Launch: Maybelle Wallis’ Daughter of Strangers

INTERVIEW BY LESLIE S. LOWE


Maybelle Wallis spent her career as a paediatrician in England and Ireland, and she studied creative writing with the Open University, Jericho Writers and Curtis Brown. In her novels she draws on the atmosphere of the old workhouse buildings on hospital grounds, the evolution of medicine during the Victorian era and a belief that while times may change, human nature does not. Her debut Heart of Cruelty won ‘Meet the Publisher’ at the 2020 Wexford Literary Festival and was published by Poolbeg, followed by The Piano Player, in 2022.

How would you describe Daughter of Strangers and its themes in a couple of sentences?

In New York in 1854, Anna, an Irish schoolteacher leaves her fiancé, Alex, a landowner’s son, to attend college in America. She educates Orla, a troubled teenager who was adopted during the Great Famine by Jane and William Doughty. William’s colleague, Joseph Murphy, an Irish surgeon, has long admired her, but his past is stained by a murder, for which Alex, who is trying to win Anna back, is seeking revenge.

What inspired and attracted you to writing historical fiction?

I loved historical fiction as a child. I read extensively from my local library, with Jean Plaidy and Georgette Heyer among my favorite authors. I began writing decades later while working as a paediatrician in Britain’s West Midlands. The industrial history was still evident, with 19th-century workhouse buildings forming part of the hospitals where I worked. I began studying creative writing with the Open University and wrote short stories for a writing group.

At work I often saw parents with children who were small copies of themselves. Seeing how personalities, faces, and gestures are transmitted through the generations inspired me to explore my themes in historical settings.

This is the third book of a series. Are you writing another book in the series? If not, what are you working on now, and is it related to this in any way?

Daughter of Strangers centres on settling old scores and resolving past trauma, bringing the series to a close.

My new project is a fictionalized biography of Speranza, Oscar Wilde’s mother. I discovered her while researching a minor character for my second novel, The Piano Player, set in Dublin in 1849. I needed an independent-minded young female writer. Researching Speranza, I became fascinated by the glories and tragedies of her life: not only with her son’s success and disgrace but also her early life as a rebel writer during the 1848 Irish Rebellion, and her subsequent marriage to the brilliant but flawed surgeon and polymath William Wilde.

Does any part of your own life experiences as a pediatrician connect with any character or events in the story? What difficulty did you have in writing this one?

All my characters contain aspects of myself. I had a strange and troubled childhood, which influenced Orla, the traumatised orphan. My experience as a medical professional shapes Joseph and his colleague Dr William Doughty. Being a wife and mother connects me to Jane. Naturally, my ambitions as an author allow me to sympathise with Anna, a ‘bluestocking’ who seeks the writing life.

One of my main challenges was setting the story in America, necessitated by the previous book in the series and essential to the plot. I was keenly aware that antebellum New York was a city whose economy was underpinned by slavery. I attempted to acknowledge this, but a lack of authentic voice led me to abandon it, knowing I would not achieve the required standard.

Is there a historical event you found in researching that inspired you to write this story to portray a key message for now?

My theme is finding closure after trauma and reconciliation after conflict. As a writer based in Ireland, I am aware of our long history of conflict between Nationalists and Unionists. Our historical inquiries about the murders committed during the Troubles, 50 years ago, show how strongly people grieve and long for justice. There are many tragic conflicts happening now across the world planting sorrow and hatred in millions of hearts.

Yet there is also the need to move forward. In Daughter of Strangers, Orla, the traumatised famine orphan, must find a way to develop fully as a person and realise her talents.

What kind of research did you do for this story? Did you get to do any interesting interviews?

Personal reasons prevented travel to New York. I’d have loved to have visited the South Street Museum and the Merchant’s House Museum in Manhattan. But I suspected that elsewhere the last 170 years has profoundly altered the setting.

Two writer friends in New York generously shared their advice but I mainly relied on books and ephemera. A key resource was the Internet Archive, which offers many publications from the mid-19th century. I used newspaper archives and the online collection of the New York Public Library, which includes detailed fire insurance maps of Manhattan.

Three works were particularly illuminating: Joan L. Severa’s My Likeness Taken: Daguerreian Portraits in America contains hundreds of images. For domestic settings I drew on Lockwood and Ciccone’s Bricks and Brownstone: The New York Row House and Mary L. Knapp’s An Old Merchant’s House: Life at Home in New York City.

I tried to recall the intonations of my late father’s voice. He was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1910, and his soft accents likely represented the 19th century more accurately than modern voices. Walt Whitman’s poetry conveyed a strong sense of the setting and the people of the time.

How do you think the reader will connect with your main characters? Is there one that you feel connected to and why?

My two point-of-view characters are Anna, a schoolteacher striving for independence but tempted by marriage, and Joseph, a surgeon grappling with his past mistakes. Readers who have experienced these conflicts might connect with either.

I once attended an improv workshop where we had to speak to one another as one of our characters. I became the troubled teenager, Orla, and my voice emerged small and afraid. My childhood was hard for different reasons than hers, but I felt connected to her.

Every author has their own publishing journey. Tell me about yours.

Where I live in Wexford, Ireland, there is a strong creative community, and a local bookseller encouraged me to enter my first novel, Heart of Cruelty, in a ‘Meet the Publisher’ competition at Wexford Literary Festival. This connected me with my publisher, Poolbeg, allowing me to bypass the agent submission process. I was fortunate to work with Poolbeg’s insightful editor and didn’t have to worry about the book production process. While commercial success remains elusive, I can at least say that I have written three books.

What advice would you give to other aspiring historical writers?

Immerse yourself fully in your world, making it real so your words flow from your mind to the page like a living connection with the past. Read widely in your chosen genre and use art for inspiration. I love seeing portraiture from different periods and imagining the living person behind the paint.

What is the last great book you read? Why?

I loved reading The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It’s a coming-of-age novel about an enslaved boy whose mother is sold away from him by his planter father. I was blown away by the beauty of Coates’ writing style, the heart-wrenching tragedy that runs through the novel, and his ability to tell a vast story through the eyes of a single character.

 

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