Interview with Author Robert Begiebing
by Tiffany Lyon, YBP Library Services
Why did you choose to write books in the subject area of historical fiction?
I just got interested in local history and fell upon the subject for my first novel while I was reading a history of Exeter. Then I discovered it was something I could do and enjoyed doing, despite the years of labor.
I just finished reading The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin. How did you develop (and maintain) the same writing and language style throughout the book? Was it challenging to use linguistics from that time period?
Whenever I'm writing in the voice of the period in question, I steep myself in primary texts of the period--journals and diaries, the literature and letters, "contemporary" accounts of the world these folks lived in. That gets the period voices and diction into my brain, and I then create a linguistic hybrid for the modern reader--just authentic enough to place her in an alien world, but not foreign enough to alienate the reader from reading the tale.
How do you develop your characters?
Each book is different, depending on how many characters are based on real personages. If I use an actual person living in the past for my model, I go to that person's writings--published and unpublished--and find out all I can about him or her from biographical materials by later historians. Sometimes, as in Adventures of Allegra Fullerton, I created a main character based on a composite of others--about a dozen (among scores) of New England itinerant painters who were females. We have some of their diaries and writings still, especially at archives such as the American Antiquarian Society.
In your role as a professor of English, you have the ability to specify reading lists for your students. Do you ever encourage them to read the books you've written?
I feel it might be a bit unseemly to try to get students to try to read my own novels. Others at my own institution and elsewhere in high schools and colleges have done that for me, and I'm thankful. But I do draw the line at certain points in "apparent" self-promotion, or in apparent exploiting of my own students to boost sales. I do assign students a textbook/anthology, however, I and a colleague created for undergraduates for a course in the literature of nature.
Do you find that your students have a different level of appreciation for your lectures knowing that you practice what you teach?
In creative writing workshops, yes. Part of the deal there is we are all writers working together. In the normal freshman English and American literature courses I teach most students don't even know I'm a published novelist. I don't advertise it. Some students find out anyway and feel pleased to know it, but I try not to boast and promote myself in that way. It just feels awkward to me. I think most undergraduate students assume their college teachers are just teachers, not researchers and writers. They can't be expected to know about our world beyond the classroom and the expectations that higher education places on faculty members. I'm not sure their highest priorities are focused in that direction anyway. Mine certainly weren't when I was between 17 and 21 years old. They are at a stage of personal development where what the teacher has accomplished is not that big a thing, so long as the classes are not painful and are as enjoyable as they can be. Hope this doesn't sound cynical, but just realistic.
You have recently completed the final book in your trilogy, Rebecca Wentworth's Distraction. Our readers may be interested to know how much time you spent in libraries researching these books.
I research each book as I'm writing and revising and inventing the tale; one part of the process feeds another. I spent three years on The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin, two on Rebecca Wentworth's Distraction, and five on Adventures of Allegra Fullerton. That's only in the actual research and writing, not counting marketing the manuscript and the lengthy publishing process each book goes through. My most frequently used libraries were UNH, the Portsmouth Atheneaum, Strawbery Banke's Thayer Cumings Archives, and the American Antiquarian Society. Lots of interlibrary loans as well. Tons of interlibrary loans through Southern New Hampshire University.
Did you spend time at the physical locations in which these books are based trying to visualize the scenery?
Yes. For The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin, I took my canoe out over the rivers and bay in question, walked and hiked some of the areas that would be ancient pathways in southern New Hampshire. For Adventures of Allegra Fullerton, I hiked Mount Chocorua, for example, and found the vision at the top of a glowing expanse of mountain ridges sweeping off in the distance as if in a lake of golden fire: the same vision Allegra's painting mentor George Spooner is trying to replicate in his 19th-century Boston studio. For Rebecca Wentworth's Distraction, for example, I spent a lot of time in Portsmouth itself--the main setting--and poring over old maps and the areas around Strawbery Banke. These are just a few examples. Lots of archival research, too.
How much historical research is needed before writing one of these novels? According to one review, http://www.wm.edu/oieahc/wmq/Apr01/BegiebingApr2001.pdf, it seems pretty clear that at least some historians think highly of your accuracy in portraying a particular time period.
The one thing, as your question implies, reviewers seem to agree on is the well-researched elements of my novels. So that makes me feel pretty good after doing all the labor, the fact that other professionals recognize it. I was invited to participate in a symposium of writers and film makers on researching and writing history for the reading public, to be published in the Journal of American History this fall. It's one of the best journals in the field, so I also felt as though other historians were recognizing the quality of the research and presentation in the work. That sort of thing is gratifying for a writer because there aren't too many other rewards for literary, as opposed to commercial, novelists. Likewise, my recent novel, received the 2003 Langum Prize for excellence in historical fiction. So after all the years of slaving away at a process you come to love, a few rewards like that are indeed helpful and inspiring.
If you do as much research as I suspect you do, the next question that comes to mind is: how do you find the time to do it all? Between teaching and your personal life, how do you find time to research and write?
I do my writing mostly in the summer, but also on sabbaticals (three behind me by now). But during the school year I can only do a little background reading and note taking and so on, mostly. The commitment to teaching and all the other elements to holding down a full time academic job--committees, community service, and a dozen other things--require too much attention to be writing and researching much from September through May. When I had children at home--two daughters--it was all much more difficult. But now Linda and I are empty nesters, so I can now devote more time to writing in the summers.
