C.W. Gortner's Blog

Having written ten historical biographical novels, I’m no stranger to the demands, constraints, and pitfalls of historical accuracy.

Because my protagonists once actually lived, it’s essential to me as a writer to do them justice by portraying them as they were in life, including strengths, flaws, and mistakes. Since I write in first person and we’re often the least likely to see or even recognize our own weaknesses, depending on what I discover about my character, I must decide whether she knows herself as well as she should or thinks she does.

My research is always extensive, the result of hundreds of books, contemporary documents, including letters and/or diaries when available, trips abroad, as well as the accompanying deluge of research into the historical setting and events. My first duty, as I see it, is to always be accurate, both to my character and her circumstances.

Yet accuracy in an historical novel, as in life, isn’t always the same in the eye of the beholder. Accuracy spans a gamut: there are the details of the world, the language and objects of the time, the fashion and social mores. These are usually unquestionable; it’s been well established when telephones were first invented, so having an 19th century woman ring up her friends for tea before phones were widely available is not historically accurate. Most authors, including myself, will spend inordinate amounts of time researching minutia that readers may never notice, such as the type of crystal for a specific chandelier or trim on an evening gown. In my case, I don’t mind if readers don’t notice; I must know these details to fully immerse myself in my character’s world and provide authority as the tour guide, regardless of whether my reader pays attention.

Where things can get tricky is when I’m interpreting events through my character’s eyes, relying on her particular personality and emotional makeup. Readers of historical novels often know a lot about the characters I write about, if not everything. Impressions are made very early on by us as readers when we first encounter a historical personage; we bring these impressions to whatever we later read about them, perhaps unwittingly, but we do. If we adore a certain historical person, we may object to reading that she could be vindictive, even if the historical record indicates she was. We don’t want to discover our idols were less than ideal or not quite as lovable as we suppose. These are not inaccuracies, however; as readers, we may dislike the portrayal, but we must be careful to not label the depiction as inaccurate simply because we viscerally disagree with it. Part of the joy of historical fiction is discovering how each author handles a particular subject. One author’s Elizabeth I will not necessarily be another’s.

That said, actual mistakes made by authors are almost always inadvertent. The majority of us cannot afford full-time research assistants, so we do it all ourselves. We are human and therefore fallible, so things can and will slip through the cracks. Mistakes are often the result of oversight, editorial gaffes, or just plain we-messed-up.

For example, I know Martha Gellhorn was Hemingway’s third wife, but while writing MARLENE, I have Dietrich mention that she’s his second wife. It’s one line and completely inadvertent on my part, yet despite three publisher edits plus a professional copy edit, no one caught it. Readers did, however. I accept full responsibility for my mistake and am appalled, but it happened. I screwed up.

In an opposing example, some readers declared my depiction of Tsarina Alexandra in THE ROMANOV EMPRESS as inaccurate. My research for this novel was intense, with everything I portrayed backed by verifiable fact; I was very careful in this regard, as I know the Romanov family has a treasured place in our imaginations. Yet I also had to depict Alexandra as my lead character, the Dowager Empress Marie, experienced her, and they did not get along; they were antithetical in their personalities and outlooks. To see Alexandra portrayed as unpleasant and unreasonable roused accusations of inaccuracy, when, in reality, it was merely the perception of a mistake that isn’t a mistake at all. Alexandra was indeed a difficult woman in real life.

Then there’s a third, more complex example. In MADEMOISELLE CHANEL, some readers objected to my portrayal of her WWII activities, citing a white-washing of her antisemitism and support of the Nazis. In this instance, my meticulous research turned up, as is often the case with historical characters but even more so with Chanel, opposing sides. On one side, she made business and social decisions that indicate she disliked Jews. On the other, she entrusted her fashion empire in her later years to the very Jewish businessmen she once tried to sue by taking advantage of anti-Jewish regulations (a case she initially lost but years later, won) and she did in fact allow her south of France vacation home to be used by the resistance as a staging area to assist refugees, including several notable Jews, escape persecution from occupied Vichy. With Chanel, my ultimate decision was to let her relate her version of these events as she saw them. I didn’t try to soften the fact that she was always rapacious when it came to her business and money, and very arrogant and blind when it came to her WWII ventures. I blended her opposing sides to present a portrayal that neither exalts nor condemns her; you could say, I gave her the benefit of the doubt because her actions, both bad and good, indicate she warranted it. In this instance, it’s a matter of subjective interpretation. The historical record is clear that while she was summoned twice to answer charges of collaboration during the war, she was acquitted both times. Yet the record is also clear that she had an affair with a Nazi intelligence officer and she undertook covert missions for him. In this case, I had to let my reader to judge her for themselves.

Historical accuracy is a difficult endeavor. While factual details are easy to establish, emotional reasons are not. In the end, history is often a collection of united impressions after a fact. It’s never kind to the defeated or misunderstood — nor is it kind to those who seek unassailable truth.

Yes, I know we're one day away from an historic and very contentious election. I'm not saying a word about it (just vote.)

Instead, I'm going to talk about pets. You see, I think every writer should have a pet. Not only are they wonderful companions during the long, lonely days as we sit at the computer obsessing over our latest work-in-progress, forgetting to shower and eating the same lunch for weeks on end, but they remind us there are other beings in this world who depend on us. For a writer - let's face it, we can be very self-absorbed - that's always a good thing. A dog also gets us out of the house to see other people, nature, and exercise our muscles, atrophied from that perpetual hunch over the keyboard. A cat, on the other hand, requires service. Service entails getting up to clean the box regularly - exercise, people - refreshing ignored food in the dishes, attention, and belly rubs, etc. Pets are the perfect antidote for a writer's reclusive tendencies. They live in the moment and teach us to enjoy the moment, too.

I always thought I was a dog person. I've loved all animals since I was a child, rescuing abused and neglected dogs in Spain when I lived there and bringing them home to care for them. We always had dogs growing up, but in Spain, cats were evanescent creatures, so dogs were my preferred soulmates. When I graduated from college and moved to NYC to work in fashion, my schedule didn't permit a pet. When I returned to San Francisco to take up writing grants for healthcare during the HIV pandemic, I was attending to dying friends and had no time for a pet, either. But a nightmare roommate brought a cat home, a beautiful black Persian named Alex, then dumped it on me when she moved out. Alex was gorgeous, indoor/outdoor, which suited my peripatetic schedule, but wasn't ideal for his well being. He got hit by a car and I spent a fortune saving him. Then I moved to another house on a busy street and he was very unhappy being relegated indoors. He became neurotic, so I gave him to a friend who had a garden. To my shame, I never checked up on him. The AIDS crisis was destroying my world, and though it's no excuse, I forgot about him. I assume he went on to live a happy, long life, but I never found out. My friend moved away because the grief in the city was overwhelming and we lost touch. I often think of Alex to this day.

When I settled down with my husband and bought our house, we both wanted a pet. My life was more organized, and I had time to devote to one. We adopted a senior rescue dog named ChaCha and had her for a year before she developed a devastating autoimmune disease. Her death ravaged me; all the pent-up loss from AIDS overwhelmed me. In a haze of desperate mourning, I adopted a six-week year old corgi, my beloved Paris.

Paris was my dog of the soul. She was beautiful, highly intelligent, and a demanding female in an all-male household. I rotated my life around her, two daily walks, trips to Lake Tahoe, and so much love. She was the one who found my feral female cat hiding in terror under a bridge in the park where Paris and I walked. I spent weeks going up twice a day during my walks to feed this terrified cat and coax her out. Her kittens adored Paris, who was patient with the rubs and claws, and eventually Mommy Cat, as I named her, warmed up to us. With the help of the SPCA Feral Cat Program, I trapped her kittens and had them adopted; two of Mommy's first litter now live next door with my neighbor.

Mommy, however, eluded the trap for months and became pregnant again. I had experience now, and managed to trap and save her next litter - all save one, a male I named Boy, who refused to enter the trap and grew up wild in the park, bonded to Mommy. And me. He loved me from the start, waiting every day for Paris and me to arrive in the car. He accompanied us on our walks around the lake, bolting up a tree if a strange dog ran toward him, and showed such insouciance and courage, I fell in love. His trust allowed me to eventually trap him, get him vaccinated and fixed to avoid an incestuous coupling with Mommy. I had her spayed, too. Then, on advice from the feral cat program, I returned them to their area in the park.

Years went by. Whenever I traveled, I paid a friend to feed the cats in the park. When I returned, they were always there to greet me, but I knew something had to give. Paris was very territorial at home, so bringing the cats home seemed out of the question. We cared for three permanent feral cats in our garden (whom Paris chased if she saw them) but adding the park cats to the colony was tricky endeavor and might not be successful, risking them trying to get back to the park, which was several dangerous blocks away.

Until Boy was injured by a dog or coyote, and I had to trap him again to take him to the feral cat vet. Because he was very bonded to Mommy, who mostly lived under the bridge in a plastic trash can I'd rigged up with an exit cut-out in the rear and blankets I washed weekly, I snagged her and took her to the vet, too, figuring she could have a check-up. After Boy's paw was stitched up, the vet tech told me he had to be confined for a few days while his paw healed, but there was "no way" he or Mommy would ever be tamed as indoor cats. Guess they gave the vet a taste of their fury.

I brought them home so Boy could heal. And of course, here they stayed. For the first 24 hours, they remained in the carrier, piled on top of each other, very freaked out. Then they started to explore the upstairs guest room, which they colonized, impeding our ability to have overnight guests. In time, Boy ventured downstairs while Mommy kept to the aptly-named Princess Suite. It would take another three years before she felt comfortable venturing downstairs, and only late at night, after the lights were out and we were in bed. Partly, this was because of Paris, who tolerated them in the park but was not amused to find them in her home. She never hurt them, but if she saw Boy coming down, she'd growl and herd him right back into the guest room. That was their allotted place and she was fine with it. The rest of the house was hers, verboten to kitties.

An uneasy stalemate developed until Paris died shortly before her 13th birthday of a sudden illness. I was bereft. I mourned her so intensely, everyone in my life grew worried about me. My cats changed. Boy became canine in his devotion, sitting beside me when I tried to write and tapping my hand with his paw at the precise hour for my lunchtime. I remember a day shortly before Paris passed away. I was in the kitchen, making lunch at just that time, and suddenly Boy appeared around the corner. Paris was sitting on her mat, watching me prepare the usual sandwich, and I froze as I saw Boy creep up to her. She was very weak by that point, but she'd never tolerated any intrusion by him. To my tearful surprise, she turned to look right at him. He went still. They stared at each other for several seconds and then he jumped up on the counter to inspect my sandwich. In the month remaining to her, Paris never tried to chase him away again. Many people underestimate the powers of communication that animals share. I never have. I believe in that moment, Paris understood her time was running out with me, and she bequeathed her place to Boy. And Boy has never faltered. To this day he, and Mommy, have ensured that my husband and I are loved. They've taught us that cats are not aloof or uncaring as so many think, but rather have a different way of demonstrating love. Cats can be our soulmates, too.

I'm no longer just a dog person. But then, perhaps I never truly was. Owning these two cats, who despise any change in their routine and recently turned into devils during a much-delayed but required vet visit, has developed my higher senses, my ability to read a perceptive mind that doesn't view the world like I or a dog does. They comfort me when I'm sad, make me laugh, stalk off in a huff when they've had enough, but their gratitude towards us for saving them from a precarious existence in a public park never wavers, even when they give us the cold shoulder for a perceived affront.

And see? I haven't said a word in this entire post about my current work-in-progress.

When people who are not writers envision the writing life, misconceptions invariably arise. From the glory age of Hemingway and Kerouac, Anais Nin and Henry Miller, we think of endless bacchanals of sex, travel, and copious drinking, coupled with disdain for the ordinary obligations of other mortals. Fast forward to the heydays of Truman Capote, Jacqueline Susann, Michael Crichton, and other mega-brand names, and we envision Hollywood glitz, leopard-print couture, and cocktail parties galore. Then we reach today, where a few big names, like J.K Rowling, Stephen King, and a handful of others, continue to dominate the bestseller lists, with the occasional debut author making a heady splash in their midst. Yet the reality remains that for most writers, the writing life is no bed of roses. Or much of a bacchanal. Alas.

Writing is a passion. Publishing is a business. The two must meet for a writer to be published, in the traditional / legacy approach, but they are rarely simpatico alliances. Publishers pay authors an advance to acquire their novel - I'm focusing on fiction here, because that's what I know - and in exchange, the author agrees to give the publisher the right to publish and distribute the book, according to specifications outlined in a contract. The advance is not mad money: it must be paid back, in the form of a percentage of royalties earned on sales of the novel. Not the entirety of the sale price, mind you, but from the percentage accorded to the author per the contract - which means, before the author sees a single extra payment in royalties, he or she must first earn out their advance in sales. Advances vary in fiction, but by and large, very few novelists get rich off their advance. Fiction is notoriously challenging to sell and publishers base the advance on an average estimate of how many copies they think the novel might sell, and that's a lower number financially than what non-writers think. If the book sells more copies and the advance is earned out, great for the author. If it sells less copies and money is owed on the advance, it might not be so great for the author. Advances dictate an author's fiscal price in the publishing marketplace, and while many authors do not earn out their advances, the fact that they don't can be, and often is, cited against them when it comes to negotiating the next book contract. Sometimes, if the publisher overpaid on the advance in the mistaken hope that the book would sell much better than it did, the author could be denied a new contract and find themselves out in the cold.

Publishing has always operated on a thin profit margin, if you take into account operating costs and percentages of sales that bookstores and distributors must earn to keep their doors open. Depending on the advance, a book might have to sell a lot of copies - tens of thousands or more - to be profitable, though e-books have changed the game somewhat because there are no warehousing or printing costs associated with an e-book. Nevertheless, the print edition contains those costs, and so e-books are not a panaceas. And authors don't make as much on e-book sales due to an unfathomable industry standard that would require a separate blog post.

Suffice to say, if you add in the diminishing space for book reviews in newspapers and other media outlets - which are fast going extinct - and the collapse of major chain-stores like Borders, you get a perfect storm for authors. A tsunami of novels are still published every year, but the ability to reach readers and create a bestseller, let alone a modest success, is becoming more of an obstacle course every day. With publisher marketing budgets slashed to bare bones and so many authors to promote in any given year, most fiction writers are left on their own to drum up awareness of their books. It's the cruelty of economics: people can't read a book they've never heard of, yet publishers can't promote every book they publish. Advertising is very costly and man/woman power at the publishing house is limited. Bestselling authors get the lion's share of the publisher's attention because their advance requires it; some debut authors get support because the house thinks their book will be a hit. The majority of other authors do not.

What this boils down is the fallacy, or illusion, that writers lead a cushy existence. We sit in our pajamas all day at the computer spinning stories and downing cups of joe, without a care in the world. We cash our royalty checks and indulge in luxury. The reality is, most of us work far more than 40 hours a week. We not only write our books - a feat, in and of itself - but then we must market them: managing our own social media accounts, hiring freelance marketing firms, if we can afford it, to buy ads for us - which usually entails, no new shoes or a vacation for us that year - and trudging to and from bookstores, hoping to entice readers with our often disheveled but earnest talks on why we wrote our book. It's not easy and it's not glamorous, though I'll readily admit it's not standing in a rice paddy with a pole on our back, either. It has its perks. But most writers I know, myself included, write because it's our vocation. We can't NOT write. Trust me, I've tried. There are days when even pole-dancing seems like a better option.

As marketing at publishing houses continues to fade and readers are seduced by bargain e-book sale prices, as other forms of entertainment divert attention from the written word, and we complain about how our favorite author's latest novel failed to meet our expectations, it's important to remember that most writers don't write to get rich and go to Cannes with cabana boys attending them on their yachts. Writers write out of a need to tell a story, a compulsion that keeps us at it day after day, month after month, and year after year. We write because we must, because life is pale without it. We want you, the reader, to love our work, but we also want you to know that even if you didn't, we depend on you to continue writing. We don't set the prices on our books: that's a publisher decision. We usually have little control over our final cover design, as that, too, is in the publisher purview. We sometimes don't even have much control over our subject matter, because if we have to put food on our table and our publisher says no to an idea we love and propose, then we have to come up with another idea the publisher will like and want to offer on. So much of our career depends on readers, who buy our books, and therefore we need you as much as we hope you need us.

Next time you're in a bookstore and wonder how this all comes about, and perhaps shake your head at the price of our latest hardcover, remember that there's a person behind that printed object. More than one, in fact. An entire group of persons who worked to bring that particular novel to the marketplace, but only one who's not on salary: the author. We have to earn out our advance to keep writing, so if you enjoy our work, know that your dollars spent are directly benefiting us in our pursuit to entertain you. We'd love to keep telling you stories and we never mean to offend or waste your time or money.

What we want is your support. Your trust in us. Because we're mostly just like you: working hard to support ourselves and our families. And we have good days and bad days in this job we call the writing life.

In my house, we have a garden enclosed by a high redwood fence. It's not very large as far as gardens go, but for a city home, it's ample enough. We have a lone palm tree, rose bushes, lavender, jasmine, and bulbs that shoot up dahlias in the spring. When we first bought the house over twenty years ago, it was the only one we could afford in San Francisco. It needed work, but it was a fine old house, built in 1903. Slowly, we renovated parts of it, and in the process, we created a home for ourselves. We both love animals and wanted to have pets, something we'd not been able to do in cramped apartments with rotating roommates, yet it took us a while before we eventually found our first dog, a senior rescue named Chacha.

But we had animal visitors. I don't recall precisely how precisely they showed up yet they did - three orange feral cats, siblings, a brother and two sisters, and very young. They liked our freshly cleaned garden and decided to stay. We fed them twice a day and left the back door into the garage, off the garden, open for them, fitting the garage with comfy boxes stuffed with old sweatshirts, cat trees, and cubby-holes for them to feel safe and stay warm during the cold and wet Northern California winter. Eventually, with the help of our neighbor, a veteran cat lady, we trapped, fixed, and re-released them back into our garden. They vanished for a time, no doubt affronted by the trauma, but they returned. We named them: Naranjillo was the big male, with his deep orange coat and white-ringed tail. Dulci was the slim, blonder one, and Gatita was the fluffier one with a squinty left eye.

As years wore on, other feral cats arrived and left - some willingly, roamers that they are, others violently killed by a speeding car on the street or a random dog left to rampage in the neighborhood off-leash after hours. We collected their bodies if we found them, had them cremated and kept the little wooden boxes. We lost our Chacha suddenly to an auto immune disease and adopted our beloved corgi, Paris, who was our constant companion for 13 years. We found a mommy cat with a new litter in the local park where we walked Paris and started feeding her; in time, we trapped her and her kittens, fixing and releasing her, and finding homes for her children - all save one, Boy, who stubbornly eluded capture for over two years until he entered a trap baited with tuna. When Boy and Mommy's situation in the park became too perilous, their bond with us too deep to evade, we brought them home, and here they are today. We were warned repeatedly that feral cats can't adapt to being indoors, but they did. They've become affectionate and demanding overseers of our domain, their presence an immeasurable comfort upon the passing of our Paris, a loss so profound that to this day, I still feel it.

All through the ups and downs, our three feral cats were there. When we weeded the garden on Sunday, washing and cleaning the bird-bath fountain - no matter how many fresh-water dishes we left out, they preferred to drink from the fountain - they'd sit and watch us, curiously. We could never touch them, but they didn't run or hide, and often sat waiting, so close to us at feeding time, that we could have reached out and petted them. If we tried, they recoiled. Undeniably wild, they came to trust us and we came to see them as part of our family. When we went on vacation, we hired cat sitters to take care of our indoor pets and our ferals.

Last year, Gatita disappeared. She and her siblings were nearing their fourteenth year with us, a milestone for any feral cat. We searched frantically for her throughout the neighborhood but never found or saw her again. She'd been there the previous night for her feeding, older but no worse for the years, and the next morning she was gone. Never knowing what happened to her made us disconsolate for a time.

Six months ago, Dulci began losing weight, looking frailer and more arthritic, but her appetite was hardy. She loved to sun herself every morning by the lavender bush, sometimes with Naranjillo beside her, and sit by the fountain at dusk, as the fog rolled in. She would sit so still, like a sphinx, so present in the moment as day surrenders to night, that watching her from our window became a ritual for us.

We knew we would lose her. Her weight loss was unavoidable, and we couldn't trap her again only to undergo a battery of medical tests that in all likelihood would reveal failing kidneys. We spiked her food with tuna and other goodies, and she'd regard us with her gentle amber-hued eyes as if in gratitude. One day, my husband nearly touched her but she stepped aside at the crucial moment. She always kept her boundaries.

This morning, she didn't vacate her box in the garage when my husband left for work. He called to tell me after I returned from yoga, so I went out in search of her. I found her under the lavender bush, panting, her back legs paralyzed, in obvious distress. She was dying. She may have suffered a stroke. I called my husband in tears and he said he'd come right home. In the meantime, I brought her box into the garden and used a towel gently draped over her to shift her out from under the bush. She tried to hiss at me, but she was too weak. When I held her in my arms, for the first and only time, she seemed to understand and she melted against me. I set her in her box, and once my husband arrived, we rushed her to the feral cat vet, who had spayed her all those years ago. She was past any hope, but in those last moments, she felt my hand on her little body, so tired and thin now, and she heard my voice, telling her we would always love her and never forget her. She left this world so quietly. She never made a sound.

Tonight, the fog rolls in. Naranjillo is the only one of the three who remains. He came to his feeding and then wandered off to wherever he goes at night; he was never one for the garage unless rain is pelting down. The fountain sits where it always has, but the garden is empty tonight.

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened." - Anatole France

I see this often in reader reviews. DNF = Did Not Finish. As in, the reader gave up on the book. Sometimes, more frequently than I’d supposed, it’s because of the sexual content – and we’re not talking pornography here or straight-up erotica, which, I assume, readers know will be heavy on the sexy stuff. No, this rejection of a novel can apply to fiction in general that has offended a reader’s sensibility. I know because a few of my own reviews mention it. There are even warnings of “Graphic Scenes Ahead.”

It interests, and bemuses, me. Sexuality is an integral part of our human experience. Whether we admit or not, we are all sexual beings. We can choose not to be, like nuns or monks or Catholic priests, but that doesn’t mean we purge the urge. We simply choose to live without expressing it. But for the vast majority of humanity, sex remains a primal need. It is how we procreate. We’re designed by nature to be sexual not only to have children, but also for pleasure; of the thousands of species on our planet, humans are among the few who engage in sex strictly for pleasure. In fact, the clitoris is the only human organ specifically designed for pleasure. How about that?

Yet due to a variety of societal factors and issues, sexuality is not an easy subject for some of us to talk about, or, apparently, read about. For years, the romance novel was heralded as a “wholesome” way for readers to indulge in sexual fantasy; there was always a Happy Ever-After, as opposed to just a happy ending, and the sex was rarely described too much. Or, if it was, pulsating loins and heaving bosoms were usually a la carte. Then erotica crept onto the romance landscape like a panther. Suddenly, we were inundated with graphic sexual content: BDSM and MSM, supernatural hybrids doing the dirty deed under the full moon, well-muscled, tattooed hunters with a bedroom penchant for their prey, and a myriad of variations on the theme. Sex came out of the closet in a genre known mostly for wilting heroines in chiffon and highlanders with their shirts blown open against tawdry sunsets. These enterprising new romance writers turned the very genre on its head. Or on its tush, to be more precise. They shattered the rules, and readers flocked to it. The genre exploded in both popularity and sales. Erotic romance, it seems, was something we were missing.

However, in historical fiction, sexuality is still an area where authors feel the need to tiptoe around. How much sex is too much? How much should be implied and how much should be described? The lines are tenuous, and while our editors might encourage us to add more sex (because, as the adage goes, sex sells), we tend to cringe at the mere thought of what some readers might say if we go full Monty on them. That said, it’s really an unavoidable and a ridiculous conundrum. Sexuality in our characters is essential. How a person feels about sex, and engages in it, can shed as much light on their personality as what they say. Under our clothes, we have the same equipment, equivalent to our gender, but how we employ that equipment ranges in an astonishing amount of ways. To ignore our characters’ sexuality is dangerous because it denies them an essential human reality.

In my novel MARLENE, the sex is apparent. Dietrich was known to moviegoers as the “goddess of desire”— with all the sobriquet implies. She came out of the frenetic louche world of Weimar-era Berlin, the cabaret scene, where diverse sexuality was both widely celebrated and practiced. This was not just some prurient rebellion on Berlin’s part. After the devastation of WWI, with hundreds of thousands of young men maimed or killed, the sexual revolution that emerged in Germany was a defiant rally call to live life while you can, and not waste a moment on regret. Marlene imbued this lesson in her very being; she was open about sex, she enjoyed it, and she refused to label it. In her screen persona, she conveyed sex in ways we’d not seen before. She was not a tragic Garbo or wise-crackin’ Mae West. She was feral, even rapacious, yet also ambivalent. Love might be her drug of choice, but the sexual Dietrich on film was also a promiscuous wet dream. No obligation. Let’s get on with it and not make a fuss. In private, however, Marlene’s sexuality was more complex. She still liked to get on with it and not make a fuss, but she also explored who she was as a person through sex. She sought connections with it, and not connections that would necessarily further her career. Nevertheless, she created the legend of Dietrich because she wasn’t afraid to delve into her sexuality and admit it, albeit with less public liberality than we see today.

Or maybe not so much. In our modern age of Kardashian bare-all selfies and cable TV romps in the hay, we’re swamped by sex that sells. Our primal need moves product, and studios have always recognized that. But in Marlene’s 1930s Hollywood, sex remained somewhat forbidden and coy. And you rarely, if ever, saw homosexuality or anything too out of the norm on film. Today, many gay movie stars still remain in the closet. Why? Because studios, as they did in the 1930s, believe that we, the movie goers, won’t accept an openly gay actor in a heterosexual role, never mind that gay actors have been playing it straight since the first camera started rolling. The double-standard persists; to her credit, Marlene found it ludicrous. Still, in our age of here a butt, there a butt, everywhere a butt-butt, we still get qualms when we read about it. Is it because words reach deeper than the visual medium? Or are we just uncomfortable by the ways others behave in novels much in the same way we’re uncomfortable with seeing frontal nudity or a gay couple kissing on the street?

DNF for sexual content. Frankly, I find it a shame.

It's no secret that authors read reviews. The official trade and newspaper ones, certainly, as well as, more covertly, our reader ones. It might be a form of torture for some, but if hard-pressed to confess the truth, I'd bet that most, if not all, authors will admit to taking sneak peeks at their reader reviews. The cardinal rule is to never comment, though I recently and warily broke that rule and didn't find myself, at least to my knowledge, immediately enshrined in the pantheon of Authors Behaving Badly. (I've been there before, and trust me, it was no picnic).

Why do we look, despite all warnings that we shouldn't? Curiosity, I suspect. We want to see what readers think of a book that we've worked on for at least a year or more. We want to discover if readers felt reading it what we felt writing it, if we succeeded in conveying what so obsessed us. Of course, that's not always how it turns out. Often, we find to our disbelief that either we missed the mark with alleged epic myopia or offended someone in some way we never intended. Books are subjective. What is one person's cup of tea is another's poison.

I'm not immune to feeling hurt when I get a negative review. I'm human; it's my book, after all, and I want everyone to love it, even as I'm aware of how unrealistic that is. Setting aside the one-star rants, where the reviewer sets out to demonstrate how much better they would have done had they written the book (I get it. When I was unpublished, I'd read certain novels and think, "Hell. I could have done this ten times better with one hand in a sling," though fortunately I didn't have any online review sites yet to vent my frustration) I'm often bemused by those reviews where the reader says, "I just didn't like the character."

That always makes me wonder. Some of my favorite novels involve unlikable characters. Do we need to like a character to be engaged? Certainly, for me both as a reader and a writer, the answer is no. The truth is, I seek out subjects that are often not likable in the conventional sense; I'm fascinated by characters whose personalities differ from mine. I've seen reviews where a reader cites, "Clearly the author adores [insert character's name]" and I think, "Really?" Because while it is true that as a writer, we must fall in love with our character in order to live with her for the time it takes to write the book, I know we must remain forever clear-eyed about the foibles and flaws, the weaknesses as much as the strengths. I don't love my characters so much as I seek to understand them, to uncover what makes them who they are. While I often shudder at their choices, I don't want to judge them. The moment I start judging, the writing becomes about me, not them. I want to live vicariously through their eyes and when I've finished writing the book, let the character speak for herself. I don't build altars. I paint portraits. Not necessarily nice portraits at moments, but hopefully realistic ones. A reader may disagree with my interpretation, but I never take on the task of inhabiting my character lightly. Foremost in my mind is not whether the reader will like my character, which is actually quite easy to do, but whether they'll understand her. Like her or not, I want the reader to think after they're done reading my book, "I know more now about who she may have been than I did before."

So, do we need to like our characters? As a writer, we must respect them enough to let them come out of their shell and speak to us. If we discover we share affinities with them, that's always a plus - but to me, not a requirement.

As a reader, well . . . I leave that up to you.

I’ve had some readers recently ask me, “Why did you choose a movie star for your new novel?” It’s a valid question. The truth is, I hadn’t considered ever writing about movie stars because I gravitate to women who are political animals in some way, who defy convention, and stake their own claim. Movie stars, while fascinating to look at, are by and large products of an industry that glamorizes the most socially acceptable versions of women, not necessarily their realities.

Marlene Dietrich was certainly no exception to this. She was manicured for stardom under the ruthless studio system of the early 1930s, her roles selected for her—actresses rarely got to choose which pictures they’d work in—and her image was cultivated to maximize her public appeal. However, she was more than a movie star, as she would prove. What interested me about Marlene was how modern she remains, how much she still personifies issues with which we are grappling today.

Marlene never said she was bisexual. We can designate her with the label if we like, but it’s our label, not hers. She once said, “In Europe, we sleep with whomever we find attractive.” And she eschewed labels for herself accordingly; to her, gender in bed wasn’t a consideration. She defied labels in her own persona, too – wearing men’s suits and black tie when transvestism was taboo, taunting audiences and the press with her enigmatic image and lovers of both genders, while remaining married to the same man for most of her life. Marlene’s gender-bending echoes the current, often contentious dialogue in our society about gender. Do our genitals define our gender? Or is gender a construct of emotional attributions, how we feel inside about who we are? Marlene was undeniably a woman, but she believed that “at heart, I am a gentleman.” For her era, indeed for our own, it’s a revealing and controversial statement.

She also struggled with choices that many women contend with today. Career and motherhood were integral aspects of Marlene’s personality, but she chose her career first because she felt her own fulfillment was as important, as necessary to her survival, as being a mother. She made mistakes as a mother by choosing the route she did, but how many women face the same anguished dilemma, wanting to be realized in their profession while remaining a good parent? It could be argued that Marlene was selfish and neglected her daughter. Or it could be said she made the only choice that felt right for her; in any event, she gave over the raising of her only child to her husband, and this, the stay-at-home dad, is something that married couples today grapple with, as some still look askance when the woman earns the salary while the man cooks the meals. Again, our gender constructs dictate how we perceive.

Marlene’s marriage, for her time, and ours, was unusual. Married young, before she achieved international fame, she doubtlessly loved her husband. But she wanted more: she was ambitious, though she later declared she wasn’t, and her drive to succeed fractured the illusion upon which her marriage was built. She wasn’t content to only be a wife. In time, she was unfaithful to him, and he was unfaithful to her. Adultery can be the most grievous of betrayals and the principal cause of divorce even today. Instead, Marlene and her husband found an arrangement that kept them together, even as both went about their separate lives. Is this ideal? Depends on what we think marriage should be. And isn’t that another hot-button topic in our 21st century world?

Marlene’s fight against the fascist terrors of the Third Reich was deemed heroic, but, to her, she was doing what she felt she had to do. Today, we are in the grip of a xenophobic, terrorism-riddled world, where we fear what we don’t understand and seek out scapegoats to give a face to our fears. The Nazis targeted the Jews, the Roma, the decadents, the gays, the intellectuals, the communists— anyone who did not fit their ideal and could be blamed for Germany's woes. I see echoes of this targeting today, in our current presidential campaign, in the hatred directed toward Muslim communities, and in venomous anti-LGBQT rhetoric. What Marlene understood and put her safety on the line for was that in targeting one group of people, no one is safe. When they start coming after some of us, how long before the rest of us fall prey? No one was safe in Nazi Germany; and that totalitarian stance appalled Marlene. She believed humanity is diverse; that is our beauty. She did not fear diversity because she was secure in who she was. It’s a lesson to be learned.

So, why a movie star? Well, because Miss Dietrich was far more than that. Though she was a product of the glamour system, she was never its victim. She might have suffered for it, but she remained, always, her incomparable self. She was what we should all be: her own person. And that is why I chose her.

I hope you enjoy Marlene’s story.

The Vatican Princess: A Novel of Lucrezia Borgia

I make my living writing about controversial women in history. From Juana of Castile, known for dragging a coffin around with her, to her mother Queen Isabella, infamous for her sponsorship of the Inquisition, to Catherine de Medici, she of the Huguenot massacres and never a mother of the year, to Coco Chanel, who built a fashion empire with relentless ambition and collaborated with the Nazis, and, coming soon, the notorious Lucrezia Borgia, my choices of these women are deliberate. By and large, history is written by men; and women who behaved much like their male counterparts don’t receive the same historical “pass.” We judge them more harshly, for a variety of reasons. Therefore, I think it only right to give them their fair say. And in some instances, their behavior wasn’t quite what we assume.

Research for my books takes years. Each novel I write is the result of bibliographies that can exceed 100 volumes, plus numerous trips to places where my character lived, and digging through archives for new information. That said, I write fictionalized accounts. My books are novels, intended to illustrate the character’s emotional life, not a litany of facts. I try my utmost to not deviate from those facts, but anyone who has taken the time to research a subject will soon discover that the truth isn’t always so clear-cut. Disparate accounts, misinterpretation, and in some cases deliberate obfuscation are a researcher’s devils— unlike a non-fiction biographer who can say, “We don’t know what really happened”, as a novelist, I have to make an informed decision. It might turn out to be the wrong decision, but I still have to make it. My characters must know what happened: that is my job.

I’ve learned—to my consternation, at moments—that getting criticized for how I choose to portray a character comes with the territory. My leading ladies are well known names, so readers will come to them with their own preconceived notions of who this woman was. I don’t necessarily seek to change opinions but rather to present a plausible alternative. I think that with historical figures, as with most things in life, it’s important to consider all sides before taking a stand. Few people believe they are doing something wrong at the time they are doing it; we have to look at how they saw themselves. My novels present the character’s point of view. Written in first person, we experience her world through her eyes. Hence, Isabella might not have believed exiling the Jews was an anti-Semitic act but rather a necessary choice to safeguard her realm. Or Coco Chanel might not have thought that taking a Nazi intelligence officer to her bed to get what she needed was reprehensible. Hindsight is a historical luxury that those who are living in the given moment don’t usually consider.

I often disagree with my character. I am not her. I might write as her, but I have my own beliefs. The challenge is to not let my personality interfere with hers. I build her through obsessive research and numerous drafts; through communications with historical experts and consultation of available resources. In the end, my character is a fictional construct based on fact, but she’s still a creation. I’m not trying to change how we perceive her. I’m trying to write an entertaining story about a woman who loved, suffered, triumphed, and made mistakes, as we all do.

My latest novel about Lucrezia Borgia’s Vatican years is turning out to be perhaps my most controversial – which, I must admit, has surprised me. I hadn’t paused to consider that of course Lucrezia carries a lot of historical baggage. Yet as I researched her and her family, it became clear that most, if not all, she has been accused of remains unsubstantiated. The same, however, can definitely not be said of her family. Though they too have suffered from post-mortem calumny, the Borgias are villainous in history for a reason. They did what they felt they had to do to survive in a very vicious era; they had their excuses, but they still did it. After two weeks spent researching in the Vatican archives, after reading over fifty volumes on the family and their reign and after many heated debates over espresso with aficionados, I came away with the realization that the Borgias were indeed rapacious, determined to win at any cost, albeit if no better and perhaps no worse than other families of their time. Over a hundred murders can be attributed to the Borgias; but not one to Lucrezia. However, she was their centerpiece in an elaborate game of dynastic ambition. What’s fascinating about the Borgias is how little we actually know about their most infamous deeds— and this is where dragons await for the novelist. Were the Borgias as monstrous as it appears and, if so, was their monstrosity derived from a warped sense of familial unity? Could they only love each other, as contemporaries claimed? And did they bring about their own downfall because of it?

THE VATICAN PRINCESS is about family, not about the power politics of Renaissance Italy, though these come into play. It is the story of a young, relatively inexperienced girl catapulted into fame when her father becomes the pope, whose brothers are antagonistic, and whose own life is torn asunder as she faces opposing forces. It is about Lucrezia’s quest to find out who she is. The decisions I made in depicting her might not be the right ones, but they were informed decisions. Indeed, I had to leave out as much as I put in, because a novel is a finite amount of words and encapsulating the complexity and upheaval of Lucrezia’s youth could only be done judiciously. Is it a pretty story? No. Nothing about the world she moved in was pretty, except the architecture, clothing, and art. Is it entertaining? I sincerely hope so. The Borgias came to power in a lurid, decadent, and gorgeous time of history—the Italian Renaissance at its best and its worst. Rape, murder, and other evils were commonplace; Rome was deemed one of the most dangerous cities in Europe, and the Borgias added to the peril. Lucrezia’s father Pope Alexander, her mother Vanozza, and her brothers Juan and Cesare orbited her like malignant stars; and they too were as much a product of their upbringing and the era as she was. Had she been born a man, who knows what she may have done? But she wasn’t. She was the daughter, and cherished as such, but also manipulated and disregarded, as most daughters of these Renaissance dynasties were.

In the final say, my novel explores how family can define and bind us, and how loyalty to our own can be a curse. No one can reasonably argue that Lucrezia didn’t learn this much, nor that she became a survivor because of it. Her triumph is that she overcame it, despite the price she had to pay.

Today, in 1883, Gabrielle Chanel was born to a market vendor and a seamstress. She was raised in poverty; no one ever expected this strange girl who called herself an orphan at the age of twelve after suffering the death of her mother and abandonment in a convent by her father to emerge as one of the early 20th century's most defining personalities or that her fashion brand would become the lasting style icon it remains today.

Coco Chanel was not an easy person to like. Complex and contrary, irascible and unyielding at moments, she resolved to do something few women of her era had ever done - to live on her terms, without apology or justification. She succeeded yet also paid the price for it, both personally and professionally. Did she ever pause to regret? It is one of the enigmas that still surrounds her, for while we have a plethora of facts about her life, 132 years later she continues to hide.

Today, our opinions of her are both guarded and chastising. We deplore her collaboration with the Nazis in Paris during WWII, her seizing advantage of anti-Semitic laws to try and regain control of her signature perfume No. 5, and her apparent willingness to do whatever she thought necessary to survive. She was not heroic and we know it, for we have a hindsight she lacked. As the author of a historical novel about her, the first in her own voice, I have borne my share of these opinions. I've had people accuse me of whitewashing her, of seeing her through rose-tinted glasses, of making her more sympathetic than she truly was.

But I never set out to portray a nicer, kinder Chanel. I set out to portray whom I think she may have been and I relied on extensive documentation to support my theory. "Mademoiselle Chanel" isn't a homage to Chanel but rather yet another attempt to penetrate that elusive carapace she wove around herself, to discover the flesh-and-blood woman who contributed so much to how other women dressed and saw themselves, yet made so many mistakes and seemed oblivious to them. How could this woman with such a pulse on the way the world was turning have failed to foresee how the world in turn would judge her? It is one of the many questions I wanted to explore, and though I may not have found the answers, I certainly tried.

Love her or hate her, Chanel changed the world. More than a century later, she continues to fascinate or repel, because she did both the amazing and the unthinkable. Perhaps that is the heart of the message in my novel "Mademoiselle Chanel".

Like most of us, Coco was fallible.

We all have a little Chanel in us. Who hasn’t experienced putting on a new outfit and feeling that subtle lift in our spirits? Coco Chanel understood this: she thrived on her ability to transform how we dress and, in turn, how we see ourselves.

I first encountered Chanel in my childhood. Her little black dress was a staple in my mother’s closet, and I remember watching my mom dress one evening, slipping into the sheath and ropes of pearls. I asked why she wore so many necklaces but no earrings. She smiled. “Because less is more. That’s what Chanel says.” Until that moment, I had never heard of Chanel. Later, my mom took me to my first Chanel boutique. The quilted handbag with its gold-chain strap; the nautical sweater and collarless suit; the seductive aroma of No. 5 — my mom wore them all. What I did not realize at the time was how she used them to set aside her daily cares and transform herself into a woman who exuded confident independence.

I would learn. After ten years in Spain, my family moved back to the US. I was in my teens and struggled to fit in. On my first day of high school, I wore a tie and pleated trousers. The other students jeered so much, I ran home in tears. In Spain, neck-wear and trousers were the rule, but in the US it was T-shirts and jeans. Then I enrolled in drama class and met others like me, who reveled in flamboyant frock coats and scarves, our apparel a defiant declaration of who we were. My love affair with fashion began. Like Chanel herself, I discovered that clothing could be a catalyst for self-expression.

I hoped to become a designer. But as a student at the San Francisco Institute for Design and Merchandising, I discovered my talent for sketching did not extend to sewing! Nevertheless, I devoted my thesis to Chanel, presenting an illustrated collection on how she revolutionized her era by creating signature styles that endure to this day, even though she had no formal training as a couturière. Her self-taught genius, her determination to succeed and prescient flair inspired me. With a degree in marketing, I embarked on a twelve-year career as a stylist and fashion coordinator. I loved my job and often referred to my battered book of Chanel designs, telling my clients that “Less is more.”

My fascination with Chanel has never abated; in time, I understood she'd taught me about more than mere elegance. In her lifetime, she demonstrated the personal resiliency we all need to fulfill our dreams. As she once remarked, “My life didn’t please me, so I created my life.” That’s good advice.

MADEMOISELLE CHANEL tells the unforgettable story of how this legendary woman created her life. The opportunity to depict Coco’s struggles and successes, her flaws and controversial compromises, which are as much a part of her legacy as her clothes, is a dream come true.

I hope you love reading this novel as much as I have loved writing it.