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Two interviews with Geraldine Brooks about Year of Wonders and People of the Book.
A Conversation with Geraldine Brooks about People of
the Book
Your previous two novels are set during Europe's plague years and the
American Civil War. Now, you've created an epic story about art and religious
persecution. What is it that draws you to a particular subject, or a particular
historical era?
I love to find stories from the past where we can know something, but not
everything; where there is enough of a historical record to have left us with an
intriguing factual scaffolding, but where there are also enough unknowable voids
in that record to allow room for imagination to work.
What do you think it is about the real Sarajevo Haggadah that has
allowed it to survive the centuries?
It's a fascinating question: Why did this little book always find its
protectors when so many others did not? It is interesting to me that the book
was created in a period—convivencia Spain—when diversity was tolerated,
even somewhat celebrated, and that it found its way centuries later to a similar
place, Sarajevo. So even when hateful forces arose in those societies and
crushed the spirit of multiethnic, interfaith acceptance, there were those
individuals who saw what was happening and acted to stop it in any way they
could.
Were you already working on People of the Book when March
won the Pulitzer Prize? How does winning such a prestigious award affect your
writing?
I was working on People of the Book even before I started to write
March. I'd been struggling quite a bit with the World War II story: It's
such a picked-over period and I was looking for a backwater of the war that
wouldn't perhaps feel so familiar to readers. That search was leading to a lot
of dead ends when I suddenly got the idea for March and it was so clear
to me how to write that book that I just did it.
The "Pulitzer Surprise," as my then-nine-year-old son so accurately dubbed
it, affected my writing only in that it interrupted it for a while by drawing
renewed attention to March. But after a few weeks of pleasant distraction
I was back at my desk, alone in a room, simply doing what I've always done,
which is trying to write as best I can, day after day.
Book conservation is hardly a glamorous job, but Hanna's framing
narrative is every bit as action-packed and compelling as the stories in the Hagaddah's history. What inspired her creation?
Because I like to write with a first-person narrator, getting the voice of
the book is everything to me. I'd struggled a lot with my first idea, which was
to have the conservator be Bosnian. I love the way Sarajevans express
themselves; it's a kind of world-weary, mordant wit overlying an amazing ability
to absorb and survive great suffering. But I wasn't getting the voice and the
book was stalled as a result. Then I suddenly thought, Well, why shouldn't she
be Australian? That's a voice I can hear clearly. Hanna came alive in my
head and as a result the contemporary story, which I'd originally thought of as
merely a framing device for the stories from the past, became much more
important.
The scientific resources that Hanna employs to find out more about the
book's artifacts are really fascinating. How much of that is drawn from actual
research and how much springs from your imagination?
I went to labs. I interviewed scientists and conservators and observed
their work. But the book is fiction, not a technical treatise, so experts will
be able to spot a place or two where I took some small liberties.
The Jewish people have endured extraordinary trials. How much about
this history did you know before writing the book?
Most of it. The whipsaw of Jewish history has fascinated me since I was in
junior high.
Who is your favorite character and why?
That's like asking a parent to name a favorite child. Hanna became like a
good mate, and I actually miss hanging out with her. But I feel a certain
tenderness towards all of the characters, perhaps especially the most flawed
ones.
People of the Book is set in so many different eras. Was it a
more difficult book to research and write than your previous novels?
There was definitely more to research, but it wasn't difficult. I loved
the various journeys—actual and intellectual—that it took me on. Seeing the
domes and spires of Venice shimmering in the watery morning light; having the
great privilege of meeting Servet Korkut, who supported her husband in resisting
fascism; watching Andrea Pataki painstakingly take apart the real Sarajevo
Haggadah—these are experiences of a lifetime.
Will the book be published in Bosnia, and if so, what kind of reception
do you anticipate?
I hope it will. I have no idea about the reception. It's very
presumptuous, what I do—meddling around in other people's history. When I went
back to Eyam, the plague village, I fully expected a faction of the townsfolk to
want to have me clapped in the stocks. (They still have them there.) To my
intense relief, the people I met had really embraced the book. I had the same
feelings of trepidation when I went to read March in Concord,
Massachusetts. I was delighted to be met at the reading by Louisa May Alcott
(Jan Turnquist, director of the remarkable Orchard House Museum, in costume),
who thanked me for being one of the very few who had tried to understand and
appreciate her father. So I hope the people of Bosnia will forgive me for taking
liberties with their history and see the book as a tribute from someone who was
inspired by the remarkable spirit of Sarajevo.
What are you working on now?
I'm just at the earliest stages of exploring an intriguing story set very
close to home, on Martha's Vineyard. It concerns people who lived on this island
in 1666, one of my favorite years, and seems to have just the right mix of
knowns and unknowables—a lovely incomplete scaffold to build on.
A Conversation with Geraldine Brooks about Year of
Wonders
In your afterword, you describe chancing upon Eyam and its terrible
history while living in England in 1990. Can you tell us a bit about your
research—for instance, what you uncovered about the
townspeople and perhaps didn't include in the novel for whatever reason? What
about the difficulties of writing a story that blends fiction with historical
fact, especially given your journalistic, just-the-facts background?
The written record of what happened in Eyam during the plague year is scant.
Apart from three letters by the rector, no narrative account from the year
itself actually exists. The "histories" that purport to record the
facts were actually written many years later, and historians have found
inconsistencies that cast doubt on their accuracy. Therefore, there was no way
to write a satisfying nonfiction narrative. And, since the story had taken root
in my imagination, the only way to indulge my impulse to tell it was to take the
leap into fiction. The factual basis of the story was actually very helpful to
me: it was like having the framing of the house already erected—I
could see the shape from the beginning. The things I decided not to use from the
anecdotal accounts passed down over time were those things that would have
seemed most like implausible inventions. For example, a young couple is said to
have lived in the church around the plague time, seeking sanctuary from the law.
The couple had been married by accident, having drunkenly taken part in a mock
wedding at a tavern that was later deemed to have the force of law and
sacrament. Unfortunately, the groom was already engaged to another woman. She,
enraged, sought his arrest for breach of promise. The couple apparently lived a
reasonable life in the church, assisted by sympathetic villagers. This story,
although reasonably well substantiated, just seemed too odd to weave into my
novel.
You describe the man on whom Michael Mompellion was based, William
Mompesson, as "heroic and saintly" and yet you also believe that
Mompesson and his wife sent their two children away before quarantining the
town. How do you justify your description of the real man? And do you think this
knowledge influenced your depiction of the "darker side" of the
Mompellion character?
One of the fictional liberties I took with the story was a certain
compression of timeframe. The plague was actually in the village for many weeks
before the quarantine was agreed upon. Some people decided to send their
children away into the care of relatives: there was nothing unethical in the
Mompessons also choosing to do so. It was only as the epidemic really took hold
that Mompesson saw the fearful virulence of the disease and became concerned
about the consequences of its spread. There is nothing in the factual record to
suggest that he behaved other than honorably throughout the village's terrible
ordeal. However, in trying to imagine him—a young man, not
long out of school, not long in a village where most of the Puritan-leaning
population did not share his religious views, yet still persuasive enough to
bring people to such a momentous choice—I envisioned a man
of powerful conviction and charisma. Such personalities are sometimes governed
by unwholesome motivations, such as the belief that they are God's infallible
instruments. They can be dangerous, even deadly.
Do you believe Anna is an unlikely heroine, given the rigid class
structures of her time and her sex? Why did you choose to tell this story from
Anna's point of view? Did your nonfiction, and in particular your book Nine
Parts of Desire, which deals with the lives of Muslim women, influence your
decision?
I wanted a narrator who was part of the ordinary life of the village, but
also had access to the gentry, the decision-makers. Since I knew that the real
rector had a maid who survived the plague, she seemed the obvious choice. Anna's
character and the changes it undergoes were suggested to me by the lives of
women I had met during my years as a reporter in the Middle East and Africa—women
who had lived lives that were highly circumscribed and restricted, until thrown
into sudden turmoil by a crisis such as war or famine. These women would
suddenly find themselves having to step out of their old roles and assume vastly
challenging responsibilities. I saw women who had traveled enormous personal
distances—traditional village women in Eritrea who became
platoon leaders in the country's independence war; Kurdish women who led their
families to safety over mined mountain passes after the failure of their
uprising against Saddam Hussein. If those women could change and grow so
remarkably, I reasoned that Anna could, too. And remember that the Restoration
was a very fluid time. All the ancient certainties—the
monarchy, the Church—had been challenged within these
people's lifetime. They had lived through regicide, revolution, civil war.
Change was their norm. In the 1660s, women were appearing on the stage for the
first time, were assuming influential roles in the Restoration court. Also, life
in the villages was much less rigid and restrictive than we often imagine. I
read a lot of sermons while researching the novel, and it struck me that the
amount of hectoring from the pulpit on the proper behavior of women probably
reflected a widely held view that a lot of "improper" behavior was
going on.
In light of your research, can you put into perspective just how
extraordinary the villagers' decision to quarantine themselves was? What was
happening in London, for example, at the same time?
The unique thing about Eyam's quarantine was that it was voluntary. I was
able to find no other examples of such communal self-sacrifice. In London,
Samuel Pepys writes in his journal of the terrible treatment meted out to plague
victims: "We are become as cruel as dogs one to another." There, the
houses of plague victims were sealed and guarded, locking in the well with the
ill, with no one to bring food, water, or comfort of any kind. Pepys writes that
you could hear the cries of the afflicted coming from the houses, which were
marked with large red crosses and the words "God Have Mercy."
In a piece published in The Washington Post after the September 11, 2001,
attacks, you wrote: "Whether we also shall one day look back upon this year
of flames, germs and war as a 'year of wonders' will depend, perhaps, on how
many are able—like the passengers on United Flight 93 or
the firefighters of New York City—to match the courageous
self-sacrifice of the people of Eyam." Will you discuss the parallels you
have drawn here?
Eyam is a story of ordinary people willing to make an extraordinary sacrifice
on behalf of others. September 11, 2001, revealed heroism in ordinary people who
might have gone through their lives never called upon to demonstrate the extent
of their courage. Sadly, it also revealed a blind thirst for revenge that led to
the murders of a Muslim, a Sikh, and an Egyptian Copt. I have imagined this same
instinct to turn on and blame "the other" in the lynching of the
Gowdies. Love, hate, fear. The desire to live and to see your children live. Are
these things different on a beautiful autumn morning in a twenty-first-century
city than they were in an isolated seventeenth-century village? I don't think
so. One thing I believe completely is that the human heart remains the human
heart, no matter how our material circumstances change as we move together
through time.
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