While I aimed to keep my fictionalized version of Elizabeth’s story as close to the truth as possible, this author’s note will serve as my confessional for instances when I had to tweak things to better fit the narrative.
With the exception of Cat, who is entirely fictional, the characters you’ve read about in these pages are all based on real people. However, in order to streamline the cast list, there were several historical characters that I merged and some names I changed for the sake of clarity. For example, I combined Lee Fuhr with Hallie Flanagan, Elizabeth’s former drama teacher at Vassar, who was apparently one of her first introductions to Communism. During Elizabeth’s days with the Party, she worked with many Communist officers, whom I chose to condense. For example, I gave Juliet Glazer some of a certain Comrade Brown’s responsibilities, such as introducing Elizabeth to Yasha, because honestly, I could only keep track of so many comrades. Nathan Gregory Silvermaster became just Nathan Silvermaster in order to avoid confusion with Elizabeth’s FBI name of Agent Gregory, and I also omitted one of Elizabeth’s code names—Helen Johnson—given that the name Helen was already claimed by both Helen Silvermaster and Mary Tenney’s alter ego Helen Price.
The most important merging of characters is that of my combination of two of Elizabeth’s contacts—Mary Price and Helen Tenney—into the composite character of Mary Tenney, whom I gave the code name of Helen Price. In reality, both women shared many connections. For example, Helen Tenney moved into Mary Price’s old DC apartment, and Mary Price was passed over for an OSS job while Helen Tenney worked in the Spanish sector of the OSS, a job she took at the suggestion of Jacob Golos. Elizabeth Bentley did try to protect both women—following Yasha’s death, she told Earl Browder that Helen Tenney was psychologically unfit for clandestine work, and he had her released from service. Unfortunately, Helen Tenney suffered a nervous breakdown in 1947 and was institutionalized following a suicide attempt. She developed a violent phobia against everything Russian and was deemed delusional due to her claims that her telephone was tapped and that she had once been a Russian spy. Mary Price was known as Dir in coded messages, but Tenney’s code name in Project VENONA was Muse, which seemed apropos for a character working as a honey trap. While there’s no evidence that either historical woman was a honey trap to the extent of my fictional Mary Tenney, Iskhak Akhmerov, chief of the NKGB illegal station in the US, hoped to establish Mary Price in an apartment in Georgetown for the sexual entrapment of blackmail victims, and sources claim she did have an affair with one contact.
Elizabeth actually had at least three handlers after Jacob Golos died (and I’ve found three possible dates for Golos’s death—November 25, 26, or 27, 1943), the first being Iskhak Akhmerov (code name Bill), and the last of whom was Anatoly Gorsky (code name Al). (As a side note, some of Elizabeth’s contacts appear to have had multiple code names; in that instance I chose the more common version.) I combined Akhmerov and Gorsky into one central character and stuck with Al, as Elizabeth had more contact with him for a longer period. Plus, he was the one who penned the memo about all the possible ways to liquidate her. Soviet-savvy readers will also notice that I stuck with the NKVD designation instead of also using the NKGB. The Soviet secret police really was an alphabet soup that changed every few years—the GPU became the OGPU, which was part of the NKVD (which was around from 1934 through the end of WWII), then the NKGB (the counterintelligence force, which lasted from February to July 1941 and was reinstituted temporarily in 1943), and then the KGB, which lasted until the end of the Cold War. To keep from making readers’ eyes bleed, I decided to simplify and just use the NKVD.
The FBI didn’t become aware of the British intelligence leak to Moscow regarding Elizabeth’s defection for some time and continued sending reports. On November 24, three days after her final meeting with Al, the People’s Commissar for State Security notified Stalin and Molotov of Bentley’s defection. Gorsky did have plans to kill Elizabeth, including shooting, poisoning, or faking her suicide, but rather than do the deed himself, he would likely have assigned this task to Soviet agent Joseph Katz, whom Elizabeth knew as Jack. It was eventually decided that a slow-acting poison should be administered to Elizabeth, something Katz could place on a pillow or handkerchief or in her food. Luckily for Elizabeth Bentley, the plan was aborted at the last minute.
In the interest of avoiding penning a thousand-page novel, there are a few instances where I tweaked how Elizabeth’s history unfolded. For example, the timeline regarding Elizabeth’s early relationship with Golos and work at the Italian Library is unclear, so I chose to arrange events in the way that made the most narrative sense. I also compressed the timeline regarding Trotsky’s assassination. Stalin apparently ordered his assassination in 1939, but it took until August 1940 to orchestrate.
One of the greatest liberties I took was pulling J. Edgar Hoover onto these pages. It’s unlikely that J. Edgar Hoover would have shared any information about Project VENONA with Bentley, and she probably never met Hoover—there’s certainly no documentation that they did meet—but he and Elizabeth did exchange letters, including the one I incorporated here verifying the contents of her testimony. Elizabeth actually met with Donegan after the World-Telegram Blond Spy Queen story came out, but Hoover was reputedly furious and called her contact with the press “outrageous.”
Elizabeth did so much testifying that I suspected readers would lose patience with constant scenes in front of grand juries and the House Un-American Activities Committee. I combined some of her grand jury testimony and the Ferguson committee testimony with that of the HUAC to avoid repetition (and to allow notorious Joseph McCarthy an appearance, although it was actually Senator Ferguson who questioned Elizabeth), and I also combined Meet the Press radio and television appearances, of which she had several. In a further attempt to whittle down her volume of courtroom appearances, I combined two Remington perjury trials into one. William Remington was convicted of perjury in 1951 and sentenced to five years in prison, but his lawyer appealed. The first trial was in 1951, the second in 1953. I had the perjury trial in this novel take place before Elizabeth’s car accidents and before she split with John Wright, but with the resulting outcome of the second trial. Also, readers of any biography on Elizabeth Bentley will note that she also had a minor hit-and-run car accident that took place when she was driving a neighbor to the train station. I decided two car accidents was enough for the reader to understand that Elizabeth was falling apart and omitted the hit-and-run.
In regards to Catherine’s story, she is entirely a figment of my imagination—there is absolutely nothing to suggest that either Mary Price or Helen Tenney had a secret child or that Elizabeth Bentley ever helped arrange an adoption. This bit of the novel was actually very loosely inspired by my own family history—my mother was an infant who was “brokered” during the 1960s and whose biological parents were told that she had died at birth. During the postwar years, there were actually many child traffickers—the most notable is Georgia Tann—who sought to profit via black market baby adoption schemes from the fact that there were more prospective adoptive parents than there were children who needed adopting. At the time of her death, Elizabeth Bentley left behind no family, but I thought it would be kinder for my fictionalized versions of Elizabeth and Mary Tenney to end their stories with some bit of human connection, while also casting a spotlight on a forgotten aspect of American social history.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are so many wonderful people I have to thank for helping shape this story into the book that you hold in your hands today. Most especially to my intrepid first readers—Stephanie Dray and Kate Quinn—who read the first cringeworthy draft and then waved their magic wands to fix all the plot holes and broken character arcs that were making me tear my hair out. You ladies are goddesses of the written word, seriously. Also, I owe debts of eternal gratitude to Kristin Beck, Eliza Knight, and Christine Wells for jumping to my rescue and helping fine-tune th
is beast of a manuscript. I owe all of you ladies a drink at the next Historical Novel Society Conference!
A big thank-you also goes out to loyal reader Esther Dale for connecting me with Eric Dale, who kindly checked my Russian phrases and saved me from a huge gaffe when it came to Russian curse words. Spasibo!
Of course, this book never would have made it past the idea stage had it not been for my agent extraordinaire, Kevan Lyon, who I am convinced could have stared down the NKVD without batting an eye. And thank you to her fearsome crew of Lyonesses, who have been such great wells of support and strength, especially Renée Rosen, Chanel Cleeton, Janie Chang, Laura Kamoie, Jennifer Robson, and Bryn Turnbull. Also, to my editor, Kate Seaver, for helping me sift through so many story ideas that eventually led me to telling Elizabeth Bentley’s unexpected tale. And to the entire talented crew at Berkley who made this book into a reality: Mary Geren, Fareeda Bullert, Claire Zion, Tara O’Connor, and especially Katie Anderson, who designed the gorgeous cover.
Writing can be a lonely business, so thank you to my amazing tribe of teachers who have had my back since my very first book was published: Kristi Senden, Claire Torbensen, Megan Williams, and Cindy Davis.
Family is everything, and I have so many family members cheering me to the finish line with every book. Thank you to Hollie Dunn and Heather Harris, Kerry and Ray Flynn, Christine and Jonathan Carrasco, Johnie Thornton, Steve and Margo Thornton, Tim and Daine Crowley, Don and Billie Paulson, and Carolyn Christler.
Of course, my final thanks go to Stephen and Isabella Thornton. None of this would have been possible without the two of you. I love you both to Jupiter and back.
ADDITIONAL READING
NONFICTION
Bentley, Elizabeth. Out of Bondage, KGB Target: Washington, DC. New York: Ivy Books, 1988.
Chambers, Whittaker. Witness: A True Story of Soviet Spies in America and the Trial That Captivated the Nation. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1952.
Fox, Amaryllis. Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2019.
Kessler, Lauren. Clever Girl: Elizabeth Bentley, the Spy Who Ushered in the McCarthy Era. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.
Mitchell, Marcia, and Thomas Mitchell. The Spy Who Seduced America: Lies and Betrayal in the Heat of the Cold War, The Judith Coplon Story. Montpelier: Invisible Cities Press, 2002.
Olmstead, Kathryn. Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Romerstein, Herbert, and Eric Breindel. The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America’s Traitors. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2000.
FICTION
Eliasberg, Jan. Hannah’s War. New York: Back Bay Books, 2020.
Prescott, Lara. The Secrets We Kept. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2019.
Quinn, Kate. The Rose Code. New York: William Morrow, 2021.
Robuck, Erika. The Invisible Woman. New York: Berkley, 2021.
Wilkinson, Lauren. American Spy. New York: Random House, 2019.
Readers Guide
A MOST CLEVER GIRL
A NOVEL OF AN AMERICAN SPY
STEPHANIE MARIE THORNTON
INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
You’ve written so many wonderful novels based on the lives of real women. How did you discover Elizabeth Bentley’s story? How was it similar and different from writing about Alice Roosevelt in American Princess and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis in And They Called It Camelot?
I actually came across a reference to Elizabeth Bentley when I was researching Cold War spies and was intrigued by this woman whose story is virtually unknown today. What was interesting to me was that everyone knows about Joseph McCarthy, but his accusations regarding Communists infiltrating the US government were based on hot air. Elizabeth Bentley—whose many testimonies were secretly confirmed by the FBI via Project VENONA—was vilified and then forgotten due to the fact that no one could corroborate her accusations, and because she was seen as a hysterical, menopausal woman. Project VENONA was declassified in 1995, and now we know the truth of Bentley’s story, which I felt needed to be told.
Elizabeth Bentley’s story was similar to that of Alice Roosevelt and Jackie Kennedy’s in that they were all American women who deeply loved their country. The big difference was that Bentley made many choices that at first glance appear the opposite of patriotic—she was an American spying for Russia during World War II, after all!
In A Most Clever Girl you created an entirely fictional narrator in Catherine Gray. That’s different than in your previous novels, in which there was only one heroine and she was based on a real person. How did that change your writing process? How did you weave together the stories of two women and two time periods?
All of my six prior novels are narrated by real women from history, but including Catherine Gray in this book allowed me to weave in more of Bentley’s redemption at the end. The real Elizabeth Bentley had a rough time in her last final years, given that her testimonies brought about few convictions and those that did—William Remington’s and the Rosenbergs’—didn’t end as planned. Cat’s storyline also allowed me the opportunity to interject with questions that might mirror readers’ questions as they followed the story. Elizabeth Bentley was a complicated woman—being able to see her making the choices she did during World War II and the Cold War and then hear the older version of her character justify those decisions was a good way to really get inside her head.
What’s your research process like? Do you start by reading biographies? In general, what are usually the most effective sources for informing your novel? How much of your research do you finish before you start writing the novel?
I always start with reading biographies about my narrators—this time it was Lauren Kessler’s Clever Girl and Kathryn S. Olmsted’s Red Spy Queen—to figure out the foundations of the plot and characters. My aim after that is to read anything written by my subject. In this case I was lucky that Elizabeth Bentley wrote her own memoir, Out of Bondage, which I was able to track down. Once I have all that research under my belt, I start writing. As I continue to revise the story, I’m constantly layering information from additional primary sources—for example, transcripts of Bentley’s House and Senate testimonies—and also any nonfiction about the general subject, which in this case meant learning about spy tools and what it’s like to be an undercover spy. Finally, I try to search out any related museums or historical sites to really immerse myself in the material. The International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, was an invaluable source for this book!
Elizabeth Bentley was such a complicated woman. Did anything surprise you in writing her story?
Shockingly, Elizabeth Bentley’s story has been so nearly forgotten. Here’s a woman who ran the largest Soviet spy ring in America, ended the golden age of Soviet espionage in the US by informing to the FBI, and testified repeatedly about actual spies in the highest tiers of American government. However, Bentley was vilified and then forgotten, mostly because the FBI’s hands were tied with the secrets of Project VENONA. At the same time, you have Whittaker Chambers—whose story is very similar to Bentley’s—who received a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984 for his contributions to “the century’s epic struggle between freedom and totalitarianism.” While Elizabeth Bentley was an incredibly complicated woman—and she sometimes made terrible decisions—I felt people needed to hear her story again, especially now that we know she was telling the truth all those years ago.
Your love for history and historical fiction shines through in your novels. What intrigues you about history? Have you always loved studying it? Are there historical novels that you first fell in love with?
I have loved studying history since I was in first grade. I remember watching a documentary on the Titanic and gaping at the image of the underwater chandelier and grand staircase, realizing that
people decades prior would have seen those same items as they walked into dinner decked out in their tuxedos and evening gowns. In high school, I devoured The Red Tent by Anita Diamant and Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, finding myself transported to biblical times and wartime Japan. History—be it in a classroom lecture or a historical novel—is really about the stories and human emotions that link us together. That’s what I love about historical fiction—its ability to let readers experience history as it unfolded and feel what it was like to be a First Lady, a president’s daughter, or even a spy during World War II.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Throughout this story, Elizabeth Bentley is an unreliable narrator as well as an antihero. At what points did you cheer for her? When did you condemn her? What do you think she should have done differently in her life?
2. Elizabeth calls herself a villain and tells Cat that even the most heinous villain has reasons that let them rationalize their wrongdoing. How did Elizabeth rationalize the many wrongs she committed?
A Most Clever Girl Page 39