Bestselling author discusses her writing process
Allison Pataki is settling into historical fiction that features women she identifies as “forgotten leading ladies who have been footnoted or sidelined,” including Peggy Shippen Arnold, wife of Benedict; Sisi, wife of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph; and breakfast cereal heiress Marjorie Post.
Her latest novel, Finding Margaret Fuller, spotlights the journalistic pioneer and founding mother of the women’s rights movement. Fuller made a stop in Beacon — memorialized by a marker in Polhill Park — and hobnobbed with contemporary bold-faced names until her death at age 40 in an 1850 shipwreck. Pataki says the next hero will be Evelyn Nesbit, an actor whose jealous husband shot and killed architect Stanford White in 1906.
Why take this approach over nonfiction?
I love historical fiction as a reader and a writer because it puts us into these amazing scenes. It’s educational but also entertaining, and I get to tell an immersive, transportive story. There’s a great quote by E. L. Doctorow: “The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.”
How closely do you stick to the facts?
I want to get it right and pass the standard of credibility. I would never write a bodice ripper or disrespect the history or person I’m writing about. I do have composite characters and sometimes shift or conflate things to simplify the story, but my subjects are compelling so there’s no need to embellish. There are parallel tracks: one line is the history, the who-what-where. The other is where I put on the flesh with storytelling. Some quotes are drawn from primary sources [and rendered in italics], but it’s fiction, so I also pull from rumors and mythology to tell the story in a way that feels accessible.
Fuller’s thoughts narrate the story. Is that your voice or hers?
I try to capture her voice as I take in the research, going to the places she visited and lived, soaking up as much of her world as I can. At a certain point, the character morphs into a living, breathing, talking character. That’s when I start writing. But Fuller wrote and spoke in a stilted manner, so I did bring her voice into the modern world.
Why did you choose her?
I was reading about this genius cluster in Concord [Massachusetts] with Emerson, Alcott, Hawthorne and Thoreau, all of whom we grew up reading as part of the American canon. But this Margaret character leaped off the page. Why did Emerson call her the “radiant genius and fiery heart” of the Transcendentalists? Why are there rumors that she inspired the Hester Prynne character in The Scarlet Letter? Who knew that she mentored Louisa May Alcott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton? This is leading lady material.
Why did she remain obscure?
She died young and was about a century ahead of her time. The book she prized over all others [an eyewitness account of the Italian revolution in the late 1840s] has never been found. After she died, Emerson put out her memoirs and it became the bestselling book in the U.S. until Uncle Tom’s Cabin [in 1852]. Women like Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton lived much longer. People just forgot about her.
Do you think historical fiction appeals to people who like history but may be intimidated by all the names, dates and facts?
One of the nicest things I hear is, “I never enjoyed history growing up, but I like how you do it.” All of the best material is in the historical record. You can’t make this stuff up, that Fuller was frenemies with Poe, became involved with the Italian revolution and her scandal [bearing a child out of wedlock in Italy]. This is juicy, epic stuff.
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Allison Pataki is a master of historical fiction about women who were pivotal throughout history but largely unknown. Her writing, based on factual events, flows in a way that illuminates their untold stories and makes the women real. I’ve read every one of her novels and will continue to do so.