Poets & Writers – September 2019

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ARLIER this year novelists Christina Baker

Kline and Lisa Gornick had a conversation at

the Mid-Manhattan branch of the New York

Public Library about the challenges of writ-

ing fiction set in earlier times. Gornick had just published

her fourth work of fiction and her first foray into writing

about the past: The Peacock Feast (Sarah Crichton Books,

2019), a multigenerational saga that spans the twentieth

century, ricocheting between the fantastical Tiffany man-

sion s, A n na Freud’s L ondon of fice, a Ca l ifor n ia com mu ne,

a Texas death-row unit, and today’s Manhattan. Kline was

closing in on a final draft of her eighth novel, Tin Ticket

(William Morrow, 2020), which takes place in the mid-

nineteenth century and tells a little-known story about

convict women sent from Great Britain on repurposed

slave ships to Australia, where, despite discrimination and

hardship, they helped forge a new society. Several of her

previous novels are also set at least partly in the past. For

both, this public conversation was an opportunity to read

what other writers have said about researching, imagining,

and depicting earlier times—and to then delve deeply into

their own experiences doing the same. What follows is an

adaptation of their talk at the library.

Kline: Several years ago, in an essay for the New Repub-

lic, Alexander Chee recalled that when he described the

subject of his novel-in-progress The Queen of the Night, his

friends “would look at me, confused, only to respond, ‘Oh,

you’re writing a historical novel?’ The only answer to such

a question was yes, and yet I felt somehow misunderstood.

Worse still was the trepidation in their eyes, as if I had an-

nounced that I was giving up years of hard work writing

literary fiction to sell out and become a hack.” The Peacock

Feast is you r fi rst “h istor ical” novel. Does Chee’s a necdote

resonate for you?

Gornick: I was so naive about historical fiction that I

didn’t even realize I was writing historical fiction. I’m

not even sure if I did write historical fiction. My book has

three strands, one of which is set in 2013 and another that

unspools largely from 1963 forward. It’s only the third

The New York Times best-selling

author of eight novels, including

Orphan Train (William Morrow,

2013) and A Piece of the World

(William Morrow, 2017),

CHRISTINA BAKER KLINE

is published in more than forty

countries. Her novels have

received the New England

Prize for Fiction and the Maine

Literary Award, among other

awards, and have been chosen by

hundreds of communities and

universities as “One Book, One

Read” selections.

LISA GORNICK is the author

of four novels, including The

Peacock Feast (Sarah Crichton

Books, 2019) and Louisa Meets

Bear (Sarah Crichton Books,

2015). Her stories and essays

have appeared in the New York

Times, the Paris Review, Prairie

Schooner, and the Wall St reet

Journal and have received

many honors, including a

Distinguished Story selection

in the Best American Short

Stories.

THE PLEASURES AND PERILS OF WRITING

ABOUT OTHER ERAS

Historical Fiction

Life

THE LITERARY

31 POETS & WRITERS^

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