Hist-Fic Chick is pleased to announce an interview with historical fiction author Michelle Moran! Michelle is the author of Nefertiti (read my review here), The Heretic Queen, and her latest, Cleopatra’s Daughter (read my review here). Not only is Michelle a very talented author, but she is also an incredibly well-traveled individual who has visited many, many places all across the globe! She has great photo albums from her travels posted on her website. You can visit Michelle on her website, or at her blog.
One of the things I think you do so wonderfully in your novels is pay close attention to the cultural details of the period and place you are covering. Even down to the day-to-day routines of your characters, you make every last aspect of your books feel very realistic. Because your novels each take place in ancient time periods, do you find information on these finer details difficult to come by?
Thank you! It’s amazing how much information is available in a good library network, not to mention Google books or bookstores. And being able to pick the brains of experts all over the world is just one more reason to love the internet! These resources typically cover 90% of the factual details. For the smells, feel, and more general mise-en-scène, I’ve found that there is no substitute for travel. Whether it’s sun angles, vegetation, archaeological details or the delightful discoveries that you simply must put into the novel- it helps to be there. We can’t travel back in time. But we can sit at Alexandria or Thebes or the Palatine Hill early in the morning, before the traffic gets up, to just close our eyes and wonder. Whether it’s due to a lack of imagination, or just itchy feet, I’ve found that actually being in new places has always sparked the best ideas!
It is mentioned in your novel that a third of Rome’s population were slaves. In Cleopatra’s Daughter and historically in Ancient Rome, if they were not killed, the children of defeated rulers were either brought up as Roman citizens, or they were enslaved; two drastically different lifestyles. How did Octavian make this decision—did he have certain requirements that the child must meet in order to enter the ranks of Roman society, or was the child’s fate determined arbitrarily?
Yes, the contrast was a daunting one. In the case of Cleopatra Selene and Alexander, their Roman blood ensured much better treatment, and perhaps so too did the status of Egypt in the Roman worldview. For conquered Barbarian tribes such as the Gauls, the treatment of captives was far more severe. The decision to take captives from a conflict was determined by many factors: by geography, by whether the vanquished had dared put up a defense, by the market price of slaves, and sometimes by mere whim.
In Cleopatra’s Daughter, it seemed like Livia Drusilla and Octavia Minor were almost direct foils for one another. Where Livia was vindictive and cruel, Octavia was gentle and kind. What more can you tell us about these strong, real-life Roman women who seemed to be constantly at odds with one another?
Yes- they had radically different personalities, and their closeness to Octavian ensured great rivalry between the two. Yet they shared some interesting commonalities, as well: both were strong supporters of the dramatic arts, as well as patrons of architecture during Rome’s greatest epoch of building. In terms of similarities in their appearance, readers will have to check out the extensive backstory and pictures available on my website and decide for themselves!
Was there anything you learned in researching for Cleopatra’s Daughter that you found particularly interesting but that did not make in into the novel for creative reasons?
To write about Rome and its empire almost inevitably means discussion of its world-beating war machine, but I didn’t want this to be that sort of a novel- there are plenty of good ones already! Instead, I hoped to capture the intimacy of day-to-day life at the center of Rome, far from the fighting of its increasingly distant frontiers. I wanted to show modern readers what it was like to live in a society that was jarringly different from ours in so many of its assumptions, and yet also filled with things that we would instantly recognize today.
I often like to ask authors of historical fiction how they imagine their protagonists might fare in modern times. What do you think Selene would be like if she were alive in 2009?
Many readers are surprised when they discover Selene’s age during the novel. Yet the precocious way in which she is portrayed is mostly a result of the expectations placed on young Ptolemaic royals from an early age. I’d like to think of her today as a normal teenager, less weighed down by affairs of state or the looming loss of her family and homeland. I would hope that she would be less battered by fate, at least in that regard. I can definitely see her shopping at Hollister for designer t-shirts, which is why I ran a teen-reader contest with gift certificates from that very store!
It has been said many times before on other blogs that you are one of the most accessible, nicest-to-work-with authors of today. I know this to be true not only from my own experience, but also from the e-mails and comments I’ve received from fellow book bloggers and readers who sing your praises loudly! Do you make it a priority to stay involved with the book blogging community, and if so, why is that important to you?
Thank you! I really value the online community- and I never get tired of hearing from readers! For me, writing is not a one-way occupation: it is more of a conversation with the readership. And being in contact with so many well-informed and well-read users is a resource in itself.
What can you tell us about your next novel, Masks of the Revolution, which will tell the story of Madame Tussaud at the court of Marie Antoinette?
As someone afflicted with almost Jeffersonian levels of francophilia, the chance to write a novel set against the backdrop of the Bourbon court was too much to pass up! Tussaud’s story fascinated me, as much for what she saw and did before the revolution as for her famous death-masks. Something about her brazen self-promotion was charming, as was her tremendous impulse to survive during very dangerous times. And she saw everything and met everyone- from Voltaire to Franklin, from Napoleon to Marie Antoinette. The story of her life is the story of two ages- before and after the fall. I’ve had a fabulous time traveling for, researching and writing this one!
