Stephanie Barron--That Churchill Woman

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I am so excited to bring you our guest today! Stephanie Barron (or Francine Mathews, as you may know her) is one of my oldest friends in the writing community (our first novels were published the same year,) and I am a huge fan of both her contemporary and her historical fiction. And, Anglophile that I am, I have been holding my breath for THIS book, a novel based on the life of Jennie Churchill, Winston's American mother, for months.

Here's THAT CHURCHILL WOMAN

 

Isn't the cover gorgeous???  

I asked Stephanie what sparked her interest in Jennie.

STEPHANIE BARRON:  As I grow older in my writing life, I’m continually struck by how many of my stories have their roots deep in childhood. Nothing that happens to our minds as children—no vision we absorb, no sound that thrills us—is wasted in later life. I understood this vaguely when I attempted to write my first novel, Death in the Off-Season, in 1992; I set it on Nantucket Island, after Labor Day when the Summer People were gone, and dug myself deep into fog, time, and salt spray. I first saw Nantucket at the age of four, fell passionately in love with it for reasons I couldn’t articulate, and return to its remarkable moors and sand as often as I can. Living there mentally as I write the episodes of my Merry Folger mystery series for the past twenty-six years has been my gift to the child I was.

     So, too, with Jennie Jerome, the center of my latest novel, That Churchill Woman.

 

      

My mother read constantly, although some visual glitch that went unidentified all her life meant that she read with painstaking slowness. She was always elbow-deep in some biography—a fact I barely noticed on a conscious level as a child. As I look back now on her life, which began in 1918, I realize she prized biographies more than any other type of reading. And she specialized in the lives of women. Their stories taught her what could be dreamed, what could be survived, and what could kill you. She read everything Anne Morrow Lindbergh ever wrote, and so, too, at a later date would I. She was fascinated by Rose Kennedy, whose Irish Catholic life held parallels to her own. (I know too much about Jack Kennedy to find Rose anything but terrifying.) I should have noticed my mother’s absorbing interest in the history of women more acutely while she was alive, and we might have talked about it. But I didn’t. I’m putting the pieces together now, when she has been gone almost nine years.

     When I was eight, the mass market paperbacks that sat for months on her bedside table were the two volumes of Ralph Martin’s seminal biography: Jennie: The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill.

     I remember two things. I was captivated by Jennie’s face on the cover—she was striking, bold, her gaze challenging and direct...and incidentally beautiful. She engaged the viewer immediately and the immediate response, even in an eight-year-old mind, was: Who ARE you? The second thing I remember: My morally conventional, conservative, and law-abiding mother loved her. A woman who broke every rule.

     Jennie has haunted me ever since.

     I’m primarily known as a detective and spy novelist. But what I write primarily historical fiction—and what has come to be called biographic fiction. These are novelistic fantasies about people who actually lived, who have historic records, whose details are known and perhaps ought not to be embroidered for the sake of decency. (As one reviewer whispered worriedly to me once, ‘You imagine JFK having sex!’ And I replied: He was just a college kid named Jack at the time.) The thirteen-volume Jane Austen Mysteries fall into this category; so, too, do my suspense novels about Queen Victoria and Virginia Woolf. I love messing with other people’s lives. There are stories to be mined in the ways those lives might have gone differently.

     In the course of writing my WWII spy novels as Francine Mathews, I spent a good deal of time researching Winston Churchill. He appears as a secondary character in Jack 1939 and Too Bad to Die. And in reading about Winston—in the words of his biographers, most of them male, most of them British—I grew immensely frustrated by their contemptuous dismissal of his mother. Whom Winston absolutely and unequivocally adored. 

     Jennie Jerome Churchill.

     Jennie, in the biographers’ view, was many things--none of them attractive.

     She was self-absorbed.

     Selfish.

     Vain.

     Promiscuous.

     A bad mother.

     Flighty.

     Irresponsible.

     Indifferent to her sons.

     Possibly nymphomaniacal.

     A bad influence.

     Anything but serious.

     Spendthrift.

     Even a whore, perhaps.

     Have I mentioned, a bad mother?

     Oh—

     And she was American.

     It is deeply troubling to those who idolize The Great Man, as Sir Winston Churchill is known, that he is only half-English. They attempt to bury his dubious origins under the mantle of Marlborough greatness, the bedroom in which he first squalled at Blenheim, his doomed father Lord Randolph as an emblem of Parliamentary history. They bury his mother--an American, nicknamed The Dark One, who may have had Iroquois blood in her veins. A woman of no birth or rank. The daughter of a Wall Street Pirate, a self-made man. --A Buccaneer, in fact, to use Edith Wharton’s term. (Jennie and her three childhood friends are the models for Wharton’s Buccaneers.)

     When Winston describes his mother, he is unequivocally loving. She shone for me like the Evening Star, he says in his memoir of childhood. I loved her dearly, but from a distance. Children of upper-class British households were raised by nannies, were seen but not heard, and were sent off to school at an early age. Winston was dispatched at age 8, and was home thereafter only on school holidays. 

Jennie with Jack (L) and Winston

       For this reason, Jennie’s critics decry her as a bad mother. But she at least answered his frequent letters—Lord Randolph rarely bothered. After Randolph’s death at age 45, when Winston was a military cadet of twenty, he and Jennie became comrades-in-arms. When he deployed around the world with the 4^th Hussars, she sent him crate after crate of books, and for the first time in his life he began to study deeply. Winston did nothing without her advice. She soon became my ardent ally, he would later write, furthering my plans and guarding my interests with all her influence and boundless energy....We worked together on even terms, more like brother and sister than mother and son. At least so it seemed to me. And so it continued to the end.

 

Winston, 4th Hussars

      I’ve raised two sons. When I read these words, something turned over deep inside. We should all be so lucky as parents to have the gratitude of our children—the recognition of what we’ve given them—as well as their love.

     So, who was right in their portrait of Jennie? --Winston’s biographers? Or Winston himself?

     That Churchill Woman is the result of my four years of thinking about this question. I don’t attempt to answer it; I hope each reader will find an answer for herself. I began with the maps of Jennie’s life—her own book, The Reminiscences of Lady Randolph Churchill, which is a partial, discreet, and sometimes fictional treatment of her past; with the two volumes by Martin my mother had read so long ago; with Winston’s vignettes of childhood in My Early Life; and with the vast holdings of the Churchill Archive Centre at Churchill College, Cambridge. For six hundred dollars I purchased digital access to the archive for a year, and thus installed an endless black hole on my laptop—because to once enter the files of correspondence between Jennie and her husband, Jennie and Winston, Jennie and her father, Jennie and her sisters...is to be gravitationally caught and rooted in the weight of the past. These people wrote letters as often as we text or tweet, and almost everything has been saved. Even the hurried notes Winston’s doctor, Robeson Roose, sent off to Jennie and Randolph while their son battled life-threatening pneumonia at school at the age of twelve are still there to be summoned and read, in the archive.

 

Jennie by Sargent

     What these docs give a writer of fiction, particularly biographic fiction, is the echo of a voice. There is nothing like a letter—scrawled in effortless copperplate, unique to Jennie’s hand, so visible when enlarged on the screen it begs to be printed and touched—for revealing the soul of the woman. Jennie’s letters ring with wit and laughter; at times they ring with heartbreak and desperation. The scenes she paints—of Sandringham House, Parliament, wildfires in western Canada, the streets of Singapore or Rangoon—are vivid in their color and detail. Never are her letters devoid of emotion or care for her correspondents, her sons most of all.

     A grand-niece once asked Jennie why she had continued to follow her own outrageous path well into her sixties, without much regard for public opinion.

     “I love people,” she said. “I love life.”

     Which is why Jennie fascinates. In reading That Churchill Woman, you may decide you don’t agree with her. You may not approve of her choices or decisions. She was a flawed human being. But what a captivating one! Born to Northern privilege before the Civil War, she was fearless, independent, emotionally strong, and immensely gifted. She studied piano under a pupil of Chopin’s, rode hard to hounds, and painted in oils with the Princess of Wales. 

 

Jennie painting at Blenheim, by Winston Churchill

        She was gorgeous, charmed everybody, alienated very few, and fascinated with her wit. She wrote extremely well. She probably wrote many of her husband’s speeches. There is no doubt she’s one reason he was elected—Jennie campaigned for Randolph while he went fishing in Norway and later campaigned for Winston, despite being denied the vote as a woman until the final years of her life. 

 

Jennie campaigning for Winston 1899

She equipped a hospital ship during the Boer War and during the Great War she nursed shell-shock victims, including poet Siegfried Sassoon. She was passionately loved by a prince of the Holy Roman Empire for most of his life, and married three times. She was well ahead of her era, but made peace with it—long before it knew what to do with her. She rode her American unconventionality like a magic carpet, straight through the giddy heights of Gilded Age Europe. And so much of who she was and all she taught is evident in the unicorn who was her son.

     As Winston wrote to her in 1899, upon first taking his seat in Parliament, “In a certain sense it belongs to you, for I could never have earned it had you not transmitted to me the wit and energy which are necessary.”

     I hope each of you enjoys reading That Churchill Woman as much as I’ve loved researching and writing it.

DEBS: I have goosebumps just from reading this. And now I'm going to be haunting my mailbox next Tuesday morning, waiting for my copy of THAT CHURCHILL WOMAN to arrive!  And for more fascinating Churchill tidbits and gorgeous photos, do check out Stephanie's blog.

Stephanie will be stopping in to chat with us, and will give away a signed copy of THAT CHURCHILL WOMAN to a random FIVE readers (US only) who comment and SHARE the post!

The Paris Wife meets PBS’s Victoria in this enthralling novel of the life and loves of one of history’s most remarkable women: Winston Churchill’s scandalous American mother, Jennie Jerome.
Wealthy, privileged, and fiercely independent New Yorker Jennie Jerome took Victorian England by storm when she landed on its shores. As Lady Randolph Churchill, she gave birth to a man who defined the twentieth century: her son Winston. But Jennie—reared in the luxury of Gilded Age Newport and the Paris of the Second Empire—lived an outrageously modern life all her own, filled with controversy, passion, tragedy, and triumph.

Stephanie Barron studied history at Princeton and Stanford, where she was an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow in the Humanities. She is the author of the historical suspense novels A Flaw in the Blood and The White Garden, as well as the critically acclaimed and nationally bestselling Jane Austen Mystery series. A former intelligence analyst for the CIA, Barron—who also writes under the name Francine Mathews—drew on her experience in espionage for such novels as Jack 1939, which The New Yorker described as “one of the most deliciously high-concept thrillers imaginable.” She lives and works in Denver, Colorado. 

"You Were Not Built to Play It Safe, Darlings" — Ali Trotta and "The Other Side of a River"

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Today, I'm delighted to introduce writer, dreamer, and coffee aficionado Ali Trotta. I was introduced to Ali and her work by novelist Deanna Raybourn (A Curious Beginning, et al.) and I love palling around with both of them on Twitter. (We're all friendly! Come say hi!) Recently, Ali wrote a blog post that resonated deeply with me — about change, fear, boogeymen who try to steal your dreams, and the never-ending battle against cynicism and defeatism.

And here she is — 

ALI TROTTA: If there’s one thing I know, it’s the power of choice. The power of looking at a situation, with all its flaws and potential disasters and difficulties, and choosing it anyway. Sometimes, it’s so easy to look at a situation and get scared, because of how difficult it is or how much might go wrong. It’s incredibly daunting.

Sometimes, too, the idea of actually getting what you want is terrifying too. Because it almost always involves an upheaval. No decision, no fight, is devoid of change. It’s impossible to think otherwise. And let’s face it: change can be the adult version of the Boogeyman. Because there are so many variables that can’t be accounted for, so many unknowns.

And that’s why there are times when we allow ourselves to stay where we are, doing what we’ve always done, even when we’re miserable. Even when we know that it isn’t healthy, that it doesn’t make us happy.

Fear is a strange monster. Sometimes, it is as subtle as a whisper. Other times, it’s a shout—someone or something hitting a nerve in you that’s always raw. An old wound never quite healed, always so close to breaking open, a piece of yourself you’re forever struggling to protect. This old hurt can be aggravated by so many things, seemingly reaffirmed by circumstances. Because, honestly, there are times in life where it feels like nothing is going right and everything is impossible. And it’s so much easier to retreat than fight, because we are emotionally exhausted. Beat down. Disheartened.

So, the fear creeps in just at the right time to make you feel…hopeless. To play on your insecurities in such a way that you start to believe that torrent of bad things in front of you, the heaps of mistakes, all the ways things haven’t worked out before. But history is not how we measure the future—it’s what we learn from.

The saddest thing in the world, to me, is someone who has given up. The look in a friend’s eyes that says, “It doesn’t get better than this. This is how things are always going to be.” Don’t get me wrong: I both hate fighting and change. And it’s always a gamble to gear up for a battle, to take steps toward something knew. You look ahead and see a million what-ifs, and it can be suffocating.

But that’s what your fear wants you to see and feel. The truth is that, sometimes, people like to keep us still, doing whatever they can to root us to a place. Because it’s easier for them. Because can’t bear to entertain the idea of something more. And, well, I don’t ever want that to be you—I don’t ever want you to find yourself entrenched in a situation and think it can’t change, that it can’t get better.

Rest assured, it can. As long as you don’t give up. It can be scary as all hell to stand up for what you want, what you believe in. Standing up for yourself is hard. There’s always going to be someone who wants to keep you small, keep you hurting, keep you guilty. They’re going to use that power over you to get what they want.

That person deserves a house dropped on their heads and their shoes stolen. Because that person isn’t nice. And sometimes, it is hard to recognize that kind of manipulation. It’s hard to recognize that kind of villain for a million reasons. But don’t allow yourself to be gaslit into thinking a situation is all your fault. Or that you’ll never be able to accomplish [insert dream here]. Take your power back, and remember how to fight, remember who you are.

You are made of stars. You cannot be contained.

I’ve said this before, but: life is full of battles. You decide what you’re going to fight for, but here’s the kicker: you’ve always got to fight for yourself. It isn’t easy. It’s like hopping over crocodiles to get to the other side of a river. And maaaaaybe there’s a lion waiting there. But maybe your hope for this life is waiting there too.

And it helps to have someone in your corner. Someone who looks at you when you’re being an idiot and tells you the truth, even though it’s not pretty. Even when it is through tears. Someone who sees you for who you are, especially on the days when you cannot see yourself.

Life is finite. There’s no way to guess when the sand’s going to run out. I have been reminded of this so fiercely, lately. Time is short. Life is short. Spend it loving. But more so? Allow yourself to be loved. Don’t close yourself off, because in an off-the-wall distortion you’re justifying it as “easier.” Don’t let your past get in the way of this moment, right now.

Fight for what you want. And, if it’s applicable, allow yourself to be fought for. You can put up as many walls as you like, you can put as much distance as possible between yourself and something/someone else. But all the walls and all the distance in the world doesn’t change facts—and it certainly doesn’t change feelings.

You were not built to play it safe, darlings.


SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Lovely Reds and readers, do you ever find yourself playing it safe? If so, why do you think that is? What do you do to (in the words of Winston Churchill) "Keep buggering on"? Please tell us in the comments.


Ali Trotta is a poet, editor, dreamer, word-nerd, and unapologetic coffee addict. She is always scribbling on napkins, closing her eyes while crossing the street, and singing along to songs at the grocery store. When she isn’t word-wrangling, you can find her cooking, baking, taking photographs, or hanging out in parking lots. Her work has been featured in Uncanny magazine, and she’s on Twitter as @alwayscoffee. You can also read her blog at http://alwayscoffee.wordpress.com.

Susan on What We're Writing: "Once More With Feeling"

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: There's good news and there's bad news.

The good news is that I've finished the first round of copyedits on THE QUEEN'S ACCOMPLICE (Maggie Hope #6) and sent everything back to the Powers That Be at Penguin Random House. Also, there's also a gorgeous cover to reveal — but they won't let me show you just yet!

And the bad news — you know all that research I was doing on yet-unnamed Maggie Hope #7? The one set in Paris? And how I'd started writing?

Well, as it turns out, it was a good story. But it wasn't my story. It just didn't work for me.

I have a lot of insomnia and usually curse it — but there, one night in the dark, at about 2 a.m., I realized, "This book is just not working."

And, so, with a heavy heart, I scrapped endless notes and about 30K worth of words.

It hurts, people — it hurts. I mean, yes, it's a so-called first-world problem, of course. But still.... ouch.

However, there's a bright side.

Initially, yes, I was upset. Angry, even. But then, after some time passed, I realized that what I was feeling was ...  relief! Like, my subconscious had known this for a while and it took that long for the message to get through.

At any rate, the news isn't all bad and is in fact (ultimately) good: I've found the right plot now, with the right characters, and have found fantastic first-person research books to read. And so, I'm starting again!

I don't want to give away too much; but, as always, I'm using some real people as inspiration for fictional characters, including Maurice Buckmaster of Special Operations Execute (SOE, Churchill's secret army); Vera Atkins, also of SOE; and then a Frenchman named Henri Déricourt. Déricourt is a polarizing figure — he may have been a double, or maybe even a triple agent — working for SOE, the Gestapo in Paris, and, allegedly also for MI-6. No one agrees.

Questions about Henri Déricourt's loyalty's persist to this day, with historians on different sides of the fence. (Which makes him a fascinating, but difficult, figure to research).

It's important to note that the files that would have shed light on Déricourt and his (allegedly) being a double or even triple agent — burned in a fire at SOE in 1946, the day before they were supposed to be moved to storage.

That fire and all those records it consumed — it's like the burning of the Library at Alexandra for those of us consumed with curiosity about what happened to the SOE agents in France and their betrayal to the Gestapo. Something happened, something horrific. 

But whether it was SOE's incompetence, an SOE double agent working with the Gestapo, or even a triple agent, betraying both SOE and the Gestapo to MI-6 — no one knows. The facts are so obscured now that Anthony Cave Brown reported a historian saying in BODYGUARD OF LIES: "[the disaster that happened to the agents of the SOE Prosper network] is a skein so tangled, so convoluted, attitudes of mind so Byzantine, as ... to defy rational analysis."

And so — unless something turns up, a diary, perhaps or something that was misfiled and thus survived the fire — it will remain a mystery.

Which, Reds and lovely readers, makes a great premise for a novel.

Have you ever put a lot of thought and work and energy into a project, only to realize it's just not working? What happened? How did you work through it? Tell us in the comments!

MRS. ROOSEVELT'S CONFIDANTE — and the Great FDR vs. Winston Churchill Martini Battle

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Breaking News!
 It's release day for our darling Red Susan's new book--I mean, Maggie Hope and Eleanor Roosevelt! I swoon. And so do the critics: PW calls it "enthralling" and Kirkus "enchanting." 
I adore this book, and so will you. (And you can talk to both of us about it in person! See below for more.)
But first--inside a fabulous party that only our dear Susan could create.
CHEERS!

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL:   To celebrate the publication of MRS. ROOSEVELT'S CONFIDANTE, Maggie Hope #5 — which takes place in December of 1941, during Prime Minister Winston Churchill's historic post-Pearl Harbor visit to the Roosevelts' White House— we had our own FDR-inspired "Children's Hour." 

And we pitted (pun intended) the two great leaders' very different versions of the classic Martini cocktail against each other. 

So, let's see who wins the Great Martini Smackdown of 2015, shall we? 

I mixed both Churchill's more pristine ("bow in the direction of France" instead of adding vermouth) and FDR's vermouth and olive-brine heavy Martinis. 

Husband Noel, and our guests, Rob, Victor, and Leila, were encouraged to be candid in their reactions to each cocktail.

Here's my recipe for Winston Churchill's Martini:

Winston Churchill's enjoyment of spirits was legendary, but by all accounts, he preferred his drinks unmixed. According to various accounts he was appalled at the copious amount of vermouth in President Roosevelt’s martinis, but drank them agreeably, in the name of diplomacy.

* gin
 (according to some he preferred Plymouth, according to others, Boodles or Beefeater)

* crushed ice

Shake gin in a container half filled with chipped ice. 

Bow respectfully toward France (where dry vermouth is produced)

Strain into a chilled cocktail glass or coupe. 

Garnish with lemon peel, if desired.

  

And here are the guests' opinions of the Churchill Martini: 

NOEL: This is a really good cocktail — it would be great in the summer. You can really taste the gin but also taste the lemon. Very refreshing.

ROB: I love the simple simplicity of it.

  

SUSAN: Simple simplicity?

ROB: Simple simplicity.

SUSAN: It's elegant. Tastes like the martini at Dukes Hotel, in London. 

VICTOR: The Churchill Martini is very European — "We don't care about driving later — we want alcohol now!" It has a good aftertaste, too — juniper and citrus.

ROB: It's nice to look at the lemon rind floating around in it.

SUSAN: Rob, how many have you had?

ROB: Hey, this is my first drink!

  

LEILA: It's like a tickle in the throat, but a nice one — smooth and not harsh.

SUSAN: It almost tastes like a Gimlet.

NOEL: Is that the one with the little pickled onions?

  

SUSAN: No, that's a Gibson. A Gimlet is gin with lime and sugar syrup. It was Betty Draper's cocktail of choice on Mad Men. But that’s another blog post....Or at least another party.

  

And now on to President Roosevelt’s Martini:

President Franklin D. Roosevelt did always mix drinks at Children’s Hour and reportedly enjoyed making martinis. As far as I can tell there’s no exact recipe, but we know from his personal secretary Grace Tully’s memoirs that they were heavy on the vermouth (which was considered old-fashioned) and he was also known to add a few drops of Pernod, orange blossom water, or olive brine for flavor.

Here’s my best approximation of his martini. Enjoy!

* 2 parts gin
 (according to some he preferred Plymouth; according to others, Beefeater)

* 1 part dry vermouth

* splash olive brine




* 2 olives for garnish


* crushed ice

  

Shake gin, vermouth, and olive brine in a container half filled with chipped ice. 

Strain into chilled cocktail glasses. 

Add garnish.

Reflections on FDR's Martini: 

ROB: I do like a Dirty Martini! Did President Roosevelt invent the Dirty Martini?

SUSAN: I don't know if he invented the Dirty Martini, but he's reputed to have made and served them — much to Churchill's horror. FDR really liked to garnish, apparently. 

ROB: Well, I love it. It has a richer and plumper taste than the Churchill one.

  

NOEL: Plumper?

ROB: Plumper, I say!

  

SUSAN: I like the vermouth and gin together. It's a cocktail for heaven's sake, not just cold gin!

VICTOR: Yes, I can see how this was more popular with the American palate — less alcohol, more ingredients. It's heavier.

NOEL: This is more of a winter cocktail. 

LEILA: This is not a Dirty Martini — this is more like dirty laundry. Yuck.

SUSAN: I like it! More olives, please!

And the winning Martini is.....

SUSAN: So, which do you like best?

NOEL: I think Churchill's for summer and Roosevelt's for winter.

  

SUSAN: That's a very politic answer, dear.

  

VICTOR: I vote for the Churchill. And I'm taking a taxi home.

SUSAN: I must admit I like any excuse to eat olives. I'm going with Roosevelt's.

LEILA: Oh, olives in gin are yucky. I pick Churchill's.

ROB: Must we choose? Can't we just enjoy both? I pick both!

SUSAN: And so the Churchill Martini wins — by one vote! Cheers, everyone!

HANK: I'm a no-vermouth girl myself. And a twist. And a pre chilled glass.  (I always ask for the olives on the side, in case there's no other food. ) And if you want to chat with Susan and me in person? We will be at the wonderful Jabberwocky Bookstore in Newburyport MA at 7 on Friday October 30. We always talk about a Reds party--now it's on!

SUSAN: So, Reds and lovely readers, what makes a great party? Would you rather be a host or a guest? What was the best party you've ever been to? Let us know in the comments!