Aspiring historical fiction writers assembled at the Merritt Bookstore in Millbrook, NY today and I was flattered to be included as their guest. Their questions really ran the gamut, but the gracious people there seemed most interested in the why’s and how’s of getting started on a novel that is based in historic fact. I always say that I was spurred on my way by working up the portrait of Margaret Hardenbroeck, the real-life fur trader in my book The Women of the House, and wanting to further develop that character. To invent, where I only had the bare facts to begin with. She became Blandine. Then, I was attracted to the spookiness of the term “orphanmaster” itself, and thought it would be a terrifying concept to build a mystery around. Finally, Gil gave me a push, when he saw how much material I had left over in my notebooks and computer files after learning so much about 1660s New Amsterdam for The Women of the House. Why don’t you use some of that stuff in a novel, he said. And when I protested that I never had written a novel and couldn’t write a novel, he said, Well, write me a murder. And that I found I could do — the result was the unfortunate demise of Piddy Gullee in The Orphanmaster‘s prologue. Everyone has their own creation myth and that’s mine, but it of course was just the pinch that got me moving.
Snake Story
Two garter snakes, black with a yellow stripe, one big, one small — mother and child? — entwined near the garden hose, where they can sip off the condensation when they get the chance…
Filed under Home, Jean Zimmerman, Nature
Connecticut Book Night
Fine breezy evening in Madison, Connecticut. Ions off the Long Island Sound buffering my face in the oh-so-genteel seaside bar.
Then a packed house at RJ Julia, one of the finest independent bookstores in the land. I received a lovely introduction by Roxanne, the shop’s owner, and the choice of any book in the store to take home as a gift. Perspicacious questions from the audience. A sore hand from signing, always a good thing.
Earlier in the day I found out I will be doing a show with Free American Radio, which goes out to 25 stations nationwide.
After my talk a bunch of us, including some of my bestest friends, went out to a completely classic clam shack and had fire-roasted clams and lobsters, maybe the tastiest shellfish I’ve ever consumed, as the sun went down and the night turned blue. The lobster came freely out of its shell as though it intended to be eaten.
When I got home I listened to a cd sent to me by a lively dj in Boston, an interview we’d done recently, that was a gas to hear even if I did sound foolish more than once.
Oh yeah, and I got an offer on my beloved Savage Girl.
More on that subject later.
Filed under Fiction, Jean Zimmerman, Publishing, The Orphanmaster, Writing
Orphanmaster at RJ Julia
Off to RJ Julia, that wonderful little book shop in Madison, Connecticut, for a talk and signing. If anyone gets this post and wants to go, it’s at 768 Post Road at 7 pm. Pictures and discussion, should be fun.
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, The Orphanmaster
Berry, Berry Good
From the torture of dentistry — a new crown — to the delicious pleasure of berry picking, all in one afternoon.
“Summer afternoon, summer afternoon… the two most beautiful words in the English language.” So said Henry James, and he was never wrong.
Being raked by wild canes while delicately pulling off the first of the wild raspberries in the woods of the Rockefeller Preserve, one of the peak experiences of summer. Only gathered a liter this trip… we’ll have to come back for more.
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, Nature, Writers
An Awkward Surprise
Frog #2 appeared today in the living room, huddling against a wet floor mop. Where are they coming from?
At least it wasn’t a snake.
Filed under Home, Jean Zimmerman, Nature
The Orphanmaster in Summer
I’ve been too busy relaxing to post much in the past few days — too much novel reading, too much Hudson swimming, too much movie going and garden weeding to put words on the screen. The strawberries are in and need trimming!
The Orphanmaster is out and about. I’ll do a newspaper interview/photo shoot tomorrow and a book store event later in the week. For now, I’m hoping people are going in to stores and asking for the book, and once they get it that they like it and tell all their friends. And blog! I might take a little break, but I want the novel to race ahead.
Filed under Home, Jean Zimmerman, Publishing, The Orphanmaster
Bank Square Books
Bank Square Books in Mystic, Connecticut bills itself as a “locally owned and fiercely independent book store” and as soon as I arrived I understood the truth of this description. Mystic is undergoing upheaval as its main thoroughfare gets chopped up and repaved to accommodate sunken power lines. The place is a mess and the worst of it is that many of the local stores find themselves cut off from customers day after day during this the peak of the summer season. Nautical-themed polo shirts and scrimshaw knick knacks, off limits, unless you want to clamber over unpaved sidewalk areas to get inside a shop.
I visited Bank Square to present about The Orphanmaster and heard that, just the previous day, there had been literally no access to the store. A pit marked the front entrance and a pile of debris the back door. Still, as a testament to Americans’ — even vacationing Americans’ — love of bound books, the place was thrumming with activity. In cases representing every genre, literary fiction, mysteries, history, biography, poetry, you name it, readers were handling books, perusing them, taking them over to the cash register and paying good money for them.
Given the publishing industry’s concerns about book buying, the national economy and the physical upheaval in Mystic, owners Annie and Patience at Bank Square are fierce indeed.
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, Publishing, The Orphanmaster
Chicken With Ice Cream
Synesthesia — the condition whereby a person looks at something and sees a color or smells something and sees a color. Your senses translate into colors. A neurological, involuntary trait. Something like fireworks. Kandinsky, Nabokov, Liszt had it. They ate chicken with ice cream because the colors matched so prettily. Were they lucky, or cursed?
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, Nature
An Orphanmaster Holiday
Everyone have a glorious Fourth.
In 1663, at the time of The Orphanmaster, not only was there no Fourth on Manhattan, there were no pyrotechnics, no sparklers, no cherry bombs. Of course festivities existed, such as Kermis, with entertainments like pulling the goose, when organizers hung a goose by its feet and celebrants charged under it with the intent of pulling down the bird. Feathers flew, squawking, likely some bloodshed. And there was always strong drink.
Some things don’t change.
Filed under History, Jean Zimmerman, The Orphanmaster
Growth Spurts
The reeds grow six inches a week, my bean plants grow one quarter inch. What’s that all about?
So Slow
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, Nature
The New York Times & New York City
My interview with Shelf Awareness: scroll down.
Gil and I made a cool automotive loop around hot Manhattan today to visit bookstores so I could sign stock.
First, outside The Corner Bookstore on Madison and 93rd Street, a Jeep plowed into our parked car, crunching it, and we had to wait for a plow. Then, with a rental, we resumed.
Some stores had over a dozen, some had one. A few managers said they were selling out and were about to get in more. A very interesting exercise, fueled by far too much iced coffee. Along the way I devised a new signature, the same as always but punctuated by the witika sign.
Oh, and did I mention that The New York Times Book Review ran its glowing piece on The Orphanmaster today?
p.s. and if this pertains to my novel I don’t know how: I found a bullfrog trapped inside the front screen door this morning, about the size of my hand. It energetically hopped away when I cracked the door, so heavy I could almost hear it land. Oliver either didn’t know or didn’t care that a frog existed temporarily in cabin world.
Filed under Jean Zimmerman, Nature, Publishing, The Orphanmaster, Writing
New York Times Book Review Praises The Orphanmaster
Marilyn Stasio of The New York Times Book Review praises The Orphanmaster in her Crime column!
She calls it “the ideal historical mystery for readers who value the history as much as the mystery.”
Pretty much what I always say to describe the book, history-mystery with some supernatural thrown in.
Filed under Fiction, Jean Zimmerman, Publishing, The Orphanmaster
Washington Talking Book, Talking About The Orphanmaster
This a very interesting place, the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library (WTBBL), in Seattle, and I had the pleasure of a conversation there with Ms. Addi Brooks. Here it is.
Filed under Fiction, Jean Zimmerman, Publishing, The Orphanmaster, Writing
Jean Zimmerman 