Launch: Lori Anne Goldstein’s Love, Theodosia: A Novel of Theodosia Burr and Philip Hamilton 

INTERVIEW BY MALLY BECKER                   

Lori Anne Goldstein is the author of four novels for young adults: the Becoming Jinn contemporary fantasy series, and Screen Queens and Sources Say. She teaches creative writing at Grub Street in Boston. Mally Becker interviews her on Love, Theodosia, her adult historical debut novel.

How would you describe this book and its themes in a couple of sentences?

Love, Theodosia asks the question, what if Theodosia Burr and Philip Hamilton, the children of two sworn personal and political enemies, fell in love at the worst possible time. During the 1800 election in New York City, Theodosia’s father, Aaron Burr, is doing all he can to win the presidency, while Philip’s father, Alexander Hamilton, is doing all he can to stop that. It’s a Romeo and Juliet tale for Hamilton fans.

What drew you to write about Theodosia, Philip Hamilton and post-Revolutionary War America? 

The spark for Love, Theodosia came during my first viewing of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton musical in 2017. In one of the more introspective moments of the show, Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr sing of their newborn children—one a boy, the other a girl. They sing of the fathers they wish to be and the world they want to pass on to them, and while I listened, a Romeo and Juliet story immediately popped into my mind.

While the song, “Dear, Theodosia,” was my inspiration, the real-life facts became the ones I hung my story on. During my very first Google rabbit hole, I learned that Theodosia and Philip attended the same school as children and ran in the same circles in New York City society, and that’s when my what-if began to grow legs.

The romance plays out within the true historical timeline and events of that year, when one of the most controversial and ultimately landscape-changing presidential elections was held. This was a year that saw Theodosia in her most important role in facilitating her father’s career aspirations and making what I imagined to be, based on the course her life took after, difficult and life-changing personal choices.

What did you learn about Theodosia that surprised you the most?

The more I researched Theodosia, the more she drew me in. She was a prodigy, regarded as the first truly educated woman in the United States, educated as if she were a male, which was unusual for the time. After her mother’s death, she served as mistress of the Burr household, hosting dinners and parties and she mingled with men such as George Washington. She was a scholar with the skills of a socialite. What surprised me most about her was that she knew that her education made her different from other women of the day. There was much unfavourable gossip about her, and yet, she relished her intellect and didn’t let what others thought stop her.

Your novel so brilliantly blends fact and fiction. How did you find a balance between describing the complicated history of the time and shaping the fictional story and relationship?

As I began to form the bones of what this story would be, I came up with some rules for myself. This was to be historical fiction, but because the romance between Theodosia and Philip was imagined, I wanted everything else to be as true to history as I could make it. Nearly all the characters in my book were actual people whom Theodosia knew. From Natalie de lage de Volude, the godchild of Marie Antoinette, to Washington Irving to John Vanderlyn to Angelica Hamilton.

For months, my walls were lined with scrolls of art paper on which I tracked every event and date in the election and every home, business, and journey of the characters.

Pieced together from biographies and letters written by the major parties, I developed a timeline of the historical facts of Theodosia and Philip’s lives and wove into that real timeline the events of this imagined romance. I decided to set in the year of 1800 as it was a pivotal one for both Theodosia and her father thanks to the election for presidency taking place that year. The election gave a rich background in which to set the story—the true facts of it are quite dramatic all on their own!

Who is your favorite secondary character and why?

Aaron Burr, because he was such a flawed, contradictory man who demanded so much from those around him, yet he had a fierce love for his daughter and she for him. It was a writer’s gift to attempt to untangle such a complicated man.

What a change Love, Theodosia is from your young adult books! What do your YA books and your new historical fiction novel have in common?

All my novels feature strong female protagonists who fight for what they believe in. They inspire me, and I hope readers are inspired by them.

What kind of research did you do for this story?

So much research and such varied research, as any historical fiction writer can relate to! I was really lucky to come across a book in my local library from 1918 with some of the only surviving letters from Aaron Burr to his daughter and she to him. These rare letters—the rest were lost at sea with Theodosia—were so helpful in getting a sense of the relationship between the two. They were very close, especially after her mother died when she was just eleven years old.

I also read Burr and Hamilton biographies, went to the New York Public Library to look at old drawings, visited museums to look at furniture and clothing of the time, and read letters written by some of the historical figures mentioned in the novel, which are on a public government website.

What is the last great book you read?

The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher.

A review of Love, Theodosia appears in issue 98 of Historical Novels Review magazine.

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