The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [171]
Q: Were you a fan of the circus as a child, or are you now?
Not really as a child, but, yes, now I enjoy the pageantry. I am really interested in the performers, though—I always find myself wondering how they chose this life and why, and what it’s really like.
Q: Tell us a little about the research you did on Vinnie: Where and what were your primary sources? What did you find most provocative about Vinnie’s life as you researched the novel? What surprised you the most? What still resonates with you?
The primary source was her unedited, loosely written autobiographical notes, which were compiled and published in 1979 by a man named A. H. Saxon. Also a book called General Tom Thumb and His Lady, which is based mainly on their lives as advertised by P. T. Barnum—in other words, it’s inaccurate, but important in understanding the myth of their public lives. Also Barnum Presents: General Tom Thumb by Alice Curtis Desmond—again, largely a retelling of Barnum’s version of their lives. And I read several biographies of Barnum himself, as well as Robert Bogdan’s Freak Show.
But the most important research was Vinnie’s own writings, in her autobiographical sketches. And the most provocative thing, to me, was what she left unsaid. Her voice is so relentlessly cheerful and optimistic—and fiercely ladylike—but she never discusses the heartbreak, the disappointment, the frustration she must have felt so often in her life. She lived in a time when one popular theory equated a person’s intelligence to the size of his head. So she had to have encountered those who thought she was stupid or slow. Plus she faced daunting physical limitations in an era of crude train travel, no elevators, etc. Her personal heartbreaks—and she had them—also were so determinedly glossed over.
Trying to read between the lines, then, of her well-documented public life—exploring the woman behind the curtain, so to speak: That was my reason for writing the book.
Q: Can you explain why you decided to end the novel where you did—almost forty years before Vinnie dies?
Because I started to fear this would be a five-hundred-thousand-word book if I went all the way to the end! She accomplished so very much in her lifetime—met every person of importance, went everywhere. The canvas of her life was simply vast. But in every life, there are a thousand little stories, and it’s up to the historical novelist to decide which scant handful of stories to tell—which ones can be woven together into a compelling book. And the story that emerged, for me, was the story of her relationship with P. T. Barnum. It seemed to me that he was the only person in Vinnie’s life with a personality as big as her own. So once that became clear, the rest of the novel took shape around this, and it made sense to end the book with their reconciliation; that was the story I wanted to tell.
But there is quite a lot of story left; I may have to revisit Vinnie someday.
Q: As public a figure as Vinnie was, she was very private about her emotions and people close to her. Do you think she’d be pleased to see her name back in the headlines with your novel?
While I’m not sure she’d like me pulling the curtain back on her private heartbreaks and frustrations, I’m quite certain she’d be thrilled to see her name on the cover of a book again!
Q: As a historical novelist, are you more concerned with sticking to the absolute historical truth, or telling a good story? How did you balance fact versus fiction in this novel, and in Alice I Have Been?
I like to say that I never let the truth get in the way of a good story! There’s a reason why “A Novel” is on the front of the book. It’s fiction, and I trust the readers to know that. Always, my hope is that after reading one of my books, a reader is inspired to learn more about these remarkable people. Of course, I do use the known facts as a template; they’re the “bones” upon which I hang the “skin”—the story, the fiction. But sometimes you do have to take liberties—although I always try to take them with people whose motivations