Death of an American Beauty is the third in Mariah Fredericks' excellent series featuring ladies' maid Jane Prescott, set in New York in the 1910s.
The novel is winning glowing reviews, including from the Wall Street Journal, which said, "Ms. Fredericks’s tour of old New York—from a seedy Bowery dive to the gilded palace of a department store—is eye-opening, and her mystery well-spun. But what makes this book a stand-out is its affecting depictions of interactions that transcend race, creed, gender and generations.."
I was fortunate enough to get an interview with Mariah on her new novel and her thoughts on late Gilded Age New York and the craft of writing a historical mystery.
Did you come up with time and place for your series first--New York City in the 1910s--or did the idea of your character, ladies maid Jane Prescott, come first?
Jane came first. One day, the first few lines of A Death of No Importance, “I will tell it. I will tell it badly” came into my head and with them, the teller of the tale, Jane Prescott. The fact that she apologized told me this wasn’t someone used to being heard. I had the idea that this was someone no one noticed who somehow knew the truth about a famous crime, which brought me to the idea of a servant. Her tone was a little formal, indicating the past. I needed an era when servants were common, but not so distant that she would have no freedom of movement. I live in the city, our time has a lot in common with the Gilded Age, and that’s how we got to New York in the 1910s.
The family that Jane works for is nouveau riche New York. What appealed to you in focusing on this particular family and are they based on anyone?
I wanted Jane, who has worked in a great house for a number of years, to know things her employers didn’t. It explains their trust in her when it comes to solving little problems like murder. It’s the old Jeeves and Wooster, smart servant, dim master dynamic. The younger daughter Charlotte shakes things up when she pursues the scion of an old family; the tension comes from the fact that she is an outsider. So does her drive and ambition. The Benchleys’ aspirations sometimes make them ridiculous, but also sympathetic. You see why Jane would go out of her way to help them. Most of us can relate to being an outsider. Certainly they’re inspired by Edith Wharton’s comedy, but no, they’re not based directly on anyone.
What buildings and attractions in New York City remain from this time period and how does it feel seeing them more than 100 years later?
There’s more and less than you would think! The Theodore Roosevelt home on 20th Street is a complete recreation. But Sagamore Hill still stands. Obviously, you have the Frick, the Morgan library—which you wrote about so beautifully—the Tenement Museum. But you can stumble over Gilded Age luxury any number of places. The National Museum of the American Indian is in the Alexander Hamilton Customs House, built from 1902 to 1907. There are rooms in there that will blow your mind.
If I really want to go back into Jane’s world, I head downtown to the tip of Manhattan. The strange twisty streets of the Wall Street area, the old ferry terminal, built in 1903. You can look out at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, be reminded of people’s journey to this country and just feel transported.
In this book you split the narrative between the privileged world of Jane's employer and a refuge for "fallen women," or former prostitutes, that her uncle operates. Was it difficult to switch back and forth?
In a word, yes. Originally the book was more weighted toward the refuge and Lower East Side, but my editor felt—rightly—we shouldn’t neglect Louise Tyler and her society lady circle. They’re engaged in putting on a pageant at one of the city’s most lavish department stores. The two storylines do converge, both in plot and theme. But the pageant storyline is more comic, and sometimes it was a struggle to keep the tone consistent.
The number of prostitutes in New York City at the turn of the century was enormous. What did you learn about their lives in researching this novel?
One thing that struck me is the range of women who engaged in sex work. You think of it as the last resort of the poor, desperate, dysfunctional, and that’s not untrue. But the fact that women were barred from so many professions meant that even women who were at one point secure in life could engage in sex work if there was a downturn.
Did you come up with time and place for your series first--New York City in the 1910s--or did the idea of your character, ladies maid Jane Prescott, come first?
Jane came first. One day, the first few lines of A Death of No Importance, “I will tell it. I will tell it badly” came into my head and with them, the teller of the tale, Jane Prescott. The fact that she apologized told me this wasn’t someone used to being heard. I had the idea that this was someone no one noticed who somehow knew the truth about a famous crime, which brought me to the idea of a servant. Her tone was a little formal, indicating the past. I needed an era when servants were common, but not so distant that she would have no freedom of movement. I live in the city, our time has a lot in common with the Gilded Age, and that’s how we got to New York in the 1910s.
The family that Jane works for is nouveau riche New York. What appealed to you in focusing on this particular family and are they based on anyone?
I wanted Jane, who has worked in a great house for a number of years, to know things her employers didn’t. It explains their trust in her when it comes to solving little problems like murder. It’s the old Jeeves and Wooster, smart servant, dim master dynamic. The younger daughter Charlotte shakes things up when she pursues the scion of an old family; the tension comes from the fact that she is an outsider. So does her drive and ambition. The Benchleys’ aspirations sometimes make them ridiculous, but also sympathetic. You see why Jane would go out of her way to help them. Most of us can relate to being an outsider. Certainly they’re inspired by Edith Wharton’s comedy, but no, they’re not based directly on anyone.
What buildings and attractions in New York City remain from this time period and how does it feel seeing them more than 100 years later?
There’s more and less than you would think! The Theodore Roosevelt home on 20th Street is a complete recreation. But Sagamore Hill still stands. Obviously, you have the Frick, the Morgan library—which you wrote about so beautifully—the Tenement Museum. But you can stumble over Gilded Age luxury any number of places. The National Museum of the American Indian is in the Alexander Hamilton Customs House, built from 1902 to 1907. There are rooms in there that will blow your mind.
If I really want to go back into Jane’s world, I head downtown to the tip of Manhattan. The strange twisty streets of the Wall Street area, the old ferry terminal, built in 1903. You can look out at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, be reminded of people’s journey to this country and just feel transported.
 |
| The New York Herald building, where a key character works |
In this book you split the narrative between the privileged world of Jane's employer and a refuge for "fallen women," or former prostitutes, that her uncle operates. Was it difficult to switch back and forth?
In a word, yes. Originally the book was more weighted toward the refuge and Lower East Side, but my editor felt—rightly—we shouldn’t neglect Louise Tyler and her society lady circle. They’re engaged in putting on a pageant at one of the city’s most lavish department stores. The two storylines do converge, both in plot and theme. But the pageant storyline is more comic, and sometimes it was a struggle to keep the tone consistent.
The number of prostitutes in New York City at the turn of the century was enormous. What did you learn about their lives in researching this novel?
One thing that struck me is the range of women who engaged in sex work. You think of it as the last resort of the poor, desperate, dysfunctional, and that’s not untrue. But the fact that women were barred from so many professions meant that even women who were at one point secure in life could engage in sex work if there was a downturn.
Another angle I found intriguing was the adverse impact of the reform movement. By shutting down brothels, they shifted the profession from the control of madams who ran brothels to men who “provided protection” for women when they were forced on to the streets. This made sex work far more dangerous. I have a terrific book, City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, that I use as a bible on this subject, in addition to my ultimate bible, Greater Gotham by Mike Wallace.
Women did not then have the same protections against domestic violence, and puritanical groups could be threatening toward women they disapproved of/ How did you incorporate this into the plot and make it historically accurate without stopping the plot to have to explain context?
In the book, there is a religious community group that violently objects to the presence of the refuge in their neighborhood. Once a prostitute always a prostitute is their view. The more suspicious think Jane’s uncle is running something very sketchy; one man and a group of women who once sold themselves? That sounds fishy! It creates a tension, a group of people ready to accuse the Reverend Prescott once the murder occurs. Unfortunately, I think we’re drowning in mob judgment these days, so Mrs. Pickett and her puritans will be recognizable to the reader.
But even though the “Committee for Moral Rectitude” as Jane snidely dubs them is mostly a malign force in the book, I did want the reader to have some understanding of the frustrations that would lead people to join such a cause. People who lived in poor, underserved neighborhoods could feel that the city dumped its dysfunction in their areas. Why do they have to deal with it? Put the refuge near Frick’s house, let's see how he likes it.
Your plotting and pace are very good in this book. Do you plot extensively ahead of writing?
Thank you so much. I can get lost in the history and inside Jane’s head, so I have a rule that something must happen or must be learned in every chapter. I do a chapter by chapter outline, so that keeps me honest. And I can be an impatient reader myself, so I’m sensitive to the need to keep the story moving.
Jane has a new man in her life who could be a love interest going forward. How do you balance romance with mystery?
A very smart friend once observed that all good detectives are lonely on some level. I think that’s true. I also think that mysteries are stories of peril and romance poses an emotional risk for the protagonist. It’s a different kind of investigation: who is this person? What’s their agenda? Can I trust them? The protagonist learns something about their own blind spots and strengths in the process.
I love Leo Hirschfeld. He is a musician and they have their dangers, but he has a joyous shamelessness that’s very fun to write. His entire approach to life is…let’s do it, why not? Very different from Jane.
What's next for Jane?
The next book is set in 1914 and originally, I wanted everyone in Europe for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand—arguably the most significant murder of the era. But my editor felt it would be best to stay in New York, so we are off to Broadway! Louise gets involved in a musical production, and where Louise goes, Jane follows. The vision of a young America singing and dancing while the world goes up in flames worked out very well. I’m a theater geek, so this involved all kinds of great research.
Women did not then have the same protections against domestic violence, and puritanical groups could be threatening toward women they disapproved of/ How did you incorporate this into the plot and make it historically accurate without stopping the plot to have to explain context?
In the book, there is a religious community group that violently objects to the presence of the refuge in their neighborhood. Once a prostitute always a prostitute is their view. The more suspicious think Jane’s uncle is running something very sketchy; one man and a group of women who once sold themselves? That sounds fishy! It creates a tension, a group of people ready to accuse the Reverend Prescott once the murder occurs. Unfortunately, I think we’re drowning in mob judgment these days, so Mrs. Pickett and her puritans will be recognizable to the reader.
But even though the “Committee for Moral Rectitude” as Jane snidely dubs them is mostly a malign force in the book, I did want the reader to have some understanding of the frustrations that would lead people to join such a cause. People who lived in poor, underserved neighborhoods could feel that the city dumped its dysfunction in their areas. Why do they have to deal with it? Put the refuge near Frick’s house, let's see how he likes it.
Your plotting and pace are very good in this book. Do you plot extensively ahead of writing?
Thank you so much. I can get lost in the history and inside Jane’s head, so I have a rule that something must happen or must be learned in every chapter. I do a chapter by chapter outline, so that keeps me honest. And I can be an impatient reader myself, so I’m sensitive to the need to keep the story moving.
Jane has a new man in her life who could be a love interest going forward. How do you balance romance with mystery?
A very smart friend once observed that all good detectives are lonely on some level. I think that’s true. I also think that mysteries are stories of peril and romance poses an emotional risk for the protagonist. It’s a different kind of investigation: who is this person? What’s their agenda? Can I trust them? The protagonist learns something about their own blind spots and strengths in the process.
I love Leo Hirschfeld. He is a musician and they have their dangers, but he has a joyous shamelessness that’s very fun to write. His entire approach to life is…let’s do it, why not? Very different from Jane.
What's next for Jane?
The next book is set in 1914 and originally, I wanted everyone in Europe for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand—arguably the most significant murder of the era. But my editor felt it would be best to stay in New York, so we are off to Broadway! Louise gets involved in a musical production, and where Louise goes, Jane follows. The vision of a young America singing and dancing while the world goes up in flames worked out very well. I’m a theater geek, so this involved all kinds of great research.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To order Death of an American Beauty, go to bookshop.org, where each purchase shares proceeds with a fund for the independent bookstores.
Click here to find out more.
The novel is first in the list "Glory in the Gilded Age."
No comments:
Post a Comment