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THE CONFESSION OF BRANDY PURDY: AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR OF THE CONFESSION OF PIERS GAVESTON
Interview conducted by Nan Hawthorne, author of AN INVOLUNTARY KING. To learn more about Nan and her work please visit her website at www.nanhawthorne.com
A week or so ago Brandy Purdy and I sat down in a virtual parlor to talk about her new book, THE CONFESSION OF PIERS GAVESTON, about the young man whose sway over his lover King Edward II inspired resentment and revenge. As a historical novelist myself, I wanted to know about Purdy as the successful publisher of a story I also find fascinating.
Hawthorne: What attracted you to retell the story of Piers Gaveston?
Purdy: It just sort of happened. Reading has always been my greatest comfort, and when I can't read I know I'm in trouble. My mother died five years ago and I remember picking up books and trying to read them, but I couldn't, my concentration was gone, I'd read the same sentence over five times and still couldn't take it in. One of the books was about royal romances and scandals, not at all a scholarly work, just something meant to be light and informative in an entertaining way, and I was so frustrated I couldn't focus enough to read it that I was about to throw it at the wall. I decided to try one more time and opened it at random to the chapter on Edward II and Piers Gaveston, and, for some reason, I was able to read it, I became fascinated by this story, maybe my mind saw a parallel to the Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn saga, which has fascinated me since childhood, I don't know.
Anyway, I just started reading anything and everything I could find about Piers Gaveston. And I realized that very little is actually known about this man, and what was written was written after he became notorious. There are no portraits or physical descriptions of him, he left behind no diaries or letters recording his personal thoughts, there are only the reports of the medieval chroniclers, gossip, rumors of witchcraft (his mother was said to have been burned as a witch), records of the numerous gifts and endowments Edward made to him, inventories and some household accounts, and a few of the songs written to celebrate his death. We don't even know his birth date, I believe he first appears in the records when he was probably a teenager serving in the army, so there are a lot of shadowy areas in his life. This man was considered the most hated man in England, but nothing exists to tell us what he actually thought and felt.
Hawthorne: What did you want to say in the novel that historical references do not or cannot?
Purdy: I thought it would be an interesting challenge to try to give this man a voice. Gaveston is usually seen as the villain of Edward's story, the evil power behind the throne, he was a man with many flaws who in some ways was his own worst enemy, and I wondered what he would have written if he had a blank book and knew he was running out of time. And the novel just happened.
I think everyone deserves to be heard, to have a chance to speak in their own defense. As Gaveston says in the first chapter of my novel "There are two sides to every coin; but when the bards and chroniclers, the men who write the histories, tell this story, will anyone remember that?"
Hawthorne: How did you research the time and people? What were your resources?
Purdy: I read everything I could find and afford to buy or get on interlibrary loan that I thought might prove helpful. I also used the internet where I found some discussions about the identity of Amy Gaveston, believed by many to have been Piers Gaveston's illegitimate daughter, and also an interesting article about the possible role of witchcraft in Gaveston and Edward's story.
Hawthorne: How did you arrive at the individual motivations for your characters?
Purdy: It just all came together somehow. I had an outline of known incidents and events, and as I read I took notes and wrote down anything that I thought was interesting or might be useful, but I really just sat down and wrote it, I don't think I ever consciously stopped and thought "okay now how am I going to portray the Earl of Pembroke or Lancaster?"
I think I was lucky writing this book, it just flowed out, my second novel, THE BOLEYN WIFE (VENGEANCE IS MINE), about Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, the second and fifth wives of Henry VIII, as seen through the jealousy-clouded eyes of Lady Rochford, was much more difficult, maybe because there is so much more known about the personalities involved.
Hawthorne: Tell us your thought process when deciding how to evoke the era and place? How is the characters' language part of that?
Purdy: The language was a difficult point. My agent at the time thought the first draft was too modern, so I rewrote it trying to make the language have a more medieval feel. Apparently she was satisfied, but I personally wasn't happy with it, I thought maybe I went too far, and the language got in the way of the story. I love historical fiction, it's probably 95% of what I read, but when a novel's linguistic style slows me down and gets in the way of the story, I don't like that at all. When I revised my novel for the last time, I tried to think of myself as a translator or editor, trying to make the book understandable or accessible to modern readers but also to preserve a period feel. I don't know how well I succeeded, but I do know it's impossible to please everyone; I learned that a long time ago.
Hawthorne: How big of a challenge is it to stay away from anachronisms? How do you handle the issue?
Purdy: I've been reading about history since I learned to read so I don't feel it's that big of a challenge for me. If there are anachronisms they're unintentional and hopefully slight, or made for a reason. For example, I just recently read that addressing a king or queen as "Your Majesty" was not done until the Tudor era, but since my corrected proofs had already been submitted to the publisher I wasn't about to halt publication and go to the expense of correcting what I felt was a minor and insignificant detail.
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