Guest Post #1 from David Blixt, author of FORTUNE'S FOOL

I'm delighted to welcome back my friend and historical novelist extraordinaire, David Blixt. A few years ago, David published the gorgeously inventive MASTER OF VERONA, set in Renaissance Verona and exploring the historical origins of the Romeo and Juliet legend. Master of Verona captured many readers' hearts and had us all salivating for the next book in the series. At long last, David has released the sequels, VOICE OF THE FALCONER and FORTUNE'S FOOL, as well as the first novel in his new series set in ancient Rome - COLOSSUS - and a delightfully witty and suspenseful Elizabethan thriller, HER MAJESTY'S WILL. I'll be hosting David here for a few days, so please help me give him a warm welcome!

 

Coffee With The Count

By David Blixt 

 In THE MASTER OF VERONA, the title ‘Count’ is reserved for my villain, the historical Count of San Bonifacio. But if I were to mention the Count to my wife, she would respond with a smile and a joke about pouring coffee. She tells this story so much better than I do. So, without further ado, Jan Blixt telling the story of ‘Coffee With The Count.’

David and I got married in 2002. Our honeymoon also served as a research trip for him. Of the three months we spent touring Europe, starting in Greece and ending in London, fully a month was spent in Italy. Of that month, a week was spent in Verona. Thanks to the advice of a friend, photo-journalist David Turnley, he’d been in contact with Antonella Leonardo, an assistant minister of culture. She arranged every meeting we had in Verona. It was June, and Italy was experiencing a major heat wave, so there were a lot of dinners.The first time we met her, she gave us a list of places to go, people to talk to, and, in passing, handed David a card saying, “And, of course, you'd like to talk to the Count of Serego-Alighieri. He still lives on the estate purchased by Dante's son.” Well, yes. Of course we would. Ummm,wow. The Count has a card. Okay.

So we sat on the bed in our hotel room debating just what one should say to a count when one calls to set up a chat. Finally deciding our natural paralysis was a bit ridiculous, David, in a burst of confidence and devil-may-care energy, called the number we had been given and reached the Count's teenage daughter. "Pronto."

David said something like, "I'm looking for the, uh, Count?"

"My father isn't here. Leave your name and he'll ring you back."

Minutes later the phone trilled, and I leapt for it. "Hello?"

"Hello. This is Piere-Alvins, the Count Serego-Alighieri."

"Hi! Um, my name is David Blixt. I'm writing a book about Shakespeare and Dante, and one of the main characters is Dante's son, Pietro. I was, ah, wondering if I could come out and – speak to you."

"How long are you in Verona?"

"Until Saturday."

"Come up tomorrow morning. 10 o'clock. Yes?"

"Yes! We'll be there!"

“Ring the bell.”

That night, David and I had a wonderful dinner with a couple of college professors, true academics and Marxists to the core. The meal was lovely – other than the argument we had when we mentioned our next day's excursion: “Italy is a democracy! There are no Counts anymore!”

Well, okay then... But we were still set to meet the direct descendant of Dante Alighieri at the home and vineyard Pietro Alighieri purchased in 1353! Call us starstruck, but that was pretty cool in our minds. We whispered to each other in the cab on the way home from dinner “And he is SO a Count.”

The next morning we took a cab from our hotel to the address we had been given, many miles outside of the city, down winding country roads.  The cabbie stopped the car next to a rather nondescript 15 foot high stone wall.  In garbled Itanglish, we asked “Is this it?”  He nodded and pointed at the wall. As the cab drove away, David noticed that there were some buzzer buttons placed high on the wall – the kind you find at the front door of many Chicago 3-flats, little white buttons with little white nametags made on a labeling machine next to them.  They said things like ‘Vineyard Business Office’ and ‘First Floor Office’ – in Italian, of course. One said ‘Count Serego-Alighieri.’ Giggling like five-year-olds, we pressed that button. After a moment, a low voice came over a small speaker, "Si?"

Immediately sobering, David said, "Hello. My name is David Blixt and I have an appointment to meet with the Count." After a pause, "Si, yes, turn the corner and go in the Vineyard office."

About 20 feet from the little buttons, the wall made a turn. We walked to that point and saw that where the wall seemed to end was a door into a large, rustic, wood paneled and beamed room full of racks and barrels – the walls covered with bottles of wine and vinegar. There was a counter on one wall with two young women wrapping bottles for shipment, and a desk near a door on the far side of the room with a young man who appeared to be doing accounts. The workers in the room barely glanced up. David and I stood in the dim room nervously waiting – for what we weren't sure. A moment or two later, the far door opened and a man entered. He was of medium height, slight of weight, and had straight brown hair, greying at the temples, in an expensive cut.  He was wearing a linen button-down white shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows and open at the neck and grey linen trousers. He looked at the two of us and approached with a hand outstretched. “Hello, I am Piere-Alvins Serego-Alighieri and you must be David and Mrs. Blixt.”  We nodded and smiled as David shook hands with him and he nodded in greeting to me. “Why don't we go into the house.” And he turned and walked towards the door from which he came.

The Count lead us into a large paved in stones courtyard framed by the vineyard building we had just left, a large square barn-like building, a long, two-storied stone building, and the house.The house! A lovely Italian stone house that looked both fresh and inviting and also as if it had been there forever, carved out of the countryside. It had large double doors in the center of the first floor that led us into a two-storied entryway. The marble floor was polished to an almost mirror-like sheen, the center of the floor containing an inlaid heraldic crest. David and I skirted the crest, trying to study it and the rest of the room surreptitiously while following the Count. He noticed our appraisal of the floor and said, “That was updated in the 1470s when the Serego family married the Alighieri.  It was originally just the Alighieri symbol – now it is much more.”

David told him that the main character of his book was Pietro Alighieri and that we were very interested in the home that he had built – and were fascinated to discover his descendant still lived there.

The Count smiled briefly. “Then you will appreciate this.” He opened a large cabinet against a wall in the entryway and pulled out a poster-sized piece of parchment.  He held it up for us to see, and as we tried to decipher the Italian of the document he said, “The original deed to the property.” Seriously. He just happened to have a document from the 14th century in a cabinet in his entryway. “Let me show you around.”

Piere-Alvins Serego-Alighieri is an elegant man. I can't think of any other word to describe him. He is soft spoken, his low voice easy to hear and relaxed with a lovely Italian accent to his fluent English. He uses his hands occasionally as he speaks – not in the stereotypical Mediterranean style, but simply, casually, with fluid motions from the wrists. He’s the kind of man who seems to use no excess energy as he moves or speaks – he is perfectly balanced and perfectly calm and perfectly natural in the incredible grace of his home. He smoked quite a bit while we were there, but the smoking had a quiet, cavalier quality instead of the rat-like energy most Americans have when they smoke.

 

We followed him through his home, through rooms that had been decorated in the 14th century and redecorated throughout the centuries since. Antiques from seven centuries lived together in this house. As we walked from room to room, I was reminded of the different villas and homes and museums we had toured in our travels that summer and felt these rooms were no less opulent or stylish, their contents no less rare or extraordinary than the rooms that were blocked off by red-velvet ropes to preserve their treasures. And, interesting to me, mixed in among the 15th and 19th century antique chairs, tables, paintings, and chests were cds and a new stereo system on a console table, family photos in bright plastic frames, and recently published paperbacks and magazines on a sofa here or on a desk there. In the midst of this museum of a house was a home, with a teenage girl living there. Amazing.

We ended up in a small study (small being a comparative word choice. It was smaller than some of the rooms we'd been in, but larger than our Chicago apartment). This one held the wedding coaches the bride and the groom rode in when the Alighieris married the Seregos. Like the entry foyer, this room had a crest in the stone floor and also a large fireplace and floor to ceiling French doors. We sat on an upholstered settee and the Count sat across a large coffee table from us in a leather club chair.

He and David discussed some of the history of the Alighieri family while I tried not to gape at the room. Apparently, the Alighieri sons had the tendency, in the generations following Pietro, to join the priesthood, and by the late 15th century there were no marriageable males left. At that point in the family's history, there was only one daughter, the sons both having taken holy orders. The daughter was courted by a Count Serego and, when he asked her brothers to marry her, they agreed on one condition – that they not allow the name of Dante Alighieri to die out. They would give the Count their sister if, in return, he took their name and passed it along to their children. It was at this time that the family became Serego-Alighieri.

At this point in the conversation, the Count switched gears and asked, “Would you like coffee?” He then stood, walked over to the door, and called “Marco!” out into the hall. A pause. “Marco!” He then spoke quietly to someone in the hallway and then returned to his seat. David asked a question about the original size of the land purchase and they continued their discussion. After a few minutes, a man tall man in a suit appeared in the doorway with a tray and silver coffee service. The Count stopped his narrative while the man placed the tray on the coffee table. "Grazie, Marco," he murmured as the man left the room. The Count then picked up his description of the original planting of the vineyards where he had left off.

David and the Count chatted on for a while as I continued to look around the room and admire the small pieces around me. After a couple of minutes, I wondered about the coffee. It was just sitting there on the table between us. The Count's manservant (his manservant!... teehee) didn't appear to be coming back. And then it occurred to me – I am woman.Hear me roar. Oh – and the Count seemed to be waiting for me to pour. Seriously.

I was sitting in a 14th century villa in the Italian countryside with my husband and a Count and they were expecting me to pour their coffee. After a few calming breaths and a mental gathering of the all the societal morays I’d culled from Jane Austin's novels, I reached out and took the handle of the coffee pot and asked, “Shall I pour?”

The Count waived assent with cigarette-in-hand and continued to talk to David about the outbuildings and when they were added to the original plan. I sat on the settee with the coffeepot in one hand, picking up the cups and saucers in the other and trying to keep my hands still enough that the china didn't rattle as I asked at appropriate breaks in the conversation, “How do you like your coffee?”

The Count likes his with a little cream.

Somehow I managed to serve, feeling like I was having tea with the Queen. And feeling incredibly American and incredibly 21st century. And feeling a little bit angry with my feminist self who wouldn't shut up and stop whispering in my ear: Why can't he pour his own damn coffee?

The books that came out of all this are THE MASTER OF VERONA, VOICE OF THE FALCONER, and FORTUNE’S FOOL. I’m pretty proud of them, and of David.

Thanks, Jan and David. To learn more about David and his work, please visit him at his website. And don't forget to return next week for another of David's entertaining posts.

Interviewing David Blixt, author of Master of Verona

Well, here it is: my first interview with another man who writes historical fiction. I've had the good fortune to recently correspond with David Blixt, author of the recently-released Master of Verona, a novel of intrigue, passion, and betrayal set in 14th century Italy. The Historical Novels Review calls his debut novel "a mesmerizing tapestry of tales written in five acts. The great poet, Dante, arrives in Verona. His patron is Verona’s ruler, Francesco della Scala. In a fast-moving sequence, Dante’s son, Pietro, follows della Scala into battle against neighboring Padua. It is the beginning of Pietro’s story as confidant, friend, and knight in service of the master of Verona—and as witness to the tragic love triangle of his two friends and the girl they both love. The story climbs to a climactic twist, and Pietro must confront his destiny. "

No one says it better than HNS. I'd like to add that David is indeed an accomplished writer, as well as a professional actor. In fact, it's hard to believe this is his first book. He imbues his tale with a wonderful sense of time and place, an innate instinct for dialogue and choreography, and a scholarly attention to detail. Though Master of Verona is apparently being marketed as an "adventure epic", both its female and male characters spring to life with an individuality and sensitivity that will appeal to all readers. Yes, there are war and fight sequences; but there are also vividly drawn 'quiet' moments. If you're one of the readers who fears our genre might become a frocks and herbs catalogue, you're going to love David. Plus, he has great titles for his subsequent books and he does great interviews.

So, without further ado, I give you David Blixt:

First of all, congratulations on the publication of Master of Verona.

Thanks much.

1. Given that you're a professional Shakespearean actor and director, what inspired you to transform the events preceding Romeo and Juliet into a novel? What did you find particularly appealing about this particular era, as opposed to, say, that of Macbeth?

It was an idea I simply couldn’t get out of my head. I was directing R&J, and I stumbled across Montague’s line at the very end of the show mentioning his wife’s demise. It struck an odd chord, because it made me ask the question, “Why do we care?” Lady Montague has three lines in the play, all in Act One Scene One. Why does she get the final death of the show?

Obviously, Shakespeare was covering for the fact that there was double-casting going on, and the actor playing Lady Montague was now someone else. But still, in terms of dramatic structure it bothered me. A death off-stage is supposed to be symbolic of something, and death is only symbolic of an ending. But the only thing that ends in the show is the feud between the families. So, Lady Montague’s death was symbolic of the end of the feud? Which didn’t make any sense to me, unless she was the cause of the feud.
That was the initial inspiration – two friends, in love with the same woman, go to war over her. Research and writing took the story to other places, but that was the kernel.

The era? It’s the true birth of the Renaissance! And it’s fascinating to me, because I knew so little about it. Not much is out there – A Distant Mirror, The Name Of The Rose, A World Lit Only By Fire. Besides, Mac has been done – I own two fictionalized versions of his life, and know of two more coming our way. I have nothing more to add to that story – which is not to say that I have nothing to say about other Shakespeare plays. There’s a whole other series rattling around in my head that I’ve begun to do the research for. Maybe after book four of the Mercutio series….

2. Your novel features characters from Shakespeare's play, one of whom is Lady Montague, Romeo's mother. As a writer, how did you slip into this formidable lady's P.O.V.? Did you find "becoming a woman" easy or challenging? Can you tell us about any methods you used to make her realistic?

I actually spend less time in her head than I do inside the mind of Dante’s daughter, Antonia. She’s the child of Dante’s heart, in that she’s the one who can truly discuss poetry and publishing – his world. I’m not sure how to address the idea of entering a woman’s head rather than a man’s – though it’s often my experience that women are more logical thinkers than men. Which is counter-intuitive to the way that society tends to want them drawn, but I think men have more emotional motives than women. They just don’t look at it that way, and rarely are called on it. So Antonia is a very precise, grounded young lady, whereas Romeo’s mother is everything that’s bad about being “emotional” – she’s impulsive, careless, and destructive. But, thinking it over, out of the four major female characters, she’s the only one who is overtly emotional.

It’s a hard question, one I’m grappling with. What do I do to write women? Find their motives, same as I would the men. Then they write themselves.

3. Your novel is set in 14th century Italy, a fascinating and complex era. How did you go about recreating this period of time for your reader?

Research, research, research – and fingers crossed, hoping I haven’t made any glaring mistakes. An earlier draft of the book was actually a third longer, the whole thing being chock-full of cool historical data. Then my editor, the wise and mighty Michael Denneny, said, “David, you’ve confused what a writer needs to know to write the book with what a reader needs to know to read it – which is much less.” So 110,000 words went away, keeping only the best of the flavor. I’ve tried, also, to keep to themes in both Dante and Shakespeare – both dramatic, and literary. Dramatically, there are chases and duels, intrigue and politics, poetry and base humor. There is also the five act structure, with a major climax happening in the middle of the book, which leads to the fallout at the end.

Literarily, I kept in mind that Dante discarded formal Latin for his great epic, choosing instead the vernacular. Also that Shakespeare’s company wore their own clothes for costumes, even in “period” pieces like Julius Caesar. So instead of creating a faux medieval style of speech, I have the characters speak, for the most part, in a modern vernacular. Which isn’t at all unheard of, but a trifle controversial. On the other hand, the customs, styles of dress, forms of combat, menus – all of these are as authentic as I could make them.

4. Historical fiction is considered a predominantly female genre, with a larger percentage of women readers and writers. Male historical fiction writers are therefore often classified within the adventure/epic subgenres. Though Master of Verona certainly contains these "male" elements, its multifaceted depth and emotion will engage readers of both genders. Did you encounter difficulties during the process of publishing this book that you think might be attributed to your gender? Do you think male historical fiction writers need to make an extra effort in order to reach their intended audience?

Well, my first literary agent tried to sell it as a romance novel. Does that count? I have no idea how gender has played into the long road to publication. It has never been explicitly commented upon, and until now I’ve perhaps been too blind to see that it might be a hurdle. But the larger problem was me being told that historical fiction was dying as a genre – which is patently untrue, but as long as editors say it, it is true. The readers, male and female, are out there, and with the emergence of Philippa Gregory the houses may have realized that historical fiction didn’t die with Patrick O’Brian.

Back to the gender issue – I remember once writing a short story for a class about a young colonial girl awaiting her love on a snowy night. Her father had given permission for them to court, and they would spend the night “bundling” – a really sweet practice, where the boy and girl are placed in a bed with a board between them, and the boy basically sleeps in a sack that ties at the throat. In a time when he was needed to work the farm, night-time was the only free time to court. But that wasn’t the story. The story was her, sitting at the window, waiting. It was a tale of anticipation, the moment before. I turned the story in and was asked who wrote it for me. Because it was inconceivable that a guy interested in swords and horses could have written it. So I guess that I have ever balanced my tenderer moments with bouts of blood and manly deeds, just to keep my cred.

5. How do you think your novel speaks to today's reader, or how do the events you evoke resonate in today's world?

I can only hope that the themes of misplaced trust, friendship, loyalty, betrayal, and honor will strike a familiar chord with readers. Certainly there are lots of friends who have split over a girl (or a guy). One major theme, and this is from personal experience, is the search for authority. Someone to trust, to believe in. And the disillusionment when that person is revealed as flawed and human. I feel as if America has just had that experience, but instead of learning from it, we’re starting the process earlier than ever to find another authority to put all our hopes into.

6. Can you tell us about your next project?

One of them, anyway. The sequel, currently being passed between editors under the title of THE FALCON’S LURE, picks up eight years after MV, and follows Mercutio as he returns to Verona to take up the title of Heir. That’s done, though, and I’m working on the research for the third novel, FORTUNE’S FOOL. That’s in addition to a tv pilot and another series of novels.

7. Anything you would like to add for our readers?

Only that THE MASTER OF VERONA makes a terrific gift. Or doorstop. Or object d’art. Seriously. It’s quite pretty. That, and I need to thank my wife, who has been at my side this whole time – or rather, kept me by her side. Talk about inspiration – I breathe because she is here.


Thank you, David, for spending time with us. For my readers, know that Master of Verona is much more than a pretty fixture for your library shelf. I'm in the throes of it and have major writer envy. Go out and get a copy. Help this debut writer beat the odds, and prove that when it comes to gender, we afficionados of historical fiction just don't care, as long as the book is written well.

Upcoming interviews and another update

Okay, so you can't say I'm resting on my proverbial laurals, I've just gotten an enthusiastic "yes" from David Blixt, author of the recently released and terrifically engaging historical fiction novel Master of Verona, to be interviewed on this blog. That makes two men writers who've agreed to share their insights and I'm seeking out more.

If you want to get to know David before I post his interview, please head over to the indefatigable Sarah Johnson's blog Reading the Past, where she's just posted an in-depth interview with him that offers great insights into him and his work. Thanks, Sarah!

On my front, I'm very pleased (and relieved) to report that my editor at Ballantine Books has officially "approved" my revisions to The Last Queen. To those who might not understand the significance, this means I've entered the final phase toward publication. Acceptance of the revised manuscript was crucial, as the changes my editor suggested were dependant on my ability to implement them. I'm glad to say that, while challenging at moments, the revisions significantly improved the book, not to mention that it was great fun to rediscover the characters while writing several new scenes and revising / altering others.

I've since returned to my Catherine de Medici manuscript, which poses its own unique challenges in that I find myself struggling against a word count limit that my book clearly would rather exceed. Nevertheless, the discipline I must exercise in keeping the words under strict control has taught me some invaluable editorial lessons in how not to indulge my near-incontrollable urge to pile on those rampant adjectives and adverbs.