Portrait in Fragments: What They Said About Luisa by Erika Rummel
BY LEE ANN ECKHARDT SMITH
In 1575, Luisa Abrego, a freed slave from Seville, was tried in Mexico for bigamy by officers of the Spanish Inquisition. Aside from the trial record, no other documentation of her exists. Intrigued by that scrap of information, Renaissance historian and author Erika Rummel resurrects Luisa in her latest novel, What They Said About Luisa (Dundurn, 2024).
Rummel uses a unique storytelling approach to describe Luisa and her life. Ten fictional characters tell what they know (or think they know) about Luisa; Luisa’s point of view is not part of the novel.
The author chose this approach deliberately. She explains: “I was intrigued by the glimpses of Luisa’s life provided in the Inquisition records, but I did not think it was appropriate for me to adopt the voice of a Black woman. Instead, I explore the question: What would white people in the 16th century have made of Luisa’s case – given the rigid social hierarchy and racial prejudices prevailing at the time?”
This book is different from Rummel’s earlier historical novels, in which the protagonist – her creation – interacts with a well-documented historical character. To the author, the approach she chose with this novel presented a significant advantage. “The reader’s impression of Luisa remains in flux,” Rummel says. “The opinions voiced reflect the agenda, social status, and feelings of individual observers. Love, jealousy, disdain, greed, and insecurity are shaping their perception of Luisa. The picture that emerges is multifaceted and leaves readers free to decide, who was Luisa?”
This theme of faulty perceptions, of our inability to distinguish between seeming and being “runs through all my novels, and is a real-life question for me as well,” the author says. As an historian and professor of history, she points out that “until the mid-20th century there was a strong belief that historians could discover “what really happened.” Today, we realize that we tend to filter historical records through our own experiences and read them through the lens of our own cultural biases. There is not Historical Truth.” She adds that on a more personal level, “I think that communication is always difficult because we can’t read each other’s minds. We rely on the medium of language, which is an imperfect means of getting our thoughts and feelings across. Mutual love (as in the case of my characters Luisa and Jorge) may be a better way of bridging the gap.”
author Erika Rummel
For this novel, Rummel had a large “bridge to gap” between the single historical record and the details that would bring Luisa’s story to life in a credible way. Here, she drew on her expertise on the 16th century to depict specific aspects of daily life during Luisa’s time. “I am interested in the grip religion/superstition had on people’s minds and the power the institutional church had over their everyday lives,” she says. “Beyond that, I wanted to give readers an overall picture of the period – dress, means of transportation, housing, work and social conditions. It’s a short-cut to 16th century history.”
This novel also provided an opportunity for the author to expand her knowledge of the time, through specific research. She explains: “Apart from looking into the record of Luisa’s trial by the Mexican Inquisition, I researched the social and economic conditions in Seville, Luisa’s hometown, which had a sizeable Black population in the 16th century. I also dug for information on mining in Zacatecas, where Luisa and her husband settled. The town experienced a “silver rush” at the time. In addition, I searched for information on the relationship between settlers and the indigenous population of Mexico, information I needed for the scene describing a raid on the wagon train.”
Given there is so little historical documentation on Luisa, almost all of her life had to be imagined. Rummel acknowledges the role her characters played in this process. “Some authors make a detailed outline before they start writing. I don’t,” she declares. “I start out with a vague general idea and write scene by scene – wherever the characters will take me. So much for the process of deciding what to include.” She goes on to say, “As for exclusions, here is what I cut out once I finished the novel: a scene in which Madre prays to Mother Earth, and the original ending with Luisa singing and dancing by herself. In both cases I felt that I was out of my depth, and in keeping with the tenor of the novel, I kept to, or cut back to the voices of white people.”
She concludes: “To fill the vacuum left by the historical sources was a challenge, but also gave me more leeway in developing a plot line. In that sense, writing this novel forced me to expand and refine my techniques – in other words, it provided me with an opportunity to grow.”
About the contributor: Lee Ann Eckhardt Smith’s passion for history and storytelling has driven her writing career. She is the author of two acclaimed non-fiction history books: Strength Within: the Granger Chronicles (Baico, 2005) and Muskoka’s Main Street: 150 Years of Courage and Adventure Along the Muskoka Colonization Road (Muskoka Books, 2012). She’s written articles for many magazines and newspapers, primarily about how to write family history and memoir. She is currently working on her fourth collection of photographs and poetry, inspired by the beauty she finds in her everyday world. Find out more at her website.
