Mistress Firebrand
Page 33
Swindells, Julia. The Oxford Handbook of the Georgian Theatre, 1737–1832. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Taylor, Alan. The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution. New York: Knopf, 2006.
Wheelock, Eleazar. A Plain and Faithful Narrative of the Original Design, Rise, Progress and Present State of the Indian Charity-School at Lebanon, in Connecticut. 1763.
A CONVERSATION WITH DONNA THORLAND
Readers who haven’t finished the book might want to avoid the Readers Guide for the time being—spoilers ahead!
Q. Mistress Firebrand is the third book in the Renegades of the American Revolution series, yet it opens in December 1775, before the action in the first book, The Turncoat, and after the action in the second book, The Rebel Pirate. Why did you decide to write the series out of sequence?
A. Each book is meant to stand alone, so readers don’t have to worry about approaching the series in order. I write stories inspired by real women of the period, but because my books are fiction, I have the luxury of placing my heroines at the center of the action during turning points in the conflict. For Quaker spy Kate Gray, inspired by real-life heroine Lydia Barrington Darragh, this meant occupied Philadelphia in 1777. For Sarah Ward, a composite of historical Salem women whose stories I encountered while working at the Peabody Essex Museum, that meant setting her tale during the struggle for the materiel of war played out in the waters off Cape Ann in 1775. For my latest heroine, Jennifer Leighton, inspired by Rebel playwright Mercy Otis Warren, and Jenny’s aunt, the Divine Fanny, inspired by early feminist and Georgian actress Mary Randall, that meant the New York stage in the mid 1770s.
Q. In your view of the American Revolution, power and loyalties are constantly shifting among your major characters according to their unique situation and self-interest. It’s a very different picture from what most of us were taught in school and makes our country’s origins, and the beliefs for which our forefathers fought, seem more like tarnished realities than shiny ideals. Why is it important to you to present this more realistic picture?
A. My favorite works of historical fiction, like George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman books and Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond series, blend action with complex political intrigue. Even walk-on characters have their own goals and agendas, which are never as straightforward or as simple as national allegiances. They’re the kind of books that make you want to look up all the historical characters and events and learn more about them. I really wanted to write something that would make readers feel the same way about the American Revolution.
Q. I had the impression from my vaguely recalled school lessons that New York remained under British control during most of the American Revolution. But in Mistress Firebrand control switches back and forth between the British and the Rebels, often with neither side sure of their position. How challenging it must have been to live in the city during this time! What was it like for ordinary citizens?
A. The British occupied New York for most of the war, but in the early days of the conflict, when it seemed possible that the trouble could be confined to Boston, it was difficult to say who really governed Manhattan—the Rebels, who ruled the streets, or the Governor, who had nominal control of the garrison but dared not set foot on the island.
Ordinary New Yorkers had to contend with food shortages and inflation, and depending on who was in charge at the moment, a shifting political landscape that could put them in jail if they were caught selling goods to the enemy—whoever that might be at any particular moment. The rich fled to their estates in the Hudson Highlands. The poor had fewer choices.
Q. I enjoyed your depiction of early American theater through Jenny Leighton and her aunt. What inspired your portrait of them?
A. Mercy Otis Warren was the inspiration for Jenny’s character. Warren corresponded and shared political ideas with Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, and John Adams. Her satirical pamphlet plays, published anonymously, earned her a place on a British hanging list. After the war she wrote one of the earliest histories of the Revolution, but her portrait of prickly John Adams caused a falling-out between them and inspired him to opine that “History is not the province of the ladies.”
Frances Leighton is loosely based on Mary Robinson, also known as Mary Randall, an early feminist, novelist, poet, actress, royal mistress, and longtime paramour of British cavalry officer Banastre Tarleton, who makes a discreet cameo while very young in Mistress Firebrand.
The Douglasses and the Hallams, America’s first families of the stage, built the John Street Theater after the violence surrounding the Stamp Act destroyed their playhouse on Chapel Street in 1766. The riot in Mistress Firebrand, and the formation of a shadow company in the absence of the regular troupe, was inspired by incidents that took place in the 1760s. The Douglass-Hallam company spent most of the war in the relative safety of the West Indies.
Q. Severin Devere’s background as the son of a Mohawk Indian and the wife of a British earl seems so unique. Is he also based on a historical figure?
A. Devere’s origins were inspired by the life of Mohawk leader Joseph Brant, who was educated at Wheelock’s Indian school, where he formed a lifelong friendship with Sir William Johnson, the British superintendent of Indian affairs. Brant’s sister, Molly, became Johnson’s consort, and had eight children with him. The Brants were raised in an environment that mixed Mohawk and English culture, and were influential figures in both worlds before and after the war.
Q. I love the way you contrast the two men: General John Burgoyne and General George Washington. You suggest that each epitomized the character of the men produced under the British monarchy versus the Colonial republic, and you make clear that Washington is by far the superior man. Can you elaborate?
A. Both men came from privileged backgrounds and both loved the theater, but Washington was cautious about money and devoted to Martha and her children. Burgoyne, though, tended to live beyond his means, and between campaigns in North America, he was seen in Bath with his future mistress, actress Susan Caulfield—while his wife lay dying at home.
Burgoyne himself died insolvent in 1792, leaving Caulfield and their four illegitimate children penniless, remarking characteristically in his will: “During a life too frequently blemished by the indulgence of one predominant passion, it has been a comfort to me to hope that my sensualities have never injured, nor interrupted the peace of, others.” One doubts Susan Caulfield, whom he never married and who lost custody of her children to Burgoyne’s family, would have agreed.
Q. Aside from George Washington, Angela Ferrers is the only other character who appears in all three books in the series. By now, I’ve come to admire her, fear her, pity her, and scorn her. Most of all, I find her fascinating. Please say that she’ll appear once again in the next book, and that you’ll begin to reveal the secret of her origins.
A. I promise that Angela Ferrers will be back in the next book, and we’ll learn a little bit more about her in each installment.
Q. Can you tell us more about the Simsbury Copper Mine, where Severin is incarcerated? I grew up in Connecticut but had never heard of it, and was shocked to learn how inhumanely the Rebels treated their prisoners of war.
A. Simsbury was as bad as the infamous British prison hulk anchored in the Hudson, the Jersey, and predated it by three years. The first inmate at Simsbury was a burglar sentenced in 1773, but the mine quickly became a convenient place to incarcerate Tories during the war. It resumed being used, as a state prison, after independence and remained in operation until 1827.
Q. Was the murder of Jane McCrea an actual historical event?
A. Yes. It occurred roughly as related in Mistress Firebrand. McCrea was engaged to Jones, a loyalist, and was traveling to meet him and be married when she was captured by a party of Burgoyne’s native allies. Exactly how she died�
��whether she was accidentally shot by her own people while being carried off, or was killed by Panther or another Wyandot in a dispute over who was to collect the bounty on her—has never been conclusively determined, but her death was a boon for Rebel propagandists, and the story has resounded through American art and literature ever since, most widely known from Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans.
I first heard Jane’s story in high school. She was a sidebar in an American history textbook, with John Vanderlyn’s dramatic painting The Death of Jane McCrea accompanying the text. It was the only image of a woman from the American Revolution that I can recall encountering before college.
Q. In addition to writing books and for TV shows, you’re also a big reader. Are there historical novels that you’ve especially enjoyed recently? Or books that readers of your series might enjoy?
A. I find that my readers enjoy a lot of the same authors I do, and I only wish I could come up with a term to describe the qualities that they all have in common. I love a book with a strong female protagonist, a hint of romance, and a historic setting with the occasional dash of the gothic or supernatural. My favorite contemporary authors include Susannah Kearsley, Lauren Willig, Simone St. James, and Diana Gabaldon, and one of my favorite authors while growing up was Mary Stewart.
Q. Can you tell us a little about the next book in the Renegades of the American Revolution series?
A. The next book features a schoolteacher heroine and highwayman hero and takes us to the near-feudal manors of the Dutch patroons in the Hudson Highlands, who ruled their domains as effective lords of the manor during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What did you most enjoy about Mistress Firebrand? Do you find the action or the characters more entertaining?
2. In Mistress Firebrand, loyalties to the British and Rebel causes are constantly shifting, and many in the populace play both sides. Many of those fighting for the Rebels are as ruthless as those fighting for the British. Compare this picture of the American Revolution with the one you were given in school. Has the book changed your perception of the war, and of our country’s origins?
3. Discuss the life choices that Jenny and Severin have made before they meet each other. How do their choices change once they fall in love? Who changes more?
4. Were you surprised to learn how unstable New York’s city government was during this period? Talk about the challenges that ordinary people might have faced living there. Have you ever lived in a place with an unsettling political instability?
5. Donna Thorland contrasts two men in positions of power—General John Burgoyne and George Washington. She clearly considers Washington to be the superior man. Do you agree? How do these men stack up against Severin Devere, Courtney Fairchild, and John André?
6. Knowing that her illness would shorten her life, Frances Leighton deliberately returned to the Colonies from England to “rescue” Jenny from her hometown and bring her to New York, where her talent for acting and writing might flourish. But she also agrees to send Jenny to John Burgoyne, knowing that Burgoyne will expect sexual favors in return for his patronage. Why is Frances willing to let Jenny sacrifice herself? Do you approve of her decision? And what do you think of Frances’ choices in her own life?
7. Severin has mixed feelings for Angela Ferrers. Discuss how those feelings seem to shift during the novel. What does he think about her in the end? What do you think about her?
8. Discuss the role of Native Americans in the novel. Did anything about Donna Thorland’s depiction of them, and especially of Severin’s family, surprise you?
9. Washington believes that Jenny’s seditious plays can play an important role in rallying the populace to the Rebel cause. Do you think the written word, whether in a play, a newspaper, or online, has the power to change public opinion today? Why or why not?
10. Does reading Mistress Firebrand make you curious to learn more about the American Revolution, or to read the other books in the series? How does the novel compare to other books, TV shows, or movies about the American Revolution that you’ve read or seen?
11. At the end, Jenny and Severin find a new way to contribute to the American cause. Do you have causes that you believe in? How have you chosen to contribute to them? What sacrifices are you willing to make?
12. If you lived in New York during the time of the novel, whose side would you be on—the Rebel or the British?
Look for Donna Thorland’s next novel in the Renegades of the American Revolution series.
In 1780, in the Hudson River Valley,
where wealthy Dutch patroons have long
held the land, a desirable young beauty with a
complicated past and a secret mission is waylaid
and taken captive by the son of an old enemy
who has become a dangerous revolutionary
and an outlaw highwayman. . . .
Photo by Peter Podgursky
After graduating from Yale with a degree in classics and art history, Donna Thorland managed architecture and interpretation at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem for several years. She then earned an MFA in film production from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. She has been a Disney/ABC Television Writing Fellow and a WGA Writer Access Project Honoree, and has written for the TV shows Cupid and Tron: Uprising. She is the director of several award-winning short films, with her most recent project having aired on WNET Channel 13. Her fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Donna is married, has one cat, and splits her time between Los Angeles and Salem, Massachusetts.
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