One of my starting points for research for my novels is often reading what was written at the time. An absolute joy when writing a murder mystery set in the 1930s because it meant revisiting the Golden Age of crime, a time when female novelists ruled the genre. However, even with so many women in charge, there were very few female sleuths. Of course, from a practical point of view it makes sense. At a time when women were so constricted by social convention, not even able to open a bank account in their own name, it would have been very difficult for them to overcome those obstacles. Even Christie’s most well-known female sleuths get away with it for particular reasons: Jane Marple because she’s of a certain age, practically invisible so that people dismiss her as a threat; Tuppence Beresford who works alongside her husband Tommy.
Writing my accidental sleuth Lena Aldridge, who has had a run of the worst luck in terms of being close to murder on several occasions, I had some extra impediments to consider. A young woman who grew up in the East End of London, of mixed heritage, she’s not the usual Golden Age heroine. Her one advantage is that she’s a singer and actress. Used to playing a role and not minding if she’s the centre of attention, she survives a transatlantic crossing in her first outing, Miss Aldridge Regrets, by faking it. For the sequel, Harlem After Midnight, I began reading up on the women of the Harlem Renaissance.
One of my favourite novels, Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel Passing, is considered a literary classic but it is also a psychological thriller. Two old acquaintances meet accidentally in a fancy hotel restaurant in Chicago after not seeing one another for years, both hiding the same secret: they’re both African American but light skinned enough to pass the hotel’s colour bar. While one of the women lives openly with her heritage, the other lives as a white woman with her openly racist husband. Of course, the rebirth of their friendship throws both women’s lives into chaos and a final tragedy that I pay homage to in Harlem After Midnight.
Larsen herself gave me permission to be freer with what Lena is able to get away with in 1930s Harlem. A former nurse and librarian, she was at the heart of the Harlem Renaissance despite her working-class background (most members of that group were of the Black middle class with university educations). After becoming the first African American woman to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship she travelled alone around Europe, staying for longer periods in Mallorca and Paris.
If Nella Larsen could do these things, then so could Lena. What I love about history is its ability to surprise through the stories of individual people. Writing the women of the past is always interesting both in terms of those pioneers who were breaking all the rules and effecting change, but also in remembering how far we’ve come.
Harlem After Midnight by Louise Hare.
1936, September 17th, 1am. In the middle of Harlem, in the dead of night, a woman falls from a second storey window. In her hand, she holds a passport and the name written on it is Lena Aldridge. Nine days earlier. Lena arrived in Harlem less than two weeks ago, full of hope for her burgeoning romance with Will Goodman, the handsome musician she met on board the Queen Mary. Will has arranged for Lena to stay with friends of his, and this will give her the chance to find out if their relationship is going anywhere. But there is another reason she's in Harlem – to find out what happened in 1908 to make her father flee to London. As Lena's investigations progress, not only does she realise her father lied to her, but the man she’s falling too fast and too hard for has secrets of his own. And those secrets have put Lena in terrible danger.
Harlem After Midnight by Louise Hare is published by HQ, HarperCollins in paperback, eBook and audiobook on the 11th April.
More information about Louise Hare and her books can be found on her website. Louise Hare can also be found on “X” and on Instagram at @Lourhare. You can also find her on Facebook.
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