Interview: Jane Stevenson

To me, the past isn’t easy to dismiss. It’s not Disney World. It’s a minefield, and from time to time, something explodes.—Jane Stevenson

I like historical novels. I always have. One of my very favorite books when I was a kid—one I still enjoy reading—was E.L. Konigsburg’s A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, and I went through an intense Anne Boleyn phase as a teen. I think of historical novels as pulp fiction for eggheads. As I read, I can say to myself, “Goodness! I had no idea that the laws of primogeniture and entail were so complicated”, when I’m really in it for the farthingales, tea dances, and simmering repressed sexuality—sexuality that, in the better books, ultimately comes busting out of its whalebone stays.

I enjoy the escape that historical fiction offers, which is not to say that I am an indiscriminate reader. I require some level of craft and quality even in my diversions, but there are more than a few authors who combine real storytelling skill with a lighthearted approach to produce smart, fun, sexy fiction set in a temporally exotic locale—Eloisa James springs immediately to mind. (Note to genre purists: Because I hold readerly allegiance to no particular place or time, I include “historical romance” and “Regency romance” in the catch-all category of historical.)

While I appreciate the work of writers who aim for nothing more than—or less than—entertainment, I have an even deeper appreciation for the contributions of authors who use fictions set in the past to speak meaningfully to the present. These authors encourage me to consider not just history, but historiography. They make me think about reality and hyperreality. They compel me to examine the means by which the current moment is shaped by moments long gone, and the ways in which we reconfigure our history to explain—and justify—our now.

Jane Stevenson is an author who pushes at the boundaries of what historical fiction can do. As she explains in my interview with her, the conceit behind her latest novel—which has a contemporary setting —inspired a three-book series which began in the 16th century. Indeed, The Empress of the Last Days is, in some ways, a historical novel: Stevenson hopes that details which might seem to “date” her latest novel will, over time, simply give it a texture consistent with the two novels that proceeded it, The Winter Queen and The Shadow King. This interview is, without a doubt, one of the most interesting that I’ve done. Stevenson doesn’t just illuminate the inner workings of writing a novel: she also offers useful commentary on the difference between “heritage” and “history”, and she makes the case that fiction should be, perhaps paradoxically, about truth.

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Interview: Jane Stevenson

To me, the past isn’t easy to dismiss. It’s not Disney World. It’s a minefield, and from time to time, something explodes.—Jane Stevenson

I like historical novels. I always have. One of my very favorite books when I was a kid—one I still enjoy reading—was E.L. Konigsburg’s A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, and I went through an intense Anne Boleyn phase as a teen. I think of historical novels as pulp fiction for eggheads. As I read, I can say to myself, “Goodness! I had no idea that the laws of primogeniture and entail were so complicated”, when I’m really in it for the farthingales, tea dances, and simmering repressed sexuality—sexuality that, in the better books, ultimately comes busting out of its whalebone stays.

I enjoy the escape that historical fiction offers, which is not to say that I am an indiscriminate reader. I require some level of craft and quality even in my diversions, but there are more than a few authors who combine real storytelling skill with a lighthearted approach to produce smart, fun, sexy fiction set in a temporally exotic locale—Eloisa James springs immediately to mind. (Note to genre purists: Because I hold readerly allegiance to no particular place or time, I include “historical romance” and “Regency romance” in the catch-all category of historical.)

While I appreciate the work of writers who aim for nothing more than—or less than—entertainment, I have an even deeper appreciation for the contributions of authors who use fictions set in the past to speak meaningfully to the present. These authors encourage me to consider not just history, but historiography. They make me think about reality and hyperreality. They compel me to examine the means by which the current moment is shaped by moments long gone, and the ways in which we reconfigure our history to explain—and justify—our now.

Jane Stevenson is an author who pushes at the boundaries of what historical fiction can do. As she explains in my interview with her, the conceit behind her latest novel—which has a contemporary setting —inspired a three-book series which began in the 16th century. Indeed, The Empress of the Last Days is, in some ways, a historical novel: Stevenson hopes that details which might seem to “date” her latest novel will, over time, simply give it a texture consistent with the two novels that proceeded it, The Winter Queen and The Shadow King. This interview is, without a doubt, one of the most interesting that I’ve done. Stevenson doesn’t just illuminate the inner workings of writing a novel: she also offers useful commentary on the difference between “heritage” and “history”, and she makes the case that fiction should be, perhaps paradoxically, about truth.