Loretta Goldberg interviews me about Trees Long for Rain!

The much-lauded historical novelist Loretta Goldberg interviewed me about Trees Long for Rain for her blog. Here is a sample of the interview and link to the full article below.

1. What draws you to Venice in the decade you chose?

I was an adjunct professor in Film Studies at the University of Amsterdam from 1997 through 2001. Once a year I would attend a film festival in Pordenone, and to get to it I had to fly into Venice. Whenever possible I spent an extra day in Venice. I also went there for several longer visits. I never tired of it. I wanted to write about it, especially about Venetian music. Opera was born in Italy and La Fenice in Venice is one of the best opera houses. Everyone writes about Vivaldi, a century later, but I wanted to set a story at the moment Opera was born and the plague had just decimated most of Europe, including Venice. Disasters like that end life the way we know it, but at the same time make space for a new order. That led me to 1643.

2. I particularly enjoy the wide range of cultures you describe so well, from the Jewish ghetto to the shipping docks to Monteverdi’s choir performances. You have courtesans among your characters who surprised me with their social mobility. Can you say more about being a courtesan in Venice at that time?

I discovered the Venetian courtesan class when I was researching the possibilities for Isabella, the heroine of my novel, to have a musical career. Courtesans were a legal profession and paid their taxes! Noble wives were uneducated, so patrician men had to look for intellectual companionship as well as extra sex elsewhere. Courtesans often had salons where artists and intellectuals gathered and they sponsored, and performed, in musical events. Their lifestyle had benefits such as agency, wealth, and the freedom to follow intellectual and artistic pursuits, but they also faced dangers like syphillis, the dangers of pregnancy (and inability to work while pregnant), and legal persecution which came in the guise of accusations of witchcraft.

Read the full interview here

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