I Could Have Danced All Night

As I've mentioned in prior blogs, a lot of my nonwriting time is spent working as a board member of the Merola Opera Program, a training program for opera singers, coach accompanists, and stage directors. On March 28, we had our annual Spring Benefit fundraiser. This event is about as close I get to the parties and balls that are so important in many of our novels. I got my hair done (with a ceramic curling iron rather than metal tongs heated in an Agrand lamp); I helped with decorations (laying out Silent Auction items rather than arranging flowers and lighting wax tapers); I scrambled into my dress and helped do up the hooks on friends' dresses (in a hotel room not a boudoir in someone's Mayfair town house); sipped champagne (some things never change); filled a supper plate from a buffet (artichoke ravioli rather than lobster patties); listened to a wonderful concert (some of which, Mozart, might have actually been performed at an entertainment in one of my books); and danced in to the morning (to decidedly different music from that at Regency ball).

The next day, I found myself thinking about parties and balls in novels. A number of memorable ones spring to mind, beginning with the assembly ball in Pride and Prejudice. In fact, Pride and Prejudice has a number of ball and party scenes, including the memorable the Netherfield ball. When the A&E adaptation first aired, my friend and fellow writer Penny Williamson commented on how often the characters went to parties. She said she could imagine Jane Austen as a writer thinking “how am I going to get these characters together? I have to have another party scene.”

In an era before cell phones, texts, emails, and tweets, where it was difficult for unmarried men and women to interact unchaperoned, balls, receptions, and other social occasions were hubs of social interaction. Whether it's a provincial assembly ball, a subscription night at Almack's, a convivial evening at Mrs. Phillips', or a ball at Netherfield Park, these entertainments provided the opportunity for everything from flirtation (not to mention and out and assignations) to gossip to catching up with an old friend or an old lover to mustering support for a Parliamentary bill. For the novelist, balls provide rich opportunities for the characters to interact. There’s the chance for private conversation during a dance (Darcy and Elizabeth at the Netherfield ball) and the opportunity for one character to observe another (Darcy makes a disastrous impression on Lizzy at the assembly ball and the Netherfield ball confirms Darcy’s negatives of the entire Bennet family). The chance to advance multiple story lines in one scene (both the Darcy/Elizabeth and Jane/Bingley relationships move forward in these various party scenes, and the ball early on in Anna Karenina not only showcases Anna and Vronsky's meeting it moves forward the Lenin/Kitty storyline and the story of Anna's brother and his wife). A ball can be the occasion of an unexpected meeting (Marianne encountering Willoughby and his wife in Sense and Sensibility). It can be spun-sugar covering for scenes of intrigue and drama (the Grenville ball in The Scarlet Pimpernel).

One of the more dramatic real historical entertainments is the Duchess of Richmond’s ball in Brussels at which Wellington learned that Napoleon had stolen a march on him. Soldiers in ball dress left the dance floor to join their regiments and marched out of Brussels that night. The duchess’s ball has been brought to vivid life in a number of novels–by Thackery in Vanity Fair, by Georgette Heyer in An Infamous Army, by Bernard Cornwell in Waterloo. I had the fun of writing about it myself in Shores of Desire (what could be a better setting for drama? all the major characters together as they receive news that will change all their lives in myriad ways). I’d love to use the Duchess of Richmond’s ball in a Charles & Mélanie book some day, either in flashback or in another prequel.

The public nature of a ball can create a wonderful tension with the intimacy of an exchange between two people. Imagine if Romeo and Juliet's first meeting had occurred with the two of them alone rather than in the fraught setting of a ball in her parents' house, at which he is an interloper. There's the added tension of the fact that even if it isn't a masquerade ball, everyone to a certain extent wears a mask in a very public social setting.

Balls and parties an also be a way for a writer to introduce the reader to an array of characters and to their world. Edith Wharton does this brilliantly in the opening The Age of Innocence. You get a sense of the world of the Archers and Wellands in a way you wouldn’t in small scenes. The ripples in that world caused by Ellen’s return from the Continent come through vividly.

I love to read ball scenes, and I enjoy writing them, but they can be a challenge. There are multiple characters to juggle and an elaborate scene to set, all without confusing the reader. There's the challenge of deciding whose pov to start in, when to switch povs, and how to give the reader the sense of a large, crowded entertainment, when the character in whose pov one is may be entirely focused on his or her personal problems. Secrets of a Lady opens with Charles and Mel returning from a ball, but after that has no scenes set at social gathering. I deliberately wanted to pull Charles and Mélanie out of the jewel box world represented by the Esterhazy ball they’ve attended before the book opens. Beneath a Silent Moon, on the other hand, opens with the Glenister House ball. Inspired by a number of memorable book openings (notably the one from The Age of Innocence) I wanted to set up the various characters and the world of the Glenister House set. And I wanted to show the difficulties both Charles and Mel are having adjusting to London society and the strain that that’s putting on their marriage. And seeing all the major characters react to the news of Kenneth Fraser and Honoria Talbot's betrothal seemed the perfect way to set up the mystery that is about to unfold. I reworked those chapters a number of times, deciding where to start, who to focus in on (how to move the camera in a sense), and what to show from whose perspective.

Do you have some favorite scenes at balls or other parties in books? What makes them memorable? Writers, do you like writing scenes set at parties? What are some of the challenging of writing scenes in which one has to juggle a number of characters and plotlines?

Politicians as heroes

I spent most of the night of November 4th in front of the television, in tears much of the time, savoring the moment, wishing my parents were still alive to see it. Politics has been a fascination in my family for as long as I can remember. I think the first "historical event" in my memory is the Nixon/McGovern election in 1972. My father was at an election night party. My mother, home with me, turned on the news and said “let’s see how bad it is” and there was President Nixon saying something along the lines of “as a man looking ahead to four more years in office.” Which in retrospect, has the ring of irony. (I have memories in subsequent years of waking up in the morning to the sound of my parents listening to the Watergate hearings). In 1976, my mom let me stay up until the networks called Pennsylvania for Carter. The next morning, the first question I asked her when I woke up was “Did Carter win?” In 1984, I called my dad from college, depressed and a bit lonely (growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’d never spent an election night surrounded by so many people who had voted differently from the way I had; an eye-opening and valuable experience). In 1992 my parents and I drank champagne while we watched the returns. In 2000, my friend jim and I kept checking the electoral map online as Florida changed from blue to red to uncertain.

Growing up in this environment, it’s perhaps not surprising that I frequently write about politicians. In fact, I sometimes think my fascination with writing about liberal Whigs in the Tory-dominated Regency and 1820s comes from being a liberal who came of age in the Reagan era and saw a lot of my parents’ dreams dashed. Charles Fraser, in m Charles & Mélanie books, is , of course, is one of those liberal Whigs (they were called Radicals), a Member of Parliament, as are his friendsDavid Mallinson and Oliver Lydgate. There aren’t many battles Charles, David, and Oliver are likely to win in Parliament c. 1820. On the other hand, I comfort myself that they’re young enough to be in their prime in 1832 when the Reform Bill is passed. Thinking back over my earlier books (including those I co-wrote with my mom), I realize I’ve written four heroes with active political careers. Of the others, three were diplomats (two of whom developed active parliamentary careers), one was a novelist and one a playwright (both with strong political views), one was a journalist, and one a soldier/spy who became a journalist. So in all cases, politics were there in one way or another.

Yet trying to think of other literary examples, I come up rather short. Which I think is too bad, because it’s a profession that offers such wonderful opportunities for characters who range from idealistic to conniving, visionary to myopic, generous to greedy–and very often all of them wrapped up together in fascinating shades of gray. Georgette Heyer’s titled heroes would sit in the House of Lords, but I don’t think any of them is actively involved in politics (in Frederica, Alverstoke’s secretary, Charles Trevor, regrets that his employer doesn’t take a more active role in politics). Robert Goddard has a wonderful early 20th century M.P. in his novel Past Caring, who falls in love with a suffragette and endangers his career (I picked bought that book on the strength of the premise and was not disappointed; Goddard became one of my favorite writers). Two of my favorite literary politicians are Robert Chiltern in Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband, a fascinating look at ambition, ideals, and human frailty. And Guy Thwaite in Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers, who finds himself caught between his ambitions, honor, and the love of his life.

The Regency era offers a wonderful array of real-life politicians, many of whom have made appearances in my books, and who offer rich literary inspiration. A few notes about just a few of them:

Charles James Fox, the leader of the liberal wing of the Whig party, a brilliant orator who spent much of his life out of office and died while trying to achieve peace with France.

Lord Castlereagh, the Foreign Secretary for many years, a man of keen intellect if narrow vision, with whom Charles clashes in my books over his view that the way to peace and stability is to preserve the status quo at home and abroad. Tragically, Castlereagh suffered a breakdown and committed suicide in the 1820s.

George Canning, a long-time rival of Castlereagh’s, also a Tory but with more moderate views (his support for Catholic Emancipation was a source of strain between him and the Tory establishment). Castlereagh’s and Canning’s disagreements led them to actually fight a duel at one point, when Canning was Foreign Secretary and Castlereagh was Secretary of State for War. Canning (a hero of many of the younger, more moderate Tories) eventually became Prime Minister in the 1820s, though his health failed and he died in office.

William Lamb, whose career in the Regency era seemed hampered by his unstable wife, Lady Caroline, but who would go on to become Queen Victoria’s first Prime Minister.

Lord Palmerston, like Canning a Tory of the more moderate variety, who carried on a long-term love affair across party lines with William Lamb’s sister, Emily Cowper. Like many moderate Tories, he eventually joined the Liberal Party. He also married Emily after her husband’s death. Eventually he too became Prime Minister in the Victorian era. Palmerston appears in several of my books, particularly Dark Angel.

Henry Brougham, also a brilliant orator, called an opportunist by many but also a man of passionate beliefs. He defended Queen Caroline when George IV tried to divorce her before the House of Lords in 1820 (the centerpiece my mom’s and my Frivolous Pretence). He was one of Harriette Wilson’s lovers and she ultimately blackmailed him over her memoirs. He also ran off to the Continent with Caroline Lamb, not William Lamb’s wife but the wife of William’s younger brother George, also a politician as well as a playwright (George’s Caroline, Caroline St. Jules, was the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Devonshire and his mistress Lady Elizabeth Foster). Emily Cowper had to to after Brougham and “Caro George” and bring her home (Palmerston followed her to the Continent). Brougham appears in several scenes in my book Rightfully His as a friend and confidant of the politician hero, Frank. They have a number of talks about political ideals and political expediency.

Do you like politics and politicians in historical novels? Any favorite examples to suggest? Any favorite real life historical politicians you’ve read novels about or would like to see in novels? Writers, have you written about politicians? Do you find your present day political views and experiences influence the political issues and events you're drawn to in writing about the past? Any election day stories to share, from this year or years past?