The Devil is NOT in the Details - Anacrhonism and historical fiction

When readers and writers discuss historical anachronism, they often focus on stuff. What saddle Anne Boleyn used, the fabric clothes were made of, the food people ate. And it is a good idea for authors to ensure they get the little things right, if for no other reason that some readers react to any anachronism the way Christopher Reeve does at the end of Somewhere in Time. (Spoiler alert.)

There is, however, an important distinction between not getting anything wrong and getting things right, a distinction that in many cases mirrors the line between the physical and mental worlds of the past.

"Help, help, I'm being oppressed!"

If a character goes to a medieval inn and orders a potato frittata and tea, the author has clearly done something wrong, and even an inattentive reader will notice.  But what if the character rides past a castle and, like Monty Python’s Marxist peasants, thinks thoroughly modern thoughts? Now the Pythons clearly went to an extreme here – which is what makes the scene work – but even the best authors of historical fiction make this mistake with far less amusing results.

For example, Adelia Aguilar, the protagonist of Ariana Franklin’s wonderful Mistress of the Art of Death, rejects the conventional wisdom on the causes of malaria and expresses doubts concerning the medical theories of Galen. This decision – or error, if you would prefer– is different than if she’d had Adelia drink bourbon or express a fondness for hot wings. While it is objectively impossible for Adelia to love southern whiskey and fast food, the question of whether it would have been  possible for a physician trained in Salerno to question Galen is far more subjective.

To be clear, yes, it is possible for Adelia to think these thoughts. But finding an educated physician in medieval Europe who questioned Galen is as likely as finding a modern physicist who challenges scientific method. These people might exist, but they are few and far between. (It’s also notable that Franklin’s protagonist keeps her thoughts to herself. If she expressed her doubts publicly, she would lose all credibility.)

 Note that Franklin’s anachronism here is not born of ignorance: There can be no doubt that she understands the medical mindset of medieval Europe. I think it is also clear why Franklin made this decision. She wanted readers to relate to her protagonist, and did not think that they could sympathize with a character whose assumptions about medicine and the human body were – to our modern eyes – obviously wrong. 

And this, I think, is what so disappointed me about the book. It’s not the just the anachronism, though I admit that I was aghast at that. I was more disappointed that Franklin simply did not trust her readers to understand and sympathize with a character who believed that blood-letting might be valid medical technique.

I am not arguing that portraying the interior lives of characters an easy task, and I admit that my own protagonist walks along the same fine line as Adelia, and sometimes she might cross it. But it is nevertheless the case that telling the truth about the past requires both an understanding of the time period and the courage to be honest with your readers.

Meat Tile, Anyone? How I Used a 16th Century Dish

By Nancy Bilyeau

I like to put food in my writing. People eat. Readers gain from characters’ choices in food, how they respond to it, how they behave with others while they’re dining.

My novel The Crown is set in 1537-1538. Moreover, much of the action takes place in a priory of Dominican nuns. In other words, simple meals, very little meat, when the sisters are not actually fasting. 

But I didn’t want this to deter me from using food as a revelatory, if not sensual, part of my writing.

In the first part of the book, my protagonist Sister Joanna Stafford is arrested at Smithfield for interfering with the king’s justice. She’s taken to the Tower of London and confined in a small cell for five months. The man who frees her is Bishop Stephen Gardiner, but there’s a price. She must return to her priory on a secret—and very dangerous—quest, one that may betray the prioress and other nuns she respects. To force her to do his will, the bishop will keep her father, Sir Richard Stafford, imprisoned in the Tower. He has already been tortured once; Sister Joanna has no choice but to agree.

In Chapter 15, Sister Joanna finally leaves the Tower, in the company of two Dominican friars, Brother Edmund and Brother Richard, that Bishop Gardiner has ordered to go the priory as well, both of them with mysterious agendas. Before the three of them depart, they’re served a meal. Joanna is exhausted and frightened and angry but she’s undeniably hungry too.

From the book:

“Bess laid out food: platters of meat tiles, strips of dried cod, and bread. The rich smell of the tiles—made of chicken, crawfish tail and almonds—filled the room. Brother Richard fell on it as if it were the first meal he’d consumed in days, while Brother Edmund ate little.

“Bess looked around to make sure no one was watching her, and flashed me an excited smile. To her, this must be joyous news—not only was I being released but I was also restored to my former life. I wondered what she’d think if she knew I’d be betraying a prioress’s trust.

“But wait—when had I agreed to anything?

“My thoughts churning, I sipped the warm spiced wine Bess had poured and ate a piece of meat tile—I hadn’t tasted anything like this in many months. We had meat only on feast days at Dartford, and then it was meat pudding.”

And so I used the dish of meat tile to symbolize Sister Joanna’s feelings about leaving the Tower and returning to her priory and being drawn into the power—and the possible temptation--of these new forces.

To talk more about meat tile, it was made of pieces of chicken or veal, simmered, sautéed, served in a spiced sauce of pounded crayfish tails, almonds roasted and toasted bread and garnished with whole crayfish tails. When royalty, noble or wealthy-merchant families dined, there were many courses, a stunning number to our eyes. 

Tudorhistory.org has kindly permitted me to share a menu from a 15^th century wealthy French household:

THE MENU

FIRST COURSE


Miniature pastries filled either with cod liver or beef marrow


A cameline meat "brewet" (pieces of meat in a thin cinnamon sauce)


Beef marrow fritters


Eels in a thick spicy puree


Loach in a cold green sauce flavored with spices and sage


Large cuts of roast or boiled meat


Saltwater fish

SECOND COURSE

Freshwater fish


Broth with bacon


A meat tile


Capon pasties and crisps
Bream and eel pasties


Blang Mang

THIRD COURSE


Frumenty


Venison


Lampreys with hot sauce


Fritters


Roast bream and darioles


Sturgeon


Jellies

After the meal would come the sweets and confections, then maybe some spiced wine or even whole spices, which were thought to aid in digestion.

 Now THAT is a meal...

Bloody Good Interview: Sherry Jones on "Four Sisters, All Queens"

By Nancy Bilyeau

This week saw the publication of Four Sisters, All Queens,  a historical novel that chronicles the lives of four sisters, all daughters of Beatrice of Provence—and all of whom became queens in medieval Europe.

Sherry Jones is perhaps best known for her controversial novels, The Jewel of Medina and The Sword of Medina, international bestsellers about the life of A'isha, who married the Muslim prophet Muhammad at age nine and went on to become the most famous and influential woman in Islam. In addition to Four Sisters, All Queens, Sherry is publishing a novella, White Heart, about the famous French "White Queen" Blanche de Castille, as an e-book, from Simon & Schuster.

Nancy Bilyeau: Sherry, I relate to your journey, because I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was eight years old and I worked as a journalist before plunging into fiction, similar to you. And I also went through a Laura Ingalls Wilder stage! How do you think those “Little House” books influenced us way back then and how much do we as adult writers carry those childhood loves with us?

Sherry Jones: How can they NOT have influenced us? The books we read as children inspired us to become writers, didn't they? Laura in the Little House books was a smart, resourceful girl with lots of inner strength, the same as the heroines we write about. And those stories take us to a different time and place, as does historical fiction. I remember well all the books I loved in childhood; they are as much a part of me as my family, my school friends, my teachers. Indeed, books were my escape from an miserable, abusive childhood: Black Beauty, the Trixie Belden mysteries, Huckleberry Finn. Little Women had a profound effect on me, as I realized while writing Four Sisters, All Queens -- the sisters in my book correspond almost perfectly to the four sisters in Louisa May Alcott's wonderful book.

NB: OK. Now, in one sentence, describe your novel Four Sisters, All Queens.

SJ: Four famous sisters in the 13th century all become powerful queens, advancing their family's interests and directing the course of world events, but are torn apart in a bitter struggle over their father's will.

NB: What drew you to that family and that time period?

SJ: I encountered them in Nancy Goldstone's excellent biography Four Queens, and wanted to know more about them when I'd finished. So little has been written about them that the best way to go deeper, it seemed, was to write my own book. Now I'm hooked on the era. The troubadour culture -- of famous, aristocratic poets; minstrels, musicians and jongleurs; and the courts where the performed -- fascinates me.

NB: How long did it take you to complete the research and how did you go about it?

SJ: I'm not very methodical. I read Goldstone's bibliography and read those books, then read their bibliographies and found books listed in them. I read scholarly articles, listened to Teaching Company courses on the High Middle Ages, Medieval philosophy, and the history of the Catholic Church. I had spent time in England, viewing castles and cathedrals, and I returned to France to visit the Cluny Museum and Rheims. I toured the Cloisters Museum in New York. I had not written about this era before, so I had to learn everything: what people wore; what they ate, and how; how they fought, and played, and prayed. I never stopped researching and made changes in my book until just a few weeks before publication!

NB: What were the structure and character-creation challenges of writing about such a large family?

SJ: Point of view was the most difficult. I initially wrote Four Sisters, All Queens in first person, from the point of view of Marguerite, the eldest sister, who outlived the others. About one-third of the way through the book, I became frustrated. I realized that I couldn't really do justice to the other sisters by portraying them all through Marguerite's eyes. I wanted to flesh each of them out as a complex human, as they all certainly were. One Sunday morning I awoke with the idea of telling the story in third-person present tense, lending a sense of immediacy to the tale, and switching points of view among the sisters. I got up and rewrote the first two chapters and loved them. Now the whole book is written that way, and it really works.

Taking place in four courts, Four Sisters, All Queens necessarily has a large cast of characters. To help the reader navigate, I've included lists of the characters from each court, with explanations of whom each character is. According to the feedback I'm hearing, these lists are very helpful.

NB: How do you think the sisters’ struggles resonate with women readers today?

SJ: Anyone who has a sibling knows about the competitive struggle that goes on, and the categorizing that can stifle a person's reaching his or her highest potential. Why, for instance, is there always a "pretty" sister and a "smart" sister, as if a woman couldn't both be smart and pretty? Also, their attempts to claim, and wield, power in a man's world will ring true with even the most successful women. Even today we are, as Marilyn French wrote so astutely in her wonderful novel The Women's Room, like salmon swimming upstream.

NB: A recent Guardian article referred to historical novels disparagingly as “bodice rippers.” Why do you think historical fiction still has this sort of stigma?

SJ: It's misogyny, pure and simple. Historical novels tend to portray strong, powerful women, which threatens the patriarchal status quo. A man on a panel with me once referred to The Jewel of Medina as "chick lit." I'm sure he prefers male-oriented crime fiction -- "dick lit," I might have sneered -- in which women are either sexual objects or bitch-hags. Literature that appeals to men is embraced by the literary establishment, which includes the mainstream media, while women's literature remains marginalized, as do women. That's changing, but at a glacial pace.

NB: You’ve said that writing The Jewel of Medina made you a passionate believer in the power of the written word. Could you explain more?

SJ: If a book could arouse such anger among people who hadn't even read it, the written word must be powerful, indeed. With so many distractions pulling us away from reading time -- TV, movies, the internet, games -- I find it heartening, indeed, that people still care so much about books.

NB: Tell me about your next book, the story of Heloise and Abelard. Sounds intriguing!

SJ: It will be an erotic, intelligent, tragic tale of two of history's most storied lovers: he, the most famous philosopher in the world, and she, the most admired scholar, and a woman, to boot. And, like all my books, it will be a feminist tale, told from the point of view of Heloise, who dared live life on her own terms and, as a result, lost everything that mattered to her.

Thanks for the interview, Sherry Jones!


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Learn more about her and her books at http:www.authorsherryjones.com

The Seven Book Itch

As I noted in a previous post, when I finished a draft of my second novel, I began to think long thoughts about writing a series, and about my career as a whole. 

I was sent down this road by a review of Laura Lippman’s I’d Know You Anywhere. In it, Patrick Anderson notes that Lippman’s first seven books had been a (prize-winning) series, but, “Like Dennis Lehane after he’d published five Kenzie-Gennaro private-eye novels, she must have decided she could do better, and like Lehane (who proceeded to write Mystic River), she was right.”

I thought about this, and another great writer spring to mind. Iain Pears wrote seven books in a series about Jonathan Argyll and the Italian Art Squad, who – I assume – went about solving art-related crimes. Then he wrote the far more ambitious (and staggeringly good) An Instance of the Fingerpost, and he appears to have abandoned his series altogether. Had Pears, like Lippman and Lehane, suffered from something that looks like the Seven Year Itch?

At the other extreme you have Sue Grafton, who went the opposite direction. After two novels, not about Kinsey Millhone, she has cranked out twenty-two in that series. (I suppose it is possible that Grafton wanted to move on after seven books, but when you start something called the Alphabet Series, you’re pretty much committed to twenty-six!)

I can see how either course is frightening. Lippman, Lehane, and Pears had a franchise working for them and (I assume) were making a pretty good living. Then they took a chance. I cannot imagine how long Pears spent on researching and writing Instance, but it must have been years. What if it had bombed? Or if the publisher had laughed? Then what?

On the other hand, how can an author spend twenty-plus years with the same character? You’d have to work very hard to include a long narrative arc for your people. Matthew Scudder battled the bottle, Spenser broke up/got together with Susan Silverman, but not all authors are so considerate. God bless Miss Marple, but she is the same character in every novel.

I know there’s not a right answer, especially since I’ve only finished a single novel, but I can’t help wondering what drove Lippman, Lehane, and Pears to jump into untested waters, and what allowed Grafton to stay with Millhone. Do I have the guts to jump off the Midwife gravy train (assuming it turns into one!). Or do I have the imagination and skill to keep her interesting - to me and the reader - for twenty-plus years?

I don’t know, but it will be fun to find out.

Why do we need damaged protagonists?

One of the first pieces of advice you get when you start to write is that your protagonist cannot be too perfect. You need someone to whom people can relate, someone who has obstacles to overcome: most famously, Superman is bedeviled both by kryptonite and his attachment to Lois Lane; Matthew Scudder is an alcoholic; Indiana Jones is afraid of snakes, etc.

This truism came to mind this week when I finished two excellent mysteries, The Janissary Tree and The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death. At one level, you would be hard pressed to find two more different books. The Janissary Tree offers a lush, detailed portrait of 19^th century Istanbul, and the ongoing conflict within the Ottoman Empire over whether to westernize, or maintain the traditions that had served the Empire so well for so long. Mystic Arts is a terse, brutal, profane, and very funny journey through the heart of Los Angeles, from the Santa Monica, to Hollywood, to the industrial wasteland of the Port of Los Angeles.

What the books have in common, however, is a damaged protagonist. For Yashim, the sleuth from The Janissary Tree, the damage is physical. He is a eunuch. In contrast, Mystic Arts’s Web Gilmore is physically whole, but he has suffered wounds of his own as the witness to a terrible act of violence. As I thought about these two men, I realized that despite the their differences – they are separated by time, culture, and religion – they have been affected in similar ways by their injuries. Yashim’s and Web’s wounds simultaneously ripped them out of the world they had known and thrust them into an entirely new existence.

Yashim’s castration pulled him from a more conventional life, and robbed him of many dreams he might have harbored. Although we only catch glimpses of his past, it becomes clear that it took him many years to overcome the rage he felt at his fate. He has no family, and no Turkish friends, save a similarly castrated prostitute. He is – as one character comments – a free lance. At the same time, however, Yashim’s castration ushers him into a position of power within the Ottoman government. Because he can be trusted not to father children, he is allowed access to the walled world of the Sultan’s court. Because of this, he is often sought out to perform politically delicate tasks, and government officials trust him to handle their affairs discreetly.

While Web is physically in tact, he is far less healthy than Yashim. A brutal and random death has driven him out of his life as a teacher, and he now spends every waking hour trying to alienate the one friend that he has left. But the violence he has witnessed also carries Web into the business of crime scene clean-up. (These are the folks who clean up the hazardous and bloody mess left behind when we exit this life violently.) Eventually Web discovers that the very experience that drove him out of teaching has allowed him to find not just a new job, but also a new basis for friendship. He and his co-workers all have seen death, too much death, at close range and this becomes a bond strong enough to overcome his obvious and deliberate misanthropy.

Of course this journey, as a protagonist follows the path from the disintegration of an old self to the creation of a new one, is no new thing. And it is only now that I see similar trends in my own work, as Bridget Hodgson (my protagonist) attempts to cope with the blows that life has dealt her, and does so by rethinking the meaning of family.

But it also seems to me that there is one very good reason why this story resonates so strongly with us: this is the nature of our own existence. We may not suffer the way that Yashim and Web have, but we do suffer. Whether it is by death, divorce, disease, or the myriad daily failures that are a part of life, we are constantly being ripped, screaming, out of our old existence and thrust into a new one. We read these stories because we want to know how to find our way in the strange new worlds that are always before us. If men like Yashim and Web can do this – and they have suffered far worse than we have – it gives us hope that we can do the same.

History Today complains that history is too popular.

In an article that can only be described as bizarre, Paul Lay complains that "Last week, for the first time, the number of historical novels sent to History Today for review outnumbered ‘real’ history books." Not only is there too much historical fiction, Lay doesn't like most of it:

The vast majority [of historical novels], however, are awful. And, despite the excellence of authors such as Leon Garfield, Rosemary Sutcliff and Michael Morpurgo, so are most of the historical novels aimed at the children’s market.

As a writer of history and historical fiction, I'm at a bit of a loss for a coherent response. My first question would be what Lay means by "awful." If he means poorly written, then the smarty-pants in me would respond that reading "real" history is hardly a solution.


The crux of his complaint seems to come at the end of the piece:

There’s no great harm in reading historical novels, nor writing them, but if anyone wishes to understand history, in all its complexity, they should read ‘real’ history and then they should write it. 

The mistake here is the the questionable assumption that people read historical fiction in order to understand history. While that might one goal for readers, I would argue that to be entertained, challenged, or intrigued, are equally important, if not more-so. (Were that not the case, then why bother with the "fiction" part of "historical fiction"?) And, though I wish it were not the case, "real" history with its infinite interpretations, and equally infinite shades of gray, does not always lend itself to fiction.


I am not, of course, defending bad history even in a fictional context. The past is not "Like Now, but with Hats." But given the desperate financial challenges faced by the humanities, isn't the enduring interest in the past a good thing? 


One might also wonder if "less" historical fiction would mean - as Lay seems to think - "better" historical fiction. It does not seem unreasonable to think that fewer books would also mean fewer good books. And it is certainly true that a smaller market for historical fiction would hurt authors such as Hilary Mantel just as much as the hacks. And who would want that?

Bloody Good Interview: Sophie Perinot on The Sister Queens

By Nancy Bilyeau

It’s always delicious when you find out a friend shares your interests, whether they be lofty or low. For example, my friend Harriet Sharrard, who worked at Good Housekeeping magazine the same years that I did, loves medieval tapestries (she’s actually a serious seamstress herself) and Russell Crowe. We spent one glorious afternoon at a Gladiator matinee—and it was not the first time seeing it for either of us. “Are you not entertained?” Russell roared. Um, quite.

Recently I became friends with a writer, Sophie Perinot, and then discovered a host of similarities. We both had other careers before trying historical fiction. We’ve both got children who could politely be described as active. And we are both fascinated by European history—often with the same people. Much as I hate to give away the treats of an interview, I got chills when I learned that Sophie is interested in the Valois Princess Marguerite. She’s one of my favorite 16th century Frenchwomen too!

Sophie’s debut novel, The Sister Queens, is an absorbing and moving story of two women I did not know much about at all. In Sophie’s talented hands, the queens in question, Marguerite of France and Eleanor of England, come to life magnificently. After finishing it, I had to know more about how Sophie wrote it, and so I lured her onto my group blog, A Bloody Good Read.


First, I’ll share a longer description of The Sister Queens:

Like most sisters, Marguerite and Eleanor were rivals. They were also queens.

Raised at the court of their father, Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, Marguerite and Eleanor are separated by royal marriages--but never truly parted.

Patient, perfect, and used to being first, Marguerite becomes Queen of France. But Louis IX is a religious zealot who denies himself the love and companionship his wife craves. Can she borrow enough of her sister's boldness to grasp her chance for happiness in a forbidden love?

Passionate, strong-willed, and stubborn, Eleanor becomes Queen of England. Henry III is a good man, but not a good king. Can Eleanor stop competing with her sister and value what she has, or will she let it slip away?


Now, more background about Sophie:

In Spring 2012 Sophie Perinot’s debut novel, The Sister Queens, was released by NAL. She has both a BA in History and a law degree. Sophie left the law to pursue artistic interests, including writing. An avid reader, especially of classic literature, and life-long student of history, it seemed only natural that Sophie should write historical fiction. As someone who studied French abroad and a devotee of Alexandre Dumas, French history was a logical starting point. An active member of the Historical Novel Society, she has attended all of the group’s North American Conferences.

Active among the literary twitterati as @Lit_gal (a moniker she also uses at Agent Query Connect www.agentqueryconnect.com), Sophie is a regular contributor to the group writers' blog "From the Write Angle" http://www.fromthewriteangle.com. Find her on facebook at www.facebook.com/sophie.perinot.author.

And now, my interview with Sophie Perinot:

Nancy Bilyeau: For your first work of historical fiction, why do you think you were drawn to a century and a family that have not been written about that much?

Sophie Perinot: Fate. Seriously.

I’ve always been a sucker for sister-stories, all the way back to the March sisters in Little Women. I suspect that’s because I am half of a pair of incredibly close sisters (my first childhood memory is of my sister coming home from the hospital and we have been best friends ever since). I’d like to think that I discovered the story that became The Sister Queens because I view the world through a sister’s eyes.

So here is how I found Marguerite and Eleanor. The Sister Queens is not, in fact, my first work of historical fiction. That honor (dubious because the manuscript is not published) belongs to a novel set in the 16th century that helped me to find my marvelous agent. It was while I was researching that piece that Marguerite and Eleanor of Provence called out to me. They were in a note in a book on the history Notre Dame de Paris (Marguerite’s image is carved over that great church’s Portal Rouge), along with their younger sisters. The book revealed that these four women were raised at a court renowned for its culture and chivalry, connected to a “celebrity” family of the High Middle Ages (the Savoyards), and had all made politically important marriages, yet I had never heard of them. The fact that such significant women had largely slipped through the fingers of history made me angry. So, I started a file folder with their names on it and vowed to come back and tell their story. The Sister Queens is the result of that vow.


NB: How did you research the lives of the historical characters in The Sister Queens?

SP: I did a substantial amount of both primary and secondary source research for the book. But, as you know yourself Nancy, that’s not as onerous as it was even five years ago. Technology has greatly improved access to information (and experts) right from our desks—everything from the contents of scholarly journals to digital copies of manuscripts is now on-line. Being able to search WorldCat and Jstor from home rather than going through a reference librarian . . . who doesn’t love that?! Of course I travel to reach sources when I have to (or use that old standby the interlibrary loan) and I have stacks of old-fashioned books which I am constantly tripping over.


NB: What was your biggest research challenge?

SP: Knowing when to stop and accepting that I will never know everything.

As a historical writer I want to infuse my work with correct period details, I want to have a deep understanding of historical events that are the foundation of my story, and I want to remain as true as possible to the lives my characters lived, but I also need to meet deadlines. Doing fifteen years of research on a single project isn’t practical. I don’t believe it is necessary either, because I am not writing academic history (my sister does that by the way). So, I try to remember to respect history but not be smothered by it.

As someone who majored in history with a sister who is a professor of history I understand that historical interpretations change and even the “facts” as we know them aren’t set in stone. New information and artifacts are discovered. Old theories and artifact identifications are discredited. As a writer I get to make choices based on evidence—choices that support the narrative arch I am are trying to build. And I can (and do) explain those areas I chose to make potentially controversial choices in my author’s note.


NB: How do you think Eleanor and Marguerite are most similar to today’s readers?

SP: Sorry to get philosophical on you, but those things which are essential to our humanity haven’t changed in a thousand years. Marguerite and Eleanor wrestled with challenges and questions that face contemporary readers everyday. Issues like: What does it mean to be family? What does it mean to be loyal? What does it mean to love unsuitably? Why is every child desperate for parental approval, no matter how unsuitable the parent? Does being a good parent encompass a willingness to sacrifice personal happiness, or even your life, for your child?

In my opinion these are the kind of BIG questions that books should deal with. When novels confront life’s major issues, they remind readers of their own humanity and help them parse through issues in their own lives. What makes historical fiction unique is its setting, which I would argue is more than decorative. Historical context gives writers the chance to highlight just how universal certain themes are. It also provides a distance of sorts to help readers approach situations and questions that might be too raw or too personal in a contemporary context.


NB: In which ways are they most dissimilar?

SP: Marguerite, Eleanor and the people who surround them were products of their time and had to be portrayed accordingly. I tried to be true to 13th century attitudes in the book (though not to 13th century stereotypes, many of which lack truth or greatly oversimplify issues).

One major example (and I could describe dozens) were the religious attitudes of my characters—both in terms of the ways in which they manifested their faith and in terms of their attitudes towards non-Christian people. Yes Louis was an extreme example of 13th century piety, but the use of hair shirts, hair belts, and the practice of self-flagellation were not uncommon in that era. Such “mortification of the flesh” is certainly not standard practice in the Roman Catholic Church today. As for respect for people of other faiths, I certainly hope that we (or most of us) have moved beyond calling people “infidels” or making the type of off-handed anti-Semitic comments that were absolutely unobjectionable in 13th century Western Europe.


NB: How did you handle the challenge of dialogue? What would the English language of the 13th century sound like to our ears?

SP: It would be largely incomprehensible. So would French which, as it happens, was the language spoken by the vast majority of my characters. In the 13th century French was the language of both Louis IX’s French court and of Henry III’s English court. Royal support for English as the language of England had to wait another 100+ years, for Edward III. Given the impracticality of using 700+ year-old French and Occitan (the language that Marguerite and Eleanor were raised with), I decided early on to use the novel’s setting to establish the time period and let my characters speak clearly and unaffectedly. After all, I think they have some fairly important things to say. I included the occasional Occitan or French word (where the meaning is clear from context) for flavor. I also tried to avoid jarringly modern words.


NB: How much did you try to make their decisions relatable to modern customs and values? For example, Eleanor’s willingness to marry a much older man—a stranger—for the good of her family and to go to bed with him almost immediately after the ceremony. That doesn’t happen much today.

SP: I am not sure I did try. I expect readers to accept the facts and mores of the time in which The Sister Queens is set. Eleanor married at twelve. That was hardly out of the ordinary for her day. She would have considered herself an adult woman at the time (even if later – and I believe Eleanor comments on this – she realizes how far from grown up she truly was). Her society wouldn’t have thought “yuck” about her marriage to the twenty-eight year old King of England so I don’t present it in a “yuck” manner. Instead I hoped to make my audience see the marriage through Eleanor’s 13th century eyes.


NB: Did you have a favorite sister?

SP: I love both sisters. That is one of the things that made writing this book such a joy. Who I loved the best at any given moment depended on who I was writing.


NB: While writing their stories did you ever wish Marguerite or Eleanor would make a different decision than the one they actually did?

SP: Yes, but not too often. This is not to imply that their decisions were always wise, rather that my identification with them was so complete and my empathy for them was so strong that I stopped judging them. I think this is a function of the fact I wrote the book in first-person present tense. To do that I had to become each sister, just as an actress becomes a character to portray her convincingly. So, for example, when I was writing Eleanor if she regretted a decision I regretted it. But if she stubbornly defended it (even in the face of mounting evidence that it was a mistake) I found myself thinking, “Ill be darned if I’ll admit to Henry I am wrong” right along with her.

NB: How do you think they compare to other famous queen siblings who married for reasons of state, like Catherine of Aragon and Juana of Castile, or Marguerite and Elisabeth de Valois?

SP: I am not in a position to have an educated opinion about Catherine and Juana. I do, however, know quite a lot about the Valois. Marguerite de Valois is a major character in my next book. My conclusion—Marguerite and Eleanor were closer sisters and more important queens.

As Sisters: While Marguerite and Elisabeth de Valois spent some of their early years together at Saint-Germain (along with Claude de Valois and the young Mary Stuart), the girls were not close. This was likely the result of a significant age difference and the fact that Elisabeth left France to be married when Marguerite was only six (barely six at that). Elizabeth died in childbirth when Marguerite was still in her teens so there was no opportunity for a more adult relationship (interestingly Marguerite was proposed as her sister’s replacement by their mother, Catherine de Médicis). So, I don’t think it would have been possible to write a “sister story” about these two Valois sisters.

As Queens: I think the sisters from Provence win this contest as well. While Elisabeth de Valois had a warm relationship with her husband, Philip II of Spain, and prestige and influence within the Spanish court, she only lived to twenty-three and produced no male heir. So her reign cannot compair in terms of impact with those of my 13th century queens, both of whom lived more than six decades and produced the next King of their respective countries.

Marguerite de Valois lived into old age, just as Marguerite and Eleanor of Provence did. So she had sufficient years to make a political and a dynastic impact. Unfortunately she was not in a position to realistically do either. Her marriage to Henri of Navarre (eventually Henri IV of France) was never more than political, and she lived a great portion of her life removed from her husband and his court. Marguerite, who bore Henri no children, was eventually divorced. I would say she had more influence on art and literature than she did on French politics or history. She certainly was no competition for the younger of the Provencal sisters, Eleanor, who acted as regent of England.

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Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, Sophie!

For more information, go to www.sophieperinot.com