Authors: Deeanne Gist
17. In the end, Reeve has what he always wanted—a home where he belongs. What is it that Flossie wants most, and do you think she gets it? Why or why not?
Enhance Your Book Club
1. One of Deeanne’s passions is learning about the period clothing worn by her characters. She even hired a historian seamstress to sew her an authentic Victorian gown so she could experience what it was like to wear all those layers. (See pictures and videos of her in an article that appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal at
http://www.FrontPageWSJ.com
.) Since taking “old time” photos—sepia or black-and-white—of yourself in period costume has become a worldwide amusement, you might be able to find a novelty photo studio near you where you, alone or with your book club, can take photos in Victorian dress. Check out your local listings or visit the Antique and Amusement Photographers International website at
http://www.oldtimephotos.org/
. Be sure to send your pictures to Deeanne or post them on her Facebook page. She’d love to see them!
2. In order to create bonds among her new family at the boardinghouse, Flossie writes insightful and sometimes light-hearted questions for the boarders to ask one another over dinner. Host a dinner for your book club members. Have each person write one question on a slip of paper, then before everyone comes to the table, place them randomly underneath the plates. Enjoy listening to each other’s answers and see if you don’t know everyone a bit better by dessert!
3. On her website (
http://www.iwantherbook.com/dees-inspiration-for-her-characters
), the author reveals celebrity and modeling photos that inspired her to create her characters for each novel. Before visiting the link, cut out photos that reflect how you envision characters like Flossie, Mr. and Mrs. Trostle, Reeve, Mrs. Dinwiddie, and more. Paste them on a board or piece of paper and share your choices with your book club. Did your picks match Deeanne’s? Were you surprised by the ones she chose?
4. If you enjoyed reading about the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, Deeanne’s last two releases,
It Happened at the Fair
and
Fair Play
, are set in Chicago at the actual fair (as opposed to in New York the way
Tiffany Girl
is). Read and compare those stories to that of Flossie and Reeve in
Tiffany Girl.
How are they similar? How are they different?
5. Do you wish you could go back in time and visit the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair? During your book club meeting, connect a laptop to the host’s TV, then go to Deeanne’s website and play her interactive animated four-minute game, “A Romp Through 1893,” where the hero from
It Happened at the Fair
becomes separated from the heroine and has to find her. At the end of each 60-second vignette, your club will have to make a choice about what the hero should do to resolve a dilemma he finds himself in.
The object of the game is to get through the adventure without making a wrong turn. You’ll find the adventure at
http://www.iwantherbook.com/video-adventure
. Don’t let your group spend too much time making a choice, though, because you only have a few seconds to click an option! For an extra bonus, have the host of the group go (in advance) to Deeanne’s “Insider Information” link on her website and pull photos of Deeanne and her family members and print them out. Then show them to the group and have a contest to see who can spot Deeanne and her family members’ cameo appearances during the video game. (
http://www.iwantherbook.com/dees-family-makes-cameo-appearance
)
A Conversation with Deeanne Gist
1. This is your third novel to feature aspects of the Chicago World’s Fair. What is it about that event or moment in history that so attracts you?
The breadth and scope of this particular fair not only wowed the world back then, but it would wow today’s most jaded visitor. It had something for everyone of every age and every nationality. It was not just an event, it was the event of the century—a watershed moment in our country’s history. It’s where the inspiration for today’s American products, industries, corporations, and cultural movements began. And even though I camped there for three novels, I still only touched the tip of the iceberg.
2. When did you first learn the story of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s chapel and the “Tiffany Girls?” What compelled you to write a novel about a fictional woman rather than one of the actual Tiffany Girls?
The discovery of the Tiffany Girls is brand-new. Everyone has always assumed Louis Tiffany was the exclusive designer of all his iconic objects. Then in 2005, scholars uncovered a trove of
letters written by Clara Driscoll. Those letters made it abundantly clear that she and other Tiffany Girls were the principal designers of a vast majority of iconic lamps, windows, and other pieces produced by Tiffany Studios.
I found out about them in 2011 when my mom was watching a documentary on PBS. As soon as the show was over, she sent me the following email:
“Dee, Louis Comfort Tiffany was planning a crucially important display of his stained-glass windows for the Chicago World’s Fair. Not of his lamps, but I think a fairly new direction for him at this time. Anyway, his glass artists (an all male profession) went on strike. He went to the art schools and recruited female artists and taught them the process. They became known as the ‘Tiffany Girls.’ About a dozen of them, I think. This is the first time women were given the opportunity to enter the commercial art profession according to the PBS program I was watching. This information was from a PBS History Detectives episode that was focusing on one of these girls who was originally from Duluth, Minnesota, and was somebody’s grandmother. I didn’t get the name of the collection of information on the ‘Tiffany Girls,’ which I think is in the archives in a church in NYC. They have a number of stained-glass windows by these women done through the years. Anyway, if you haven’t picked your heroine’s career, this is a unique point in women’s career opportunities and, of course, Tiffany is a fantastic name and tradition. I was fascinated, even though this info was peripheral to the program. Love, Mom”
I knew as soon as I read her email that I’d one day write their story. I fictionalized my girl so that I would have more creative freedom with the storyline while still giving an inside glimpse of
the real Tiffany Girls, their department head, Clara Driscoll, and their accomplishments.
3. As the bestselling author of ten historicals, have you developed a unique approach to blending truth and imagination? Tell us about your writing process and how you decide when to stick with the facts and when to let your imagination take over.
I spend months and months on research. I interview experts. I visit historical societies. I explore museums. I read newspapers of the time. I spend days in the city where my book is set. And I read a great many books and articles. I make notes in the margins of everything I read, then index those notes so the information will be at my fingertips during the writing process.
I do this because I very much want to get the historical facts correct. Sometimes, however, the facts don’t fit in with the timeline of my story. For instance, in 1893 the Tiffany Girls had not started designing the iconic lamps they became so famous for. That didn’t happen until several years later. Still, I could not bring myself to write an entire novel about the Tiffany Girls and not give the lamps a shout-out. So, I bent the timeline a little and had Clara Driscoll design one of her most famous—the dragonfly lamp. In the very first novel I ever wrote, I did this kind of thing with a handful of details and received emails from readers who were unhappy with me about it. So now, I always include an Author’s Note where I confess to the details I’ve cheated on so the reader will know fact from fiction.
4. How has your background in education and journalism influenced your work as an author? Has it helped with the nonwriting activities as well, like speaking to groups or promoting your work online?
The background in journalism helped me learn how to meet word counts and deadlines. The education background helped me with organization. As for speaking to groups, I have a minor
in Theatre Arts. If I hadn’t found true love and married the week after I graduated from Texas A&M, I’d planned to head to Hollywood and give it a whirl. I have no regrets, though. I got me a keeper. We celebrated thirty-two years of wedded bliss a few months ago.
5. You donned appropriate period garb for the making of your video adventure, “Romp Through 1893: The Invitation.” Though the video was created to promote your previous novels, the clothing must have been pretty similar to what was worn in the period of
Tiffany Girl
, also set in 1893. Did you love wearing the clothes? Hate it? Was there anything about the experience that surprised you?
I will find ANY excuse to play dress up. I love costumes. I love pretty gowns. I love fancy hats. The reason I had a period gown made for the video adventure
RompThrough1893.com
is because I thought we were going to shoot it with live actors. For a lot of different reasons, we ended up animating it instead, but the historial clothing helped the artist Monica Bruenjes, who did the stop-animation. For
Tiffany Girl
, since Flossie is an artist, Bruenjes took on the heroine’s role so that “Flossie’s” illustrations could be sprinkled throughout the novel. It was a real treat for me to see sketches and paintings I made up in my head become a reality.
6. On your website you have a fun feature where you reveal the photos of real people—many of whom are celebrities—that you used as inspiration for your characters’ appearances. Who did you have in mind when you created Flossie Jayne and Reeve Wilder? Do you find photos for your secondary characters as well?
For each novel I write, I put together a thick, thick binder where I keep copious notes on the characters, the plotting, the setting, and the research. In the “character” section, I have written notes about eye color, hair color, hobbies, talents, personality traits, family members, goals, regrets, internal conflicts, and all kinds of things. I also find a real person to use as visual inspiration for my characters. This helps me be consistent throughout the novel when I am picturing them in my mind (and then describing them in the book). For Flossie, I used Sandra Bullock as my inspiration. For Reeve, I envisioned a muscular and tall Jude Law minus the receding hairline. (When it comes to my male protagonists, they are predominantly tall and muscular with a head full of hair. So I usually just use a real man’s facial features for inspiration.)
I found several group photos of the Tiffany Girls, but the images weren’t very clear. So other than Clara, I used random tintype photos for those girls. Jean Dujardin was the inspiration for Monsieur Bourgeois. For the boarders, my inspiration came from the following: Betty White for Mrs. Dinwiddie; Hugh Grant for Mr. Oyster; Richard Gere for Mr. Holliday; Melissa Sue Anderson (who played the older sister on
Little House on the Prairie
) for Mrs. Holliday; Jerry Stiller (with a goatee) for Mr. Trostle; Maggie Smith for Mrs. Trostle. I used old tintypes for Annie Belle, Mr. Nettels, and Mrs. Klausmeyer.
7. You begin the story with a Prologue that shows us Reeve as a small boy viewing the body of his dead mother. Why did you choose to open the novel—the main themes of which involve women and women characters—this way?
Basically because Reeve acts like a bit of a jerk at the beginning of the novel and I wanted the reader to know that deep down he was a good guy and it would be okay to root for him. Showing this
scene was the quickest, cleanest, and most compelling way I could think of to do this.
8. You and your husband have four children. What was it like for you to get inside the minds of Victorian parents like Mr. and Mrs. Jayne, who love and want the best for their daughter, but whose ideas about what’s best are very different from Flossie’s? Do you find that much of your life ends up in your novels, or do you prefer to use fiction as a way to explore experiences that are different from your own?
For this facet of the novel, I read several resource books about the only-child and collected notes about what many of them have in common. An overwhelming majority of them have parents who devote a lot of time and attention to the child and who also, often inadvertently, put a lot of pressure on them. In addition to that, many sources explored what they call an epidemic in our country of kids who are told they didn’t misspell a word on their test but simply spelled the word “creatively.” Or kids who get trophies for simply showing up. As a parent, when I read these books, even though I have four children, I was guilty of doing many of the things depicted. I had the best of intentions, but the end result wasn’t always the healthiest. In
Tiffany Girl
, I decided to explore some of these themes and therefore assigned to Flossie and her parents some of the characteristics I read about.
9. At first, Flossie is overjoyed to live among so many people in the boardinghouse—perhaps Reeve would say that she is simply enjoying her role as the sun around which they all orbit. But in the end, he seems to have been right when he chastises her about mistaking their fellow boarders for family, as they become less congenial to her as soon as her role shifts from boarder to housemaid. Did you intend a lesson for readers in all this?
I actually based this part on things I’d read in journals from the time period and other resources. Because boardinghouses were so suspect, reputable boarders attempted to “pretty them up” by trying to turn them into homes—albeit unsuccessfully. I found that fascinating and decided I’d have Flossie do that very thing. So her actions (and the results thereof) were based on historical data as opposed to a “lesson” of some kind.
10. Mr. Jayne seems committed to ignoring his role as the instigator for Flossie’s venture into New Womanhood, not to mention the financial ruin his gambling problem causes for his family. Despite that, you’ve portrayed Mr. Jayne as a man who loves his family and who in general seems to be a decent person. Was it challenging for you to balance his flaws as a provider with his charms as a father? What were the biggest challenges of writing this book?