Why I Couldn't Fictionalize the Gilded Newport Mysteries

(First appeared on the Wicked Authors Blog, June 2017)

When I decided to write my Newport series, I honestly had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t even know if I could pull off writing a mystery, and although I knew modern-day Newport pretty well, I had tons to learn about the city in the Gilded Age.

I was positive about one thing: I didn’t want to fictionalize everything. I didn’t want to write about a city based on Newport, and I didn’t want to write about Newport itself but with fictionalized houses and families. If I couldn’t name actual people and places, what fun would it be?

(The Breakers, owned by Cornelius and Alice Vanderbilt)

You see, I felt I had a responsibility to everyone who lives there, and even to everyone who has ever visited Newport. I had to get it right, and I had to be so vivid that readers would say yes, I’ve been there; I swam there, walked there, explored there, etc. Because I understand the kind of hold Newport places on people; I know exactly how it reaches into your heart and makes you part of it. Newport of today is a very international place—at least during the summer tourist season—but the city’s history makes it so essentially and vitally American that Newport belongs to all of us, and those who have lived there or have visited for even a short time, feel a fierce and loving ownership of this very special place.

(The Elms, owned by Edward and Herminie Berwind)

What do I mean by that? For one thing, there isn’t a period of American history that hasn’t left its indelible mark on Newport. And we can literally experience that history in its architecture as we move through town—colonial, federal, Civil War, shingle style, the palaces of the Gilded Age, and so on up to current times.

(The Redwood Library circa 1750)

What makes Newport different from many other places is that as times and tastes changed, the old didn’t disappear but remained in use—to this day. It’s true living history, not replicated but alive and vital and constantly changing with each wave of people who pass through. In a way, there’s a bit of all of us in Newport.

(Trinity Church, circa 1726)

(The Inn where we often stay, circa 1890)

Then there’s my husband’s family, Newporters for generations back. For them, if for no one else, I wanted to capture the spirit of Newport, especially in my sleuth, Emma Cross—who is independent, determined, proud, hardworking, and gets her strength from the bedrock of Aquidneck Island.

(my husband's family's business)

A few years ago, we were contacted by a Newport resident who, during renovations of his newly purchased house, came upon two large, framed photographs of my husband’s great great grandparents hidden away behind a wall in his attic. What made this even more exciting was that the house had been built by my husband’s great grandfather’s company, The Manuel Brothers (from a moving company they diversified into demolition and reclamation, and building), using materials, such as flooring and woodwork, reclaimed from Bellevue Avenue mansions the company had been hired to demolish.

(William and Anne Manuel, circa late 1800s)

At about the same time, in the 1920s, the Manuel Bros. also demolished the main house at Sandy Point Farm, owned by Reginald (Reggie) Vanderbilt, who is a character in the series. What’s more, we believe my husband’s great grandmother, Honora Taylor Whyte, worked as a maid in one of the great houses when she first came to this country from Ireland. My father-in-law and my husband grew up in the same house in the harbor-side Point neighborhood, on same the street where I have set Emma’s childhood home.

These are just a few examples, but you can see that Newport’s history and my husband’s history are intricately entwined. There could be no fictionalizing the city, or, for me--and I think for many readers--the meaning would have been lost.