The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [172]
Q: Book clubs have really embraced Alice I Have Been. Do you think they will feel the same about this novel? What themes will book clubs respond to in The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb?
I’ve been so fortunate with Alice I Have Been! I’ve met so many wonderful readers, and believe that talking with them has made me a better writer. I really do think book clubs will embrace The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb. For one thing, Vinnie’s story is played out against such a rich panoply of American history. There’s so much to discuss and explore—the advent of the railroad, the Civil War, the Gilded Age. Then, too, there’s a lot to discuss about a woman who so fiercely sought more than she ever should have expected, given her status as a single woman—not to mention a very small single woman—in a time when a woman had no real choices in her life beyond marriage. Her size was her passport into a world she never would have seen otherwise—but it also prevented her from living a traditional woman’s life. And I sense she mourned that.
Q: You’ve talked about how there are many parallels between Vinnie’s time and now: We may not have “curiosities” and “freak shows,” but we live in a voyeuristic world and through technology (Twitter) and entertainment (reality television) have views into people’s lives that are so very different than ours. Can you discuss this a little more here?
Well, I’m quite certain that Vinnie would have her own reality show, were she alive today! She sought the spotlight—so, in a way, she began to blur the line between real life and the life people thought she was living, as depicted on stage and in Barnum’s advertising. And I see that happening today—people who are famous simply for being famous, who then believe that they’re talented, worthy of our attention for other reasons as well. I think Vinnie probably fell into the same trap.
And while we may decry a past in which people eagerly paid money to see curiosities, or freak shows, as they were eventually called, how are we any different today? We follow strangers on Twitter, we set our DVRs to record our favorite reality shows—some of which, to be truthful, are really no more than glorified versions of the freak shows of a different time.
So nothing has really changed, has it?
Q: What’s next for you?
Well, as I’m certain my editor would not like me to spill the beans yet, all I can say is I’m working on another historical novel, this one set in the early part of the twentieth century. And I’m trying to part the curtain on another famous person’s fiercely private life.
Q: What do you read in your spare time, or when you’re not writing?
Everything! I love nonfiction—history, obviously! And literary and commercial fiction. Any good story, well told. I pretty much devote my weekends to reading, two or three books, if I’m lucky. I honestly believe that part of a writer’s job is to read; it’s how we learn, it’s how we grow.
After all, I never would have heard of Lavinia Warren Stratton had I not read E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime!
Timeline: The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb
1841
Vinnie is born; the first wagon train arrives in California.
1847
Mormons arrive in Utah.
The issue of polygamy, specifically as outlined by the Mormon faith, was nearly as big an issue as slavery in antebellum America. The Mormon leader Brigham Young was a figure of much interest as well as controversy; Vinnie met him on her Western tour, and made no attempt to hide her disgust at the practice of polygamy and the paternalistic society of the Mormons in Utah.
1858
Vinnie begins her career on the Mississippi; the first transatlantic telegraph is received in New York City.
1859
Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species.
1861
The Civil War begins.
2011 marks the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, a defining moment that shaped the identity of America forever. Vinnie’s public life was played out against