Volume 2, Issue 6 – December, 1999
Judith Ivory: Passionate Victorian
You might not plan to fall in love with a ratcatcher or a gigantic beast of a man with a cast to his eye and an expression so terrible, the snootiest maitre d’ grovels before it. But if you read Judith Ivory — or her alter ego, Judy Cuevas — you won’t be able to help yourself.
Ivory revels in the Victorian period, plunging her readers into the full sensory experience of the age, the varied scents of jasmine and old roses, as well as the stink of the streets. You feel the bite of tightly laced stays and the warm relief of clove oil on a bad tooth. But real as these fictional experiences seem, they pale beside the emotional reality of Ivory’s characters. From courtesans to pioneer filmmakers, estate managers to sculptors, Ivory takes you so deeply into their heads and hearts you never want to let them go.
Crescent Blues: Your heroes seldom fit the standard mold. In recent books, you’ve made heroes of a ratcatcher, an ether addict and an African explorer with more heart than sense who’s considerably younger and less experienced than his heroine. Do you seek out unusual heroes or do they just present themselves to your consciousness?
Judith Ivory: I think any human being you truly get to know is “unusual.” As soon as you see the particulars of a person — the individual — he or she no longer fits the stereotypes. So, no, I don’t seek unusual heroes. I just write about people. I try to make the characters real, which means (if I’m successful) they end up diverging from expectation, just the way real people do. It’s the surprises in people, I think, that make them interesting.
How much do you consciously create your characters? How much do they seem to create themselves from your subconscious mind?
They evolve. I usually have an idea about who they are before I ever start, but early in the process I also like to work through scenes and dialogues to “get to know” who it is I feel like writing about. I frequently don’t have a good fix on a character till the book is about halfway finished, then I go back and clean up the earlier versions. Lydia, my current heroine, grew four inches recently. She suddenly needed to be taller. It’s as if she should have been taller all along. It explains certain angles and impressions that were happening already, before I realized she was too short — a typical development in my work. It fixed all sorts of things.
Do you consider your books character- or plot-driven? How much would you like to change the mix of character to plot, or do you like the ratio the way it is?
Oh, characters drive my books, no doubt, and I love it that way. On the other hand, I love a good plot. My plots, though — the what-goes-wrong that makes the story develop tension and interest — are all derived, I think, from what the characters want, what they are striving for, who they are. Something vital to their identities and/or world views must be at risk.
In The Proposition, Mick’s identity is challenged in ways he never expected, beginning tangibly when he raises his head to look in the mirror and finds no mustache. [Grins.] Meanwhile, Winnie’s very restricted, all female view of life is put to the test when this big, brawny testosterone male enters her world and wreaks havoc with all she has come to believe about her plain, homely self.
How much has that mix changed since you began writing?
Not much. It’s sort of an infinite space to explore for me.
You take risks with your heroines too. Edwina Bollash (“Winnie” in The Proposition) is starchy and plain, despite the great legs the era’s fashions kept hidden. Coco Wilde (Sleeping Beauty) is a courtesan and not at all apologetic about it. What attracts you to these and other less traditional heroines?
Hmm. Well, that’s hard to answer, since I think the plain, starchy Victorian miss is a very common archtype in romance fiction, just as the good-hearted fallen woman is also. I like to think what makes mine seem “less traditional” are the individual touches.
Coco’s serenity and confidence, for instance, I think makes her a little different. She is as bold and confident as any, well, rake; she’s quite a match for James. Winnie’s anxiety and funny little quirk of truly wanting to rule the world, control everything, makes her spinsterish set-up unique. To my mind, at least. It makes her both vulnerable and quite formidable, a good opposite for Mick, who is pure, solid, emotional health personified.
How do readers react? Do you find the uniqueness of your heroes and heroines draws readers in deeper, or do they tell you it’s a little off-putting?
For the most part, in deeper. If people like my work, it’s a comment I get over and over again — that the characters become real to them through the right detail here and there. As to negative readers, I think of it as a very good sign that there seems to be no consistency in the complaints.
In terms of fiction, do you consider yourself a risk-taker? What about in terms of real-life?
Well, it’s so much safer to take chances in fiction. That is part of the pleasure of it. You can be quite wild there, and I like to attempt a little craziness every book. But, yes, in real life, I like to think I’m not always playing it safe either. I wouldn’t want a life constricted by fear. A rich life is necessarily a brave one. I hope I’m brave. I’m not always though.
What do you believe is the biggest risk you’ve ever taken as a writer? How did it pan out?
My biggest risk to date was writing the book Black Silk. I abandoned any artificial conformity to the romance genre and just wrote the book I wanted to write my way. I think it worked out splendidly overall. That style, which was very natural for me and very particular to me, became my “voice.” Since that book, I have tried to simplify my style a little, and I backed off my own personal fascination with high-end vocabulary, but essentially that book helped me see myself as a unique writer. Writing it gave me a new confidence in myself and a confidence in the genre, that it would accommodate individuality in a way I feared it might not.
Speaking of risks, the plots of at least two books, Bliss and Sleeping Beauty, turn on matters of addiction. How did readers react to your frank discussion of the subject and its impact on the respective families involved?
In Sleeping Beauty, you must be referring to the minor character — the villain’s wife (whom we actually never see) — who is addicted to laudanum, which historically was a very real problem for upper class Victorian women. No one has ever said anything about that particular “addiction” before this interview, that I can recall, so I guess it didn’t rock any boats. I felt is was a realistic and highly destructive part of life then — just as drugs are now — so I used it. It seemed relevant.
In fact, I also used it in Dance — Sebastién’s wife dies of an overdose of what is most likely heroin, another Victorian horror that claimed women in particular. The book that did rock a few boats, though, was Bliss, but I always take exception to implications of an addiction theme in the book.
Bliss was, for me, a story of reclaiming oneself, of taking full possession of one’s life — for both protagonists — i.e., becoming an adult. The ether — because I remember the strong, sweet smell from when I was six and had my tonsils out — seemed a good metaphor for the sweet, destructive ease of dependence: of being a child forever. It was never a story about drugs for me.
In fact, ether isn’t physically addictive, which was another reason I chose it. Moreover, it was historical fact — Guy de Maupassant and his ballerina girl friend used to throw parties where they served strawberries soaked in ether. Whole villages in England drank it to get around alcohol taxes. It was just an interesting historical quirk to me.
Anyway, I’ve said all this a thousand times. I made a point in the book that ether wasn’t physically addictive — talked about it, showed, I thought, how physically easy it was for Nardi simply to stop it. But obviously no one hears me. Either my viewpoint doesn’t hold water [grins], or else my voice just can’t out-shout our culture’s preoccupation with drugs.
Nardi was dependent on his family, a family who lived off him, smothered him — anesthetized him — with their love. It’s the story, for me at least, of healthy love vs. controlling, unhealthy attachment, which Nardi, I thought, overcame heroically.
Did you plan Bliss and Dance as a diptych, or was the second book the result of reader demand?
I planned the two. The story of two brothers, where the “villain” of the first book has such a comeuppance that he changes and becomes the hero of the second book.
What do you think makes it so hard to sell romances set in France to the reading public? What makes France a less appealing setting than England, Scotland or Ireland during the same period?
I’m only guessing, but I suspect it might be a matter of visualization. Americans have much less experience with things French than with things British. (Or so they think. In fact, 40 percent of our language comes from French. Many of our customs — the division and content of our daily meals, for instance — are more French than English; much more.)
Anyway, Americans reading the back copy of a book that says “France” on it have very few definite images and connections to draw on — who else do millions of us know beyond Jacques Cousteau? France seems alien to American romance readers, whereas Great Britain feels somehow familiar, a dependable place to put their money. They feel more like they know what kind of a reading experience they are buying.
What do you think it would take to broaden the appeal?
A name-brand author, bought automatically in large numbers, taking an interest in the place, producing enough work set there to broaden a large number of readers’ experiences in positive ways, so that the readers then seek to repeat the experience.
Your romances plunge the reader into the full experience of the Victorian period — smell, taste and texture as well as sight and sound. How do you create such intensity of experience on the page? Do you write from the top of your head, so to speak, or does the intensity result from multiple rewriting?
Mostly in rewriting, though all my best scenes have emotional heat from the very first drafts. So those are two things — the details, the senses, come in layers of rewriting — while the emotion usually comes hot off the first writing. My challenge is usually how to keep the emotional heat while laying in a fuller reality, the sensual placement in the scene — how to put the reader on the spot where I have been in imagination.
How do you conduct your research? Have you acquired a broad-based background in the period that lets you research “on the fly?” Or do you research each book from scratch?
I usually read a dozen or so books before writing a new book. Not always, but usually. Of course to write in the same period now for a while gives me an ever broadening knowledge base, which is sort of nice. Once I start to write, I stack all these books I have read around me. They usually have a lot of post-its hanging out of them, things I want to use one way or another. Plus I collect reference books. I used to go to the library all the time, but I pretty much own one now [grins]. Like Edwina, I have walls, tables, shelves of books in my house.
Your language appears unusually frank and graphic for romance. What makes you gravitate towards this precision of language? Does your background as a mathematician and non-fiction writer play a role?
Hmm. Good writing is precise, I think. Vague terms don’t guide the reader as well. But when you say “frank” and “graphic,” immediately I think you are speaking of sexuality, so I’ll address that directly. Mostly, I feel a need to be consistently straight with my reader. Ann Lamott says good writing is about honesty, and I couldn’t agree more. I think it would be extremely coy of me to write frankly about emotions, especially those connected to love in a romance, then dodge the issue of the physical part of it.
Romance to me has become a kind of dialogue among women about what we really feel about so many things, but especially about sex and love. I find myself needing to be as honest and straightforward as I can with regard to my part of this ongoing conversation. I also like the idea of giving female sexuality dignity — making it good and wholesome, making enjoying it completely acceptable, desirable. It is a rich part of life and certainly a fabulous part of mature love. I think hiding the erotic aspect of love or couching it in euphemisms sends an unhealthy message. It’s normal. It’s good. Let’s talk about it straightforwardly.
How do readers respond?
To the sexuality in my books? Ha. Either openly wildly enthusiastic or shyly wildly enthusiastic or secretly wildly enthusiastic, embarrassingly wildly enthusiastic, etc. You get picture. Sex is the single largest universal of mankind. Everyone is interested in it. My frankness in the matter seems to be a popular part of my writing.
Do you find readers and editors respond similarly or differently on such matters of style?
A good editor responds almost EXACTLY like your largest possible readership. That’s her job.
How much do your travels play a role in the stories you choose to tell?
Bunches. I’ve traveled extensively, and there is nothing like being in a place to know its flavor and habits.
What’s the difference between a Judy Cuevas book and a Judith Ivory book?
The Judith Ivory books have all had the same editor (Carrie Feron of Avon Books/Harper Collins), and her influence, to me at least, is pronounced in them. Carrie has a particularly good understanding of my writing, my strengths and weakness, while she has a simply brilliant understanding of the romance market. She’s a powerhouse of a romance editor — a rare combination of someone who understands the common denominator aspects of the market while having the highest regard for its readers.
How has this translated in my work? The Judith Ivory books are more commercial, while still being absolutely works of my heart. This is a very hard line to walk, but Carrie and I have walked it in a particularly satisfying way to me — and I think to her, too, though it might be presumptuous to speak for her. Anyway, I am enjoying increased sales, yet I don’t feel compromised in what I’m writing. Any writer will tell you this is a near-impossible ideal to find in commercial publishing: quite a gift when it arrives.
What was the reaction of “Judy Cuevas” fans to “Judith Ivory?”
Confusion. I have to say, though, the confused group was very small. [Grins.] Judy Cuevas didn’t have huge numbers of readers. That was the problem.
Beyond the willingness of bookstores to purchase more “Judith Ivorys” than “Judy Cuevas,” how has the name change affected you, particularly as a writer? Do you find yourself gravitating towards different kinds of stories, for example?
No. I can’t say it affects me one way or another that I am aware of. I like the placement better when I go to the bookstore, because alphabetically Judith Ivory isn’t shelved at the far end and down like Judy Cuevas was. Mostly though, I don’t even think about it. I just write my book.
Were the books, Beast, Sleeping Beauty, and The Proposition, intentionally developed with a fairy tale/legend theme? How did the theme arise?
It arose really by chance. Or by subconscious or Muse or whatever. I certainly didn’t intend to write “fairy tales for grown ups.” I was doing, in my mind, “flawed” heroes, and I thought, What would be the worst flaw for a historical romance hero to have to overcome? Being ugly, I answered myself. Monstrously ugly. And voilà, Beast was born. Then Beast did so well, I thought well, let’s do Beauty, but that somehow became Sleeping Beauty.
The Proposition was born on its own. I didn’t feel there was any agenda that had to be. But, lo, it was so Pygmalion from the start, then even a bit of Cinderella slipped in. I was raised on fairy tales, loved them, so it’s natural for me to reexamine — and rewrite — them as I “grow up” myself, I suppose.
Will your next book for Avon also have a fairy tale/legendary focus?
Hmm. I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be at this point. But then neither did some of the others. It is something that happens in final rewrites. Or doesn’t. The next one is about an American cattle baron and an English heiress who get lost together out on the Dartmoor for half the book, then spend the next half trying to untangle what went on out there between them. It’s fun. A bit of African Queen in it. I never know what I’ve written, though, till it’s in. Things change and develop right till the end.
Is there any special significance to the fact that the covers of both Beast and The Proposition feature a single, red rose?
Probably. I know Avon has tried to link all three books — Beast, Sleeping Beauty, and The Proposition — together cover-wise, so readers will recognize a look and want them all. Also, I believe Beast enjoyed an unusual early velocity of sales — Avon couldn’t keep it on shelves in the first weeks of its release. Marketing may be hoping for an association there, hoping that will translate into bestseller lists. Or this could be the author’s wishful thinking, too. [Grins.]
Sleeping Beauty included fond references to Patricia Gaffney’s Vicar of Wyckerly (To Love and Cherish). The Proposition openly refers to G. B. Shaw and the later incarnations of his Pygmalion. Can we take it as a given that there are references to friends’ romances in The Proposition too?
I always like to think I build on the rich tradition of our literary heritage. Which is an inscrutable way of saying, I forget. I truly do. I only remember my little games like that when I happen to reread them.
Any chance you could let us in on the references included in earlier books?
If there are any, I forget them, honestly. I know Sleeping Beauty had a lot of little “love letters” to Gaffney. I adore her work, and she and I are friends, so it was fun to plant private jokes in the book. Jenny Crusie and I have a similar relationship, lots and lots of email and the occasional, face-to-face visit. It’s marvelous to have friends whose work you admire. (I just read Jenny’s newest Welcome to Temptation, and it is her very best, so hilariously fine!) And almost inevitable, for me at least, is that little nose-tweaks and fond kisses slip into my work. I don’t fight it, though I do ask for permission if I use a character by name, which I did with the vicar. I have it in writing that I’m allowed to have done that.
Any chance your older romances will be reprinted shortly?
I own all but one again. I’m sitting on them for now, because I want a lot of money for them. [Grins evilly.] And also because so far no one wants them. [Grins again.]
If you were writing, say, Starlit Surrender or Black Silk today, how would you change them?
I’d fix the historical error in Starlit Surrender, which I will not point out. I’d smooth out the style of Black Silk. Not much else. I’m done with them. I’ve moved on. I like them as they are, like children you’ve raised and sent out into the world. They have to fend for themselves now.
Do you feel the itch to rewrite your books?
I don’t feel this itch. Maybe other writers do. Once I’m done, I’m done. I could rewrite the same book forever, while I’m doing it. You have to pry it from my fingers. But once I’ve let go, I’ve let go. I always have half a dozen writing projects going, so picking up an old one isn’t that appealing. Too much cooking that is new.
What other directions would you like to pursue in your writing? For example, the intensity of your style would seem to lend itself to suspense. Do you have any ambitions in that area or other contemporary genres?
I have a story in the first person set in the beginning of this century I’d like to finish one day. I’d like to do a contemporary, I think. I don’t rule anything out. Mostly, though, I’m pretty happy doing what I’m doing for now.
You recently wrote an essay for Kay Mussell’s anthology, North American Romance Writers. How did it feel to return to writing non-fiction? What was it like to engage in literary criticism of a genre you’ve said should not take itself too seriously?
It was very familiar. I studied literature in college, did post-graduate work in it. I’ve written reams about “proper” literature and always enjoyed it, so it wasn’t a new or a particularly difficult task to write about romance from a “serious” perspective.
As to taking itself too seriously, romance, I would think, strives for the same balance we all do in our maturity. To take yourself too seriously will make you self-important. But to treat yourself lightly, self-deprecatingly, is not realistic either.
Romance must respect itself before it will get the respect it so longs for. Part of self-respect is simply speaking your mind — as I and so many other romance writers did in those articles — knowing it is only your opinion, but that your opinion is as valid as anyone’s. The distinction I would make, I suppose, is between taking yourself too seriously (i.e., thinking you speak for all readers’ tastes and all that is good in writing) and treating yourself with too little respect (i.e., imagining that none of your ideas are worth expressing). One strives for balance, for reality.
Why do you feel it important for romance to remain outside the literary mainstream?
Hmm. I’m not sure I think that now, if I ever did.
Years ago now, Julie Tetel told me that the day romance loses its outsider status is the day it loses its vim and vigor. I think there may be some truth to this. We have some incredible energy going right now in the genre. That energy is the reason, I think, romance is topping all the bestseller lists, literally supporting the publishing industry, while it has begun to produce break-out writers of such a high caliber our critics are left scrambling for explanations.
Some of this driving energy, I suspect, comes from our sense of outrage over having been dismissed, put-down — from the intellectual dishonesty leveled at us that says romance can’t be good, when we in fact know it can be. It can be good, it can be mediocre, it can be egregious, just like anything else.
We continue to evolve as a genre, and I wouldn’t presume to say what will be good five years from now for us as readers and writers of romance. All is flux. Nothing “remains” forever. So, no, I wouldn’t say it is important we “remain” anything. In fact, it is probably important that we adapt, that we change.
Won’t that kind of adaptation and growth ultimately strip romance of its outsider status and lead to its consideration as “literature?” After all, it happened to Jane Austen.
Oh, we are literature, always have been, since Woodiwiss and Rogers first put their pen to paper. We just don’t get credit for it, and that keeps us humble. Too humble sometimes. Again, I’d make the distinction between being self-important and being self-respectful.
Just because I or any other writer strive for well-rounded characters, lucid plots, or intelligent writing doesn’t mean I achieve these things at every turn. These are ideals. Meanwhile humility is extremely important if one is to grow and see the world realistically. Every writer is striving to do her best, by and large. I especially like romance right now because there is less vanity — less of an assumption that we have written something for all time, for posterity — than in literary fiction. It’s balance I want, in my writing and in my life.
What is the most insightful thing anyone has ever said or asked about your writing?
Oh, everyone gets different things from my writing, and I never worry about it. It takes two imaginations, so I figure it’s up to [the readers] to do their part once I finish a book; get what you will from it.
Still, someone once wrote to me with a comment that I loved. It made me laugh and made me flush with pleasure. A lady said she read one of my books and just wasn’t expecting it to be “so much to read.” At first, she decided it was too much to read, not what she’d thought she’d bought.
She came to the conclusion that she hated it. She then explained at some length why she’d hated my book, how the characters’ thinking wasn’t good enough or noble enough or right enough somehow. She put the book down, she told me. But then, she said, it wouldn’t leave her alone. She kept thinking about it till she had to go back to it. Eventually, she read every word “and thought and thought about it.” All this thinking, she said.
She decided she loved it by the end, that the characters made mistakes but they were good, and she forgave them like real people she loved. But she added at the end of her letter that she was glad I didn’t write more than one book a year, because she couldn’t take more than one a year. Which made me burst out laughing.
In any event, I love that I made her think. It’s wonderful to imagine you affect people. In a good way. In my fantasies I always imagine that I write and by doing so I somehow make someone’s life better, more meaningful, more authentic somehow — more content. That’s what good fiction does for me. It’s what I strive for — and miss the mark on a lot. But it’s such a wonderful goal to live with.
Jean Marie Ward
In addition to editing Crescent Blues, Jean Marie Ward writes for a number of Web-based and print magazines, including Science Fiction Weekly. She is the author of Illumina: the Art of Jean Pierre Targete (Paper Tiger) and several short stories, including “Most Dead Bodies in a Confined Space” in Strange Pleasures 2 (Prime Books). Her first novel, With Nine You Get Vanyr, written with Teri Smith, is scheduled to be released by Samhain Publishing in late 2006..