Author Interview: Stacie Murphy / A Deadly Fortune
JMR-Welcome to the Books
Delight, Stacie. Tell our readers where you live, what you do for fun and what
does the perfect day look like?
SM-I’m originally from the
Nashville, TN area, but I currently live in Northern Virginia a few miles
outside Washington, DC with my husband and daughter. I love hiking and
whitewater rafting (although I haven’t done much of that since my daughter was
born—I’m looking forward to her being old enough to go!). On the quieter side,
I also enjoy gardening and crochet. A perfect day has to be a fall day—one of
those crisp, non-humid October days we get way too few of in the DC area. There
would be a walk in the woods, three gourmet meals, and some quiet time in a
porch swing with a book.
JMR-What’s your favorite
historical time period? Why?
SM-Obviously I love the Victorian
Era. It’s different enough from our own time to feel a little exotic, and of
course the clothes are fabulous. But it’s still recognizably modern in a lot of
ways, so it’s not as disorienting as some other times. My second favorite is
the Tudor/Elizabethan period—still great clothes, and so much intrigue!
JMR-Who is your favorite
historical figure? Why? If you could ask them one question, what would it be?
SM-There are so many historical
figures—particularly women—I’d like to talk to. Cleopatra, Empress Theodora,
Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Queen Elizabeth I are top of the list. I’d ask if I
could just follow them around for a day and watch how they navigate their
worlds.
JMR- How did you come to be a
writer of historical fiction? Do you have a background in writing or history?
SM- I have a BA in English, but
I’d never written fiction until I sat down and decided to write this novel. There
was a perfect storm of factors that made me decide it was time, so I started
thinking about all the things I love to read and how to mash them together.
JMR- Tell us about your new book,
coming in January, A Deadly Fortune.
SM-I think of A Deadly Fortune as
something like The Alienist, if Sara Howard was psychic. It’s the story of
Amelia Matthew, a Gilded Age orphan who has used her minor psychic gift to make
a life for herself. After a head injury, she wakes with wildly expanded
abilities and soon finds herself confined in the New York City Insane Asylum on
Blackwell’s Island. She meets a sympathetic doctor who agrees to help her
escape, but only if she’ll first help him by using her gift to locate a woman
who he believes has been imprisoned in the asylum by her husband.
JMR- You book is set in New
York City, during the Gilded Age. How did you research this time period? What
surprised you most during your research?
SM-I read a lot of fiction set in
the Gilded Age, so I had a pretty good grounding in the time period before I
ever got started writing. I looked at a lot of old photos, and I read a lot of
old psychological texts so I could get the asylum and the doctors right. And of
course I read Nellie Bly’s account of her time there.
JMR- Your main character is
sent to the insane asylum at Blackwell’s Island. I just read a book Feigned
Madness about Nellie Bly and her brief stay there. Can you give our readers a
brief description of the place?
SB-The asylum was a public
institution meant to serve the poor, so it was horribly overcrowded,
underfunded, and basically a dumping ground for inconvenient women. They were
given spoiled food and often abused by uncaring and low-skilled staff. There
were doctors and nurses who wanted to help their patients, but there was so
much about mental illness that wasn’t understood, and there just weren’t many
good options for treatment. One of the common “cures” for “melancholia” was a
cold-water bath, after which the patient would be wrapped in a wet sheet and
left in a cold room for hours. It was meant to shock them out of their
depression. Nellie Bly (born Elizabeth Jane Cochran) was a journalist who got
herself committed and remained in the asylum for over a week in order to
document the inhumane conditions. There were major reforms as a result of her
work, and the asylum closed for good a few years later.
JMR-What projects do you have
in the pipeline?
SB-I intend A Deadly Fortune to
be the start of a series, so I have a half-done draft of a sequel and several
ideas for later books. I’m also working on a standalone WWII-era novel set in
DC, in which a woman assumes the identity of her missing twin sister in order
to find out what happened to her.
JMR- Tell our readers how to
find you on social media and the web.
SB-There are lots of places to
find me online. My website is www.staciemurphy.com.
My Twitter handle is @StacieMWrites. On Instagram I’m Stacie.murphy. I’m also on Facebook.
JMR- What question were you
hoping I’d ask but didn’t?
SB-I always love a chance to talk
about my very favorite historical detail in the book. I was trying to figure
out if it was plausible for the asylum to have had a telephone in 1893, and I
wound up finding an actual directory of New York asylums for that year, which
included all their phone numbers. So the number in the novel is accurate! I
love that detail, even though it’s not necessary to the plot.
JMR- Thank you Stacie for stopping by. We wish you much success with your new book! Readers I know you're going to want to check it out, so I've include a link below.
READERS, DON'T MISS A SINGLE INTERVIEW, REVIEW OR ARTICLE, SUBSCRIBE TODAY
Comments
Post a Comment