June 23, 2026 • 50 mins
June’s Reese’s Book Club Pick, A Pair of Aces, takes two women from different worlds, and brings them together to reveal the truth. The novel’s two authors, Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, are doing the same thing in real life. This week, Danielle, Marie and Victoria get into the nuances of writing historical fiction, finding stories that no one else was willing to tell, and why women have always banded together - and been stronger for it.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bookmarked by Riese's book Club is presented by Apple Books. Hi,
I'm Danielle Robe and welcome to Bookmarked by Riese's book Club.
I love stories that make you ask, how have I
never heard this before? Well, The June Reese's book Club
pick A Pair of Aces introduces us to two remarkable
(00:23):
women who crosspaths in the nineteen thirties in New York City.
Polly Adler was one of the city's most powerful madams,
and Eunice Carter was the first black woman prosecutor in
New York City. One operated outside the law, the other
dedicated her life to upholding it. Yet together they helped
expose one of the most notorious criminal networks in America.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Not as friends, but as allies.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
The novel is written by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray,
whose partnership feels fitting for a.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Story about alliances.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
For years now, they've worked together to uncover women that
history forgot, overlooked or simply never gave enough credit. They
also happen to be great friends, which makes their writing
and the interview even more fun. So today we're talking
about hidden histories, powerful partnerships, and why some of the
most fascinating stories are the ones we've never been told.
(01:22):
So if you've ever wondered what happens when two women
decide to challenge the system together, you are in the
right place. Let's turn the page with Marie Benedict and
Victoria Christopher Murray.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Hi, Marie, Hi Victoria. Welcome to the club.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Ay, thank you for having us.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Thank you, Danielle. We're so excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
You two are.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Our first friend writing duo. It's a very exciting day.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
We are beyond excited.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I feel like we have to start by asking you
your favorite literary duos.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
I would say my fictional literary duos would be the
Bennett's Sisters Prime Pressures. I love them so much, and
I'm the oldest of four sisters, so that really spoke
to me. Writing duos is more difficult. There aren't that
many of us, you know, who really gone out there
and done it. I would say it's little known and
(02:15):
that kind of place to what we do excavating these
crucial historical women. But you know, f Scott Fitzgerald is
so famous, but his wife Zelda was actually super important
in his novels and in writing. It's not almost she
was a writer herself, so I would say write her
back into the story and say, Zelda and f Scott,
those are great.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
And I love the Bennett's sisters. They're so enduring, and
I just love how they show us all the how
to be different women in.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
The world exactly exactly.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
And my favorite is Virginia DuBarry and Donna Grant, who
were two models. They were both modeling in New York
City and they were competing for the same spots. Ended
up becoming friends and they ended up writing about four
novels together. And the thing that's so interesting about the
way they write is they sit at one computer and
(03:05):
one of them types while they just talked it through,
and then the other one will switch and type. And
I always found that fascinating, and I've become friends with them,
but they are my favorite writing duo just because of
how they do it.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, that process is so interesting. Yes, Okay, Well I
found it interesting that you both had established careers before
you started writing. Marie you were a lawyer and Victoria
you were an entrepreneur. What is the moment that each
of you decided you were going to become writers.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
I think from my perspective, you know. I was a
New York City commercial litigator working at huge New York
law firms, and from day one I knew it wasn't
what I was supposed to be doing. I had been
a history major and I want to be archaeologist in college,
and I kind of got lured into being a lawyer.
And so from the get go, I was always kind
of going back to my love for unearthing these hidden stories,
(04:01):
taking graduate classes, considering PhDs. And then one day, out
of the clear blue, a fully formed story kind of
came to me, and I chipped.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Away, what do you mean it came to you?
Speaker 4 (04:14):
It's really weird. So a friend of mine, who was
another lawyer, asked me a question, and it came to me.
She said, would there ever be a case I would
take on? I would refuse to take on on moral grounds,
even though my client had a really good position. And
I didn't have an answer for it right away, But
a couple days later I read about one of the
very first few cases of families of Holocaust victims trying
(04:35):
to get their artwork back. This is in the nineties,
and all of a sudden I had an idea for
a story, and that had never happened to me, and
I just dove in and it was you know, it
was historical. This was a very little known area of
history at that time, and that that was really how
I first became a writer, kind of inadvertently, but hearkening
back to my.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Early passions fascinating.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
And I just think that's so cool that it started
with some friend or colleague asking you a beautiful question.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Yeah, it really did. And I always my friend now
and I are both on completely different career paths. She
started a nonprofit for girls called Etra, and so we're
just kind of circling back to what we originally started,
but we both kind of brought each other along for
the ride.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Beautiful a sisterhood too.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
And I was always supposed to be a writer.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
I was supposed to be a writer because I came
out of my mother's wanting to be a writer.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
So all those other Koreas got in the way.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
I've wanted to be a writer since I was seven
years old. That's the time when I wrote something, a
teacher called me a writer, and then I.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Was going to be a writer.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
But what we're all of those other jobs, Victoria.
Speaker 5 (05:45):
Oh, I know, all these other things gotten away, like
college gotten away, and then getting my MBA gotten away.
And then I went into the corporate world that got
in the way.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
And I'm not you know, I'm saying that a little
tongue in cheek, but they all did.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
I was working in corporate America in marketing and promotion.
I worked for companies like General Foods and Hunt Western
Foods and Tracked Foods.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
And I just always wanted to be a writer.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
And finally, like in the nineties, Terry McMillan and other
people started writing, and I wrote my first novel in
two thousand.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And then how did you two meet?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Because this is actually the third book that you've written together,
which was really wild for me to learn.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
I mean, I think it kind of all started back
to those days when I was a disgruntled New York
City lawyer. I would kind of escape. Don't tell anyone now,
but I would escape to the cultural institutions in New York.
And the Morgan Library was one of my favorite places,
and I happened to be there one day. And if
you don't know what it is was created by JP Morgan.
(06:50):
It houses one of the world's best collections of rare
and priceless manuscripts, and it's like a time capsule. It's
like it's like a time portal. And I was there
one day and a docent happened to mention to me
that a woman had helped create this collection as well.
Now this was decades ago. Her name was bell DeCosta Green.
I started gathering information about her, thinking about her, and
(07:12):
it wasn't for over a decade later I think that
it was confirmed that she was a black woman passing
as white. And all of a sudden, the story, which
was remarkable unto itself, right, a story of a woman
who created one of the world's best collections became a
powerhouse in the art world, actually rose up not only
as a woman and before women could vote, but also
(07:34):
as a black woman in an era of segregation. And
it was at that moment that I knew that Belle
to Coosta Green deserved to have her story told by
a black woman as well. She had had to hide
in the shadows her whole life and hide her identity,
and she deserved she deserved that. And I happened to
be reading one of Victoria's books, one of my favorites,
Standiard Ground, which explores a difficult racial issue in our
(07:56):
modern day society from the perspective of a black woman
and a white woman. And I thought, hmm, I wonder
if she would.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Be so she didn't know me. She just read the book.
She didn't know me.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
That's what I think is so wonderful about this whole thing.
And so Marie, she was a fan Victoria.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I love that well.
Speaker 5 (08:13):
She and she put together a synopsis, like a three
page synopsis of the story. And so I didn't know
any of this backstory about Marie when she reached out
when our agents connected us, And at.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
First I wondered, why would she want to work with me?
Speaker 5 (08:30):
Because I looked her up and I saw she wrote
these wonderful, important stories about women who'd been lost in
the folds of history.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
And at that moment, I was writing.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
A book that was going to be made into a
movie on Lifetime.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
It was called Lust, and.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
So my it didn't make sense that she wanted to
write a book with me when I was writing books
that turned into movies on Lifetime.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
But I finally it took me.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
It took me a little while to read the whole
synopsis because the first page was about JP Morgan.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
And I was not interested in him.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
So I kept picking it up and putting it down
and picking it up. And a week or two passed
and I pick it up and at this point you
could see Marie is looking and saying, let's see.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
If Victoria is going to tell the truth. That was
just about three months. That was just about three months.
But finally my agent.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
Cold and said, they're calling me. Can you just read
the synopsis? It does, It's three pages. It doesn't take
anybody that long to read that. So I read it,
and I teased Marie all the time because Marie, she.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Was writing it as an author.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
She was writing it to build the suspense, and she
buried the league. Believe was that no one knew that
Bell da Costa was black until she passed away. And
at that point I tripped over myself to get to
the phone because I had almost blown it. I was
not interested at all. Reading is fundamental. I should have
(10:02):
read it. But once we connected, I knew from the
very first phone call that we were going to be
good partners. I knew immediately Marie had never done a collaboration,
but I had done collaborations before, and I knew what
it You can't write with just anyone. But after the
(10:22):
first phone call, I knew.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
I knew too, You knew right away, I did you know?
Speaker 4 (10:28):
First of all, I mean, we just collected on the phone.
But I would also say that we we shared the
same goal. You know, there was not going to be
any ego in telling these stories. I could see that,
even though we really haven't even hadn't even started working yet,
that we would both have the mission to honor these
women in these stories right right that it didn't. It
(10:49):
wasn't about who wrote it best or who told it best.
It was about choosing the story and the presentation and
the way the best honored the women and their legacies
and their contributions.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
So I don't need you to tell me who wrote what.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
But I am curious about how you wrote this book
together because you both live in different cities.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Where are you based?
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I'm based in Pittsburgh and I'm in Washington.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
D C. Okay, And so you're You're not the two
models back and forth and sitting together at the same time.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
That's crazy to me, But no, we're not that. But
we write together.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
I we take I think we both take responsibility for
every single word.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I always say so it's starting at the beginning.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
Marie is the treasure hunter in this partnership.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Yeah, so it really starts with the woman, right, It
starts with or the women in this case, right, And
you know, we've written books about one woman and two women,
and it often starts also with kind of a theme
or a particular thing we're interested in exploring. And then
I go down into my rabbit hole of research, which
is really where I like to live, like to be
(12:00):
there with my original source materials and all sorts of
research documentation, and I'm looking for them. Right. It's not easy.
It's hard to find them and hard to find the
right exact women, especially when you're dealing with a pair
of women, right, pair of bases. But we you know,
after sort of I immerse myself in that, and I
(12:21):
do keep a running list of women. You know, as
you're researching one woman, you can often kind of come
across other amazing women because as women, you know, we
travel in groups. Right, Amazing women have amazing friends, work
on projects with other incredible women.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
So often it's cool that that was even true.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
But always, always they come together, and I'm always discovering
people setting up to find one person and finding all
these other women. So you know, it's about the original
source material, it's about the themes, it's about the subjects.
It doesn't start with a particular time period or even
necessarily a particular subject matter, right because let me telling you, Daniel,
(13:00):
if you would have told me after I left the
loft or practicing for a decade, I would return to
a character who was a lawyer and a story that
was like mostly built on the law and the evidentiary
record were creating, I would have probably said no. But
when I first came across Eunice Carter, she was just
so compelling. She's our first of our two heroines, the
(13:22):
first black prosecutor in New York City. It was in
the nineteen thirties. She became one of Thomas Dewey's elite
team of prosecutors who had the specific task of bringing
down the mob. And you know, the first reading about her,
I was like, this woman is just absolutely unbelievable as
a woman. I won't date myself that it was a
while ago. Who was you know, in that early wave
(13:43):
of women being in the law, I was often one
of the only women in the room, and I could
only imagine taking it that much further with Unice and
all that, and then she created this case which which
really was the first case that didn't involved tax evasion
that really landed major mobsters in jail.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
So tell me about the actual process.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Are you on the phone with one another, going back
and forth while you're typing.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Yes, we talk it all through and then do an outline.
That book always change and then one of us will
choose to write the chapter, the other will choose to
write another chapter, and then we switch and then we
go in and we've talked it through so much that
there's nothing there that's a surprise, But once we get
(14:44):
it down on paper, we see different things. And so
by the time we get the first draft out, then
from that point on we're writing a whole book together.
Like the words are already on the page. So now
we're editing and going back and forth. Always questions, So
we're talking on the phone. It's a constant conversation. So
(15:07):
there's four people in this relationship with the fair basis,
it's Eunice.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
And Polly and Maria and.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Victoria, and we are constantly talking about these people from
both of our perspectives.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
And do you ever disagree on where the story or
the plot or the characters are going.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
Yes, I mean I would.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
So how do you resolve those minds?
Speaker 4 (15:32):
I mean, I wouldn't say it's like like a disagreement
like that. It's more of a discussion.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
When I always say that we start off on different
sides of a question, but we end up on the
same side of the answer.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Sometimes it has to do with knowing the characters. Sometimes
it will be a racial thing, like there are times.
There was one time in one of the novels where
I spent the whole weekend saying that Marie is ever gonna.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Let me use this word. She's never gonna let me
use this word. What am I going to do to
convince her? And that we've gotta use this word. So
it's those Sometimes it's those kinds of things, and we
talk it out and we never there is never a disagreement.
I guess it starts off as a disagreement. It starts
off as a question, and we talk it out and
(16:20):
we always end up in the same place, wouldn't you say, Marie?
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Definitely? I mean, I think our goal is the same.
We're asking each other the same question. How would this
best honor this story. So even if in the details
we might go back and forth a little bit about
the best way to do that, we always end up
on the same side of it because our goals are
the same, because we really both just want to honor
the women.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
It really sounds like there must be so much personal
learning and takeaway in your relationship as well.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Yeah, I mean I always say that. I mean one
of the best and most transformative gifts of my life
as a person, not just as a writer, is my
friendship in my writing with Victoria. Right, you don't get
this deep into the racial aspects, the difficult conversations and
not not be transformed.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yes, And I think and tell me if you've had
this experience. I had a co host in Chicago when
I was doing a morning show. Her name's Felicia, and
we became best friends. And I'm white and she's black,
and we were both able to ask each other questions
beneath it that we weren't comfortable asking in public, and
(17:33):
it brought out such incredible conversation.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yes, we ask.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
Each other questions or I can get Marie cracking up
when I tell us some slang, you know, black slang
or some lap.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
For fifteen hours straight. I love doing that to her.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
And you know, but one of the things I want
people to know, and I think you've probably experienced it
as well, is that it's not just Marie learning about race.
I've learned so much about race. And then we've learned
things together because if anyone does anything to me. Marie
used to be an attorney.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
If anyone does anything to me, she's ready to take
them apok. I know how to get her going and
it's usually, you know, behind something racial. So, uh, it's
been a one.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
This has been one of the most important relationships of
my life.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Oh how have you evolved or grown as writers in
this partnership? Murray, I'd love to start with you.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Wow. I mean, like I said, transformed as a person,
transformed as a writer. You know. I think it's helped
me so much, kind of hopefully ferret out my preconceptions,
preconceptions I didn't even know I had, and asking myself
about the lens through which I'm looking at a situation
a story as a writer helped me a form and
(18:55):
really hone the lens through which I'm looking at a
situation and through my character's eyes, you know, and asking
those hard questions. You know, I think unless you've had
a relationship like that, you don't you don't know what
you don't know. You know, you don't even know. There
are so many details that you take for granted. Like
I think a great example is in the book A
(19:17):
Pair of Bases Unice. You know, she lives in Harlem,
but she works further downtown in Manhattan, and Victoria thought
to ask, how is she getting around? It's an era
of segregation, even though New York is technically not segregated?
Is she able to just hail a cab? And I
hadn't even thought to ask that question, how is she
getting around? Because you know what, she had to use
(19:40):
a cab service that was specifically for black passengers. And
so having Victorious say wait a second, let's take a
look at that has completely transformed the way I would
look at a character and the way I would look
at my own life as well.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, and I love I love those moments. I love
those moments.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
And so for me it's a little bit more basic.
Marie has taught me how to write historical fiction, how
to really get into these First of all, the research,
I know how to do the research now, and then
even basic things like when we wrote The Personal Librarian together.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Remember, I had been.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Writing books that turned into movies on Lifetime, so there
were times when I wanted my character to say to
JP Morgan, what's up, dude, and that didn't work in
the early twentieth century devil, and so Marie would come
in with her.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Magic Russian say Victoria, we're not going to do this.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
So I've learned basic, wonderful things about writing, and my
writing has become much stronger because of Marie.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
That's so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
I am curious because you mentioned historical fiction. Like Marie,
you went from Egypt and archaeology to nineteen thirties crime
under Belly New York.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
It's a pretty big shift.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
And I know, Victoria, when you're not writing with Marie,
you're writing on your own as well.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
What is it like to like come together and then
go apart? Is it hard to write alone after that?
Speaker 4 (21:07):
It's definitely different when you have someone else to talk
through a scene, to talk to say, well, how would
a character react, and you're not just only in your
own head. I'm like, wait a second, it's just me
in here. Where's Victoria she's not writing this one, but
it does feel it feels a little lonely, you know,
and and you sometimes wonder how is this going to
(21:28):
land with a reader, right, because you don't have that
partner to help, you know, vet the idea, talk through
the scene, work on the dialogue. You know, sometimes that
in particular can be really challenging.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
And for me, I don't lose my partner.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
I call Marie and I say, look, this is what's
going on in my story.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
I'm not even kidding.
Speaker 5 (21:46):
I just we've just had this conversation about a week ago.
I was like, look, this is what's going on. This
is what I think.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
What do you think? So I don't lose my partner.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
I mean I kind of lose that she's not five
with me at a moment, But I take advantage of
my sister.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Yeah, that's for should I would hope you do.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
That is so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
I love.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Week before Last. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
So you guys are both so committed and so passionate,
and you're sharing stories about these women that have previously
gone unreported.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
But there's also a level of fiction here. So how
do you square that ethically?
Speaker 4 (22:23):
The way I look at the kind of intersection of
the research and the fiction is this, Like the research
is the architecture of the story. It's the foundation, the pillars,
the roof upon which the story hangs, the tracks, if
you will. But there's so many gray areas between the pillars,
(22:44):
somewhere in the foundation where we don't know the details
or a big even sometimes a big decision is unknown.
And it's in those areas that the fiction is going
to come in. It's in the unknowns, it's in the
gray areas where a couple options might possible. But it's
not like willy nilly fiction, right, It's what I would
(23:05):
hope is a fictional choice that's extrapolated from the research
and really has its anchor kind of in a logical
understanding of the character as well. But we do to
make decisions sometimes and sometimes if we're not sure about
which way to go, it goes back to that same question,
which choice honors the woman's story and the woman's legacy
(23:28):
the most.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
I want to dig into that a little bit because
I find that I have a cousin who's a filmmaker
and he does independent films, and we were having this conversation.
He's like, in twenty twenty six. I'm having a hard
time being a filmmaker because when I'm writing a script
and I'm on set, I want to create a character
(23:51):
that is doing the right thing, whether it's ethically, racially, religiously.
I want to create a respectful character. And sometimes that's
not honest to who these characters are and doesn't make
for a good story or the breath of the human experience.
And so do you, guys make the feminist choice? Do
(24:13):
you make the choice that is most freeing to the woman,
or how do you square that?
Speaker 3 (24:18):
I think what we do is we make the character's choice.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
I think we've researched these people so deeply that when
it comes to a point where we have to make
a decision for them, we want to make the decision
that we honestly believe they would have made in nineteen
thirty two. And there's an example of that in a
(24:43):
pair of vases. Without giving away too much, Eunice and
her son. And that's all I will say. And that
was a little difficult to write because that's not the
choice I would have made as a mother, That's not
the choice Marie would have made as a mother.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
But it was the.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Honest choice, and I think and that's one of the
things Marie has taught me, to be honest and authentic
to the character at that time. And I think that
frees us a little bit more than someone making a
film to in today's times, do you know what I mean?
Because we can be honest to nineteen thirty and so
we could blame a lot of the decisions on well,
(25:24):
it was one hundred years ago, you know.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
So that's what I think frees us with that.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Interesting and Marie, you mentioned your list of women that
you keep. I'm curious how you both ultimately choose the
characters that you're going to deep dive in because like
a pair of aces you mentioned, like this friend as
you asked you a question, But I can imagine you
have this long list of people that you could have
(25:50):
written about. Why choose a pair of aces?
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Right now?
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Oh gosh? I mean, I think for us, some of
it stems from the evolution of the books that we
already written. You know, our first book, and you heard
how we came across that story and then how we
came to write it together. When we one of the
things that happened to us as as friends and as
writers is we went on the road with the personal librarian,
(26:16):
and we discovered that people were as interested in our
friendship as they were in the story, which, by the way,
we're not as interesting as Beldacosta Green, not by a mile.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And I don't know I beg to do her. I've
spent with you guys a lot, a.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Great life, and so it kind of in response to that,
we we wanted to show what that could have been, like,
how two women could could really And you know, that
second book, the First Ladies, was about Eleanor Roosevelt and
Mary McLeod Beffune, who became like secret best friends when
she was in the White House and then worked together
(26:51):
behind the scenes to really lay the foundation for the
civil rights movement. With this book, we wanted to again
explore the relationship which in a black and white woman,
but do something a little different. And you know, we
live in divisive times and yet we can come together,
and so we wanted to give an example of two
women who came together even though they weren't friends, even
(27:13):
though they weren't Mary and Eleanor BFFs, two women who
you know, totally opposite lives, opposite sides of the law,
totally different experiences and yet and yet they were able
to come together in their case to do something really
huge to help bring down the mob. And that was
kind of the guide post for that particular choice. I think,
(27:35):
wouldn't you say, Victoria.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yes, definitely, you don't have to be friends to be allied.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Yeah, ooh, I love that.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
The plot hooked me right away. So it's nineteen thirties
New York City. You have two main characters, Polly Adler,
who's a Jewish immigrant who's one of the city's most
successful and street smart Madams. I was hooked at Madam
Okay and then Eunice Carter, the city's first black woman
prosecutor hooked And both of these women existed in real life.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
So Marie, how did you find them?
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Well, you know, I at this in this particular instance,
I kind of set out to find someone who could
help embody that that theme, the theme of two women
from really different worlds coming together. And you know, like
I said, I do have a long list of women.
And I looked at some of those and I looked
at a lot of the materials that I keep, and
there was unus since it wasn't the first time I'd
seen Unis. You know Unis Is. I mean, if you're
(28:31):
looking at powerful women from the past, two are incredible.
Unis is going to be on that list. And I
started to look at her, I think a little differently
and say, and really look at the case. Once I
opened up my mind to the fact that I could
write a book about the law again, which was in
debate for a while, I started to look at her
and look at the case she was building and think, well,
(28:52):
if she had built this case, and you know, her
case was unique. She built a case on the fact
that the mob had infiltrated and started to control prostitution.
And Thomas Dewey and as was the case with a
lot of men at that time, didn't believe the thought
that prostitution was even beneath the mob, that they wouldn't
deign to actually involve themselves in such a small crime
(29:14):
which mostly involved women from their perspective. But Unice had
worked in the women's courts, which is again something that
was kind of shocking. The women's courts were separate court
systems for women and women's crimes and women's issues, which
included custody and prostitution and I'll leave you to interpret
(29:35):
that as you will. And so as I was looking
at the case that she would have had to build,
we started to think she would have had to have
someone on the inside, and she did. I mean, in
point of fact, she had many, many women on the
inside who helped her, many girls, many madams, many women
who'd been exploited and abused by the mob and the
(29:58):
other men who were involved in prostitution. And so we
wanted to find someone who could kind of embody those
women and give us a glimpse into what the world
looked like in nineteen thirties, kind of high end prostitution,
if you will, before the mob really got involved, to
see what the mob was doing to these women. And
(30:18):
that's when Pollyadleer rose to the top of the heap,
I mean herst She was the most famous madam of
the day, and not just because she ran this high
end house. It's because it was unlike anything else. It
was like a high end speakeasy. It was where celebrities
and politicians and mobsters went, and it was also run
(30:40):
like a business where the girls were taking care of.
It was different, and that was immediately appealing as sort
of an avenue to explore and to bring these two
women together.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Victoria, did you guys speak to any of these women's families.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
No, not in this book, even though with Eunice Potter
her grandson is alive and very successful and very popular.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
But not with this book. Interesting with some of the
other books we have, but not with this one.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Say we're grandson, Sean Carter, by.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Any chance, Stephen Carter, Stephen Carter.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Sean Carter's jay Z.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yes, I know.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
That's why I laughed. Ive, I said, Stephen Carter.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Oh, Stephen Carter got it, Okay, I just didn't know
if Victoria was being close.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Well, I it.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
Was funny because I somebody else when I was saying
her grandson, they said Sean Carter.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
And I was like, get out of here, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
But somebody else said that a while ago. So but
I always, you know.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
Because Stephen Carter is a he's a very prominent Yale professor.
He's an attorney in his own right, I mean, an
author in his own right, super successful.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
So that was that wasn't being caught. That would have
been funny, though.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
The interesting thing about this about this, we generally don't
reach out to the family in advance of a book
coming out. Our Our interactions we've had with family members
have generally been after the fact. When they've read they
reached out to us right and have embraced the story.
I mean, Eleanor Roosevelt's granddaughter told us that our depiction
of Eleanor Roosevelt was the closest to her grandmother that
(32:25):
anybody had ever written, which was like the best compliment
in the entire world and.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Us to speak.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
When I met her, she said, I want you to
come speak at my grandfather's library.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Now I had no idea who her grandfather was. I
didn't know who she was, but what but she said?
Speaker 5 (32:43):
She she told Marie and I that that was the
best depiction of her grandmother.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
That and she had read every book about her grandmother.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
That's so cool.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
It almost felt to me like New York became a character.
You have so many quintessential New York spots. Did you
start scene setting. Did you come and visit New York
and check out places? Oh?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Yeah, I mean some of them are places we've been also,
But yeah, you know, unfortunately, when you're writing historical fiction,
you know you can visit the places, but sometimes they
aren't what they were. The building doesn't exist anymore. You
can get a feel for what I mean, you can
get lucky right, and some places are exact and intact,
or you can go in and you can get the
(33:33):
architectural sort of sense of what a place looks like.
But you do have to even when a place is
still there, you still have to really use your imagination
to see what it would have been like at that time. Obviously, maps,
photograph stuff like that can really help bring it to life.
But yeah, we have visited the places that you know
where the book is set to the extent that they
(33:54):
still exist.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
How did you go about giving them such distinctive voices?
Speaker 5 (34:01):
Again, And I'm so glad you said that, because I'm
so glad that they sound so that they don't sound similar.
But again, I think it's the research. And when we
research these stories, I think we're really.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Researching the women.
Speaker 5 (34:19):
I think we we're character driven writers most of the time,
and so you really want to know who they are
at their center.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
And once you know them, when I'm writing, I feel
like I'm.
Speaker 5 (34:32):
Just channeling their voices. It's not me at all, And
so I'm so glad that it comes out sounding like
them because we don't really have anything to do with it.
It's their stories, and I feel like sometimes I'm just
taking dictation for them.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
So it's naturally I do think we are.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
I'm gonna take it to task, and that we do
have something to do with it. Obviously, you know we are.
These are fictional interpretations of women who did want succest,
you know for sure, and the research inspires them. Some
research is like it helps channel that voice, right, But
that's definitely you know, us taking them and then putting
(35:12):
their story into our own kind of words and in
our own way.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
When you set out, do you have like sort of
your own graph and say, this is unic's motivation, this
is your insecurity, this is so.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
What does that look like?
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Because there's a lot of writers who listen to this
show that I think would be so interested to hear
how you how you bought that out?
Speaker 3 (35:33):
So I actually do a character resume. I've been doing
a character resume.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
Since nineteen ninety nine, when Terry McMillan told me to
go to and McDonald's and get an application and fill
it out for every character that would have a voice.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
And so we know.
Speaker 5 (35:50):
That and so since that time and when I teach
writing classes and I do it on substack. The very
first thing I do is give out my character resume
so that people people can fill it.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Out, and even for real.
Speaker 5 (36:04):
People who existed, I fill it out because once I
fill out the character resume, I know the center.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
I can know the center of them.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
Some of the things on the resume are facts, but
some of them are fiction based on facts. So for example,
I have their age, where they went to school, all
of that, But on the resume, I also have what
are their interests, what's what are they afraid of? Those
kinds of things, and I fill those in based on
(36:36):
the research. But I have a character resume started with
a McDonald's application, Victoria.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
You may have to put that out as a download.
That's like, I want to see that.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Now I have my own. I have my own resume.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
Over the years that it's no longer the McDonald's, but
it's really because I've added in social media and everything.
But I like giving out the character resume to people
because that's such a wonderful.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Place to begin.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Did anything surprise you while you guys were writing this one?
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Oh so many things. I mean, I would definitely have
to say. I mean a million things surprised me about Polly.
If somebody would have told me I would have written,
you know, we would have written a story about a
high class madam. I would have really said. What you know,
what was so wonderful about Polly's character is that it
was inspired from her autobiography. You don't often get an
(37:31):
autobiography when you are creating a character based on a
real person. And again, an autobiography to take a grit
with a grain of salt, because they have their own agenda.
They want to tell their own stories in their own ways,
and it's their kind of revisionist history of their own pasts.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
But you can hear her voice.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
You can hear her voice, Yeah, because she was there,
whether she wrote it, whether she had help to her,
it sounded like her.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
And for the poly character, that was so helpful to
really kind of bring bring her to life, to really
make her resonate. I mean, I think with Unison, we
didn't have that, but we did have her.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
You know.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
Stephen Carter, her grandson, wrote an amazing biography of her,
which was hugely helpful.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Yeah, that really helped a lot.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
I think, you know the thing that surprised me is
I didn't know anything about organized prostitution.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
And when I what.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
I mean by that is I never knew how violent
they were. I never knew about the drugs that they
used with the women. That was shocking to me. I
don't know how I got to be this age and
didn't know all of that.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
It's this whole underworld, this whole under world, and so
you think you know what prostitution is, and you have
no idea what organized prostitution is.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
I think too, that the women's courts were really surprising
at both of us, wouldn't you say, Victoria, That was
really like to think that things that involve women, which
obviously also involved men, right, prostitution usually has two partners.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Those only there only punished.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
Yeah, that was really shocking, that kind of institutionalized perception
and the way it became, you know, it actually became
like an actual building, like there was a women's court building.
That's that was shocking that.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
There's a big theme in the story that is the
tension between women's roles and expectations, and Unice and Polly
are on opposite sides of the law, but they're both
pioneers in their own rights, which is one of the
things that I think makes this so interesting. And then
there's an additional layer of expectations for black women, for
white women, for immigrant women, for poor women. How did
(39:52):
your own identities and backgrounds help you write all of
these nuances so well.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
One of my favorite scenes in this book is when
Polly and Eunice are sitting in the car arguing or
debating over who has it worse in this world, a.
Speaker 5 (40:10):
Black woman or a white woman who doesn't have the
background that the black woman has. And that was such
an interesting conversation that Marie and I spent a lot
of time having with each other and using.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Our own backgrounds and talking about it. And that's the.
Speaker 5 (40:32):
Beauty of this partnership because we can talk honestly about
that and then put the honest words down on pay
on paper. But we are always using our own experiences
and our own backgrounds.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
To write these stories.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
There are times when Marie will put something in because
it's stuck with her, and I will say, no, we
don't need that in because as a black woman, you
can't be thinking about that anymore.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
So we are always using our own experiences and backgrounds.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
When d you agree Marie, Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
What are you hoping that readers take away when they
finished the last page of the book from.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
The beginning, before we even wrote the very first words,
when our treasure hunter found this story. I wanted this,
especially for a time such as this. You don't have
to be friends to the allies. And I hope that
(41:37):
women take that away because if we join forces together,
we can accomplish and change some things in the world,
just like these two women did together. And I know
there have been partnerships out there like this forever, and
there are gonna be unsung women that we will never
know about. But I want people to be very aware
(42:01):
that you don't have to agree on everything, you don't
have to be friends, but you can still have a
common goal that can change some things.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Beautiful.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
Yeah, I mean to find some areas of commonality. I mean,
no matter what your belief system, no matter what your background,
no matter there's usually something that can bring you together.
And to have that opportunity to have people read the
book think about that, maybe think about someone who they
kind of may be dismissed because they thought that they
(42:34):
didn't share all the same beliefs. None of us do.
But there's so many areas where we can come together
and work together and make great change. We're just forge
a friendship, you know, there's just a shift in the
way that we look at kind of where we are.
As Victoria said, in times such as these, I.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Can tell you when I finished the last page, I thought, Wow,
I want more from these characters. Do you think that
there's a possibility of more from Unison Polly or is
this it?
Speaker 4 (43:05):
I would say there's definitely more from Victorian Marie.
Speaker 5 (43:09):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 4 (43:15):
We'll be doing another book together for sure, or in
the early stages of that's Unfortunately we can't talk about it.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Evenough we can't talk about I'm so excited still.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
This is the Reese's Book Club podcast.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Yes, I know, but but so we're announcing it here.
We're doing in the Mouth together. Yes, we're doing together.
Speaker 5 (43:36):
And because you know, we won't be able to get
rid of me, they're same that happens when we write together.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
I don't know what it is.
Speaker 5 (43:46):
We can't figure it out, and I think it's a
because we're on a mission together that that we want
to show people is so fascinated with this black and
white woman who when we're touring together and on stage together,
we forget that there's like an audience. We're just talking
to each other, you know, we're just catching up with
(44:07):
each other, and so this magic that happens. So we'll
be writing together, but we still also write individual books,
so we're both working on individual projects right now as well.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
And what's something that you're so obsessed with that you
could write a book about it?
Speaker 2 (44:23):
But you probably won't.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
I mean, I got down the rabbit hole a lot,
and I find a lot of things. But if I
had to say something like I'm really into right at
this moment, it's going to be a little odd. But
I am listening to Margaret Atwood's memoir and she is
one of my absolute favorite writers. Her themes, her tackling
of so many different genres. I mean, she's just amazing.
(44:46):
And she narrates her She's in her eighties now, she
finally wrote a memoir and she narrates it and it
is just I can't stop listening to it, and thankfully
it's long. But I'll never write her story, you know,
she she's writing it right now. She wrote her own story, right,
and that's the ultimate goal. People always ask Victoria and
I like, well, we keep writing, and we always say, well,
(45:08):
we'll stop when we don't have to write women back
into history when they're already in there. And you know,
Margaret out what is writing her own history. She doesn't
need me, but boy, she makes it very enticing.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
That's a juicy one, Marie.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
I love that. And you know what I'm obsessed with.
Speaker 5 (45:23):
And I just had a conversation with a friend about
this earlier today.
Speaker 3 (45:28):
What makes a leader and what makes a follower?
Speaker 5 (45:31):
And I'm not talking about in politics, I'm not talking
about corporately. I'm talking about in friends and families and.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Why are they leaders? And why are their followers?
Speaker 5 (45:43):
And why do the leaders always have to carry everything?
And why are the followers always following? And I want
to write a book about people like that in a
family or a friendship, but I will never do that
because I want to keep my family and I love
my friend Fuddy.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
So you probably won't write a book about it.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Fair enough, if this has been such a fun conversation
and you're both such beautiful writers and different writers too,
I'm curious what the best writing advice is that you've received.
And then also the writing advice you most often give Victoria,
may I start with you.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
Yeah, so I always start with the character resume.
Speaker 5 (46:24):
Seriously, if you want to write first, know who you're
going to write about, so spend.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Time there and people feel very comfortable.
Speaker 5 (46:30):
The best writing advice I ever thought was from Eric
Jerome Dicky, who told me to write forward, and what
he meant by that was write You can't write a
book in your head, so get the words down on
the page, but don't spend time going over that first
chapter for the next five months.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Just get the words down on the page, and.
Speaker 5 (46:50):
Then write forward, and then you won't never finish a
book unless you write forward, get to the end, and
then you can go back and do all the editing.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Best advice ever, great advice.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
That's good advice, I would say. The best advice I
didn't get personally, although I would love it was from
Annie LaMotte, who I love, you know, which was was
really emphasizing the important the importance of writing regularly, having
a schedule and a routine. And you know, I usually
am very kind of organized and routine focused, but you know,
(47:23):
you can let your life get in the way, and
you can let other aspects of being a writer get
in the way, and kind of having that as a
reminder is really important to kind of center that focus
that very intentionally. And that's true for anyone who writes,
whether they're early writers or whether they've been doing it
for a long time. Is to really make that routine
the priority, or you'll never get forward. You know you
(47:46):
never will. And I would say the I don't know
if this is advice that I give. It's such a
weird little thing, but I'll share it. A friend of
mine years ago told me that she'd read something. She
was a scientist, and she'd read some article about the
fact that if you pick a certain piece of meat
music to listen to when you're undertaking a specific creative task,
it will help you, and then play it each time
(48:08):
that you begin. It will help you tap into the
headspace for writing it and the headspace that you left
off with. And I thought that sounded like malarkey, and
but I but I do it. I do it. I
have music I listen to. I may not listen to
it the whole time I'm writing, but I put it
back on when I start again, and it really helps
me get I don't know how it works or what
(48:29):
it does, but it does help me.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
I love the specificity.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Laura Dave is an author that we've had on the
podcast and she writes to music often.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
Her last book, she wrote to Taylor Swift, I'll never
forget that, so I love that. That's such a great nugget.
Thank you both so much.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
I'm so grateful for your time, and I'm so excited
to be with you in New York.
Speaker 4 (48:49):
I know, I'm so excited to be a conversation with us.
It'll be fun.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Thank you, guys.
Speaker 4 (48:55):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
That's it for this episode of Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Our phone line is now open, so if.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
You want to go nineties on us, give us a
call at one five zero one two nine to one
three three seven nine. That's one five zero one two
nine to one three three seven nine. Share your literary
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or let us know what you think about the episode
(49:26):
you just heard, and who knows, you might just hear
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And I'm at Danielle Robe Robay, so come say hi
(49:46):
and please seriously DM me because I actually read them
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Speaker 2 (49:58):
We'll see you in the next cha.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
Bookmarked is a production of Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts,
Executive produced by Reese Witherspoon and me Danielle Robe.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
Production by Acast Creative Studios.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
Our producers are Matty Foley, Brittany Martinez and Sarah Schleied.
Our editor is Carmen Borca Carrillo. Our production assistant is
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Speaker 2 (50:22):
Executive producers for a Cast Creative Studios.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Maureene Polo and Reese Witherspoon are executive producers for Hello Sunshine.
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executive producer for iHeart podcasts,
Bookmarked by Riese's book Club is presented by Apple Books. Hi,
I'm Danielle Robe and welcome to Bookmarked by Riese's book Club.
I love stories that make you ask, how have I
never heard this before? Well, The June Reese's book Club
pick A Pair of Aces introduces us to two remarkable
(00:23):
women who crosspaths in the nineteen thirties in New York City.
Polly Adler was one of the city's most powerful madams,
and Eunice Carter was the first black woman prosecutor in
New York City. One operated outside the law, the other
dedicated her life to upholding it. Yet together they helped
expose one of the most notorious criminal networks in America.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Not as friends, but as allies.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
The novel is written by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray,
whose partnership feels fitting for a.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Story about alliances.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
For years now, they've worked together to uncover women that
history forgot, overlooked or simply never gave enough credit. They
also happen to be great friends, which makes their writing
and the interview even more fun. So today we're talking
about hidden histories, powerful partnerships, and why some of the
most fascinating stories are the ones we've never been told.
(01:22):
So if you've ever wondered what happens when two women
decide to challenge the system together, you are in the
right place. Let's turn the page with Marie Benedict and
Victoria Christopher Murray.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Hi, Marie, Hi Victoria. Welcome to the club.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Ay, thank you for having us.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Thank you, Danielle. We're so excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
You two are.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Our first friend writing duo. It's a very exciting day.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
We are beyond excited.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I feel like we have to start by asking you
your favorite literary duos.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
I would say my fictional literary duos would be the
Bennett's Sisters Prime Pressures. I love them so much, and
I'm the oldest of four sisters, so that really spoke
to me. Writing duos is more difficult. There aren't that
many of us, you know, who really gone out there
and done it. I would say it's little known and
(02:15):
that kind of place to what we do excavating these
crucial historical women. But you know, f Scott Fitzgerald is
so famous, but his wife Zelda was actually super important
in his novels and in writing. It's not almost she
was a writer herself, so I would say write her
back into the story and say, Zelda and f Scott,
those are great.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
And I love the Bennett's sisters. They're so enduring, and
I just love how they show us all the how
to be different women in.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
The world exactly exactly.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
And my favorite is Virginia DuBarry and Donna Grant, who
were two models. They were both modeling in New York
City and they were competing for the same spots. Ended
up becoming friends and they ended up writing about four
novels together. And the thing that's so interesting about the
way they write is they sit at one computer and
(03:05):
one of them types while they just talked it through,
and then the other one will switch and type. And
I always found that fascinating, and I've become friends with them,
but they are my favorite writing duo just because of
how they do it.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, that process is so interesting. Yes, Okay, Well I
found it interesting that you both had established careers before
you started writing. Marie you were a lawyer and Victoria
you were an entrepreneur. What is the moment that each
of you decided you were going to become writers.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
I think from my perspective, you know. I was a
New York City commercial litigator working at huge New York
law firms, and from day one I knew it wasn't
what I was supposed to be doing. I had been
a history major and I want to be archaeologist in college,
and I kind of got lured into being a lawyer.
And so from the get go, I was always kind
of going back to my love for unearthing these hidden stories,
(04:01):
taking graduate classes, considering PhDs. And then one day, out
of the clear blue, a fully formed story kind of
came to me, and I chipped.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Away, what do you mean it came to you?
Speaker 4 (04:14):
It's really weird. So a friend of mine, who was
another lawyer, asked me a question, and it came to me.
She said, would there ever be a case I would
take on? I would refuse to take on on moral grounds,
even though my client had a really good position. And
I didn't have an answer for it right away, But
a couple days later I read about one of the
very first few cases of families of Holocaust victims trying
(04:35):
to get their artwork back. This is in the nineties,
and all of a sudden I had an idea for
a story, and that had never happened to me, and
I just dove in and it was you know, it
was historical. This was a very little known area of
history at that time, and that that was really how
I first became a writer, kind of inadvertently, but hearkening
back to my.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Early passions fascinating.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
And I just think that's so cool that it started
with some friend or colleague asking you a beautiful question.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Yeah, it really did. And I always my friend now
and I are both on completely different career paths. She
started a nonprofit for girls called Etra, and so we're
just kind of circling back to what we originally started,
but we both kind of brought each other along for
the ride.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Beautiful a sisterhood too.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
And I was always supposed to be a writer.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
I was supposed to be a writer because I came
out of my mother's wanting to be a writer.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
So all those other Koreas got in the way.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
I've wanted to be a writer since I was seven
years old. That's the time when I wrote something, a
teacher called me a writer, and then I.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Was going to be a writer.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
But what we're all of those other jobs, Victoria.
Speaker 5 (05:45):
Oh, I know, all these other things gotten away, like
college gotten away, and then getting my MBA gotten away.
And then I went into the corporate world that got
in the way.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
And I'm not you know, I'm saying that a little
tongue in cheek, but they all did.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
I was working in corporate America in marketing and promotion.
I worked for companies like General Foods and Hunt Western
Foods and Tracked Foods.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
And I just always wanted to be a writer.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
And finally, like in the nineties, Terry McMillan and other
people started writing, and I wrote my first novel in
two thousand.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And then how did you two meet?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Because this is actually the third book that you've written together,
which was really wild for me to learn.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
I mean, I think it kind of all started back
to those days when I was a disgruntled New York
City lawyer. I would kind of escape. Don't tell anyone now,
but I would escape to the cultural institutions in New York.
And the Morgan Library was one of my favorite places,
and I happened to be there one day. And if
you don't know what it is was created by JP Morgan.
(06:50):
It houses one of the world's best collections of rare
and priceless manuscripts, and it's like a time capsule. It's
like it's like a time portal. And I was there
one day and a docent happened to mention to me
that a woman had helped create this collection as well.
Now this was decades ago. Her name was bell DeCosta Green.
I started gathering information about her, thinking about her, and
(07:12):
it wasn't for over a decade later I think that
it was confirmed that she was a black woman passing
as white. And all of a sudden, the story, which
was remarkable unto itself, right, a story of a woman
who created one of the world's best collections became a
powerhouse in the art world, actually rose up not only
as a woman and before women could vote, but also
(07:34):
as a black woman in an era of segregation. And
it was at that moment that I knew that Belle
to Coosta Green deserved to have her story told by
a black woman as well. She had had to hide
in the shadows her whole life and hide her identity,
and she deserved she deserved that. And I happened to
be reading one of Victoria's books, one of my favorites,
Standiard Ground, which explores a difficult racial issue in our
(07:56):
modern day society from the perspective of a black woman
and a white woman. And I thought, hmm, I wonder
if she would.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Be so she didn't know me. She just read the book.
She didn't know me.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
That's what I think is so wonderful about this whole thing.
And so Marie, she was a fan Victoria.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
I love that well.
Speaker 5 (08:13):
She and she put together a synopsis, like a three
page synopsis of the story. And so I didn't know
any of this backstory about Marie when she reached out
when our agents connected us, And at.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
First I wondered, why would she want to work with me?
Speaker 5 (08:30):
Because I looked her up and I saw she wrote
these wonderful, important stories about women who'd been lost in
the folds of history.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
And at that moment, I was writing.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
A book that was going to be made into a
movie on Lifetime.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
It was called Lust, and.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
So my it didn't make sense that she wanted to
write a book with me when I was writing books
that turned into movies on Lifetime.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
But I finally it took me.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
It took me a little while to read the whole
synopsis because the first page was about JP Morgan.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
And I was not interested in him.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
So I kept picking it up and putting it down
and picking it up. And a week or two passed
and I pick it up and at this point you
could see Marie is looking and saying, let's see.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
If Victoria is going to tell the truth. That was
just about three months. That was just about three months.
But finally my agent.
Speaker 5 (09:25):
Cold and said, they're calling me. Can you just read
the synopsis? It does, It's three pages. It doesn't take
anybody that long to read that. So I read it,
and I teased Marie all the time because Marie, she.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Was writing it as an author.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
She was writing it to build the suspense, and she
buried the league. Believe was that no one knew that
Bell da Costa was black until she passed away. And
at that point I tripped over myself to get to
the phone because I had almost blown it. I was
not interested at all. Reading is fundamental. I should have
(10:02):
read it. But once we connected, I knew from the
very first phone call that we were going to be
good partners. I knew immediately Marie had never done a collaboration,
but I had done collaborations before, and I knew what
it You can't write with just anyone. But after the
(10:22):
first phone call, I knew.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
I knew too, You knew right away, I did you know?
Speaker 4 (10:28):
First of all, I mean, we just collected on the phone.
But I would also say that we we shared the
same goal. You know, there was not going to be
any ego in telling these stories. I could see that,
even though we really haven't even hadn't even started working yet,
that we would both have the mission to honor these
women in these stories right right that it didn't. It
(10:49):
wasn't about who wrote it best or who told it best.
It was about choosing the story and the presentation and
the way the best honored the women and their legacies
and their contributions.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
So I don't need you to tell me who wrote what.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
But I am curious about how you wrote this book
together because you both live in different cities.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Where are you based?
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I'm based in Pittsburgh and I'm in Washington.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
D C. Okay, And so you're You're not the two
models back and forth and sitting together at the same time.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
That's crazy to me, But no, we're not that. But
we write together.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
I we take I think we both take responsibility for
every single word.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
I always say so it's starting at the beginning.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
Marie is the treasure hunter in this partnership.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Yeah, so it really starts with the woman, right, It
starts with or the women in this case, right, And
you know, we've written books about one woman and two women,
and it often starts also with kind of a theme
or a particular thing we're interested in exploring. And then
I go down into my rabbit hole of research, which
is really where I like to live, like to be
(12:00):
there with my original source materials and all sorts of
research documentation, and I'm looking for them. Right. It's not easy.
It's hard to find them and hard to find the
right exact women, especially when you're dealing with a pair
of women, right, pair of bases. But we you know,
after sort of I immerse myself in that, and I
(12:21):
do keep a running list of women. You know, as
you're researching one woman, you can often kind of come
across other amazing women because as women, you know, we
travel in groups. Right, Amazing women have amazing friends, work
on projects with other incredible women.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
So often it's cool that that was even true.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
But always, always they come together, and I'm always discovering
people setting up to find one person and finding all
these other women. So you know, it's about the original
source material, it's about the themes, it's about the subjects.
It doesn't start with a particular time period or even
necessarily a particular subject matter, right because let me telling you, Daniel,
(13:00):
if you would have told me after I left the
loft or practicing for a decade, I would return to
a character who was a lawyer and a story that
was like mostly built on the law and the evidentiary
record were creating, I would have probably said no. But
when I first came across Eunice Carter, she was just
so compelling. She's our first of our two heroines, the
(13:22):
first black prosecutor in New York City. It was in
the nineteen thirties. She became one of Thomas Dewey's elite
team of prosecutors who had the specific task of bringing
down the mob. And you know, the first reading about her,
I was like, this woman is just absolutely unbelievable as
a woman. I won't date myself that it was a
while ago. Who was you know, in that early wave
(13:43):
of women being in the law, I was often one
of the only women in the room, and I could
only imagine taking it that much further with Unice and
all that, and then she created this case which which
really was the first case that didn't involved tax evasion
that really landed major mobsters in jail.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
So tell me about the actual process.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Are you on the phone with one another, going back
and forth while you're typing.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Yes, we talk it all through and then do an outline.
That book always change and then one of us will
choose to write the chapter, the other will choose to
write another chapter, and then we switch and then we
go in and we've talked it through so much that
there's nothing there that's a surprise, But once we get
(14:44):
it down on paper, we see different things. And so
by the time we get the first draft out, then
from that point on we're writing a whole book together.
Like the words are already on the page. So now
we're editing and going back and forth. Always questions, So
we're talking on the phone. It's a constant conversation. So
(15:07):
there's four people in this relationship with the fair basis,
it's Eunice.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
And Polly and Maria and.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Victoria, and we are constantly talking about these people from
both of our perspectives.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
And do you ever disagree on where the story or
the plot or the characters are going.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
Yes, I mean I would.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
So how do you resolve those minds?
Speaker 4 (15:32):
I mean, I wouldn't say it's like like a disagreement
like that. It's more of a discussion.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
When I always say that we start off on different
sides of a question, but we end up on the
same side of the answer.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Sometimes it has to do with knowing the characters. Sometimes
it will be a racial thing, like there are times.
There was one time in one of the novels where
I spent the whole weekend saying that Marie is ever gonna.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Let me use this word. She's never gonna let me
use this word. What am I going to do to
convince her? And that we've gotta use this word. So
it's those Sometimes it's those kinds of things, and we
talk it out and we never there is never a disagreement.
I guess it starts off as a disagreement. It starts
off as a question, and we talk it out and
(16:20):
we always end up in the same place, wouldn't you say, Marie?
Speaker 4 (16:24):
Definitely? I mean, I think our goal is the same.
We're asking each other the same question. How would this
best honor this story. So even if in the details
we might go back and forth a little bit about
the best way to do that, we always end up
on the same side of it because our goals are
the same, because we really both just want to honor
the women.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
It really sounds like there must be so much personal
learning and takeaway in your relationship as well.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Yeah, I mean I always say that. I mean one
of the best and most transformative gifts of my life
as a person, not just as a writer, is my
friendship in my writing with Victoria. Right, you don't get
this deep into the racial aspects, the difficult conversations and
not not be transformed.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yes, And I think and tell me if you've had
this experience. I had a co host in Chicago when
I was doing a morning show. Her name's Felicia, and
we became best friends. And I'm white and she's black,
and we were both able to ask each other questions
beneath it that we weren't comfortable asking in public, and
(17:33):
it brought out such incredible conversation.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yes, we ask.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
Each other questions or I can get Marie cracking up
when I tell us some slang, you know, black slang
or some lap.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
For fifteen hours straight. I love doing that to her.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
And you know, but one of the things I want
people to know, and I think you've probably experienced it
as well, is that it's not just Marie learning about race.
I've learned so much about race. And then we've learned
things together because if anyone does anything to me. Marie
used to be an attorney.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
If anyone does anything to me, she's ready to take
them apok. I know how to get her going and
it's usually, you know, behind something racial. So, uh, it's
been a one.
Speaker 5 (18:22):
This has been one of the most important relationships of
my life.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Oh how have you evolved or grown as writers in
this partnership? Murray, I'd love to start with you.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Wow. I mean, like I said, transformed as a person,
transformed as a writer. You know. I think it's helped
me so much, kind of hopefully ferret out my preconceptions,
preconceptions I didn't even know I had, and asking myself
about the lens through which I'm looking at a situation
a story as a writer helped me a form and
(18:55):
really hone the lens through which I'm looking at a
situation and through my character's eyes, you know, and asking
those hard questions. You know, I think unless you've had
a relationship like that, you don't you don't know what
you don't know. You know, you don't even know. There
are so many details that you take for granted. Like
I think a great example is in the book A
(19:17):
Pair of Bases Unice. You know, she lives in Harlem,
but she works further downtown in Manhattan, and Victoria thought
to ask, how is she getting around? It's an era
of segregation, even though New York is technically not segregated?
Is she able to just hail a cab? And I
hadn't even thought to ask that question, how is she
getting around? Because you know what, she had to use
(19:40):
a cab service that was specifically for black passengers. And
so having Victorious say wait a second, let's take a
look at that has completely transformed the way I would
look at a character and the way I would look
at my own life as well.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, and I love I love those moments. I love
those moments.
Speaker 5 (19:55):
And so for me it's a little bit more basic.
Marie has taught me how to write historical fiction, how
to really get into these First of all, the research,
I know how to do the research now, and then
even basic things like when we wrote The Personal Librarian together.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Remember, I had been.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
Writing books that turned into movies on Lifetime, so there
were times when I wanted my character to say to
JP Morgan, what's up, dude, and that didn't work in
the early twentieth century devil, and so Marie would come
in with her.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Magic Russian say Victoria, we're not going to do this.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
So I've learned basic, wonderful things about writing, and my
writing has become much stronger because of Marie.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
That's so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
I am curious because you mentioned historical fiction. Like Marie,
you went from Egypt and archaeology to nineteen thirties crime
under Belly New York.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
It's a pretty big shift.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
And I know, Victoria, when you're not writing with Marie,
you're writing on your own as well.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
What is it like to like come together and then
go apart? Is it hard to write alone after that?
Speaker 4 (21:07):
It's definitely different when you have someone else to talk
through a scene, to talk to say, well, how would
a character react, and you're not just only in your
own head. I'm like, wait a second, it's just me
in here. Where's Victoria she's not writing this one, but
it does feel it feels a little lonely, you know,
and and you sometimes wonder how is this going to
(21:28):
land with a reader, right, because you don't have that
partner to help, you know, vet the idea, talk through
the scene, work on the dialogue. You know, sometimes that
in particular can be really challenging.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
And for me, I don't lose my partner.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
I call Marie and I say, look, this is what's
going on in my story.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
I'm not even kidding.
Speaker 5 (21:46):
I just we've just had this conversation about a week ago.
I was like, look, this is what's going on. This
is what I think.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
What do you think? So I don't lose my partner.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
I mean I kind of lose that she's not five
with me at a moment, But I take advantage of
my sister.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Yeah, that's for should I would hope you do.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
That is so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
I love.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Week before Last. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
So you guys are both so committed and so passionate,
and you're sharing stories about these women that have previously
gone unreported.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
But there's also a level of fiction here. So how
do you square that ethically?
Speaker 4 (22:23):
The way I look at the kind of intersection of
the research and the fiction is this, Like the research
is the architecture of the story. It's the foundation, the pillars,
the roof upon which the story hangs, the tracks, if
you will. But there's so many gray areas between the pillars,
(22:44):
somewhere in the foundation where we don't know the details
or a big even sometimes a big decision is unknown.
And it's in those areas that the fiction is going
to come in. It's in the unknowns, it's in the
gray areas where a couple options might possible. But it's
not like willy nilly fiction, right, It's what I would
(23:05):
hope is a fictional choice that's extrapolated from the research
and really has its anchor kind of in a logical
understanding of the character as well. But we do to
make decisions sometimes and sometimes if we're not sure about
which way to go, it goes back to that same question,
which choice honors the woman's story and the woman's legacy
(23:28):
the most.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
I want to dig into that a little bit because
I find that I have a cousin who's a filmmaker
and he does independent films, and we were having this conversation.
He's like, in twenty twenty six. I'm having a hard
time being a filmmaker because when I'm writing a script
and I'm on set, I want to create a character
(23:51):
that is doing the right thing, whether it's ethically, racially, religiously.
I want to create a respectful character. And sometimes that's
not honest to who these characters are and doesn't make
for a good story or the breath of the human experience.
And so do you, guys make the feminist choice? Do
(24:13):
you make the choice that is most freeing to the woman,
or how do you square that?
Speaker 3 (24:18):
I think what we do is we make the character's choice.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
I think we've researched these people so deeply that when
it comes to a point where we have to make
a decision for them, we want to make the decision
that we honestly believe they would have made in nineteen
thirty two. And there's an example of that in a
(24:43):
pair of vases. Without giving away too much, Eunice and
her son. And that's all I will say. And that
was a little difficult to write because that's not the
choice I would have made as a mother, That's not
the choice Marie would have made as a mother.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
But it was the.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Honest choice, and I think and that's one of the
things Marie has taught me, to be honest and authentic
to the character at that time. And I think that
frees us a little bit more than someone making a
film to in today's times, do you know what I mean?
Because we can be honest to nineteen thirty and so
we could blame a lot of the decisions on well,
(25:24):
it was one hundred years ago, you know.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
So that's what I think frees us with that.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Interesting and Marie, you mentioned your list of women that
you keep. I'm curious how you both ultimately choose the
characters that you're going to deep dive in because like
a pair of aces you mentioned, like this friend as
you asked you a question, But I can imagine you
have this long list of people that you could have
(25:50):
written about. Why choose a pair of aces?
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Right now?
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Oh gosh? I mean, I think for us, some of
it stems from the evolution of the books that we
already written. You know, our first book, and you heard
how we came across that story and then how we
came to write it together. When we one of the
things that happened to us as as friends and as
writers is we went on the road with the personal librarian,
(26:16):
and we discovered that people were as interested in our
friendship as they were in the story, which, by the way,
we're not as interesting as Beldacosta Green, not by a mile.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
And I don't know I beg to do her. I've
spent with you guys a lot, a.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Great life, and so it kind of in response to that,
we we wanted to show what that could have been, like,
how two women could could really And you know, that
second book, the First Ladies, was about Eleanor Roosevelt and
Mary McLeod Beffune, who became like secret best friends when
she was in the White House and then worked together
(26:51):
behind the scenes to really lay the foundation for the
civil rights movement. With this book, we wanted to again
explore the relationship which in a black and white woman,
but do something a little different. And you know, we
live in divisive times and yet we can come together,
and so we wanted to give an example of two
women who came together even though they weren't friends, even
(27:13):
though they weren't Mary and Eleanor BFFs, two women who
you know, totally opposite lives, opposite sides of the law,
totally different experiences and yet and yet they were able
to come together in their case to do something really
huge to help bring down the mob. And that was
kind of the guide post for that particular choice. I think,
(27:35):
wouldn't you say, Victoria.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yes, definitely, you don't have to be friends to be allied.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Yeah, ooh, I love that.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
It's true.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
The plot hooked me right away. So it's nineteen thirties
New York City. You have two main characters, Polly Adler,
who's a Jewish immigrant who's one of the city's most
successful and street smart Madams. I was hooked at Madam
Okay and then Eunice Carter, the city's first black woman
prosecutor hooked And both of these women existed in real life.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
So Marie, how did you find them?
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Well, you know, I at this in this particular instance,
I kind of set out to find someone who could
help embody that that theme, the theme of two women
from really different worlds coming together. And you know, like
I said, I do have a long list of women.
And I looked at some of those and I looked
at a lot of the materials that I keep, and
there was unus since it wasn't the first time I'd
seen Unis. You know Unis Is. I mean, if you're
(28:31):
looking at powerful women from the past, two are incredible.
Unis is going to be on that list. And I
started to look at her, I think a little differently
and say, and really look at the case. Once I
opened up my mind to the fact that I could
write a book about the law again, which was in
debate for a while, I started to look at her
and look at the case she was building and think, well,
(28:52):
if she had built this case, and you know, her
case was unique. She built a case on the fact
that the mob had infiltrated and started to control prostitution.
And Thomas Dewey and as was the case with a
lot of men at that time, didn't believe the thought
that prostitution was even beneath the mob, that they wouldn't
deign to actually involve themselves in such a small crime
(29:14):
which mostly involved women from their perspective. But Unice had
worked in the women's courts, which is again something that
was kind of shocking. The women's courts were separate court
systems for women and women's crimes and women's issues, which
included custody and prostitution and I'll leave you to interpret
(29:35):
that as you will. And so as I was looking
at the case that she would have had to build,
we started to think she would have had to have
someone on the inside, and she did. I mean, in
point of fact, she had many, many women on the
inside who helped her, many girls, many madams, many women
who'd been exploited and abused by the mob and the
(29:58):
other men who were involved in prostitution. And so we
wanted to find someone who could kind of embody those
women and give us a glimpse into what the world
looked like in nineteen thirties, kind of high end prostitution,
if you will, before the mob really got involved, to
see what the mob was doing to these women. And
(30:18):
that's when Pollyadleer rose to the top of the heap,
I mean herst She was the most famous madam of
the day, and not just because she ran this high
end house. It's because it was unlike anything else. It
was like a high end speakeasy. It was where celebrities
and politicians and mobsters went, and it was also run
(30:40):
like a business where the girls were taking care of.
It was different, and that was immediately appealing as sort
of an avenue to explore and to bring these two
women together.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Victoria, did you guys speak to any of these women's families.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
No, not in this book, even though with Eunice Potter
her grandson is alive and very successful and very popular.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
But not with this book. Interesting with some of the
other books we have, but not with this one.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Say we're grandson, Sean Carter, by.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Any chance, Stephen Carter, Stephen Carter.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Sean Carter's jay Z.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yes, I know.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
That's why I laughed. Ive, I said, Stephen Carter.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Oh, Stephen Carter got it, Okay, I just didn't know
if Victoria was being close.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Well, I it.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
Was funny because I somebody else when I was saying
her grandson, they said Sean Carter.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
And I was like, get out of here, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
But somebody else said that a while ago. So but
I always, you know.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
Because Stephen Carter is a he's a very prominent Yale professor.
He's an attorney in his own right, I mean, an
author in his own right, super successful.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
So that was that wasn't being caught. That would have
been funny, though.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
The interesting thing about this about this, we generally don't
reach out to the family in advance of a book
coming out. Our Our interactions we've had with family members
have generally been after the fact. When they've read they
reached out to us right and have embraced the story.
I mean, Eleanor Roosevelt's granddaughter told us that our depiction
of Eleanor Roosevelt was the closest to her grandmother that
(32:25):
anybody had ever written, which was like the best compliment
in the entire world and.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Us to speak.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
When I met her, she said, I want you to
come speak at my grandfather's library.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Now I had no idea who her grandfather was. I
didn't know who she was, but what but she said?
Speaker 5 (32:43):
She she told Marie and I that that was the
best depiction of her grandmother.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
That and she had read every book about her grandmother.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
That's so cool.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
It almost felt to me like New York became a character.
You have so many quintessential New York spots. Did you
start scene setting. Did you come and visit New York
and check out places? Oh?
Speaker 4 (33:13):
Yeah, I mean some of them are places we've been also,
But yeah, you know, unfortunately, when you're writing historical fiction,
you know you can visit the places, but sometimes they
aren't what they were. The building doesn't exist anymore. You
can get a feel for what I mean, you can
get lucky right, and some places are exact and intact,
or you can go in and you can get the
(33:33):
architectural sort of sense of what a place looks like.
But you do have to even when a place is
still there, you still have to really use your imagination
to see what it would have been like at that time. Obviously, maps,
photograph stuff like that can really help bring it to life.
But yeah, we have visited the places that you know
where the book is set to the extent that they
(33:54):
still exist.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
How did you go about giving them such distinctive voices?
Speaker 5 (34:01):
Again, And I'm so glad you said that, because I'm
so glad that they sound so that they don't sound similar.
But again, I think it's the research. And when we
research these stories, I think we're really.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Researching the women.
Speaker 5 (34:19):
I think we we're character driven writers most of the time,
and so you really want to know who they are
at their center.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
And once you know them, when I'm writing, I feel
like I'm.
Speaker 5 (34:32):
Just channeling their voices. It's not me at all, And
so I'm so glad that it comes out sounding like
them because we don't really have anything to do with it.
It's their stories, and I feel like sometimes I'm just
taking dictation for them.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
So it's naturally I do think we are.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
I'm gonna take it to task, and that we do
have something to do with it. Obviously, you know we are.
These are fictional interpretations of women who did want succest,
you know for sure, and the research inspires them. Some
research is like it helps channel that voice, right, But
that's definitely you know, us taking them and then putting
(35:12):
their story into our own kind of words and in
our own way.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
When you set out, do you have like sort of
your own graph and say, this is unic's motivation, this
is your insecurity, this is so.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
What does that look like?
Speaker 1 (35:27):
Because there's a lot of writers who listen to this
show that I think would be so interested to hear
how you how you bought that out?
Speaker 3 (35:33):
So I actually do a character resume. I've been doing
a character resume.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
Since nineteen ninety nine, when Terry McMillan told me to
go to and McDonald's and get an application and fill
it out for every character that would have a voice.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
And so we know.
Speaker 5 (35:50):
That and so since that time and when I teach
writing classes and I do it on substack. The very
first thing I do is give out my character resume
so that people people can fill it.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Out, and even for real.
Speaker 5 (36:04):
People who existed, I fill it out because once I
fill out the character resume, I know the center.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
I can know the center of them.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
Some of the things on the resume are facts, but
some of them are fiction based on facts. So for example,
I have their age, where they went to school, all
of that, But on the resume, I also have what
are their interests, what's what are they afraid of? Those
kinds of things, and I fill those in based on
(36:36):
the research. But I have a character resume started with
a McDonald's application, Victoria.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
You may have to put that out as a download.
That's like, I want to see that.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Now I have my own. I have my own resume.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
Over the years that it's no longer the McDonald's, but
it's really because I've added in social media and everything.
But I like giving out the character resume to people
because that's such a wonderful.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Place to begin.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Did anything surprise you while you guys were writing this one?
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Oh so many things. I mean, I would definitely have
to say. I mean a million things surprised me about Polly.
If somebody would have told me I would have written,
you know, we would have written a story about a
high class madam. I would have really said. What you know,
what was so wonderful about Polly's character is that it
was inspired from her autobiography. You don't often get an
(37:31):
autobiography when you are creating a character based on a
real person. And again, an autobiography to take a grit
with a grain of salt, because they have their own agenda.
They want to tell their own stories in their own ways,
and it's their kind of revisionist history of their own pasts.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
But you can hear her voice.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
You can hear her voice, Yeah, because she was there,
whether she wrote it, whether she had help to her,
it sounded like her.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
And for the poly character, that was so helpful to
really kind of bring bring her to life, to really
make her resonate. I mean, I think with Unison, we
didn't have that, but we did have her.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
You know.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
Stephen Carter, her grandson, wrote an amazing biography of her,
which was hugely helpful.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Yeah, that really helped a lot.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
I think, you know the thing that surprised me is
I didn't know anything about organized prostitution.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
And when I what.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
I mean by that is I never knew how violent
they were. I never knew about the drugs that they
used with the women. That was shocking to me. I
don't know how I got to be this age and
didn't know all of that.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
It's this whole underworld, this whole under world, and so
you think you know what prostitution is, and you have
no idea what organized prostitution is.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
I think too, that the women's courts were really surprising
at both of us, wouldn't you say, Victoria, That was
really like to think that things that involve women, which
obviously also involved men, right, prostitution usually has two partners.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Those only there only punished.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
Yeah, that was really shocking, that kind of institutionalized perception
and the way it became, you know, it actually became
like an actual building, like there was a women's court building.
That's that was shocking that.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
There's a big theme in the story that is the
tension between women's roles and expectations, and Unice and Polly
are on opposite sides of the law, but they're both
pioneers in their own rights, which is one of the
things that I think makes this so interesting. And then
there's an additional layer of expectations for black women, for
white women, for immigrant women, for poor women. How did
(39:52):
your own identities and backgrounds help you write all of
these nuances so well.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
One of my favorite scenes in this book is when
Polly and Eunice are sitting in the car arguing or
debating over who has it worse in this world, a.
Speaker 5 (40:10):
Black woman or a white woman who doesn't have the
background that the black woman has. And that was such
an interesting conversation that Marie and I spent a lot
of time having with each other and using.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Our own backgrounds and talking about it. And that's the.
Speaker 5 (40:32):
Beauty of this partnership because we can talk honestly about
that and then put the honest words down on pay
on paper. But we are always using our own experiences
and our own backgrounds.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
To write these stories.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
There are times when Marie will put something in because
it's stuck with her, and I will say, no, we
don't need that in because as a black woman, you
can't be thinking about that anymore.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
So we are always using our own experiences and backgrounds.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
When d you agree Marie, Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
What are you hoping that readers take away when they
finished the last page of the book from.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
The beginning, before we even wrote the very first words,
when our treasure hunter found this story. I wanted this,
especially for a time such as this. You don't have
to be friends to the allies. And I hope that
(41:37):
women take that away because if we join forces together,
we can accomplish and change some things in the world,
just like these two women did together. And I know
there have been partnerships out there like this forever, and
there are gonna be unsung women that we will never
know about. But I want people to be very aware
(42:01):
that you don't have to agree on everything, you don't
have to be friends, but you can still have a
common goal that can change some things.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Beautiful.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
Yeah, I mean to find some areas of commonality. I mean,
no matter what your belief system, no matter what your background,
no matter there's usually something that can bring you together.
And to have that opportunity to have people read the
book think about that, maybe think about someone who they
kind of may be dismissed because they thought that they
(42:34):
didn't share all the same beliefs. None of us do.
But there's so many areas where we can come together
and work together and make great change. We're just forge
a friendship, you know, there's just a shift in the
way that we look at kind of where we are.
As Victoria said, in times such as these, I.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Can tell you when I finished the last page, I thought, Wow,
I want more from these characters. Do you think that
there's a possibility of more from Unison Polly or is
this it?
Speaker 4 (43:05):
I would say there's definitely more from Victorian Marie.
Speaker 5 (43:09):
Yeah, yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 4 (43:15):
We'll be doing another book together for sure, or in
the early stages of that's Unfortunately we can't talk about it.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Evenough we can't talk about I'm so excited still.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
This is the Reese's Book Club podcast.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Yes, I know, but but so we're announcing it here.
We're doing in the Mouth together. Yes, we're doing together.
Speaker 5 (43:36):
And because you know, we won't be able to get
rid of me, they're same that happens when we write together.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
I don't know what it is.
Speaker 5 (43:46):
We can't figure it out, and I think it's a
because we're on a mission together that that we want
to show people is so fascinated with this black and
white woman who when we're touring together and on stage together,
we forget that there's like an audience. We're just talking
to each other, you know, we're just catching up with
(44:07):
each other, and so this magic that happens. So we'll
be writing together, but we still also write individual books,
so we're both working on individual projects right now as well.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
And what's something that you're so obsessed with that you
could write a book about it?
Speaker 2 (44:23):
But you probably won't.
Speaker 4 (44:26):
I mean, I got down the rabbit hole a lot,
and I find a lot of things. But if I
had to say something like I'm really into right at
this moment, it's going to be a little odd. But
I am listening to Margaret Atwood's memoir and she is
one of my absolute favorite writers. Her themes, her tackling
of so many different genres. I mean, she's just amazing.
(44:46):
And she narrates her She's in her eighties now, she
finally wrote a memoir and she narrates it and it
is just I can't stop listening to it, and thankfully
it's long. But I'll never write her story, you know,
she she's writing it right now. She wrote her own story, right,
and that's the ultimate goal. People always ask Victoria and
I like, well, we keep writing, and we always say, well,
(45:08):
we'll stop when we don't have to write women back
into history when they're already in there. And you know,
Margaret out what is writing her own history. She doesn't
need me, but boy, she makes it very enticing.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
That's a juicy one, Marie.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
I love that. And you know what I'm obsessed with.
Speaker 5 (45:23):
And I just had a conversation with a friend about
this earlier today.
Speaker 3 (45:28):
What makes a leader and what makes a follower?
Speaker 5 (45:31):
And I'm not talking about in politics, I'm not talking
about corporately. I'm talking about in friends and families and.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Why are they leaders? And why are their followers?
Speaker 5 (45:43):
And why do the leaders always have to carry everything?
And why are the followers always following? And I want
to write a book about people like that in a
family or a friendship, but I will never do that
because I want to keep my family and I love
my friend Fuddy.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
So you probably won't write a book about it.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Fair enough, if this has been such a fun conversation
and you're both such beautiful writers and different writers too,
I'm curious what the best writing advice is that you've received.
And then also the writing advice you most often give Victoria,
may I start with you.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
Yeah, so I always start with the character resume.
Speaker 5 (46:24):
Seriously, if you want to write first, know who you're
going to write about, so spend.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Time there and people feel very comfortable.
Speaker 5 (46:30):
The best writing advice I ever thought was from Eric
Jerome Dicky, who told me to write forward, and what
he meant by that was write You can't write a
book in your head, so get the words down on
the page, but don't spend time going over that first
chapter for the next five months.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Just get the words down on the page, and.
Speaker 5 (46:50):
Then write forward, and then you won't never finish a
book unless you write forward, get to the end, and
then you can go back and do all the editing.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Best advice ever, great advice.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
That's good advice, I would say. The best advice I
didn't get personally, although I would love it was from
Annie LaMotte, who I love, you know, which was was
really emphasizing the important the importance of writing regularly, having
a schedule and a routine. And you know, I usually
am very kind of organized and routine focused, but you know,
(47:23):
you can let your life get in the way, and
you can let other aspects of being a writer get
in the way, and kind of having that as a
reminder is really important to kind of center that focus
that very intentionally. And that's true for anyone who writes,
whether they're early writers or whether they've been doing it
for a long time. Is to really make that routine
the priority, or you'll never get forward. You know you
(47:46):
never will. And I would say the I don't know
if this is advice that I give. It's such a
weird little thing, but I'll share it. A friend of
mine years ago told me that she'd read something. She
was a scientist, and she'd read some article about the
fact that if you pick a certain piece of meat
music to listen to when you're undertaking a specific creative task,
it will help you, and then play it each time
(48:08):
that you begin. It will help you tap into the
headspace for writing it and the headspace that you left
off with. And I thought that sounded like malarkey, and
but I but I do it. I do it. I
have music I listen to. I may not listen to
it the whole time I'm writing, but I put it
back on when I start again, and it really helps
me get I don't know how it works or what
(48:29):
it does, but it does help me.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
I love the specificity.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Laura Dave is an author that we've had on the
podcast and she writes to music often.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
Her last book, she wrote to Taylor Swift, I'll never
forget that, so I love that. That's such a great nugget.
Thank you both so much.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
I'm so grateful for your time, and I'm so excited
to be with you in New York.
Speaker 4 (48:49):
I know, I'm so excited to be a conversation with us.
It'll be fun.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Thank you, guys.
Speaker 4 (48:55):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
That's it for this episode of Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Our phone line is now open, so if.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
You want to go nineties on us, give us a
call at one five zero one two nine to one
three three seven nine. That's one five zero one two
nine to one three three seven nine. Share your literary
hot takes, your book recommendations, questions about the monthly pick,
or let us know what you think about the episode
(49:26):
you just heard, and who knows, you might just hear
yourself in our next episode, so don't overthink it. Give
us a ring, and if you want more, come hang
with us. Reese's book Club is on Instagram, serving up books,
good vibes and all the behind the scenes stuff you love.
And I'm at Danielle Robe Robay, so come say hi
(49:46):
and please seriously DM me because I actually read them
and I love hearing what you think about the episodes,
and don't forget to follow. Bookmarked by Reese's book Club
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
We'll see you in the next cha.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
Bookmarked is a production of Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts,
Executive produced by Reese Witherspoon and me Danielle Robe.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
Production by Acast Creative Studios.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
Our producers are Matty Foley, Brittany Martinez and Sarah Schleied.
Our editor is Carmen Borca Carrillo. Our production assistant is
Avery Loftis. Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder are.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
Executive producers for a Cast Creative Studios.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Maureene Polo and Reese Witherspoon are executive producers for Hello Sunshine.
Olga Cominwha, Kristin Perla, Ashley Rappaport and Sarah Kernerman are
associate producers for Reese's book Club, and Ali Perry is
executive producer for iHeart podcasts,
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