The Romance Reader's Connection

JANUARY AUTHOR OF THE MONTH

 

 

 

KATHLEEN ESCHENBURG 

 

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by 

Mellanie Crowther

 

Kathleen Eschenburg became an autobuy author with the publication of her first novel, THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG. Set in Reconstruction-era Maryland, THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG is the story of poor Irish immigrant Maggie Quinn and wealthy Gordon Kincaid, father of Maggie's favorite orphan. Readers were quick to take this extraordinary book to heart, and authors Diana Gabaldon and LaVyrle Spencer were lavish with their praise. Several awards later, Ms. Eschenburg proves that she's not a one-hit wonder with the release of SEEN BY MOONLIGHT, another Kincaid tale. Kathy recently spent some time answering many questions about the tumult of her personal life in the past year, the art of writing, and a cause that's especially significant to her.

Q: THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG made a huge splash in the romance world when it hit stores. What was it like for you to have such a reaction from readers (and writers!) with your first book? How did it feel to have writers like LaVyrle Spencer praising your work?

A: Seeing that book on the store shelves the first time was both thrilling and terrifying. I had done it-actually had my book published-and the proof was there in my own hands! But would it sell? Would anyone pick it off the shelves and take it home? Would readers find it a good reading experience or want to throw it against the wall? Very strange time. But then I began to get email and letters from readers who had found the book and taken a chance on an unknown author, and they liked the story. To say that was gratifying is an understatement. It was thrilling. It was also daunting because SEEN BY MOONLIGHT was going to follow it, and, after all, you're only as good as the book you're currently working on. <g> The day my agent faxed me the cover quotes from LaVyrle Spencer was one of the best days of my life. She has always held top ranking in my personal list of favorite romance authors, and to receive praise from one of your own icons is uplifting, indeed.

Q: What was your reaction to winning the Holt Medallion for Best Long Historical?

A: That award and the nomination as a RITA finalist both came through during a particularly rough writing spell, so the award was more than just an award; it was a boon-a reminder that I'd had rough spells while working on THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG too and it had all, evidently, come out right. It is very gratifying to receive that kind of acknowledgement from your peers.

Having said that, I do think the ultimate accolades (or condemnations) are in the voices of the average reader who turns to our books for a few hours of pleasure. When an author manages to take a vision and render it in words that the reader connects with, then a miracle of communication has taken place, mind to mind, imagination to imagination-and no two readers have the same story in their minds anymore than the reader's story matches the author's vision. We bring our one subtle shades of meaning into our interpretation of the written word, our imagination is colored by our own, unique life experiences, so that every story has an infinite range of possible meanings. I find the whole subject fascinating and love reading the letters and emails I get from readers because each individual has come away from the experience of reading my story with a unique twist they comment upon.

Q: A lot of times, authors seem to romanticize the plight of the Irish in America. You successfully avoided that in THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG, and painted a very convincing portrait of the discrimination and disdain experienced by Irish immigrants. What prompted you to take such an accurate stance on this issue?

A: Please don't laugh at me. Maggie, and to a lesser extent, Jamie and Father Fitzhugh, would have it no other way. In order to be true to their characters-to establish emotional honesty-I had to establish a period authenticity. Without the period authenticity, the story would have been either a wholly different story or a complete failure. I really don't plan these things in advance. I go into writing each story with some vague notions about one or both of my lead characters and discover the story as I write and learn more about them-and the other characters who walk onto the stage.

Q: When you write a book like THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG, which was taken to heart very quickly by readers as they discovered you, does it put pressure on you to deliver a story with the same emotional impact? Were you able to put Gordon and Maggie aside as you wrote about Royce and Annabelle?

A: I tend to gravitate toward books with a strong emotional impact as a reader, so it seems only natural that the same tendency would carry over into my own efforts at story-telling. Still, each book is different because the characters are different; therefore, the emotional issues are going to be diverse. The pressure to deliver a strong story is there with every book, and I suspect that will remain true even if I were to suddenly turn into a prolific writer in the Nora Roberts mode. (A highly unlikely occurrence, btw.) <g> You have to put the previous book's characters aside, and it isn't a terribly difficult thing to do, at least for me. The new characters take over my mind, to the detriment of real life many times. My children, bless them, have this habit of rolling their eyes that clues me in (when I notice it) that I've gone off into my alternate reality where the make-believe people speak louder than the real ones.

Q: Your books travel backwards chronologically. Was it harder to write THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG or SEEN BY MOONLIGHT, and why?

A: Every book I write seems to be the hardest. One would think it would become easier with practice, but it just isn't so. <g> THE NIGHTINGALE'S SONG and SEEN BY MOONLIGHT are so different in scope that it is hard to compare them. NIGHTINGALE is painted on a smaller canvas; family dynamics underpin the plot and the character motivations, but the social issues of the time are also important. In some ways, it is harder to write a book that miniaturizes the broad social conventions of the day so that, one hopes, those issues are being addressed but only through the eyes and experiences of the characters. SEEN BY MOONLIGHT, on the other hand, is drawn against the backdrop of the American Civil War and covers four years. That is a huge undertaking. I had to present actual history in such a manner that the plot and character motivations made sense without causing the readers' eyes to glaze over with boredom. I had to make that history personal to the characters. And I had to fit this BIG story into a reasonable page length while maintaining both clarity and excitement. Cutting SEEN BY MOONLIGHT down to its published page length was one of the hardest writing task I've undertaken so far.

Depicting the secondary love story in SBM, between the slave couple Patsy and Clarence, was the undertaking that gave me the most concern. I wanted to show the dark side of slavery and I wanted to do that while maintaining some reader empathy for the slave-owning Kincaid family- which felt, at a times, like balancing precariously upon a tightrope-and I needed to make Patsy and Clarence believable in their choices and actions. I won't know if I managed to pull off that feat until the readers speak, although the few preliminary reviews I've seen so far give me hope that the intricacy came through and the characters are both sympathetic and empathetic.

The main thing these two books have in common is the importance of family dynamics on the unfolding relationship between the hero and heroine-that and surviving tremendous personal losses to come out on the other side with strength and hope and gained wisdom.

Q: Patsy is such an interesting character, and Clarence really could have carried his own book. Would you ever write a romance featuring people of color as the romantic leads? Having written Patsy and Clarence's story, will you continue to take such a well-rounded approach to characters?

A: Thank you! As soon as Clarence showed up on the page and opened his mouth to speak, I knew he was much more than I had envisioned when I started writing that scene. I love his character. He is arrogant, proud, highly intelligent, yet all that is tempered with a deep vein of compassion. He is who he is, makes no excuses or explanations-and for that reason, was fairly easy to write.

Patsy, on the other hand, remained an enigma for such a long time that I was beginning to worry that I'd never capture her well enough to achieve my goals for them as a couple. Then, one day I was writing a scene with Patsy in it as a small player, and it suddenly occurred to me that she was showing me only her slave face. She kept her true self hidden because, as a slave woman, that was how she managed to endure the horrible circumstances of her life. From that moment on, she was alive and real to me, and therefore, much easier to write.

As for writing a book featuring people of color as the romantic leads … if I thought I could do it as well as Beverly Jenkins does it, then I wouldn't hesitate. I don't have that level of confidence though, so that remains a theoretical undertaking. I do hope that I will always strive to depict well-rounded characters, no matter their gender, race, nationality or social position.

Q: The hero of your next book first appeared in SEEN BY MOONLIGHT. When we catch up with him again, John DeShields has taken off to Mexico, leaving Olivia Sherwood behind. Will Olivia follow John to Mexico, or will John return to her? What challenges do you face when using another country as a setting for a book, particularly in a historical? Have you ever been to Mexico, or are you relying on imagination and research to help you with the setting?

A: The third book begins when John returns to the Shenandoah Valley in 1876, but the final shape of the story is still unclear to me. I have a few scenes written that take place in Mexico, but don't know if those scenes will actually have a place in the finished manuscript or if they are merely exercises I had to complete for my understanding of who, what and why. I enjoy research (one of the reasons I have chosen to write historicals) so researching a foreign locale is no great problem. I have been to Mexico, which helps, but it has been a few years now so I need to refresh the details with research. The bonus of having visited a place is in the sensory details that you can recall and add to the descriptive power of the character experiences.

Q: You've had an extremely difficult year. What has sustained you through your physical and spiritual challenges? If you could give your readers one kernel of wisdom gleaned from your recent experiences, what would that be?

A: It hasn't been a year I would care to repeat. <s> My family is my strength in the here-and-now, especially my children, and in the spiritual plane, I turn to my faith. I have to say that I learned most of what I know about living well during the year my husband was dying from cancer-one learns what is truly important when contemplating mortality that up close and personal. My own round with cancer brought all those lessons home again. It isn't things or money or a job title that sustains us when we lose someone we love. It is memories. And it is memories that will sustain our loved ones when it becomes our turn to die. So my words of wisdom would be to love well and love often; say the words and demonstrate the emotion.

Q: How do you think your health issues have affected your writing, if at all?

A: It slowed the writing down considerably. The will was there-it was the physical stamina that was missing. Things are looking up now though and I'm anxious to get back into a serious writing routine once again.

Q: When you need to take a break from writing, whose books do you read? What story is teasing at you, waiting to be told? Will you stay with historicals, or would you like to try your hand at a contemporary? Which book do you wish you had written?

A: I'm an eclectic reader, everything from non-fiction--history, diaries and journals and even travel guides--to mystery, romance, fantasy and historical fiction with a dip every so often back into the classics, either to reread my favorites or to catch up on something I've missed. I don't like to say I have a favorite because so much depends on the mood I'm in, but Dorothy Dunnett's body of work would have to be up there near the top of any listing of my favorites. She's not an author for the faint of heart, but oh, the journey she takes you on-well worth the effort it takes to become seduced by her books.

Once upon a time, SEEN BY MOONLIGHT was my impossible book-of-the-heart. Now that it is not impossible, but soon to be Out There, the story holding that position is a Depression era-WWII story. Supposedly, there is not a viable market for that kind of book-neither historical nor contemporary-but I can think of hundreds of stories just waiting to be told, and some day, I'm going to take a crack at one of those tales. I'd like to try my hand at a contemporary as well, and have a few ideas that I dream about occasionally. As to what book I wish I'd written, that is easy: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

Q: What prompted you to start writing?

A: It took a confluence of events to get me started as a writer. First, and probably most important, I was floundering around trying to find my way after my husband's death. I was in the process of selling my resort in Belize. It was a cold, dark January day and I sat down at the computer to work on a sales brochure for the resort, but in an act of procrastination, opened the word processing program instead of the publishing program with some vague idea that maybe I'd take the time to learn how the word processing program worked. But then, in order to figure out how it worked, I needed to type something. I still don't know why, but I started typing a story … and now, here I am, a "real" writer. <g>

Q: Do you think having such a wealth of stories from your own family background contributed to your decision to write a book?
A: The family stories had no leverage on actually sitting down to attempt writing a book; they were, however, great fodder as a launching point for my fictional characters. And I love the South-the sad, terrible history, the haunting beauties of the land and nuanced complexities of the peoples. One could spend a lifetime writing in that setting and never run out of fascinating material.

Q: What would be the highest praise you could receive? Who was your biggest supporter as you waited for news of your manuscript?

A: I have been lucky to have had a mentor of the caliber of Diana Gabaldon, whose advice has been invaluable to me. The folks at Compuserve's Literary Forum have been supportive from my first day there as a beginning writer. But my biggest supporters have been my mother and my two youngest children. I've had my doubts along the way; they never did.

There have been many comments over the past few years that felt like high praise to me, but the highest praise is invariably the latest reader letter to arrive in my mailbox or Inbox. It takes a co-operative group of professionals to get a book from inception, through production, and on to the store shelves. But in the end, it is the individual reader one wants to touch as a storyteller, and a successful writing career is built one reader at a time.

Q: Will you ever use Belize as a setting?

A: Who knows! Currently, I'm in the Shenandoah Valley, circa 1876, and my vision isn't good enough to peer over those mountains.

Q: Your stories so far have very dark edges to them (something I really love). Do you ever think about breaking away from that and writing something light and frothy? What do you hope readers know about you after they've read your books?
A: <Sigh> It's true, isn't it; my stories do have those dark edges. Actually, in person, I'm an idealistic Pollyanna who shouldn't be allowed loose in the world without a keeper. Well, how to reconcile the two statements? I guess it's because Life has dark edges and my desire is to explore the lives of my characters as they fall in love and find that light in their happily-ever-after. There are times when I want to read a light and frothy romance novel, but I don't think I'm capable of writing one. Writing is a huge investment of time, and while I'm happily entertained for the few hours it takes to read a lighter book, I'd get bored over the many months it takes to write a book and quit before the story was finished. I need the deeper complexities to keep me focused on how to get to the next scene, and the next, and so on until it all finally falls into place and I recognize what this particular book is truly about.

What would I like my readers to know about me through my books? Wow, that's a tough one. I'd like to think they have been so wrapped up in the journey of my characters that they never once stopped to consider it is a fictional story, an artifice written by a real person. In other words, I'd like to think I'm invisible as an author. If they have to glean something about me through reading my books-well, maybe I'd wish for intelligence to come through-or maybe I'd rather have that single trait be compassion.

Q: Any other thoughts you'd like to share with our readers?

A: Just one. Romance readers are overwhelmingly female. I'd like to remind all your readers to get a mammogram. I put mine off, and have paid the price. Please, don't make my mistake because of time constraints or a few moments of discomfort.

Thank you for the opportunity to share with you and your readers. It has been a pleasure!

On behalf of The Romance Reader's Connection, I'd like to thank Kathleen Eschenburg for taking the time to answer my questions. It was a privilege to interview you. I wish you health, happiness, and prosperity in the coming year.

(Click here for a review of SEEM BY MOONLIGHT)

 

 

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