Yellow Fever
Historical fiction authors spend about as much time researching as writing the actual book, always on the lookout for something to give our stories that special spin. Because the four real-life principals in my upcoming novel, Goat Castle Murder, were all wildly eccentric, I figured there had to be more where they came from, i.e., Natchez, Mississippi. Now the quintessential sleepy Southern town, Natchez once boasted more millionaires per capita than any place but New York, and I quickly discovered my quirky quartet was just the tip of a picturesque iceberg. Consider Jake and Jim Surget, brothers who so despised each other that their house, Cherry Grove, had a chalk line dividing it in two with neither allowed access to the other’s half. Three spinster sisters...
Read MoreEbony & Ivory
After publishing novels more than thirty years, I’ve grown accustomed to all sorts of letters and emails from my readers. The most interesting and unusual one I ever received came last week from a 65-year-old woman living in the Midwest. It was in response to my latest novel, Creole Son, about French painter Edgar Degas’s 1872-3 visit to New Orleans and his encounter with an exotic caste classification based on degree of skin color. For those who didn’t read the book or are unfamiliar with the system, an octoroon is a person who is one eighth black and seven eighths white. Below is an old lithograph of a mulatto (left) and a quadroon, a person one quarter black, three quarters white. I was given permission to publish the following letter on the...
Read MoreDixie Chicks Redux
Thirty odd years ago, during my Greenwich Village salad days, I was about to forget my dream of being published when I got a surprising call. “You’re Southern and you know history,” my agent said. “So how about writing some historical romances?” I initially bristled since I knew nothing about the genre, but it’s remarkable how poverty influences priorities. Once contracts were signed, I began plotting. Since New Orleans was my favorite city, the setting was a no-brainer. As for my star-crossed lovers, Marie would have the raven hair and violet eyes of my favorite movie star and Morgan would be Welsh, based on my heritage and not Mr. Burton btw. The year was 1840 as the Old South entered its Golden Age of wealth, elegance and...
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