Interview: Greer Macallister

Midwestern Gothic staffer Kathleen Janescheck talked with author Greer Macallister about her novel Girl in Disguise, breaking barriers, the bad-ass women of history, and more.

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Kathleen Janescheck: What’s your connection to the Midwest?

Greer Macallister: I was born in Michigan and raised in Iowa from a very young age until I went to college, so I consider myself a Midwesterner who happens to live on the East Coast. Growing up in the Midwest is core to my identity.

KJ: Both of your novels, The Magician’s Lie and Girl in Disguise, have had Midwestern settings-Iowa and Chicago, respectively-so how has the physical landscape of the Midwest shaped your works?

GM: Small-town Iowa was an easy choice for the present action of The Magician’s Lie, because it’s somewhere the protagonist, famous illusionist The Amazing Arden, has no familiarity with. She’s on unknown ground, literally. The policeman who has her under arrest has lived there all his life. I wanted them opposed in as many ways as possible, and geography is part of that. For Girl in Disguise, the Pinkerton Detective Agency was based in Chicago at that time and the real-life Kate Warne really was hired there, so I had no choice! But it was a growing, vibrant city still finding its identity in the 1850s, still somewhere between the staid East Coast and the truly Wild West. So it’s a great setting for the first female detective in the U.S. to make her mark.

KJ: Do you think the literary world has ignored the Midwest?

GM: I think the myth of “New York City” as the be-all and end-all of the literary world has been a disservice to writers in general. You can be an amazing writer from anywhere. You can bloom anywhere you’re planted. I’ve been a writer in Iowa, I’ve been a writer in Brooklyn, I’ve been a writer in Philadelphia, and so on. New York is just more expensive. Some of the best writers got their education in Iowa City and some didn’t. I just hate the idea that any writer is self-limiting their potential by thinking that a particular geography or program is going to make or break their career. Your opportunities aren’t identical everywhere, of course, but there are still opportunities.

KJ: Girl in Disguise is a work of fiction, but inspired by the true story of Kate Warne, who is considered the first female detective. How do you navigate the line between fact and fiction?

GM: Very happily! For better or worse, the historical record doesn’t give us a lot to work with as far as Kate is concerned. So I’m writing historical fiction that’s a little history and a lot of fiction. If you have letters, diaries, extensive records, you have a different challenge – you have to pare it down. I was building up. I gave Kate the personality I think she would have to have had to do the things she did. She walked into Allan Pinkerton’s office in 1856 and told him a woman could do things men couldn’t do. Obviously she was bold. Everything started there.

KJ: What drew you to write about Kate Warne in the first place?

GM: The fact that I made it to my late 30s without ever having heard her name told me that someone absolutely needed to tell her story. I decided it should be me, and my agent and editor quickly agreed. All I had to say was “first female Pinkerton detective” and they said “Oooh!” As a writer, you want that “oooh.” Especially from the reader. You want to pique their curiosity right off the bat.

KJ: How do you think writing about women of the past can affect the present?

GM: There are two reasons I do it, and they’re kind of opposites. One is to inspire and inform – look at these things women have been doing all along that they didn’t get credit for! If they could break those barriers, what amazing things can we do today? The other is to draw a direct, possibly unflattering parallel to the present – are things really so different, have we come as far as we’d like to think? The audience members of Arden’s time, the 1900s, are made very uncomfortable by an illusion in which a woman cuts a man in half – are there parts of our country where that would still be true today? I bet there are. And those same people would say, “Oh, sure, a male magician cuts his pretty assistant in half, that’s just how it is, you can’t read anything into that.” But you flip it, and they freak out. Showing a woman in a position of power over a man is still challenging to some people’s worldview. It shouldn’t be, but here we are.

KJ: Your work has been praised for its vivid and immersive depictions of the past-how do you construct an atmosphere in your works?

GM: The careful selection of detail, which I think is one of the hardest writing skills to develop and one of the most important. I was reading a historical novel the other day that referred to someone “singing a popular tune.” If I’m writing that book, I’m probably going to tell you he was “laboring through a halting version of ‘Sweet Rosie O’Grady’ that would have put Gaskin in his grave.” The name of the song might not mean anything to you, but it’ll pull you a little bit more into that world. Similarly, I don’t want to bring an action scene to a halt to give you a dissertation on the history of corsetry, but if a character can’t catch her breath because her corset is too tight and the whalebone’s digging into her skin, that helps put you in the scene.

KJ: You’ve written a bit of everything-poetry, fiction, plays-what has each genre taught you about writing?

GM: I feel very lucky to have studied and written widely across genres. Poetry helps you perfect the art of word choice – it gives you the luxury of playing around with particular words and hearing how they sound next to each other, the patterns, the rhythms. Plays are great for improving your dialogue. But fiction is where I feel most at home, and I think it benefits from the skills I developed elsewhere. All writing is related. Practice one and you get better at the others, even as you have to make sure you’re also working on what your particular genre requires. For novels that’s character development within a coherent and compelling plot.

KJ: What women writers have most inspired you and influenced your work?

GM: Margaret Atwood, first and foremost. Talk about someone who works across genres, my goodness. Madeleine L’Engle from the time I was very young. Barbara Kingsolver. I’m also challenged and inspired by my fellow historical fiction writers who are always producing amazing new work. Readers today have so much to choose from, which can be daunting as a writer, but it’s really exciting as a reader, too.

KJ: What’s next for you?

GM: I’m working hard on promoting Girl In Disguise now that it’s out in the world, and also working on my next novel in the meantime. That’s a hard balance, so Girl In Disguise is taking precedence for the next couple of months. (Readers can find my tour schedule on greermacallister.com/events.) I’ve been saying my work in progress is more work than progress lately. But my third novel is another story partially inspired by history, featuring a strong female protagonist. That’s my sweet spot right now: the bad-ass women of history.

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Raised in the Midwest, Greer Macallister is a poet, short story writer, playwright and novelist whose work has appeared in publications such as The North American Review, The Missouri Review, and The Messenger. Her plays have been performed at American University, where she earned her MFA in Creative Writing. She lives with her family on the East Coast. Her debut novel The Magician’s Lie was a weekly or monthly pick by Indie Next, LibraryReads, People Magazine, SheReads, PopSugar, Publishers Weekly, The Boston Globe, and Audible.com.

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