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NonfictionWomen's HistoryHistoryBiography

Bringing Down the Colonel

Review by Anne Bartlett

Madeline Pollard’s breach-of-promise lawsuit against famous Kentucky Congressman William Breckinridge was the talk of Washington, D.C., in 1894. When close to 20 women arrived at the courtroom as spectators to the buzzy trial, the judge politely threw them out—the testimony was far too indelicate for ladies to hear. But women had the last laugh: Representative Breckinridge, an eloquent political superstar, couldn’t escape the women who testified against him, the wealthy female activists who publicly backed Pollard and the ordinary women of central Kentucky who campaigned against his re-election, decades before they obtained suffrage.

Patricia Miller’s marvelous Bringing Down the Colonel recounts Pollard’s sensational claim that Breckinridge had seduced her when she was 17, engaged in a years-long adulterous affair with her, then reneged on his marriage pledge when his wife died. Miller also tells a riveting broader story of the changing social mores in late 19th-century America, driven by the mass entry of women into the office workplace and a female-led movement to eliminate the “double standard” that penalized women for their sexuality.

Miller illustrates this time in America through the lives of three women key to the case: Pollard, who had a more complicated backstory than she revealed; Jennie Turner, a working woman recruited by Breckinridge’s backers to spy on Pollard; and Nisba Breckinridge, the congressman’s daughter. All were intelligent, educated, ambitious women, held back (at least initially) by sexism and straitened finances. All ultimately built independent lives; Nisba became a prominent social scientist.

This book comes at the perfect moment, as the #MeToo movement highlights sexual harassment and assault. Women in the 19th century faced the same challenges and more. Through cases like Pollard’s, Gilded Age social reformers advanced women’s rights in the voting booth, office and bedroom. Their example continues to resonate.

Madeline Pollard’s breach-of-promise lawsuit against famous Kentucky Congressman William Breckinridge was the talk of Washington, D.C., in 1894. When close to 20 women arrived at the courtroom as spectators to the buzzy trial, the judge politely threw them out—the testimony was far too indelicate for ladies to hear. But women had the last laugh: Representative Breckinridge, an eloquent political superstar, couldn’t escape the women who testified against him, the wealthy female activists who publicly backed Pollard and the ordinary women of central Kentucky who campaigned against his re-election, decades before they obtained suffrage.

NonfictionWomen's HistorySocial Science

Rage Becomes Her

Review by Vanessa Willoughby

Under the rules of the patriarchy, an angry woman is a more than a minor inconvenience: She is a problem. When a woman expresses her anger, she betrays the parameters of femininity imposed by a society that views men as humans and women as passive objects. Our society still operates on tired gender roles and misogynistic stereotypes that routinely silence, shame and demean women. Anger is regarded as a positive trait when associated with masculinity, yet it is simultaneously seen as the antithesis of what is acceptable behavior for women.

In the age of the #MeToo movement, the concept of recognizing and validating women’s anger has reached a palpable sense of urgency. For too long, women have been told that they should not only regulate their emotions but bury them while society encourages men to disregard emotion in favor of physical aggression. Soraya Chemaly’s Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger is part cultural analysis and part call to arms. Chemaly—an award-winning author, activist and the Director of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project—writes with clear-eyed conviction. Using an arresting combination of personal anecdotes, interviews and heavily researched data, Chemaly argues that women should reclaim their anger. She acknowledges that this process varies between women of different races, namely the ways in which white women can weaponize their privilege and anger against black women. While white women are routinely treated as “fragile” and “delicate” damsels in distress (see “Missing White Woman Syndrome”), black women’s anger is pathologized as dangerous, volatile—even criminal.

Nevertheless, women have historically been forced to undertake immense emotional labor that comes at the expense of their mental, emotional and physical health. For Chemaly, a liberated woman is one who can freely find strength in her rage.

Using an arresting combination of personal anecdotes, interviews and heavily researched data, Soraya Chemaly argues that women should reclaim their anger.
NonfictionWomen's History

Pure

Review by Priscilla Kipp

Refugees from the “purity industry,” which had a heavy influence on evangelical youth in the latter years of the 20th century, may recognize themselves in Pure, Linda Kay Klein’s eye-opening study of what went wrong when strict interpretations of biblical Scripture became cultural touchstones.

In the evangelical community, sexual shaming and a focus on purity were used to promote strict sexual abstinence before marriage, especially for girls. Girls raised within this culture knew little about their own sexualities and were discouraged by parents and pastors from questioning the biases of their gender roles. If boys were tempted by a girl, or even if she was raped, it was her fault: She became a “stumbling block,” and her body became a shameful inspiration toward sin. If a woman managed to save herself for marriage, she was expected to know how to fulfill her husband’s desires, and if she could not and he left or committed adultery, this was also her fault; she had failed to satisfy him in her wifely duties. 

Klein experienced all of this firsthand, and she bears the scars. She was raised in this culture but began to question its focus on female sexual purity when a youth pastor in her church was convicted of sexual enticement of a child. Klein has since spent years interviewing many women about their church experiences, and their accounts are strikingly similar, graphic and disturbing. The “nightmares, panic attacks, and paranoia” they suffered amounted to symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder: “We went to war with ourselves, our own bodies, and our own sexual natures, all under the strict commandment of the church.” For many, the results were, and continue to be, devastating.

Klein’s research supporting the need for reform is compelling, and she makes it clear that sexism and sexual shame directed toward women and young girls are endemic in our society. Today, more enlightened and inclusive church communities are led by youth pastors who are comfortable exploring the larger issue of sexual ethics and decision-making. For those who seek spiritual community without gender bias, Klein offers empathy and new choices. 

Refugees from the “purity industry,” which had a heavy influence on evangelical youth in the latter years of the 20th century, may recognize themselves in Pure, Linda Kay Klein’s eye-opening study of what went wrong when strict interpretations of biblical scripture became cultural touchstones.

Women's HistoryBiography

A journalist fighting against the status quo

Review by Sarah McCraw Crow

Did you know that “common scold” was once a legal term, applicable only to women, punishable by ducking the scold into water? In fact, in 1829, the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court convicted writer and gadfly Anne Royall as a common scold, sentencing her to a fine rather than the ducking stool. This bizarre trial is just one aspect of Royall’s larger-than-life story that Jeff Biggers delves into in his biography, The Trials of a Scold.

Growing up impoverished on the frontier, young Anne Royall managed to educate herself and to marry Revolutionary War veteran William Royall—a Jane Eyre situation, since Anne worked as a servant for the aristocratic William, and she was 20 years his junior. Widowed at 43 and cut out of her husband’s will, Anne Royall soon headed south, where she wrote a novel, The Tennessean, and then published a collection of letters sketching out life in the new Alabama territory.

Royall eventually landed in Washington, D.C., finding her voice in satirical writing. An ardent defender of the separation of church and state, Royall ridiculed Presbyterian leaders who sought to make government explicitly Christian, and these Presbyterians orchestrated her indictment for being a scold, “a common slanderer and brawler.” But Royall pressed on, publishing a newspaper out of her Capitol Hill house, often setting the type herself. She kept publishing for almost 25 years.

As Biggers illuminates Royall’s place in Jacksonian America, you can’t help but notice the parallels between then and now: Jacksonian populists sparred with Eastern establishment types, a growing Evangelical movement aspired to power, and petty gossip dominated Washington. (Jackson’s administration was almost undone by a minor scandal about his Secretary of State’s wife’s reputation.) Drawing on an array of primary and secondary sources, Biggers’ narrative is occasionally choppy, but The Trials of a Scold reveals Anne Royall’s eccentricities, her peppery writing and her remarkable, brave life.

Did you know that “common scold” was once a legal term, applicable only to women, punishable by ducking the scold into water? In fact, in 1829, the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court convicted writer and gadfly Anne Royall as a common scold, sentencing her to a fine rather than the ducking stool. This bizarre trial is just one aspect of Royall’s larger-than-life story that Jeff Biggers delves into in his biography, The Trials of a Scold.
NonfictionWomen's HistoryHistory

Working undercover in plain sight

Review by Anne Bartlett

You can get away with quite a lot if no one takes you very seriously. Like carrying military intelligence about the Union army through enemy lines to deliver it to the Confederates. Or hiding Union POW escapees in your attic while Confederate officers are boarding downstairs at your home. 

You get the picture: Women were largely dismissed as flighty, inferior creatures in Victorian times. That attitude helped several become some of the most effective spies of the Civil War. Again and again, the women who are the focus of Karen Abbott’s exciting Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War came close to discovery or death, only to be saved by their enemies’ sexism.

Not that Belle Boyd, Rose Greenhow, Emma Edmonds and Elizabeth Van Lew were ordinary women. They were all strong-minded, daring and difficult. Edmonds was perhaps the most astonishing: Escaping an abusive father in Canada, she masqueraded as a young man and joined the Union army. She kept up the game so well that she became an army scout, “cross-dressed” as a woman.

Confederates Greenhow and Boyd were flamboyant women who used sexual attraction in the service of their cause and were too indiscreet to retain their effectiveness. Pro-Union Van Lew, however, was a wealthy, circumspect middle-aged spinster. She carefully built a large, lasting spy and prisoner-escape network in Richmond, even infiltrating an African-American secret agent into Jefferson Davis’ house as a servant.

This is compelling material, and Abbott, best-selling author of Sin in the Second City, cross-cuts among the stories to produce dramatic cliff-hangers. Her depiction of Greenhow’s tragic end will move any reader, whatever one may think of the Confederate cause.

 

This article was originally published in the September 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

You can get away with quite a lot if no one takes you very seriously. Like carrying military intelligence about the Union army through enemy lines to deliver it to the Confederates. Or hiding Union POW escapees in your attic while Confederate officers are boarding downstairs at your home.
NonfictionWomen's HistoryHistory

The Girls of Murder City

Review by Pete Croatto

With today’s relentless news cycle, it’s easy to forget the genesis of our current media fascinations. You may think that the 1990s was when the media, celebrity trials and America’s love for gawking oozed together to create the concept of the courtroom as an entertainment venue. The truth is, you have to go back a bit.

Douglas Perry’s The Girls of Murder City provides a captivating look at the killer women who dominated headlines in Chicago and across the United States in 1924. More than a dozen women called Murderess’ Row in the Cook County Jail home, but two grabbed most of the attention: Belva Gaertner and Beulah Annan. Cabaret dancer Belva’s meeting with her drunken lover ended with him fatally shot and her glamorous clothes blood-splattered. And after shooting her lover in the apartment she shared with her husband, 23-year-old Beulah danced to her favorite record, “Hula Lou.”

Dripping with scandal, beauty and savvy, these women had a glorious chance to deliver the performances of a lifetime. They didn’t disappoint. Covering this for the Chicago Tribune was rookie reporter Maurine Watkins, who took her bitterness over the women’s manipulation of the system—Beulah changed her shooting story three times and the all-male jury still let her walk—and turned it into a hit Broadway play, Chicago.

Perry takes a sturdy foundation of murder, sex and Chicago’s scandal-happy newspapers and builds a nonfiction marvel. His bouncy, exuberant prose perfectly complements the theatricality of the proceedings, and he deftly maneuvers away from the main story without ever losing momentum. Perry uncovers illuminating background details on the Chicago newspaper wars and the female inmates who took a backseat to Belva and Beulah, and pushes Watkins back into the spotlight. He captures the pulse of a city that made New York look like a suburban block party. The Girls of Murder City not only illustrates the origins of a new media monster, but reminds us that we’ve never been that innocent.

Dripping with scandal, beauty and savvy, these women had a glorious chance to deliver the performances of a lifetime. They didn’t disappoint.
Women's HistoryHistory

Gail Collins

Interview by Eliza Borné

It is hard to disagree with the weight of this statement from New York Times op-ed writer Gail Collins: “The conviction that women’s place was in the home, that they were weaker than men and weren’t really up to life in the public world . . . were beliefs that had existed for thousands of years, and they were shattered in my lifetime. That thought still knocks me out.”

In When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, Collins explores this period of time when “long-held patterns of behavior and beliefs got upended so suddenly.” The book is a follow up to America’s Women, Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines, Collins’ acclaimed work from 2003. The subject of American women—specifically, their struggles and broken barriers—is natural for Collins. She became the first female editorial page editor at the New York Times in 2001.

When Everything Changed provides a sweeping, fascinating look at modern women in our country. Filled with facts, court cases and legislation, the book is rich with personal anecdotes. Collins and her researchers interviewed more than 100 women for this history, and for many contemporary readers, their findings will be startling and sometimes heartbreaking.

The book begins with the story of 28-year-old secretary Lois Rabinowitz. In 1960, Lois went to traffic court to pay her boss’ speeding ticket. The judge had a fit when he saw Lois’ outfit: “neatly pressed slacks and a blouse.” In an outburst, he said, “Do you appreciate you’re in a courtroom in slacks?” Lois’ husband had to pay the ticket; the judge had thrown her out of the court for wearing pants. In her interview with BookPage, Collins recounts other outrageous stories she encountered: “the NASA official who said the idea of a woman in space made him sick to his stomach or the public high school in Iowa where the boys’ tennis team practiced on the school courts and the girls had to play on the driveway, jumping out of the way to avoid getting run over.”

Although the women who went through these ordeals could have turned bitter and angry, Collins says a lot of her interview subjects “looked back on these things with amusement . . . they see them as the artifacts of a long-departed world.”

She continues: “Others were sort of bemused that it never occurred to them to object when they were told that—of course—a woman would have to work twice as hard as a man to get ahead in the Justice Department. Or that—of course—Newsweek only hired women to be researchers, not writers. That was fascinating, because some of the people telling me this were among the feistiest and most outspoken women I know.”

For readers enticed by the book’s title, the big question will be when—and why—“everything changed” for American women.

“The law banning discrimination against women in employment was really what triggered everything,” says Collins. “That was added to the Civil Rights Act [in 1964] as a kind of joke/diversionary tactic by a Southern Congressman who would have preferred to kill the whole bill. And then the women were smart enough to jump on the opportunity to get it pushed through.” That Congressman was Howard Smith of Virginia, who at 80 years old hoped the addition of “sex” to Title VII would delay the passage of Civil Rights, rather than advance the position of women.

“Our happiness is all wound up in the happiness of our husbands and sons and brothers,” Collins says. “It’s harder for us to form a united front, and in American history, the points at which women have advanced have been the ones in which other discriminated-against groups were leading the way.”

A young woman during the 1960s, Collins says that even she was “totally fixated on civil rights . . . the women issue really didn’t register for a long time.” By the 1970s—when the National Organization for Women had been around for a few years; when women had gained widespread access to the Pill; when female students began to apply to medical, law, dental and business schools in “large numbers”—the issue had started to register.

“By the 1970s, my friends and I were completely confident that we were going to change the world,” she says. “It actually never occurred to me that by the 21st century there would be any problems left. I would have been shocked if you’d told me in 1979 that 30 years down the line, there wouldn’t be daycare centers in every office building, or that it wouldn’t be totally common for husbands to be the chief caregiver for the children.”

In spite of that disappointment, Collins admits, “I don’t think we had any real conception of what it would be like if young women had the same expectations and ambitions as young men. We thought we did, but it’s way better than we imagined.”

It may be a history book, but When Everything Changed reads like a page-turning saga, a race through the years to learn how we got here today, when “there was no speculation about whether [President Obama’s administration] would include any women in the most powerful posts because it was inconceivable that it would not.”

One of the strongest themes toward the end of When Everything Changed is that of women struggling to achieve a balance in their lives—waking up at 4 a.m. to bake cookies before going to work; doing twice as much housework as their husbands even when both spouses work.

“The ceiling is cracking all the time, but the rate of progress has slowed considerably,” Collins says. “If you ask me for one reason, I’d say it’s the work-family divide. For women to balance their jobs with childrearing is our one big, fat continuing challenge, and it leaches out into so many other things—including why women still make so much less money on average than men do,” she says. “If we only have 17 women in the Senate, it’s partly because women with children normally don’t start political careers until after the kids are in their teens, so they get a much later start climbing the ladder. And if the percentage of women lawyers who make partner in big firms isn’t budging, it’s mainly because those companies demand an extraordinary commitment of time and energy to get to the top.”

Be that as it may, Collins has never seen the history of American women “as malevolent-men-crushing-pathetic-women’s-souls.” She recognizes that women’s struggles were not “just the product of one sex,” and she seems proud and optimistic in the final pages of When Everything Changed. She writes, “American women had shattered the ancient traditions that deprived them of independence and power and the right to have adventures of their own, and done it so thoroughly that few women under 30 had any real concept that things had ever been different.”

And though Collins acknowledges that “there will always be people who look at change and see a problem,” the end of her book will make many readers swell with pride—it features updates on the lives of the interview subjects featured in the book, many of whom went on to break barriers for many years. The story their lives helped write—of American women from the 1960s to today—is inspiring and compelling. Collins explains why in one obvious and poignant sentence: “Our story is particularly compelling because it’s about us.”

It is hard to disagree with the weight of this statement from New York Times op-ed writer Gail Collins: “The conviction that women’s place was in the home, that they were weaker than men and weren’t really up to life in the public world .…

NonfictionWomen's HistoryHistory

Karen Abbot

Interview by Lily McLemore

During Nashville's Southern Festival of Books, Karen Abbot was able to sit down and chat with us about Liar, Temptress, Solider, Spy, a book that details the lives of four women who bucked societal convention, risked their lives and became spies during the Civil War. 

What initially inspired you to tackle such a little known topic in American history?
I was born and raised in Philadelphia, and I moved to Atlanta in 2001. And I was really struck by the fact that they’re still fighting this war down there. It really sort of seeps into life and daily conversation in a way it never does up North. I was just shocked by the Confederate flags on the lawns and the jokes about the “War of Northern Aggression.” It was all sort of driven home for me one day when I was stuck in traffic on 400—if you’ve ever been to Atlanta you know what I’m talking about—and I was behind a pick-up truck with a bumper sticker that said “Don’t blame me, I voted for Jefferson Davis.” (Who was, of course, the president of the Confederacy). I was just sitting there shocked, and I was behind this truck for hours. It just gave me the opportunity to really start thinking about the Civil War. Of course, my mind goes to, “Well, what were the women doing? And not just what were the women doing, but what were the bad women doing, the defiant women?” I wanted to find four women who lied, wheedled, avenged, flirted, shot, drank and spied their way through the Civil War. And I think I found four who do that.

What was one of the most surprising things that you discovered during your research into these women’s lives?
There were a couple of things. One has to do with Emma, who disguised herself as a man and enlisted in the Union army as Private Frank Thompson. I was wondering, how did she get away with this? There were about 400 women for both North and South who reportedly disguised themselves as men and enlisted. I came to the conclusion that [they were able to get away with it because] no one had any idea what a woman would look like wearing pants. They were so used to seeing women pushed and pulled into exaggerated shapes with their corsets, and the very idea of a woman in pants was so unfathomable, that even if she was right in front of them, they wouldn’t recognize it.

And also just the way that women were able to exploit their gender. Their gender was sort of a physical and psychological disguise. Physically, they’re hiding dispatches and weaponry in their hair and their hoop skirts. As a psychological disguise, if anyone accused them of treasonous behavior or espionage, their response was, “How dare you accuse me! It’s unbecoming as an officer and a gentleman, I’m a defenseless woman.” But of course, they were the farthest things from defenseless women. 

Do you have any all-time favorite historical figures?
Oh, god. So many. Where do I even start? I think the Everleigh sisters, who are the subjects of my first book. They were two madams who were sisters and ran a world-famous brothel in Chicago in the early 1900s. They were really fascinating and enigmatic characters. Also, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, the female pirates. I love them, too. They often dressed in drag, and people didn’t know they were women. I mean, obviously I have something about women dressing in drag.

What’s next for you?
Well, I’m thinking about a novel, which would be scary because it’s the first time I would attempt to do it. I wrote about her for the Smithsonian, and I can’t give up my love of history and facts, so it would be based in the history of Cassie Chadwick. She was a con-artist in Gilded Age New York, and she sort of lied herself into New York society. And then she disappears. There’s enough about her to do a blog post, but there’s not enough nonfiction sources to do a full book. So it would be the first time I would have to add flesh to the bones. I can’t decide yet if it’s going to be liberating or paralyzing. But I’m going to give it a shot!

Any authors you’re looking forward to seeing here at the Festival?
One of my friends, Joshilyn Jackson. I think everyone should go see her and Patti Callahan Henry. Also Ariel Lawhon; I love her book. Those were my three big ones. Oh, and Daniel Wallace, who wrote Big Fish!

Are you doing anything fun while in Nashville?
I was going to try and honky-tonk, but I should probably save that for when I don’t have to work the next day. Next time, though. 

(Author photo by Nick Barose)

During the Southern Festival of Books, Karen Abbot was able to sit down and chat with us about her latest book, Liar, Temptress, Solider, Spy, which details the lives of four women who bucked societal convention, risked their lives and became spies during the Civil War.

AudioWomen's HistoryBiographyArts & Culture

Saskia Maarleveld

Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor

After more than 300 recorded audiobooks, acclaimed narrator and voice-over actor Saskia Maarleveld knows that every audiobook requires something special. But what’s the difference between narrating a historical book versus a biography of a beloved icon? Comparing two of Maarleveld’s performances, The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History and Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge, offers a look into an audio narrator’s preparation, devotion and ability to roll with the punches.

Here she discusses a day behind the audiobook curtain, what it’s like to deliver Carrie Fisher’s jokes and why narrating nonfiction is so much harder than fiction.

Tell me a bit about transforming books into audiobooks. How do you prepare, and what do you enjoy about the preparation? From one project to the next, how much do you change your approach to each audiobook?
Once I have a script, I will first and foremost read it through. That’s the most important prep you can do: knowing the book, its characters and flow. Depending on the genre, there will then be a certain amount of research to do. Looking up correct pronunciations is one of the most important. I also like to know about the author and more about the subject matter, especially if it is a genre like historical fiction or nonfiction. I tend to not “overprep” a book, as for me the most fun part is having the story feel fresh in the booth. You want to know it but not have belabored it such that the words and characters don’t feel alive. Being open to what might come out in the booth is part of the fun!

What’s a day in the studio like for you?
I live in New York City and am lucky to be surrounded by the best audiobook studios and producers, so I go into a bunch of different studios to record. I always have an engineer and sometimes a director. A usual day for us is 10 a.m. to 4 or 5 p.m. We take bathroom and water breaks when we need them and have a lunch hour, but otherwise I’m in the booth recording the entire time! I like these longer days, as you can really get on a roll with whatever you are working on, recording usually about three finished hours or more in a session. Surprisingly, it’s usually my brain that starts to fray at the end of the day before my voice!

“It puts a lot of pressure on the narrator when you are trying to portray an icon like Carrie Fisher—you need to get it right!”

I’d love to discuss two audiobooks you recently narrated: Carrie Fisher and The Queens of Animation. What was most important to you as a narrator as you approached each audiobook? Did one pose more challenges than the other?
Both of these were nonfiction, which was a thrill as I mainly record fiction. Being nonfiction, it was important to me that I respect the stories of these people, doing thorough research before getting in the booth. For Carrie Fisher, I watched a ton of interviews with her to get a feel for her voice, personality and sense of humor. I watched a lot of clips from Disney movies to revisit the scenes I was describing in The Queens of Animation. This prep helps the words not fall flat when they are being read; there is life and movement behind what I am describing to the listener. This comes through most when I have a clear picture on my head.

Carrie FisherIt was a special treat to hear your ability to deliver Carrie Fisher’s jokes. What is it like to tap into an icon like Carrie Fisher? How is it different from tapping into a fictional character?
I loved having the opportunity to learn more about Carrie Fisher, a person I knew from on screen but now had to embody in a much more personal way. Having read the book ahead of time obviously gave me so much of what I needed, but also the interviews and clips I watched helped me with delivering the Carrie lines in ways that embodied her. It puts a lot of pressure on the narrator when you are trying to portray an icon like Carrie Fisher—you need to get it right! Whereas with fictional characters, you have much more room for interpretation and imagination.

The Queens of AnimationWith The Queens of Animation, our audio columnist especially loved the way you draw readers in, “like [you’re] confiding a dark secret.” Is this something you set out to do intentionally for this book?
Nonfiction can feel a little impersonal if the narrator just reads the words on the page and remains removed from them. It’s hard because you aren’t narrating as a character, so the more you can make the listener feel like you are talking directly to them, telling them the story, the more personal it becomes. I’m glad that came across in this project!

Does your work impact how you read?
I have always loved reading, so unfortunately these days it is very rare that I have the time to read for pleasure as I am always reading for work! And when I do occasionally have the time, it takes time to turn off the narrator side of my brain thinking, How do I pronounce that word? How does this character avoids sound? I should highlight this! I thought when I stopped working to have my daughter, I would have time to get back into reading for pleasure again, but with a newborn, reading is a whole new challenge!

What do audiobooks offer that a book can’t? And considering how much audiobooks are booming, why do you think we’re being drawn to this medium more and more?
Time is precious, and these days so many of us are constantly multitasking. Sitting down with a book is a luxury, something you have to focus on not only with your mind but also your body. Being able to listen to an audiobook while driving, ironing, cooking, etc., is such a gift, as we don’t have to stop the busy work our bodies are doing while escaping into the world of a story.

What do you believe are your greatest strengths as a reader of books? What is the most rewarding or coolest thing you get to bring to this experience through your reading?
I was trained as an actor, so my skill at creating characters is something I take pride in, and I also specialize in accent and dialect work. Also, as mentioned in an earlier question, I aim to connect the listener to the story in a very personal way. I want them to feel I am speaking directly to them, drawing them into whatever world we are sharing. If I achieve this, I think my job is done!

What’s one thing people might not expect about your role as narrator?
I work on many projects that I get really attached to, and it is surprisingly hard to read that last word and know my time with this tale has ended. It is a very intimate experience to share a story and embody characters, so after hours and days of disappearing into a book, leaving it behind can be very sad!

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read about Saskia Maarleveld’s narration of Carrie Fisher and The Queens of Animation.

After more than 300 recorded audiobooks, acclaimed narrator and voice-over actor Saskia Maarleveld knows that every audiobook requires something special in its reading. Here she discusses a day behind the audiobook curtain, what it’s like to deliver Carrie Fisher’s jokes and why narrating nonfiction is so much harder than fiction.
NonfictionWomen's HistoryHistory

Julia Cooke

Interview by Alice Cary

Julia Cooke’s Come Fly the World gives readers a bird’s-eye view of the gritty, global history of Pan Am and its iconic flight attendants. Here she shares her thoughts on air travel, past and present, and offers some suggestions for making your own glamour when you take to the skies.

As an avid traveler and travel writer, how did you get interested in writing this particular story?
I met a few former stewardesses at a Pan Am Historical Foundation event at the Eero Saarinen TWA terminal at JFK Airport (before it became a hotel). I just loved talking to them. They seemed to have lived life elbow-deep in adventure; they talked about geopolitical events as if they'd had martinis with prime ministers the night before; they were sophisticated and smart and funny. One 70-something woman told me she rarely bought a return ticket when she traveled because “you never know.” I loved their attitudes and the way it felt like they owned the whole world, and I wanted to know everything about them. 

Your father worked for Pan Am. Can you tell us about your flying experiences as a kid and how they shaped you as a person and a writer? Do you remember your first flight?
My father was an attorney for Pan Am, but it was really my mom who was determined to make the most of his flight benefits. She used to pack us for both hot and cold weather, and we’d head to the airport to take whatever empty seats were heading somewhere interesting. We flew to Australia when I was around 3, before Pan Am sold its Pacific routes, and it took something like six different flights to get there!

I don’t remember my first flight (my mother tells me I was 4 months old), but I remember being in so many places with her. She is Italian American, so we went to Italy a fair amount, and I have vivid memories of going to the store to buy tomatoes in a small town we once stayed in when I was 4 or 5. 

The independence and flexibility of travel absolutely shaped me as a person. It made me accustomed to and curious about different kinds of people and languages from the start—and those same traits, I think, led me to be a writer. Now I read a lot in transit and like to eavesdrop.

Did your family help your research at all? Did you pick their brains for memories, and have they read your book?
They have. My father was a great resource for talking through the history. On a more personal level, it was revelatory to see events from my childhood gain context within the airline’s corporate history—that trip to Australia, which is one of my first memories, for example, wouldn’t have happened had Pan Am not sold its Pacific division to United.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Come Fly the World.

When you started this project, did you realize that it would contain such rich cultural and political history? What were some of your most interesting or surprising research discoveries?
I had no idea where the project would lead me, really, and I certainly did not think it would lead me toward the Vietnam War. I was so drawn to the contrast between the public image these women were asked to promote—beautiful, effortless, glamorous—and the really quite dangerous work they performed. I got outraged on their behalf at first; stewardesses were often stereotyped as being insubstantial when really their work contained grave stakes.

That said, it was still fun to peruse the detritus of the jet age—old dishes, uniforms, press photos and other ephemera. One surprise was the amount of fashion PR Pan Am engaged in; the airline hosted fashion shows in various countries and did shoots in custom clothing that I’d sincerely love to wear today. It’s hardly new or unusual for the grittier lived experiences of beautiful or fashionable women to be dismissed, but in this instance, the more I learned about both the projected stewardess ideal and their true-life experiences, the more I found it galling. What they’d done, en masse, was so evidently groundbreaking.

How did you find the women you profiled? Were they eager to share their stories, or did they voice any hesitations?
I found them mostly via Pan Am’s incredible network of former employees, as well as through one particular organization, World Wings International, which hosts events for former flight crew. I attended many luncheons and reunions in various places around the country and world (Savannah, New York, Bangkok, Berlin). Stewardesses’ social bonds, by the way, are a real inspiration for a younger woman to observe. They prioritize their friendships and take trips together and generally have a grand time. For the most part, they were very eager to share their stories. I did come across a few women who had experienced trauma on board and did not want to revisit their time with the airline, or who were hesitant to be interviewed by an outsider when so many actual Pan Am women are also working toward getting their own words into print. 

The mother and sister of one of the women you profiled cried when they found out she was taking her job as a flight attendant because they believed stewardesses were “loose and immoral.” Were the women you interviewed constantly fighting against this stereotype—which the airlines seemed to promote?
Constantly. And even more broadly than the “loose and immoral” stereotyping, many 1960s parents thought it was a job for less serious women. So many of the parents of these bright, well-educated, ambitious young women were disappointed at the idea that their daughters would serve businessmen and tourists in the sky; the fashion- and beauty-oriented PR machine had convinced them that there wasn’t much substance to the work. The disappointment often turned around when a stewardess was assigned to a prestigious military or presidential charter, however, or when they began to attend diplomatic events in West Africa, or more generally as their daughters learned to engage with so many different kinds of people. It was a crash course in being confident and authoritative anywhere they landed. The generous family travel benefits helped, too!

"I think it’s up to us to make our own glamour now."

Your book almost made me want to become a flight attendant—at least if I had been a young woman searching for a job in the 1960s. Do you lament the loss of glamour in the way we typically travel now?
That’s a complicated question. I’d absolutely love to have been able to sip a cocktail with the jet-setters in the upstairs lounge of a 747 in 1972, but I also value the workers’ rights now enjoyed by flight crews, the lower cost of travel and other, broader changes that have rendered the glamour so hard for airlines to capture. I think it’s up to us to make our own glamour now. For me it’s my window seat and my favorite scarf, the specific meals I look forward to in particular airports, meandering hallways with my powder-blue suitcase, a cup of tea or glass of wine at a café, people-watching from a quiet place. 

Of the many scenes you write about in Come Fly the World, which would you most like to have witnessed?For me it was the quotidian things in different global cities that my primary subjects mentioned—the travel routines they loved to slip into and the metropolises they loved. I heard about these scenes, like random Wednesdays spent exploring, over and over. I’d want to walk through Hong Kong with Karen Walker, eating at street stalls along the way and popping into galleries and shops, or to explore the souk in Beirut with Lynne Rawling before a daytrip to Byblos, or to play “shake the KGB” in Moscow with Hazel Bowie. And I would give a lot to be dancing to the Kiko Kids at the Equator Club in Nairobi on a Saturday night with Tori Werner and her friends. 

Your passages about the charter flights to Vietnam are particularly vivid and often heartbreaking. How did it feel to record such intense first-person accounts of this chapter of history?
It felt incredibly rewarding, a real honor to be told these accounts with such candor. A few of the women had never spoken in depth about their wartime experiences to anyone before—the stereotypes around stewardessing meant that most people didn’t ask them about these flights or even listen when a pretty woman tried to interject her first-person experiences of the war into a broader conversation. Some of the women just clammed up. A few had been carrying these memories and feelings around with them silently for decades. It was incredible, too, to speak with Vietnam veterans who told me about these flights from their perspectives, and to women who had served in the armed forces, too, to understand these flights from various angles. The sheer youth of the people going to war—the average age on one of those flights would have been around 20—staggered me. 

"As one feminist stewardess put it in the 1970s, they're 'too independent and curious about the world to sit around in a nine-to-five job getting cramps in their shoulders.'"

As you researched, did you collect any Pan Am artifacts? Do you have any favorites?
I did and do—one stewardess with whom I became good friends gave me a vintage Burberry silk scarf with a watercolor Pan Am flying boat on it. I cherish it.

Has writing this book changed your experiences as an airline passenger?
I look at flight crew very differently. They’re frontline workers, safety personnel, people who are still, as one feminist stewardess put it in the 1970s, “too independent and curious about the world to sit around in a nine-to-five job getting cramps in their shoulders.” And I’ve found that being curious about them and their stories (and being a generally courteous passenger) has improved my flight experience many, many times.

How and where have you spent your time during the pandemic? Where do you hope to fly next?
I have been at home in Vermont, isolating and working toward my next book (which will involve lots of travel). It has been so long since I’ve been on a plane—I had a baby, then was working on this book, then the pandemic—that my brain fizzles a bit when I think too hard about where I hope to go next. Favorite places I love and miss: Havana, Lisbon and the Portuguese coast, New York. And places a little farther off that I’d hoped or planned to visit for a long time: Nairobi, to visit a friend who moved back home there, for one. Everywhere, is the easy and difficult answer.

 

Author photo credit: Patrick Proctor

Author Julia Cooke shares her thoughts on air travel, past and present, and offers some suggestions for making your own glamour when you take to the skies.

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