Why write about women?

I get asked a lot, “We did you write a novel with a woman as the main character? What makes you an expert on women?” It’s not as if I can write from personal experience, being a guy. One reason is that Louise, my character, really spoke to me. I mean spoke. She invaded my mind and would not stop telling me things! That was a big help in my writing.

Another reason I wrote this book is more subtle, but very real. E.L. Doctorow once said that history is all about what happened, while historical fiction is all about “how it felt.” That’s what I liked about reading historical accounts of real women from America’s past. Their accounts were not just dry facts, figures and dates. These women had stories to tell, which included their hopes, fears, and ambitions. They told it not just as they saw it, but as they felt it.

Relating how they felt made the stories of real women come alive for me. They made history feel like the things I enjoyed most in fiction. And I thought: If they can do this with history, I can do it with fiction.