Author Interview with Anna Jean Mayhew: Part I

As a fan of historical fiction, I love it when a book seems so real that it could have happened just like the author described it. That's how I felt when I read Tomorrow's Bread which I reviewed last week. (If you haven't already read my review, please do that first. This interview will make more sense if you do.) Some of my questions about what was real and what was fictionalized were answered in the Author's Note, but not all. As you'll see in this interview, A.J. Mayhew drew from facts and her imagination. There is no better way to write a book. 

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

CAROL Your books bring to life Charlotte’s history. Can you give us a few words about how growing up in Charlotte shaped your books? 

A. J. In 2008 I returned to my hometown of Charlotte for a high school reunion, and for some reason decided to drive through the heart of the city rather than taking my usual route on the perimeter. It was then that I saw how much open land remained where Brooklyn used to be. I couldn't help wondering why, 40 years later, the city hadn't built on the land they appropriated in 1968. That curiosity led to the writing of Tomorrow's Bread.

CAROL How did your first book, The Dry Grass of August influence Tomorrow’s Bread ? Was this your idea or did your publisher request another book? 

A. J. I got a two-book deal when my agent sold Dry Grass to Kensington Publishing, in 2009; at that time I was given a year to write the second book. But I don't write fast, never have, and I didn't finish Tomorrow's Bread until the winter of 2017. The only real influence of the first novel on the second was that I'd done a lot of research for Dry Grass about black/white history in North Carolina; that came in handy as I started the second novel.

CAROL Where did you get the titles of your novels?

A. J. Both my titles came from poems. The Dry Grass of August is a phrase from Robert Penn Warren's poem, "Star-Fall," and Tomorrow's Bread is from "Democracy" by Langston Hughes. I wish I could write poetry, but I absolutely cannot, have tried. I read it quite a bit, though, and have a deep appreciation for the art form.

CAROL You seem to gravitate towards historical fiction. Please comment on your process of research. Any sticky points? Recommendations for other historical fiction novelists?

A.J. When I began to write Dry Grass it never occurred to me that I was writing historical fiction; I had a story to tell. The fact that it was set in the 1950s and would require a lot of research was of no concern, at least not until I began to have to check facts, to determine whether my memories were accurate. The internet is both a boon and a pit of misinformation. I learned quickly not to trust what I found online unless the source was valid (and sometimes it wasn't easy or even possible to track down an original source). Journals I'd kept over the years (some of them going back to my twenties and thirties) were helpful. Encyclopedia yearbooks were a boon when I discovered them. Old magazines helped me get into the mindset of someone living in the early fifties, especially my female characters. I saw how publications like Good Housekeeping, Life, Look, Saturday Evening Post, etc., geared their advertising toward the stay-at-home mom. Magazines aimed at people of color were harder to find, but when I began to write Tomorrow's Bread, I found Ebony and Jet to be of incredible value.

There's a thing I do that might be useful to other writers: When I'm perusing magazines of the period of my story (the 50s for Dry Grass and the 60s for Bread), I find photos of my characters and create a scrap book; for Dry Grass it was a physical book; for Bread it was digital, on my computer. For example, here's a photo of Uncle Ray, sitting on the front porch of 1105 Brown Street, with the old rocking chair behind him.

And here's my doctored photo of 1105 Brown Street, with the magnolia tree dominating the front yard:

And the duplex they find:

CAROL That's what I use Pinterest for!

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GIVEAWAY

Next week, A.J. returns with more thoughts about writing historical fiction, writing as a white author, and what she's working on next. I'm giving away my copy of Tomorrow's Bread and the contest ends on September 5. Each time you leave a comment I'll add another entry in your name. Make sure you leave your email address if I don't have it!

Multi-Racial Read #8: Caucasia

I am reading multi-racial books as part of my research for my work-in-progress, Half-Truths. If you are interested in reading the previous posts, you can search this blog under "multi-racial" (upper top left corner)

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When a upper-middle class white woman marries a black academic activist in Boston in the 1970's, there are bound to be problems that the two of them had not anticipated. Their two daughters are extremely close, despite the fact that the oldest (Cole) is dark like her father and the youngest (Birdie Lee) can pass as white. Both are raised to think of themselves as black, but predictably, Cole is more accepted within the black community and Birdie, much to her consternation, is favored by her rich maternal grandmother. 


When their parents split up, Birdie goes with her mother who takes on a fabricated Jewish name and history. Birdie (now re-named  "Jesse Goldman") continues to struggle with her racial and personal identity. As a result of her radical political affiliations, Birdie's mother is on the run always expecting that the FBI is going to find her out. Using their false identities, the two settle down in a small town in New Hampshire. This struggle to understand if her mother truly is wanted by the police, adds to Birdie's alienation and her desire to return to her Boston roots to find her father and sister.


Eventually, Birdie leaves New Hampshire and runs away to Boston. Here is a snippet which eloquently shows the struggles she faced:


"The name Jesse had been a lie but as I walked home that day, I wasn't quite sure the girl Jesse had been such a lie....Maybe I had actually become Jesse, and it was this girl, this Birdie Lee who haunted these streets, searching for ghosts, who was the lie....I missed the soft country earth and the dingy little town I had come to think of as my own. The missing scared me. It made feel a little contaminated. I wondered if whiteness were contagious. If it were, then surely I had caught it. I imagined this 'condition' affected the way I walked, talked, dressed, danced, and at its most advanced stage, the way I looked at the world and at other people." (p. 280)


As she looks upon a younger bi-racial child who is also living without her father, Birdie fantasizes her own perfect (yet unobtainable) future: "Maybe it would be easier for her. Maybe her father and her mother would share her between them and she would become the perfect blend of two rich cultures, moving effortlessly between the two worlds." (p. 287)


Although Birdie Lee, is a teenager, in my mind, this is not a book for young adults. The strength of this book is how the author, Danzy Senna, honestly exposes (issues) of race, prejudice, and identity.  As a Christian, I think the weakness of this book is its abundance of obscenities and frank approval of outside of marriage sexual encounters. 


That being said, Caucasia is a powerful story to help adults further understand the experiences and confused emotions of a bi-racial child.