The Bibliothecary

Scott Stein is the author of the novels Lost and Mean Martin Manning. You can read my review of MMM here.  He also edited the online magazine, When Falls the Coliseum: a journal of American culture (or lack thereof), and has written numerous satires, articles, essays and reviews for lots of other folks, including this recent essay for the magazine Liberty: "Autopsy: The Failed Playwright of Virginia Tech."  He's the acting director of the certificate program in writing and publishing in the department of English and philosophy at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA.  He also enjoys grilling.  You can read a detailed bio at his website.

EGP: I have to admit, I’ve had the kind of Kafkaesque trial nightmare that happens to Martin Manning in your new novel, in which the health do-gooders of the world force me to “improve myself.” Pitney, the caseworker, categorizes Manning as having “resisted all opportunities to broaden his potential.” Have you resisted, as well? And do you see a kind of value, beyond one’s individual rights, in partaking in activities that might not be “good for you?”

SS: I haven’t resisted “reaching my potential,” whatever that means. I have resisted letting anyone dictate to me what I should enjoy or find valuable.

Unlike you, I haven’t had much direct experience with aggressive “health do-gooders.” That aspect of the novel is not based on my personal experience. It has more to do with what is happening in our society, with the unprecedented aversion to risk and the lumping of more and more personal behavior under the umbrella of “public health,” giving society an excuse to interfere with individual choices. And it has to do with people who think they know what others should value, and who are willing to impose their views on everyone else.

As a society, we’re focused not only on avoiding risk and being healthy, but also on self-improvement. For example, some want children’s cartoons to have educational value--they have to teach Spanish vocabulary, as in Dora the Explorer, or include classical music and works of fine art, as in Little Einsteins. Parents play Mozart for their babies, not because many of the parents care about music or art, but because they’ve been told that it will make their children smarter.

My son is currently obsessed with superheroes, Spider-Man and all the rest. He plays with action figures and can sit and color them in his coloring books for hours. There are benefits to this, I suppose, such as developing fine motor skills. But what matters is that he enjoys it. He’s happy. As parents, we make sure that he does other things, like read and play outside. But his joy is the only justification needed for coloring superheroes.

Pleasure, entertainment, escape, diversion, whatever you want to call it, is valuable in and of itself. It should be enough to want to listen to beautiful music because it’s beautiful. We don’t need a justification to want to ride a roller coaster. It’s fun. That’s reason enough. I don’t drink milkshakes for the calcium. I also don’t have milkshakes every day. Or salami. But I’m not Martin Manning.

For adults, what is the right balance of pleasure for pleasure’s sake and doing what is good for us is a matter of individual priorities and values. And “what is good for us” presupposes that we agree on the desired result.

EGP: I find especially interesting how Manning’s lifestyle is likened to heroin addiction and spousal abuse. Bad habits become transgressions (literally, sins) against, first, the self, then against society as a whole. I see this kind of hyperbolic argument against “unhealthy lifestyle choices” all the time (and it burns me up). But I’ll play Devil’s Advocate for a moment. What about the “cost to society” argument? If an adult’s pleasures can be calculated into a specific monetary cost that the rest of society must pay in order for that adult to enjoy him/herself, then isn’t society responsible for curbing that adult’s pleasures?

SS: I have heard it argued that people who engage in “unhealthy behavior” -- bad diet, smoking, etc. -- actually save society money in the long run, despite their initially higher medical costs, since they die many years earlier and don’t spend years in expensive nursing homes collecting social security. As people live to be older and older, those who die early will save society more and more money. One makes such an argument at the risk of being accused of cheering for early death in order to save society money: “Help your country--smoke cigarettes!” Still, if the argument is that society should curtail unhealthy adult behavior because that behavior costs society money, we might ask whether in the long run it really costs society that much. Manning points out something to this effect during his trial, when he cross-examines Dr. Kravis. I am not a researcher and don’t know what the numbers are, but the calculations are worthless if they don’t take everything into account.

Either way, “Devil’s Advocate” is apt. This road leads to hell. We can name dozens of activities that are risky, that many people enjoy, and that have medical costs, statistically. If monetary costs to society were reason enough to curtail adult behavior, we would have grounds for near-totalitarianism. The government would have a justification to limit all sorts of behaviors that most people in a free society take for granted as belonging beyond the scope and power of government. One reason to reject or at least limit government’s role in paying for healthcare is that it makes private, personal choices have “public costs,” which creates an excuse for people to tell other people what to do. What your neighbor does, as long as he does not violate anyone’s rights, is his own business. But when the public is forced to help pay for his insulin shot, his midnight chocolate binges no longer seem like only his business. We don’t want to live in a society that requires adults to seek chocolate permission.

EGP: Martin Manning isn’t really a mean guy. And I fully expected the character to live up to the title, that he’d be some nastily acerbic curmudgeon, hating the world and the people in it. But he really does care for others. He just wants to be left to his own devices. Do I read him the same way you do?

SS: More or less. He mainly wants to be left alone. I don’t know that he cares about others generally, but he does seem to connect to a couple of other characters--for example, Rhonda. And he doesn’t want to hurt the innocent members of the group. There are indications in the novel that earlier in his life he caused a bit of trouble, wasn’t especially nice or pleasant. Manning doesn’t tolerate nonsense and doesn’t fit the sensitive society growing around him. He says as much, so people think he’s mean. Maybe he is mean, but mostly, he just won’t buy into their program. And he seems to take a certain glee in sticking it to people he thinks have it coming. But if they’d left him alone, he wouldn’t have bothered anyone. Remember that he didn’t call himself “Mean Martin Manning” until society named him that. He’s meaner by the end of the book than he was at the beginning, and we might ask who’s responsible for this change.

EGP: Do you see MMM as a dystopian novel? Were you conscious of that genre/tradition while you were writing?

SS: While writing Mean Martin Manning, I wasn’t consciously trying to write a dystopian novel or trying to echo the themes from anything in particular. I wasn’t thinking in terms of genre or tradition. When I’m writing, I am more conscious of my characters and story and themes than I am of a larger tradition.

Still, it quickly became clear that I was writing a satire about a certain kind of tyranny. I was also aware early on that Mean Martin Manning had something of the Kafkaesque about it (as did my first novel Lost), and by the end I saw a bit of a connection to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It’s hard to predict what connections readers will find between one’s work and other authors and books. For example, your review of Mean Martin Manning in the Philadelphia Citypaper was the first time I saw any connection to A Clockwork Orange. It just hadn’t occurred to me.

EGP: I only use those kinds of connections in a review because I have such limited space. And I find references to other well-known works can help as a kind of shorthand for the reader of the review. And it’s true that I do see MMM as part of this tradition/genre. I’m looking forward to reading your first novel, Lost. I managed to find a copy in a used bookstore and, interestingly enough, I think the copy I found belonged to a reviewer because it is full of marginalia that refers to what is going on in the text, like “goes into store,” “Brother’s job,” “wears janitor uniform but brother brings clothes.” These are the kind of markers that someone would use to help review the plot.

SS: Lost is not in that tradition/genre. I am curious to know what you think of it. It’s quite different from Mean Martin Manning. But yes, I see how Mean Martin Manning could be viewed as a dystopian novel. I have read dystopian novels and stories, including Orwell’s 1984, Zamyatin’s We, Huxley’s Brave New World, Rand’s Anthem, Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron.” In MMM, Pitney is trying to shape a perfect world that many of us would not want to live in. But her focus is really on Manning. I think that most dystopian novels deal with the larger society more directly than Mean Martin Manning does.

For example, in 1984, the surveillance society is explicit. In Mean Martin Manning, the surveillance society is implicit. Pitney obviously knows a great deal about Martin, and it can be inferred that she has been monitoring his activities by computer and investigating his past. The extent of the lack of respect for individual rights becomes clear through how Martin is treated. The reader can easily conclude that this is just the beginning, on a societal level, whereas in the dystopian novels I refer to above, the totalitarian society is already firmly established.

EGP: Implicit surveillance is scarier than explicit surveillance.

SS: I wouldn’t like either of them. Maybe you’re right. I did see the connection to 1984 and surveillance. If asked to describe the novel by comparing it to other works, after I completed the manuscript, I might have said something like, “1984 meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, with punch lines.” Such glib comparisons shouldn’t be taken seriously. They are very different books. It’s just a shorthand way to convey some of the themes. Anyway, I don’t think writers should spend too much time considering where they or their works belong. Not while they’re writing, at least.

EGP: I especially like Manning’s thought, “Apparently everyone was nuts, but me.” That’s the kind of line that I see as funny Kafka. And, of course, that line is the running joke of Cuckoo’s Nest. McMurphy isn’t really nuts. So, in the big picture, do you think our society is going a little nuts?

SS: The quick and easy answer is “Yes.” But some historical perspective is called for. Our society, probably every society, has always been a little nuts. Some societies have been and still are a lot nuts. Our society is not as nuts in some areas as it once was. But yes, our society is going a little nuts.

EGP: Have you thought about a sequel to MMM? Seems that the adventures of Manning could continue.

SS: I’ve thought about it. The ending does leave that open. Maybe one day.

EGP: Your first novel, Lost, was published in 2000. MMM was published in 2006. Were there other novels in those six years?

SS: In the middle, after I wrote Lost, I started and ran an online magazine, When Falls the Coliseum (which was active from 1999-2002), and wrote and edited lots of essays for it. I got married, started a teaching career, had a son, and was pretty busy. But really, I didn’t have an idea for another novel, the main reason for the delay. When I got an idea, I didn’t know how to write it. I finally figured it out, and it became Mean Martin Manning, which I wrote a couple of years ago. MMM was officially published in early 2007.

EGP: Could you go into a little more detail about the genesis of MMM? What was the original inspiration? What was the process of "figuring it out?"

SS: I must have been thinking about nature versus nurture, because one day I wrote the following on a small square of paper:

His mother would sing to her baby in his crib with the voice of an angel. But when the angel sang Martin wept, because Martin was a mean baby. Some might say that babies are neither mean nor nice, that babies simply are—like moldable clay or blank slates. But Martin was mean all right. A mean baby. Later, he was a mean boy, still later, a mean adult, and his meanness, like a garden well tended, grew with age. He was, at 83 years, meaner than in his youth, not the result of a hard childhood or bitterness at old age, but the predictable culmination of a life steeped in cruelty and uncaring.

For a long while, I had no plot or concept, just this paragraph. I guess the initial idea was to jab at the “blank slate” view that some have of human nature and behavior -- that it’s infinitely malleable, if only we have the right environment or program to improve people. This opening paragraph announced that some people were not going to be made into the people others wanted them to be. But that was all I had. At some later point I wrote a couple of pages more, developing Martin into a loner who rarely left his apartment and didn’t like people. That opening chapter included his love of preservatives and processed meats. I still didn’t have a plot or direction for the novel. Then it sat for a long, long time. Maybe I was busy, but also, I didn’t know what to do with it. What was the book about? What should happen to this old, ornery guy? I didn’t know. It’s easy to give in to every possible distraction, far easier than sitting down and working on a novel at that stage.

When I finally did attempt to write the novel, I got the idea for Caseworker Alice Pitney to try to force Martin Manning out of his apartment and make him a better person. But when I wrote, it felt stiff, wrong, amateurish. I was boring myself. Part of the problem was that I liked the opening paragraph. Whether or not it was any good, it was what I’d written first, and I was attached to it. I couldn’t see past it. I was writing in this third-person narrator’s voice, which is what I’d used for my first novel Lost. I think that narrator worked well for Lost, but only when I realized that it wasn’t right for the new novel did the book stand a chance. I’m not sure what made me turn to first-person. Desperation, maybe. I don’t know if it was because I’d read Flowers for Algernon some time shortly before this (which kids these days read in middle school), or if I was thinking of To Kill a Mockingbird, which I’d only read for the first time a year or two earlier, or something else.

I wrote an opening two pages, which was where I first captured his voice. I threw out the third-person chapter I’d lived with for months and months. I made him younger than in my initial third-person paragraph. The only thing I kept was a short bit about how much he loved food preservatives. Once I had his voice, the novel started flying out of me. That decision to write in first-person was the key to the book. I don’t know why it took me so long to discover it. It seems so obvious now. Those crucial opening two pages, which I called the preface, do not appear in the final, published version of the novel. Instead, they introduce Martin Manning’s home page.

EGP: How do you write? Computer? Pen? Do you have any writing rituals or particular environments in order to write?

SS: Both of my novels began with paper and pen. I am talking about the first paragraph, note-taking, brainstorming. But nearly the entire manuscripts were written on the computer. I rewrite constantly, rereading and polishing the first chapter before moving onto the next one. Before I start the third chapter, I revisit the first two. And so on. By the time I am writing the tenth chapter, I have revisited the first chapter at least nine times. Dozens, really. I keep working this way until it becomes impractical to go back to the beginning of the entire book every time I reach a new chapter. When I get to the end of the “first draft,” I have a manuscript that is more polished than you might ordinarily expect a first draft to be.

I write while wearing headphones and listening to loud music. For Lost, in the early going, I listened over and over to Mahler’s fifth symphony. Other stuff too, but mainly Mahler’s fifth. When I was further along, I switched in loud rock music. But in the beginning, lyrics bothered me. The same thing happened when writing Mean Martin Manning. Early on, I listened over and over to Mahler’s sixth symphony. The beginning of it captured, for me, the tension of his desperation as Alice Pitney threatened his peace in his apartment. It’s about creating the right frame of mind, mood, intensity, as I’m writing. Later, I was able to switch in rock songs with lyrics. I don’t know why it’s been Mahler at the beginning of both books.

I usually write at night. Once I found an approach and got going on Mean Martin Manning (which took a long time), I wrote a chapter a night, nearly every night. The chapters are short, so this is less impressive than it sounds. I would polish the chapter that night, get my wife’s take on it, maybe make some more changes, maybe take it to bed and read it half a dozen times. In the morning I would polish the chapter. Before starting the next chapter that evening, I would read the previous night’s chapter again and a chapter or two before that one and make some changes. All of this helped me start the new chapter immersed in the voice and mind of my character.

EGP: What kinds of books do you like to read?

SS: I like history, philosophy, fiction, political philosophy, anything that’s good. I don’t read lots of genre stuff, though if it’s good, I don’t object to it. Plenty of so-called “literary” fiction doesn’t do it for me, either. I deliberately bounce around in my reading. I think writers benefit from exposing themselves to different styles, subjects, voices.

EGP: What was the last book you were reading?

SS: Right now, I’m reading Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. I just finished Tom Standage’s A History of the World in 6 Glasses. Before that was Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game; before that was Jack Kerouac’s On the Road; and before that was Brink Lindsey’s The Age of Abundance (which I reviewed for the Philadelphia Inquirer). That brings us back a couple of months.

EGP: What is your favorite book? Favorite author?

SS: I’m going to cop out on this one--I can’t name a single book or author. A couple of years ago, the journal of the College of Arts and Sciences at Drexel University, ASK, asked faculty to list 15 books that they would save from their library in event of a fire, or bring to a desert island, and I copped out that time, too.  There are books I would add to that list if I were making it today, and maybe books I would remove.

EGP: What books or authors have inspired you?

SS: Kafka was a big influence when I was an undergraduate. I went on to write my master’s thesis on his short stories when I was at NYU, and while in important ways my fiction is nothing like his, there is a sense of the Kafkaesque in both of my novels. I think I had that sense of the absurd before I ever read him. I learned a lot about writing by reading Cheever, Orwell, Dostoevsky, James, Chekhov, Greene, de Maupassant, many others. I’ll sometimes read a good book and think, Maybe I should try something like that. I don’t want to copy anyone or be derivative, but when I read excellent work, I do briefly imagine that I could do interesting things with that approach or subject. As an example, I remember reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and thinking how much fun it would be to create a world like that, to play with that sense of wonder and invention. I’ve also thought of writing a genre book. I’ll read a good thriller, or see a movie, and think, Maybe I should try something like that. It wouldn’t be an ordinary thriller, I suspect--it might come out as absurd satire no matter what I set out to do. I do a lot of thinking, too much perhaps, about what to write next, and how to write it, and reading is part of that.

EGP: You’re originally from NYC. How do you feel about Philly now that you’ve been here for a few years.

SS: I’ve been working in Philly and living in Bucks County for about nine years. There is something about me that will always be New York, but I like it here. I’ve met lots of good people.

EGP: Do you have any favorite Philly books or authors?

SS: Well, I like Poe. Does he count as a Philly author? But no, I’m not usually conscious of books and authors belonging to certain cities, even though my first novel Lost is clearly a New York book.

EGP: Poe definitely counts as a Philly author.  He wrote his greatest works while living here.

EGP: Do you have a favorite spot in Philly?

SS: I’ve become Suburban-Man since moving here from Manhattan. I work in Philly, and we’ll sometimes drive in, to see dinosaur skeletons or go to a restaurant (we really like The Rose Tattoo), but probably my favorite spot is on my deck in front of my grill. My publisher, ENC Press, thought I looked happy there and used the photo on its site. (I’ve recently shaved and now only resemble the guy in that picture.)

EGP: What websites do you visit regularly (aside from the Bibliothecary, of course)?

SS: I visit Books, Inq. every day, which sends me off to all sorts of sites. I also check in regularly with cnn.com, reason.com, instapundit.com, and libertyunbound.com (especially when I have an essay there).

Cordelia Frances Biddle is the author of The Conjurer, a historical mystery set in 1842 Philadelphia, featuring Martha Beale.  My review of The Conjurer appeared in the Phila Inquirer.

EGP: Cordelia, you've had some success in the mystery genre writing the Nero Blanc Crossword mysteries. And you've co-authored a mystery with Patricia Hearst, featuring William Randolph Hearst (Murder at San Simeon), about ten years ago. What inspired you to write/return to the historical mystery subgenre? And why 1842 Philadelphia?

CFB: History has always haunted me. I grew up hearing family stories of the past, and the connections between those vanished relatives and me often seemed more vivid than those with my living ones. I realize that seems bizarre, but I was a pretty fanciful child who saw ghosts and dreamed full costumes dramas that then sent me running to the Encyclopaedia to discover whether what I’d envisioned was true or not.

Or perhaps, it was simply that my curiosity was aroused when dealing with people I’d never met. What would cause someone to act as he or she did? What were the emotions involved? What did the rooms and houses (and a steam yacht in an earlier novel, Beneath the Wind) look like, or smell like? What was the sound of overheard conversation? Or, more importantly, what wasn’t said? And why?

I also believe that we writers can expose world issues – injustices, is a better word – that are close to our hearts. Setting a novel at a time of national foment allowed me to address societal problems that still exist, but without standing on a soapbox. Hopefully, readers will react with an astonished: “I didn’t realize things were so bad back then.” When, of course, people are still in need, still starving, still in emotional and physical pain.

Why leap from the froth of Nero Blanc into a city plunged into a financial depression – with everything that phrase infers? I have a dark soul. I can’t be cheery too long, and I like to muck around in the vile places within our brains. Besides, I’m more comfortable writing in a slightly archaic style. I’ve always preferred the language of an earlier era.

The 1840s were when Nicholas Biddle (of the Second Bank fame) and Francis Martin Drexel – two financier ancestors – elided. It was in researching their lives that the my own lack of knowledge of the period – and of those two men and their business affairs - was revealed. Naturally, I had to learn more. Thus began a broad period of research in which I didn’t fully understand what I was looking for. I learned about the new vogue of spiritualism; the daily life of the working poor, the riots, the racial tensions, what performers appeared at the Musical Fund Hall. I read recipes, studied “Fashion Plates” until I thought I was living in two distinct places.

I’d like to say 1842 was a nod to George Lippard, but I think the year came to me in a dream – just like the deaths of the girls in The Conjurer.

EGP: Could you go into some detail about how you researched this time period? What institutions did you use? Databases? Old newspapers? Etc.

CFB: The Library Company of Philadelphia has become my second home. I cannot praise the institution highly enough. The staff is helpful and accessible, and WOW, what a collection! I read actual newspapers of the period (not some “electronic” version), studied the famous Seybert Commission on Spiritualism, annual accounts from the Asylum referred to in the novel. And on and on and on. Each new find led me deeper, and allowed me to paint another layer on my portrait.

The Athenaeum of Philadelphia supplied what I consider “anecdotal” information: Godey’s Ladies Book, collections of poetry published in the period, and so forth. Visiting the Athenaeum always jars me into memories of my grandmother’s house in Bryn Mawr, and those memories usually enkindle more useful questions. No, my grandparents’ house wasn’t built in the 1840s, but it always seemed a place full of ancestral secrets – either of good or ill.

EGP: Were you surprised by any of the repositories of history? Like, "Wow, I didn't know this kind of thing was available."

CFB: The newspapers. There’s nothing like holding the actual journal or broadsheet and perusing every article and advertising card, the shipping lists, editorials, short works of fiction, and so forth. To me, historical research isn’t a matter of confirming facts and figures, it’s an opportunity to discover the unusual and telling details that bring an era to life: what plays and musical performances were drawing audiences, the wording of a list of missing persons, the rhetoric employed in political debates. Probably only twenty-five percent of my gleanings made it into the novel, but they allowed my brain to travel back in time so that the language and philosophy of the period became wholly familiar. When we read newspapers today, we understand the context in which articles have been written, or the intended audience for an advertisement; it’s the same context I look for when examining history.

EGP: Was there anything historical you found that was so interesting, but you couldn’t fit into your novel? Or just any fascinating finds of Philly history?

CFB: The Consolidation Act of 1854. I had no idea how much ink was devoted to the “scandal” of an inadequate police force during the decade prior to the new charter of 1854. The unincorporated (but increasingly populous) districts of Northern Liberties, Spring Garden, and the township of Moyamensing, etc. existed in a semi-lawless state; criminals needed only step over a township line in order to escape prosecution. An editorial excoriating this dangerous situation appeared almost monthly in the press. Plus ça change, I suppose. But for anyone who believes the “good old days” were plumier, reading about riots that couldn’t be quelled or contained because of inadequate police and fire protection is a sobering experience. The burgeoning racial tensions in the city in the mid-1840s was another issue I could only address briefly. In hindsight, the War Between the States looms large.

EGP: Are you still researching intensively or did the research for the first book take care of most of what you'll need?

CFB: For me, research leads to further research. I like to continually peel away the layers. And, too, each novel takes a differing stance so that the information I require to bring the era to life is singular to that book. For instance, for the third novel, I’m deeply involved in the textile trade. And I’ve made some stunning and disturbing discoveries.

EGP: How did you come up with Martha Beale's character and name? Thomas Kelman's character and name?

CFB: The Biblical story of the sisters Martha and Mary has always had resonance with me, so there is my “Martha”; my “Mary”, too. Beale was a name I found in St. Peter’s churchyard. As to Martha’s character, she simply grew, as all characters do. She began as a thought and became a true person. Kelman, also. I see him as having an often tortured inner life. I’m not certain if he always shares that opinion, although he still remains a bit of a mystery to me.

I’m often asked about writing a woman who appears to be so dominated by the men in her life, but the truth is that most women in that time period experienced similar constraints. If readers find Martha’s subservience uncomfortable, they should!

EGP: Without giving away too much detail, where does the series go from here?

CFB: Martha’s a fortunate woman. She’s an heiress, and although I have no intention of creating a modern person in old-fashioned attire, she certainly can become as iconoclastic as she wishes. She’s also an idealist, and I see her desires to better the world bringing her both difficulties and satisfaction. And a fair amount of disapproval, too.

As to Kelman, I want to uncover his secrets. I’m envisioning stepping further back in time in order to reveal the city and circumstances that formed him.

EGP: Will George Lippard make an appearance at some point in the series? How about Edgar Allan Poe?

CFB: I think the question might be: What would Lippard or Poe make of Martha Beale? Would they view her as courageous or spoiled, a tragic archetype or a nascent beacon of hope? That’s an intriguing notion. I have a good idea what the two men would make of Lemuel Beale, however. A manipulative financier like Beale would have been one of Lippard’s favorite targets.

EGP: Will any of your ancestors make appearances?

CFB: In name only, I imagine – if at all. I’m not comfortable blending fictional characters with real people. And then, too, the “facts” of someone’s life are open to interpretation. Nicholas Biddle and Francis Martin Drexel are painted as either saints or sinners. The truth must lie somewhere between the two extremes. If I find an ancestor whose tale is quixotic enough for the drama of a novel, I’ll probably change the name and throw her or him into the mix. Drexel most intrigues me because he was an itinerant portrait painter from Austria who decided to toss away the easel and open a banking institution, which seems akin to my declaring that I’ll choose nuclear physics rather than novel writing as my next career.

EGP: I've only come across one other historical mystery series set in pre-20th century Philadelphia, Mark Graham's McCleary novels set in Philly after the Civil War. Have you read Graham's books? Do you know of any others? I'm not even aware of any stand-alone mysteries in historical Philly.

CFB: I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t read Graham’s McCleary books. As to Philadelphia’s lack of historical suspense novels, the fact came as a surprise to me, as well. With such a plethora of material from which to work, and an era jammed full of cultural and societal highs and lows I can’t imagine more fertile soil for a writer’s febrile brain.

EGP: How do you write? Computer? Pen? Do you have any writing rituals or particular environments in order to write?

CFB: I make notes in a Mead Composition book (marbleized cover a la fifth grade) in which I also affix salient discoveries for luck and encouragement (stray pennies, a four-leafed clover). A Composition book is always with me. Writing is done on a computer, although we sometimes have a dicey relationship. I always read poetry before I begin my work, and I'm very disciplined. I'm at my desk early.

EGP: Why do you read poetry before you write? If you skipped the poetry, do you think your writing would be different?

CFB: I read poetry for the cadences, the non"prosaic" use of language as well as the imagery. It puts me into an altogether different realm that has nothing to do with a "journalistic" approach to writing. I've enjoyed poetry since I could first read; I can't imagine my life - let alone my work - without it.

EGP: Do you remember the first thing you wrote that made you believe you were an actual "writer"?

CFB: A long time ago a grade school teacher informed me that I could never be a writer because I had no imagination, so I think I'm always a bit surprised when I see my words in print. That said, my creative regimen is first to make sense of the tale, then to ensure each scene is working, that the characters are behaving in a natural (for them) manner. Paragraphs have to flow; information must be delivered; and finally the phrasing has to sing. If I can't hear music in my writing, I throw it out and start again.

EGP: By "music," do you mean a kind of poetical rhythm to the prose? Can you give me an example (from your own, or from someone else's work)?

CFB: It's actual music I hear, as if my prose were translated into arias and duets - and crowd scenes replete with tympani. If I could create a musical score I could probably notate my sentences, but alas I can't. I simply hear the lines "singing" or I don't.

EGP: What kinds of books/authors do you like to read?

CFB: Currently I'm addicted to Anita Shreve. Other favorites: John LeCarre for his politics, Mary Doria Russell, Donna Tartt. Books I reread because I learn something new with every encounter: Middlemarch, Anna Karenina, all of Steinbeck, Dickens' Hard Times, William Styron. For humor and his fizzy use of language and lingo: P.G. Wodehouse.

EGP: Favorite book?

CFB: I don't have a single favorite, but I greatly value my copy of Mark Twain's Following The Equator. Beneath the frontispiece author photo is the handwritten quote: "Be good and you will be lonesome".

EGP: Favorite Philly book or Philly author?

CFB: As I exist in a nineteenth century netherworld, the volumes of Godey's Lady's Book are my dream come true. I love the fact that women all over the nation were inspired by writers/publishers in Philadelphia.

EGP: Favorite Philly historical spot (or just any fave Philly spot)

CFB: For solace and a sense of numerous past spirits entwining: St. Peter's Church at Third and Pine; danger: Eastern State Penitentiary.

EGP: What books or authors have inspired you?

CFB: I'll return to poetry here. H.D., Dickinson, the Brownings, Shelley (I have a tattoo inspired by Shelley); the list varies according to my mood and the day. I'm using a lot of Tennyson in my second Martha Beale.

EGP: Tattoo? Care to describe it?

CFB: Two actually: a moth and a star. The lines that inspired them are: "The desire of the moth for the star,/ Of the night for the morrow,/ The devotion to something afar/ From the sphere of our sorrow." I'm sorry to say I didn't add "P.B.S."

EGP: What websites do you visit regularly (aside from the Bibliothecary, of course)?

CFB: I'm sorry to say I'm too old-fashioned to truly enjoy the web. I like card catalogues and musty places, and although I have my own author's site, I'm not altogether comfortable with the virtual rather than the actual. I like to indulge all my senses. if you could have the scent of pipe tobacco wafting from yours, well, that would be different.

EGP: I'll blow smoke towards Philly as I'm posting this.  Thanks for your time, Cordelia.

Edward Pettit (EGP) is a freelance book reviewer and wishes he had a tattoo inspired by a romantic poet. Instead, his tattoo of an eagle has "Free Bird" written under it. Shelley would be so much cooler than Lynyrd Skynyrd.