The Mapmaker's Daughter
Page 33
Q: Is there a personal connection between you and the story of the Jews in medieval Iberia?
A: I have written a number of books on Jewish themes (most notably Until Our Last Breath, my 2008 nonfiction book on Jewish resistance in the Holocaust), so choosing a Jewish subject was nothing new. I have identified with Jews and been drawn to Jewish culture on a very deep psychological level since I was a young girl. A number of years ago, I became what I suppose might be called a reverse converso—a Jew by choice (that’s the preferred term today). Though I am not conventionally religious, I feel a great sense of connection and community with other Jews, and I enjoy promoting knowledge and understanding of Jewish history among Jews and non-Jews alike. I am a novelist and a Jew, both by choice, and the two came together in The Mapmaker’s Daughter.
Q: What particular challenges did you face writing this book?
A: The biggest challenges came about as the result of early decisions I made about the structure of the book. I wanted to include both Henry the Navigator and Queen Isabella as characters, and to do this, I needed to have my protagonist live across a number of generations. This was new for me, since my previous novels have ended while the protagonists are still fairly young.
Having Amalia look back at her life as she is going into exile meant I had to choose a first-person narration, and that can be tricky. I had to write as Amalia, avoiding anything she couldn’t have known or wouldn’t have thought. I had to see things through her eyes, which, in this case, meant I had to write many religious sentiments I don’t agree with. She believed in an omnipresent and omnipotent God, and that’s what matters.
Another challenge was that the flashbacks had to be told in the present tense, because she is slipping into reverie. She’s not telling someone else her story; she is reliving it herself. Add to that the need to switch back and forth between her present situation and her past, and I think it should be obvious why I view this book as the most complex I have written to date.
The character of Diogo was also touchy for me. Amalia is my only voice, and early in the book she doesn’t see Diogo for what he is. I had to find a way to slip in some clues for the reader without giving Amalia insights she didn’t have. I tried to do this by veiled allusions to Henry’s homosexuality (which, by the way, is strongly suggested by the historical record) and his unusual favor toward Diogo, as well as by Diogo’s self-centeredness and indifference toward Amalia even as he is asking her to marry him. Only Amalia should be surprised to find her marriage is a disaster, because the reader should have seen it coming.
Diogo is cold, calculating, and unethical, faults that have nothing to do with his sexual orientation. It makes no difference if he is gay or straight. He is reprehensible as a human being, period, and knowingly dragging a naive young woman into a loveless and unfulfilling marriage simply adds to his ugliness.
Q: Historical novelists frequently have to make adjustments in the facts to make their stories work. What did you have to invent or change?
A: Of all my books, I had to invent the most and at the same time change the least in this one. First, I had to create from scratch all the Jewish and Muslim women in the book. In occasional references to his wife in his writings, Isaac Abravanel never mentioned her name. For me, this lack of concrete information is both the dilemma and the driving impetus to be a historical novelist. These women existed, despite the fact we must now invent them, and because they existed, I feel compelled to do what needs to be done so that their lives can be celebrated.
All the women in the Alhambra are my inventions, but the Christian princesses, queens, and other of high rank are real people, although in some cases with minor adjustments in their names. Elizabeth is the Anglicized version of Isabel or Isabella, because I thought it would be too confusing to have Amalia’s childhood friend have the same name as the queen who will figure so prominently later. I kept the Portuguese or Spanish versions of most names, with a few exceptions. Henry the Navigator and Ferdinand of Aragon will be more recognizable that way than as Enrique and Fernando.
What I mean by having to change the least is that there is very little deviation from what I know to be true about the events I describe. With one exception, events happened when, where, and how I wrote them. The exception is the description of the Inquisition in Toledo, which I condensed to preserve the narrative pace. The period of grace would have ended in the early fall of 1485, but the first auto-da-fé was not held until the following February. At that time, 750 people were paraded before the public, where their “crimes” were read aloud, fined up to one-fifth of their fortunes (used to fund the war against Granada), physically punished, and humiliated in various other ways. None were killed. Executions began in August, almost a year after the events I describe.
Likewise, an auto-da-fé was an all-day event, with long sermons and the reading of the crimes of each of as many as 750 victims. My research indicates that the burnings at the stake sometimes were held in Plaza de Zocodover, but in most places, the condemned were taken outside the city walls for their executions, so it may have been only the ceremonies that were held in the plaza.
In some cases, sources are inconsistent as to where the Abravanels lived at particular times, so I chose what worked best for the story. Also, because it helped the story, I left out many family members because there was no role for them to play, and I thought there were already enough characters to keep track of.
Q: Are there any aspects of this book that gave you particular pleasure to write?
A: I enjoyed working in Jewish ritual practices and customs wherever I could, and I also particularly liked writing the scenes set in Muslim Granada, because it was such an enticing culture. Most of all, I reveled in the Hebrew and Arabic poetry that is part of Amalia’s relationship with Judah and Jamil. Iberia was one of the great centers of medieval poetry, due in large part to the great and longstanding tradition of secular Arabic poetry. It was my pleasure to introduce readers to some poets they probably haven’t heard much about and to write poems of my own for Amalia and Jamil, imitating the contemporary styles.
Q: This is your fourth novel, and all four have been about different places and eras. How do you choose a subject?
A: It may seem as if I am all over the place, but really I’m not. The unifying drive and focus of all my work is forgotten or underappreciated women and their stories. I’m a professor of humanities at San Diego City College, and my textbooks briefly mention a number of women. Writing a book is a huge investment, and one has to be far more than merely interested in a subject to take it on. I wait until someone gets under my skin, until I find myself thinking about her during the day and already seeing scenes and hearing dialogue in my head. Then I’m a goner.
Acknowledgments
I have been blessed with a small and capable group of people willing to read The Mapmaker’s Daughter in manuscript and offer critiques and suggestions. First, as always, I want to acknowledge my sister, Lynn Wrench, who is tireless at finding things that need to be more real, more powerful, more vivid, and just plain better.
Pamela Lear, Honey Amado, Saul Matalon, and Hillary Liber have my sincere gratitude for reading all or part of this novel in draft and helping me make it not only accurate from a Jewish perspective but supportive of a culture I love. The late Gail Forman used some of her life’s last energy to read and comment on an early draft. May her memory be a blessing.
Shokran to my lifelong friends Katharina Harlow and Aisha Jill Morgan for their assistance with the portions of the book requiring a deeper understanding of Arabic and Islam.
Sincere thanks also go to Dolores Sloan, whose book on the Sephardic Jews of Spain and Portugal and personal efforts to track down details made a huge difference in the quality of the finished product. Also many thanks to two more lifelong friends, Reverend Nancy Pennekamp and Reverend Mark McKenzie, who helped me figure out Eucharistic practices of the time, and to Rabbi Zoe Klein for her support throughout.
Many thanks go to
my editor at Sourcebooks, Shana Drehs, and assistant editor Anna Klenke, and once again, I want to lavish praise on my agent, Meg Ruley of the Jane Rotrosen Agency, who shepherds me through the process with grace, good humor, and much patience.
A belated thank-you also to Claudine Efthymiou Yin, whose assistance on previous novels has gone unmentioned until now.
I leave for last the one I most want to honor. I wrote The Mapmaker’s Daughter before my beloved husband, James Fee, was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. He did not live to hold the book in his hands. I would like to go on record with my feelings here, but he would only be embarrassed. I will just say I don’t think I would be a novelist without him.
About the Author
Olga Gunn Photography
Laurel Corona is a professor of humanities at San Diego City College. She is the author of Until Our Last Breath, a Christopher Medal winner about Jewish resistance in the Holocaust, and several award-winning historical novels. Learn more at www.laurelcorona.com.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Reading Group Guide
Suggestions for Book Club Activities
A Conversation with the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Cover