by Mary Malloy
Q:Can you give examples?
A:Yes, but frankly they aren’t all that interesting. I had a lot of day-to-day episodes that just didn’t belong in the novel. In one scene, for instance, Lizzie was grading a pile of papers and I actually wove into it excerpts from papers that I have graded over the years. (“My most favorite thing in the world, after humus with pita bread, is the unknown.”) It was probably therapeutic to write, but later, when I was in a strict editing mode, a lot of material like that was cut.
Q:How much did you write that didn’t get included in the final book?
A:I think I probably have more than a hundred pages that I wrote but later cut, including a whole scene in which all the characters trooped over to France and met Bette, and another in which Bette came back to England after the heart was reburied. I decided it was better to know Bette through her diary. Managing her to the end of the book would require that I either give her a “miracle cure” for her mental illness (and thereby acknowledge some supernatural element that I was otherwise rejecting), or give poor old George one more burden to bear, which didn’t seem quite fair to him under the circumstance.
Q:Would you consider ever making your “deleted scenes” available, like they do on DVDs of movies?
A:No. I have watched those “deleted scenes” and usually understand exactly why the director or editor decided not to include them. Taking those things out is what editing and revision are for. I have preached that mantra to hundreds of students and I absolutely believe it to be true.
Q:Are there other characters in the book that are based on real people?
A:The character of Kate Wentworth is based on my friend Peg Brandon. They aren’t actually all that much alike at this point, beyond the facts that they are both sea captains and each has the surname of a Jane Austen hero. Peg accompanied me on a walk across England in 1997, though, and I am currently novelizing that trek to become Lizzie’s next adventure, so Kate will play a bigger role in the next book. There were a few other people who I only knew casually or professionally who inspired me, but no character is drawn directly from an actual person.
Q:So we will we be meeting Lizzie again in another book?
A:I’m already at work on a sequel, with plans for a third book in the series. The next book, Paradise Walk, takes Lizzie across England looking for evidence that Chaucer based his “Wife of Bath” character in Canterbury Tales on an actual woman. I’m working hard to bring the landscape into focus in this book. There will be more descriptions of actual locations, including the great medieval cathedrals at Wells, Glastonbury, Winchester, and Canterbury. Most of the characters from The Wandering Heart will be back in the next two books.
Q:Do you still write nonfiction?
A:Yes, I am also working on a history of museums based on a course I teach in the Museum Studies program at the Harvard Extension School. I like to have several projects going and to move between them, so I am simultaneously working on three very different books, including a novel set in thirteenth-century Ireland at the monastic center of Clonmacnoise.
Q:What is the most important piece of advice that you would offer an aspiring writer?
A:The standard advice is to “write what you know,” but since I am interested in research I would say “write about something that grabs your curiosity, and learn through the process.” Then be prepared to work on it for a long, long time. I think the thing that most people don’t understand about writing a novel is how long it can take and how much ideas evolve and change along the way. My motto in teaching is that “writing is a process,” and for years I have been telling that to my students.
Q:Do you belong to a reading group?
A:Not currently, but for years I was part of a wonderful group at Brown University that read Medieval texts in modern translation. That sounds very geeky as I say it, but the books were ripping good reading. Being able to discuss books of common interest is very satisfying and I am looking for a new reading group.
Q:Did you read any books in that group that you would recommend to your readers?
A:For anyone who would like to delve into Medieval books, I highly recommend two books to start: A History of the Franks by Gregory of Tours, written in the sixth century; and Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson, written in the twelfth century. Both authors had the eye of a historian but were close to the subjects about which they were writing, so they have definite political points of view. There is so much love and jealousy and intrigue and grasping for power and violence in these books; the backstabbing is both literal and figural. There is not, however, a sustained narrative, so if plot and character development are what you seek, these books probably aren’t for you.
Q:Are you willing to correspond with or visit a group reading The Wandering Heart?
A:I would love to be in touch with readers and, if my travel schedule allows, to visit with reading groups. Contact Leapfrog Press for details.