Gina Marie Guadagnino Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Interview

A Conversation with Gina Marie Guadagnino about her debut novel, The Parting Glass.

Can you give us a sense of how much research went into this novel? What aspect of the setting or story did you spend the most time researching?

I wanted to make sure that this book was as comprehensively researched as possible, so I spent a lot of time reading scholarly journals, history books, and primary sources in an effort to reflect the period accurately. Because I had the idea for the story in mind, I had to research as I wrote, which slowed both processes down considerably. It ended up taking me five years, though I often was either researching or writing, toggling between the two. I already had a fairly good handle on the time period, and so I spent much of my time on very specific things, like 19th century menstrual hygiene practices, and the formation of Irish cultural societies (secret and otherwise). I actually encountered the most difficulty researching how Liddie would have done her hair – as I'm sure you can imagine, there is not exactly a wealth of information on the hair dressing practices of biracial women in the antebellum north!

Where were the gaps in sources that you had to fill with your imagination?

Much of the way in which the Ancient Order of Hibernians operates in the novel is product of my ...