary sources in researching historical figures.
"At the dawn of the nineteenth century letter writing was an art form and my three main characters made extensive use of it. What fun to read intimate details of these extraordinary lives, handwritten by the protagonists themselves!"
CLICK TITLE TO READ PROGRAM
Map of Naples and Sicily. Published in London by Robert Wilkinson, cartographer, on January 1, 1794
"Anna Lawton is originally Italian and immediately understood my story. I felt elated. New Academia Publishing is a print-on-demand press and peer reviewed."
Anna Lawton is on the American jury of the Strega Prize, the most prestigious literary award in Italy.
CLICK TITLE TO READ INTERVIEW
Two Nuns, Saverio della Gatta (1799)
JR: "The nun, Suor Amadea della Valle, is a fictional character. I wanted Eleonora to write a diary from inside the Vicaria prison. But later, after she was executed, we needed to find it. So I had to devise a way for the work to appear, to show the reader that indeed she had written it. Someone had to take it out of prison."
CB: "Then, did Eleonora actually write a diary? I ask because the way you write about it is so magical, so well-done, you really can't tell the fiction from the fact."
JR: "The diary is totally my invention."
CLICK TITLE TO HEAR RECORDING
The Destruction of the Tree of Liberty in the Square of the Palace, by Saviero della Gatta (1800)
"In 'Eleonora and Joseph,' I went back in time to a world I once knew. We-Catholic school girls-had to conform to the daily Catholic rituals. We went to confession on a weekly basis. And, to whom did we confess our sins? A priest, who happened to be a man. I recall being six or seven years old, and while kneeling down in the confessionary, I revealed my thoughts and deeds to an old priest, someone over the age of sixty. If this wasn't the ultimate form of patriarchy in the twentieth century, what is?"
CLICK TITLE TO READ INTERVIEW
Lady Hamilton (as a Bacchante), by George Romney (c. 1785)
"This is a great question (events omitted in 'Eleonora and Joseph' for reasons of the novel's flow or structure). I was fascinated by the love affair between Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton. Here is a former prostitute by the name of Emma Hart...
After being wounded in battle, Nelson recovers in Villa Sesso, the ambassador's residence, under the assiduous vigilance of the now married Lady Emma Hamilton. Great passion ensues, their actions and letters the living proof. Since these two are vile creatures, it was fascinating to me to feel their palpable love and devotion."
CLICK TITLE TO READ INTERVIEW
Thomas Jefferson's letter to Joseph Correia da Serra on June 14, 1817
"My time in New York was invaluable, for I was able to explore Joseph Correia da Serra's long-term friendship and correspondence with Thomas ?Jefferson.
B?y the time I finished writing the book, the figure I enjoyed most was Thomas Jefferson, his complexities and genius. He was flawed, like any human being, but he was also a remarkable man. I loved the way he mastered his own silences. He struck me as a man full of contradictions—someone called him a sphinx—with a brilliant, visionary mind."
CLICK TITLE TO READ INTERVIEW