Interview with Janis Cooke Newman
Introduction
Janis Cooke Newman is the author of the memoir The Russian Word for Snow. Her travel writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Salon, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She lives in Northern California where she teaches writing. Mary is her first novel.
Please tell us about your novel, MARY.
Mary is a historical novel about Mary Todd Lincoln. I like to say it’s 700 pages of war and death, sex and slavery, love, tragedy, betrayal, seances and shopping.
You have done an incredible job of inhabiting Mary Todd Lincoln, and making her come alive for the reader. This novel is written in the first person, and the voice of Mary Todd Lincoln seems absolutely authentic. To achieve that must have involved a lot of studying. How long did it take you to research the book?
Researching & writing the book took 3 years. To help me get Mary’s voice - and her wonderfully sarcastic sense of humor - I read her letters (which have been published in one volume) for at least 15 minutes before I started writing each day. (Though it must be admitted that by the third year, I didn’t do this so much, since my emails had started to sound like Mary Lincoln.
When I got really stuck, I’d go into the kitchen and bake Mary’s white cake. This is a (delicious) vanilla/almond cake that was a Todd family recipe. I did this a lot while writing the book, and one thing I did learn was that baking is a very satisfying activity for a writer...because (unlike writing) after 2 hours, you KNOW you’ll have a cake.
Mary Todd Lincoln was never a very sympathetic figure in the history books--which of course have been written mostly by men--but in your novel she is enormously sympathetic and appealing. In part, that is the power of fiction, yes?
I think more it’s the power of being able to look at her with 21st century eyes. Mary was truly a woman out of her time. She was a First Lady who was ambitious and politically astute - and as a consequence, disliked by the country for it. Sounds somewhat familiar, doesn’t it?
And her son, Robert, is enormously unsympathetic--a real villain. He had her committed to an insane asylum. Why?
I believe that Mary had become very inconvenient for her son. Robert always hated being in the public eye. He didn’t like attention focused on him - in fact, he was less than happy when his father was made president. Mary unfortunately, drew attention - whether she wanted it or not.
Her grief--the terrible losses she had to bear--is almost unimaginable. It is difficult to see how anyone could stay sane after losing so many people she loved, beginning with her mother when Mary was just six years old, then three of her four sons, and, most famously, her husband, the President. But was she really insane? Or was she, as you present her, a victim of Nineteenth Century misogyny?
I don’t think Mary was insane. What I think she was suffering from around the time that Robert had her committed--which, admittedly, was pretty bizarre behavior--was more likely Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This was around the 10th anniversary of Lincoln’s killing, and Mary began to exhibit PTSD symptoms, such as insomnia and some paranoia, which was treated at the time by massive doses of laudanum and chloryl hydrate. Of course, we know now that those 2 drugs--especially in combination, can cause hallucinations & delusions.
Interestingly, Mary spent only 3 months in the lunatic asylum. Once she was released, she spent many years living in France, where there were no reports of insane behavior.
There is also the issue of celebrity. Was she a kind of anti-celebrity--someone whom people loved to hate? Because of bad luck? Bad press? Her own faults and flaws?
Mary became a celebrity at a time when true ‘ladies’ were never to have their name appear in the newspapers except when they married or died. At first, when Lincoln was first elected, the press loved Mary. In fact, it was a British journalist who coined the term “First Lady” specifically for her. Once the war broke out, however, the press became more critical. The Northern press called her a Confederate spy. The Southern press saw her as a traitor to the Cause.
Later, after Lincoln’s death. Mary did not do what the country expected of the widow of a Martyred President - she did not fade quietly into the background. (Think Jackie Kennedy before Onassis.) She had terrible debts, and the means she tried to raise money to pay them put her in the public eye.
Can you tell us about her belief in Spiritualism?
During the years of the Civil War, much of country believed in Spiritualism--most probably because so many people--North & South--had dead they wanted to contact. Mary’s own belief came after the death of her 11-year-old son, Willie, of typhoid, while they were in the White House.
Mary was in good company during seances. Half of Lincoln’s own cabinet attended seances with her in Georgetown. And there is evidence that Lincoln himself, attended at least one with her.
Did she keep a diary--any kind of writing that you could use?
I wished she’d kept a diary! Especially during her time in the lunatic asylum. As I mentioned earlier, I had only her letters to give me a sense of her voice.
You also teach writing and you have an editing business. When do you find the time to write?
I’m very disciplined. I put my writing time (at least 3 hours every morning) in my calendar, just like any other appointment. And I’m very protective of it.
I do teach private writing classes. And I’m very grateful to my students for keeping me from turning into one of those weird writers (think Emma Thompson in ‘Stranger Than Fiction’). Writing is very solitary. On my teaching days I find I’m looking forward to the company of my students.
What is your next book?
I’m currently working on a novel that takes place in New York City during World War II. The main character is a 10-year-old boy (a departure from a 56-year-old Southern woman!) who comes to believe he has the power of invisibility. What the book is about really though, is the surprising (at least to me) anti-Semitism in America during WWII.