A Review of Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland

By Kim

Synopsis of Clara and Mr. Tiffany: (from the book jacket) 

Against the unforgettable backdrop of New York near the turn of the twentieth century, from the Gilded Age world of formal balls and opera to the immigrant poverty of the Lower East Side, bestselling author Susan Vreeland again breathes life into a work of art in this extraordinary novel, which brings a woman once lost in the shadows into vivid color.

It’s 1893, and at the Chicago World’s Fair, Louis Comfort Tiffany makes his debut with a luminous exhibition of innovative stained-glass windows, which he hopes will honor his family business and earn him a place on the international artistic stage. But behind the scenes in his New York studio is the freethinking Clara Driscoll, head of his women’s division. Publicly unrecognized by Tiffany, Clara conceives of and designs nearly all of the iconic leaded-glass lamps for which he is long remembered.Clara struggles with her desire for artistic recognition and the seemingly insurmountable challenges that she faces as a professional woman, which ultimately force her to protest against the company she has worked so hard to cultivate. She also yearns for love and companionship, and is devoted in different ways to five men, including Tiffany, who enforces to a strict policy: he does not hire married women, and any who do marry while under his employ must resign immediately. Eventually, like many women, Clara must decide what makes her happiest—the professional world of her hands or the personal world of her heart.

About Susan Vreeland: (from the book jacket) 

Susan Vreeland is the New York Times bestselling author of five books, including Luncheon of the Boating Party, Life Studies, The Passion of Artemisia, The Forest Lover and Girl in Hyacinth Blue. She lives in San Diego.

Review: 

Rarely have I started a book with such high expectations. I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Susan Vreeland, but I consider her a mentor of sorts. She, along with Stephanie Cowell and Jane Urquhart, have shown me the world through an artist’s eyes, a crucial skill considering the novel I’m now writing.

Given that I love art, history, and stories about strong women ahead of their times, I was inclined to love Clara and Mr. Tiffany before I even opened it. When I saw that the story began in New York City in 1892, I admit my heart began to race. This was not just Clara’s world, but my great-grandfather’s. The real Clara Driscoll, while searching at the Art Students' League for suitable girls to hire, may have caught sight of an unusually tall and striking young Canadian painter named Carl Ahrens. She could have met him through Louis Comfort Tiffany, William Merritt Chase or George Inness, all of whom Carl did know, or even George Waldo, whom Carl likely knew. He may have lived in her neighborhood. I couldn’t help but see him there.

High expectations often lead to disappointment, but such was not the case with Clara and Mr. Tiffany. I found the story so engrossing, in fact, that after the first few chapters I contentedly inhabited turn-of-the-century New York without looking for my ancestor around every bend. Those who know me well will understand what a high compliment that is.

Photo by Hannes Grobe

I laughed over the antics at Clara’s boarding house, winced over the living conditions on the Lower East Side, cheered when Clara led the fight against sexism in the workplace, and cried over the death of a character I had come to love almost as much as Clara did. I also admired that Vreeland did not shy away from characters who would have been marginalized or even denounced at the time; poor immigrants, homosexuals, the handicapped. There’s even an interracial marriage. As for Mr. Tiffany, Vreeland neither put him on a pedestal nor denounced him, either of which would have made him rather a cardboard character. She let him be a man, flawed yet endearing, and he jumped off the page.

I have read a few grumbles about the length of time spent explaining the processes of making the famous Tiffany lamps. Some reviewers went so far as to say they felt like they were attending a college lecture. Yes, there’s a lot of detail about glassmaking, selecting, cutting, etc, and occasionally there are awkward bits of dialogue where the characters educate each other (and the reader.) I easily overlooked this because I’m fascinated by artistic processes of any sort. Those readers who aren’t so inclined may find themselves skimming though those parts of the novel.

I will certainly not be able to look at a Tiffany lamp or window again without thinking of Clara Driscoll.

If any of you have read Clara and Mr. Tiffany and would like to share your thoughts, we'd love to hear from you! If you have not, the novel is available at bookstores everywhere.

An Interview with Cathy Marie Buchanan

By Kim

Those of you who have been following What Women Write for awhile know that I'm a huge fan of Cathy Marie Buchanan, whose debut novel, The Day the Falls Stood Still recently came out in paperback. Julie also mentioned the book in a recent post, calling it “mesmerizing.” It is indeed. While savoring both the prose and the historical photos scattered throughout, I ached for Tom and Bess, and heard the thundering crash of a river I’ve never seen but feel I know. A year later I read it again and enjoyed it just as much.

Cathy has appeared on many blogs since her book launched and has answered everything imaginable about the novel itself. When she agreed to be interviewed for What Women Write I wanted to ask her something new, questions geared towards process than product. In case you have not seen her other interviews, Cathy answers the most frequently asked questions here.

About The Day the Falls Stood Still (from the author’s website):

1915. Niagara Falls. The dawn of the hydroelectric power era. Seventeen-year-old Bess Heath, who has led a sheltered existence as the younger daughter of the director of the Niagara Power Company, meets Tom Cole by chance on a trolley platform, and finds herself inexplicably drawn to him—against her family’s strong objections. Tom is not from their world. Rough-hewn and fearless, he lives off what the river provides and has an uncanny knack for reading the whims of the falls. His daring river rescues render him a local hero and cast him as a threat to the power companies that seek to harness the power of the falls for themselves. As the paths of Bess and Tom become entwined, she must make a painful choice between what she wants and what is best for her family and her future.

About Cathy Marie Buchanan (from the author’s website):

Cathy Marie Buchanan’s debut novel, The Day the Falls Stood Still, is a Barnes & Noble Recommends Selection, a Barnes & Noble Best of 2009 book, an American Booksellers Association Indie Next pick, and a New York Times bestseller. Her stories have appeared in many of Canada’s most respected literary journals. She holds a BSc (Honours Biochemistry) and an MBA from the University of Western Ontario and is a founding member of conservation organization Friends of Niagara Falls. Born and raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario, she now resides in Toronto

Kim: Welcome to What Women Write today, Cathy. An element that touched me profoundly in The Day the Falls Stood Still was your theme about spiritual connections between individuals and having complete faith in things you can not see. I often found myself nodding and weeping because you explained the unexplainable. These sections came across as very personal. Was there an inspiration behind Tom’s connection with his grandfather?

Cathy: My much-loved father died as I approached the end of the first draft of The Day the Falls Stood Still. The depth of my grief was astounding to me, as was my inability to grasp the concept of mortality. Where was my father? Was he really gone? Why was he gone? Why had he spent seventy-four years on this earth? Was he still with me? Did I need concrete proof? I will not pretend for a moment that I figured any of this out. What did happen, though, was that my grief-ridden struggle with what I believed found expression in The Day the Falls Stood Still. As I wrote, I was seeking for myself the same unshakable connection that Tom had with his long departed grandfather.

Kim: I was stunned to learn that you have a degree in biochemistry and an MBA. Most writers I know, myself included, cringe at the idea of anything involving math. What made you turn to writing?

Cathy: I’m often asked if I grew up wanting to be a writer, and the answer is a definitive no. I spent my teenage years disgracing myself in high school English, often getting upwards of twenty percent deducted for spelling mistakes on exams. When it came time to head off to university, one of the criteria I used for selecting courses was not having to write—that is, spell—a single thing. I did manage to finish undergrad without writing a single essay! I spent the bulk of my non-writing work life at IBM, at first in finance and then in technical sales.

Despite much evidence to the contrary, my creative leanings were evident throughout my teenage years, in both my serious pursuit of classical ballet and my burgeoning abilities as a seamstress. Once I began working, I attempted, I think, to satisfy my creative yearnings by enrolling in string of continuing education courses, always something with an artistic bent. Finally I hit upon creative writing, and right from the very first class, I was smitten. I was home.

Kim: Tell us a little about your writing process. Do you do all your research up front, or is it an ongoing venture? Do you outline or make character sketches? Do you whip out a first draft in a few months and then edit, or re-write compulsively as you go?

Cathy: Before putting pen to paper, I spent four months researching The Day the Falls Stood Still, a task that was purely pleasurable. Even so, while I was writing, I was constantly turning back to the history books. I did not make an outline and had only the vaguest idea where I was heading with the book. I finished the first draft in a year and a half and then spent the next two and a half (!) rewriting it. I think the degree of rewriting the book required was at least in part due to my lack of an outline. I am working on another work of historical fiction, and, this time around, I spent time plotting the book up front. Fingers crossed that I’ve avoided some of the pitfalls that kept me rewriting for so, so long.

Kim: I’ve read you have three children. How do you balance writing and family time?

Cathy: While I was writing The Day the Falls Stood Still finding balance was reasonably easy. I wrote while my boys were at school and my husband at work, finishing up at 3:29, in time to run across the park and pick my boys up from school. I rarely wrote on weekends, other than jotting down the odd note when something I wanted to incorporate into the book occurred to me. Now that my book is out there in the wide world, I give readings and talks and interviews. I post on blogs, tweet, update my facebook fan page, and attend book clubs, in person or via skype. I am working on a second book and, out of necessity, have made a rule that I must get four hours of writing under my belt before I can turn to the other million things I should be doing. With much of the publicity happening in the evening, my own reading for pleasure has suffered and my family sometimes gets the short end of the stick. My boys are 12, 14 and 16-years-old now and getting more independent every day. (Sigh.) I think, even two years ago, I could not have managed what I do now in terms of publicity.

Kim: I’m struck by how beautifully that landscape becomes a character in itself within many books by Canadian authors – such as Niagara Falls in your novel, or Lake Superior in Jane Urquhart’s The Underpainter, or Newfoundland in Donna Morrissey’s books. Canada has produced some great literature, yet many Americans aren’t familiar with writers from north of the border other than L.M. Montgomery, Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro. Our readers are always up for reading a good book – do you have any recommendations?

Cathy: I adore every writer you mentioned. Other Canadian favourites include Elizabeth Hay (A Student of Weather, Late Nights on Air), Carol Shields (The Stone Diaries, Republic of Love), Emma Donoghue (The Sealed Letter, Room) and Helen Humphreys (The Lost Garden, Coventry).

Kim: Can you tell us about your involvement with the Friends of Niagara Falls?

Cathy: With the arrival of the casinos in Niagara Falls, Ontario came myriad new high-rise hotels, most within a stone’s throw of the falls. The result–an expanse of concrete and glass extending downriver from the Horseshoe Falls. That wall is slated to infiltrate the seven acres of green space surrounding Loretto Academy, the stately, 148-year-old convent school that sits atop the bluff at the Horseshoe Falls, and from where Bess Heath, in The Day the Falls Stood Still, glimpses prayers drifting heavenward in the mist above the falls. Loretto was sold to a hotelier, who plans to replace the treed grounds of the property that today frame the falls in nature with three towering buildings, one a whopping 57-storeys, more than three times the height of the falls. The idea of high-rises forming the backdrop to a natural wonder of the world does not sit well with me. The sanctity of the place, I feel, must be preserved. I’ve become a founding member of conservation organization Friends of Niagara Falls. Our first task: stopping the high-rise development planned for the grounds of Loretto Academy.

Thank you for stopping by today, Cathy. The Day the Falls Stood Still is available at bookstores everywhere.

Photo credits: Cover art for both the hardback and paperback versions of the novel were taken from the author's website. Author photograph taken by Marion Roes. Niagara sketches were done in 1900-01 by Katie C. Niles, my great aunt. I own the originals.

Books Inspiring Books

By Kim

The first time I attempted to write a novel I was seventeen, a freshman in college, and like many writers that age, I had unrealistic career goals. I would have a best-seller by age twenty-five, make millions, and crank out a novel every year or two until I died or ran out of ideas, whichever came first. The novels, with the exception of the one I planned to write on my great-grandfather, painter Carl Ahrens, would all be contemporary women’s fiction.

I should have known better on all counts. My mother is a writer as well, and I grew up watching her write novel after novel, query unsuccessfully, and secure an agent only to have the agent go out of business. My genre choice certainly does sell and I’ve read hundreds of novels within it, but very few have stayed with me long after I finish the last page.

It amazes me that I did not recognize my true calling earlier. I took every available class for 18^th and 19^th century literature in college, yet shied away from anything more contemporary. My electives were all history classes; I graduated one class short of a minor in the subject. I took up genealogy while still in my teens. In graduate school my favorite class was not literature (my major), or creative writing (my passion), but the one on how to conduct research. One particular assignment involved reading and transcribing original correspondence between two obscure American authors. Each student received ten letters to work on, but I was the only one in the class who read all of them. For fun. Those of you who read my post In Praise of Packrats already know that few things excite me more than finding those windows into the past.

As I write The Oak Lovers, the novel originally planned as an “exception” to my chosen genre, I’ve discovered other voices from the past who speak to me far more clearly than any of my contemporary characters. The same holds true for characters in novels written by other authors. Here are a few that have stayed with me.

The Underpainter by Jane Urquhart

I originally read this book because a friend of mine mentioned that my writing reminded him of Urquhart’s. Having read all her novels, he recommended I first read The Underpainter because the protagonist was a fictional painter who would have been a contemporary of Carl’s. I had never heard of Jane Urquhart before, most Americans probably haven’t, but within a couple of pages I was in awe, both of her and the fact that someone had compared me to her. No other author could make me love such a despicable character as Austin Fraser. I never stopped hoping he would find a way to let people in, to find happiness. This remains the only book I’ve ever thrown across the room.

While Austin was unforgettable, what I fell in love with in this book was the Ontario landscape. No one writes of landscape like Jane Urquhart, and since my book is partly set in the same place and time, I learned a lot from her. I enjoyed A Map of Glass, Away and The Stone Carvers more than The Underpainter, but this is the one I remember most vividly.

The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan

My mother discovered this book at Barnes and Noble, took one look at the haunting cover and snatched it up as a birthday present for me. Leafing through it later, she discovered it was set in Niagara Falls in 1915, close to one of my settings and in the same time period. “This is how your book should feel,” she said when I opened the present. While she referred to the embossed cover, the quality paper, and the historic photos throughout, I soon realized that the prose, too, had the tone I wished to convey. While a love story is central, it is about far more than that. Like fellow Canadians Jane Urquhart, Margaret Laurence and Robertson Davies, Buchanan is a master of turning setting into a character. Niagara Falls is a living, breathing entity to me now. As soon as the character of Tom Cole (based on real river man William "Red" Hill) appeared on page fifteen, I knew it was a book I was meant to read. If Carl had been healthy, never found his artistic calling, and lived at Niagara Falls, he could have been Tom. If you ever read The Day the Falls Stood Still you will understand why “Believe in me, Bess” is the most poignant sentence I’ve ever read.

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

Thanks to Julie, I knew about this book before its release and bought it the first day it came out. It was not the Alice in Wonderland tie that drew me, but rather the time period, and that it was a fictional account of a real relationship between Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and his muse, Alice Liddell. Given that I am currently writing a book that deals with an artist/muse relationship, that special bond holds endless fascination for me. I started it with some trepidation, fearing that I might have difficulty reading of such a close bond between a grown man and a seven-year-old girl. (I have an eight-year old daughter, after all.) My fears were unfounded due to the genius of Benjamin’s pen. Alice was so spirited and precocious that it was impossible to see her as a victim. I can hear her tormenting her governess as I write this and can’t help but smile.

As I read I wondered what may have happened had Madonna met Carl at seven instead of seventeen. Would they have still been drawn together, albeit differently? I sense they would have. Alice I Have Been inspired me to revise large chunks of four early chapters in The Oak Lovers, and completely rewrite the reunion scene between Carl and Madonna. If seven year old Alice could be so convincingly bold, I saw no reason why a nearly grown woman had to be innocent and naïve, especially as she is not that way at all later on. Let her bait the older, married man. Their conversations were already passionate, their glances tender. Why not let their arguments be torrid?

I wonder how many other writers unconsciously gravitate toward books or characters that will inspire their own writing. I’d love to hear from anyone with similar stories to share.

When Good Characters Do Despicable Things

By Kim

Two years ago I read The Underpainter, a novel by Jane Urquhart. The protagonist, Austin Fraser, creates a series of paintings depicting the people who touched his life and then erases the details by applying progressively lighter shades of paint. Over the course of the novel, the paintings become a metaphor for how an emotionally crippled man has avoided life. Jane Urquhart herself said in a June 2001 interview with January Magazine that she ‘hadn’t expected [Austin] was going to do what he had at the end’ and was so furious with him that she nearly couldn’t publish the book.

The Underpainter is the first and only book I’ve ever thrown across the room in disgust. After hearing the satisfying clunk against the wall, I promptly retrieved it and kept reading. As despicable as Austin was, I wanted to love him, as did many of the people in the novel, and his rejection came as a physical blow.

Around this time my aunt discovered a box in her attic containing eight drafts of a biography that my great-grandmother, Madonna, wrote about her husband, landscape painter Carl Ahrens. While I had a copy already and didn’t expect to find much new there, I skimmed page after page of onionskin paper, struggling to decipher the handwritten notes in the margins. My reward: ten pages worth of recollections that never made it into the version Madonna bound and donated to libraries back in 1945.

Learning of my discovery, several of my contacts from historical societies around Ontario and New York asked why I don’t just publish Madonna’s first-hand account. Why write a novel when I have 130 pages of fact? My reply: Which version of the truth would you like?

The drafts are a series of portraits of the same man, some flattering, some severe. The image Madonna clearly wished the world to see is reminiscent of a Bronte hero – tall, dark and brooding. While she alluded to his temper, she emphasized his gentleness in reverential tales of Carl engineering a prosthetic leg for his rooster or delighting his children by reviving a failing honeybee. She declared him a ‘wonderful and steadfast lover and a faithful husband,’ describing their relationship as companionable, passionate, with a few storms thrown in to keep things interesting. As a painter, Carl was a frustrated genius, worn down by constant illness and pain, unfairly ostracized for his individuality and his divorce from his first wife. Yes, he was cantankerous and sometimes difficult, she admitted, but with cause.

My aunts confirmed my suspicion that Madonna placed an airbrushed version of Carl on the highest pedestal she could find. They said my grandmother lamented that her childhood home was anything but harmonious. Her parents’ love for each other was obsessive, all-consuming, their arguments equally as passionate as their reconciliations. While I knew Madonna carefully concealed Carl’s warts out of love, I was intrigued by the thought of just where those warts may be and how deeply they burrowed.

I got my first clue when I found the following handwritten passage tucked inside the last draft, as though Madonna knew I would unearth it someday: He was afraid of my youth, my [singing] voice, even my appearance, and wanted to make sure of keeping me all for himself by shutting out every aspect of my life which he could not entirely dominate. It was quite understandable. He had changed the whole course of his life because he loved me…and said that so long as he had me, he did not need anyone else to make up his happiness. As he gave his love freely and without compromise, entirely to me, he not only wished, but demanded the same in return. He must be first, before the children, before music, before anything at all, and not only first, but second and third as well.

After I read this, I glared at a photo of my great-grandfather, arms crossed over my chest, and declared, “Explain yourself, please.” I heard no reply, of course, but my eyes drifted to his cane, and I empathized enough to imagine myself in his place. If I were afflicted with a crippling and excruciating illness that left me unable to care for myself, would I not cling to the one person on whom my survival depended? If that person were half my age, attractive, and had many admirers, would I not live in constant terror of being left alone to die?

Madonna’s version of events would only show Carl through the eyes of a woman in love. The narrative would be rosy and sweet, but it would also only tell half the story. As a wife, mother, and historian, I couldn’t gloss over the fact that Carl abandoned his first wife and their three children, no matter what his motives. The stories passed down by Carl’s son may have been exaggerated out of (justifiable) bitterness, but I believe Carl’s first family often faced the cruel streak that even Madonna admitted he possessed. I took careful notes, thankful that he was merely a verbal tyrant, not a brute, and agonized over how best to work in some of his most despicable behavior.

Writing those scenes infuriates me and it often takes a few days for me to forgive Carl enough to move on. Did I ever consider leaving them out? Not a chance. The most satisfying moment of my life as a writer was when one of my critique partners wrote at the end of one paragraph that she didn’t like Carl very much and, six sentences later, claimed to love him again. This contrast not only makes him a memorable character, but it’s likely a more accurate portrayal of the real man than those given by accounts from people with motives to protect or condemn.

Do I hope that readers will someday throw The Oak Lovers across the room? Sure. I hope to make them laugh and cry as well. Writers can’t have this sort of power over the emotions of strangers without taking risks, without unflinchingly exposing the flaws of the characters we create and letting them be judged accordingly. In the case of Austin Fraser, I’m still not sure of a verdict after two years of deliberations. That says a lot about the power of Jane Urquhart’s pen.