Note: I received a copy of the book SPEAKEASY, by Elyse Douglas, in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation.
I had the opportunity to interview Elyse Douglas about her latest book, SPEAKEASY, published by Broadback. I appreciate that she gave so generously of her time when she could be working on the sequel! Here are the questions I asked her, and her responses:
Q: It is a pleasure to return to 1925 with another story of intrigue, danger, mystery, and love that takes place—if that’s the right term! —between people caught up in the effects of a time-shifting gemstone. In our last conversation about THE CHRISTMAS EVE PROMISE, the previous book that I read and reviewed, I asked why you had picked 1925 as your jumping off point.
You’ve come back to this same year with a completely different story, characters, events, and circumstances that all feel so real and three-dimensional. As you develop your stories, what do you find about the 1920s culture that most fascinates you?
A: I’ll start with a quote from a 1920s American jazz cornetist, pianist, and composer, Bix Beiderbecke, (1903-1931). “One of the things I like about jazz is I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”
That quote, more or less, exemplified the 1920s in America, especially with regard to the large cities. The entire decade seemed to be a lively jazzy tune that was being improvised on a daily basis, and no one seemed to know what was going to happen next.
It was a larger-than-life time that began just after the horrors of the Great War, which killed around 40 million people, and the devastating 1918 influenza pandemic that killed an estimated 50 million worldwide.
In 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote. Writer Virginia Woolf said, “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.” For the first time in U.S. history, women had the power to vote.
The Volstead Act took effect in 1920, and it provided the enforcement of the 18th Amendment, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages.
The Model T Ford allowed the freedom to explore a world, miles from a city or town, a revolutionary step for many rural folks, who seldom strayed more than 10 miles from home.
These and much more set the stage from dramatic changes, culturally, socially, economically, and financially, and it is a fertile landscape for any author to create thousands of stories.
The bootlegger appeared, the flapper was born, the radio brought the world closer together than ever before with music, radio dramas, sports, weather, and news. It was the 1920s internet explosion, and it was the radio that helped fuel the stock market rise until the 1929 crash.
In short, it was a decade unmatched in its innovation, cultural freedom, and experimentation until the 1960s, and many historians believe that the 1960s’ cultural revolution was no match for the wildness and freedom of the Roaring Twenties.
Q: The main character, Roxie Raines, is lost in the 21st century but finds her place in the early 20th century. What intrigues you most about her transition from our era into the era of our grandparents and great-grandparents?
A: Roxie came from a world where she has more freedom and independence than any woman could have imagined in the 1920s, although the culture was rapidly changing. Few women in the 1920s could have imagined a woman running for President, or that a woman of color would be elected Vice President in 2020.
Interestingly, in the 19th century, Victoria Claflin Woodhull was a women’s rights and suffrage advocate, a popular public speaker and a newspaper publisher who introduced American audiences to the works of Karl Marx. She was the first woman to operate a Wall Street brokerage firm, and the first female presidential candidate in 1872. But she was a notable exception, and few took her seriously as a presidential candidate.
As to Roxie’s transition, from the novel we learn that “There was an old part of Roxie, a part that longed for the old New York she’d seen online and in old black-and-white movies, before the glass towers, the needle-pointed, multimillion-dollar condos, and the encroaching chain stores took over.”
Roxie welcomed the transition, if not her immediate circumstances trapped by Frankie Shay. She loved the excitement, the culture, and the music, and she was able to merge her talents with the innovation and experimentation that was going on around her.
Q: Roxie is talented but lost in the 21st century. But her talents in 1925 New York City receive rave reviews, and I was fascinated with the idea of that transition from a lounge singer with electronic amplification and sound systems to a “flap” who sings straight to an audience in a Prohibition-era speakeasy. How did you envision Roxie making that transition, and what challenges did you see her as having in moving from amplified music to using only her natural strengths? It seems to me that it would be almost as much a challenge as dropping in unexpectedly into that alley!
A: Doug and I both play the piano. Doug used to accompany cabaret singers and musical revues, and he played for singers auditioning for Broadway shows. We’ve heard a lot of singers, and most cabaret and Broadway singers have voices that can project over an orchestra without a mic (although, these days, Broadway singers wear body mics).
In our novel, SPEAKEASY, it is only a small adjustment for Roxie, but not a difficult one. She’s an experienced singer who has performed in many venues and, as a result, she has vocal and performance flexibility, and she knows how to use her voice skillfully and creatively, as do most accomplished singers/performers.
Q: Your characters, even the incidental ones, feel as if they all have their own complete stories, from the shoeshine boy to the muscle for a personal detective to an Italian restauranteur. How much did you have to leave out about these fascinating people, and will we see them appear in sequels to live out a little more of their only glimpsed-at lives?
A: I love people and characters—all kinds. I love watching people, listening to people, and imagining stories for them. Sometimes in the park, as someone walks by, I name them, and often I even name their dog.
I had a writing teacher once say, “Every character in your novel, no matter how small the part, must BE (not seem) a novel into themselves.” That is, they must be alive, they must breathe and pace on the page, they must have some fight in them, and it helps if they’re a little good and a little bad.
Yes, many of these characters will reappear in the sequels, and more of their secrets will be revealed.
Q: I was really fascinated by the picture found in the basement, and I want to know if that is in any way based upon something similar from that era? Was there a painter who created such imagery? It still is such a striking memory for me—it’s one of the first things I remember when I think about the book.
A: The portrait was a product of imagination, but the image for it was based on the 1920s actress/ dancer Mary Louise Brooks. There are many photos of her, and she was a fascinating personality. She is regarded today as a Jazz Age icon and as a flapper icon due to her bob hairstyle, which she helped popularize during the prime of her career.
Q: Same question as before, but perhaps with a twist: what do you think you bring to us from the year 1925 that can serve as a warning or example to us who can’t simply find a secret blue stone to escape our current reality?
A: Ha-ha! I love the question, Stephen!
I’m going to pass this one on to Agatha Christie, who has sold between two and four billion books. On a cold December night in 1926, Agatha Christie went out in her beloved Morris Cowley roadster and didn’t return home for eleven days. It was quite a mystery.
“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all, I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.”
—Agatha Christie
Q: Again, thank you for your time, and thank you for the chance to read yet another fascinating, clever, fast-moving story with such intriguing characters!
A: Thank you, Stephen, for these thoughtful, fun, and creative questions. It was a pleasure to wander about the house pondering them. But . . . I ate too many chocolates!
Elyse Douglas April 2022
Enter now for a chance to win a free copy of the book!
a Rafflecopter giveawayThis giveaway is for 3 copies with the winner’s choice of print or ebook. Print is open to Canada and the U.S. only and ebook is open worldwide. This giveaway ends on July 1, 2022 midnight, Pacific time. Entries accepted via Rafflecopter only.
Thanks so much for hosting and the excellent questions for Elyse Douglas!
Thanks, Stephen! It was fun!