The Scribe of Siena
Page 45
I absolutely loved writing the wedding night scene—I really enjoyed the combination of the tension of Gabriele and Beatrice’s challenging conversation, the clash between their two worlds, and their desire for one another.
I also loved writing chapter 9—Beatrice’s return to modern life, that underlines her longing for the Medieval life she left behind. That was probably my favorite to write. It was hard too, though, figuring out the balance of the mystery and the emotion, and how to make her decision make sense.
I really like the scene in the elevator, when Beatrice dreams about Gabriele, and reflects on how he becomes part of the objects around him, how much he would like that. This comes from a real experience of my childhood. My grandmother died when I was fifteen, and I missed her all the time. We’d been very close, talked a lot, traveled together, went to museums—she was an amateur late-life historian who loved art and must have instilled a lot of that joy in me. After she died I had recurrent dreams that would take place in the elevator of the apartment building where I lived, and we would meet there. I’d update her about my life, and I knew instinctively in those dreams that elevators were a place between the world of the living and the non-living, where we could connect and still share our thoughts. . . . It was strangely reassuring at the time. I would say, if one of my children asked me now whether that was magic, that the mind creates wonderful ways of solving problems of emotional loss that are magical . . . it was certainly that for me.
Finally, there’s a paragraph that is easily missed but is one of my favorites because, although it is ostensibly about Gabriele’s process of painting, it actually describes my experience of writing.
“Do you know what you’re going to paint before you start?”
“I spend many days preparing studies before I approach the unpainted wall, and outline my intended image in red-brown sinopia, well before I begin to paint. But I can only plan so much. The full execution eludes me until the moment I lay pigment on wet plaster, feeling the brush move in my hand as if a force other than my own propels it. That is the moment I live for, and that I cannot explain . . .”
What would you like your readers who are interested in Medieval Italy to take away from The Scribe of Siena?
I like historical fiction because I want to bring the past to life. I don’t just want to write about history, to record what happened. I want to give readers (and myself!) a way to sink into history—to be time travelers, like Beatrice. I want my book to help people go to Medieval Siena, not just read about Medieval Siena. I want my readers to feel transported, to believe that it is possible to move from one time and place to another, and even for just a moment, to believe that these invented people are real, the way I did while writing it, and in some ways still do. I want to provide a bridge into a living, breathing past—a past that might even coexist simultaneously with the present.
Are you working on anything now? Can you tell us about it?
Yes, yes! Always—if not on paper then in my head. At the moment I’m working on a novel set in late Byzantine Greece. If focuses on the now abandoned city of Mystras, in the Southern Peloponnese, which is mostly in ruins, but still standing. You can walk through its streets, into the churches and crumbling houses, the great fortress on top of the hill at the foot of the Taygetos mountain range—and of course I have walked through it—it’s even more magical than it sounds. It has a mysterious, tumultuous history, with moments of great triumph, as the center of the late Byzantine empire after the fall of Constantinople, and also great despair. I seem to keep coming back to this question of the shape of time, and how the past and the present intersect—that plays a role in the story I’m writing now too. But I can’t say more at the moment—it’s too early.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© DANA MAXON
Melodie Winawer is a physician-scientist and associate professor of neurology at Columbia University. A graduate of Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University, with degrees in biological psychology, medicine, and epidemiology, she has published numerous nonfiction articles and book chapters. She is fluent in Spanish and French, literate in Latin, and has a passable knowledge of Italian. Dr. Winawer currently lives with her spouse and their three young children in Brooklyn, New York. The Scribe of Siena is her first novel.
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SimonandSchuster.com
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Melodie-Winawer
/TouchstoneBooks
@TouchstoneBooks
@TouchstoneBooks
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
* * *
Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.
Touchstone
An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Melodie Winawer
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Touchstone hardcover edition May 2017
TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com.
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Interior design by Kyle Kabel
Jacket design by Rex Bonomelli and Cherlynne Li
Jacket photographs: A young Lady writing in a Hymnal by Giacomo Pacchiarot to/photograph courtesy of Sotheby’s picture library, Cathedral Dome © Sisse
Brimberg & Cotton Coulson, Keenpress/National Geographic/getty images, clouds © Michael Forsberg/National Geographic/getty images
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Winawer, Melodie, author. Title: The scribe of Siena : a novel / Melodie Winawer. Description: First Touchstone hardcover edition. | New York : Touchstone, 2017. Identifiers: LCCN 2016025826 (print) | LCCN 2016034507 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Women physicians—Fiction. | Artists—Italy—Siena—Fiction.
| Man-woman relationships—Fiction. | Black Death—Italy—Siena—Fiction.
| Time travel—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Sagas. | FICTION / Historical.
| FICTION / Literary. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction. | Historical fiction. | Medical novels.
Classification: LCC PS3623.I5894 S36 2017 (print) | LCC PS3623.I5894 (ebook)
| DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025826
ISBN 978-1-5011-5225-2
ISBN 978-1-5011-5227-6 (ebook)
-ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share