Lauren Willig, The Girl From Greenwich Street and Cherry Bounce

Oh! OH! This book! This weird drink! And Lauren! What is not to love about this episode?  I love everything Lauren writes - her touch with historical fiction is so deft. It's enlightening and page turning and as a reader I am never once bogged down by research - so much so her books feel like peeks into the homes and hearts of real people living in fascinating times. And this book is part court room drama, part true crime story -  staring Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, before the duel. 

But the part I loved the most was the story Lauren told about the  heartbreaking aftermath of tragedy on real lives - particularly women.  Grab this book - Mom, you'll love it. 

Based on the true story of a famous trial, this novel is Law and Order: 1800, as Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr investigate the shocking murder of a young woman who everyone—and no one—seemed to know.

At the start of a new century, a shocking murder transfixes Manhattan, forcing bitter rivals Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr to work together to save a man from the gallows. 

Just before Christmas 1799, Elma Sands slips out of her Quaker cousin’s boarding house—and doesn’t come home. Has she eloped? Run away? No one knows—until her body appears in the Manhattan Well.

Her family insists they know who killed her. Handbills circulate around the city accusing a carpenter named Levi Weeks of seducing and murdering Elma. 

But privately, quietly, Levi’s wealthy brother calls in a special favor….

Aaron Burr’s legal practice can’t finance both his expensive tastes and his ambition to win the 1800 New York elections. To defend Levi Weeks is a double win: a hefty fee plus a chance to grab headlines.

Alexander Hamilton has his own political aspirations; he isn’t going to let Burr monopolize the public’s attention. If Burr is defending Levi Weeks, then Hamilton will too. As the trial and the election draw near, Burr and Hamilton race against time to save a man’s life—and destroy each other.

Part murder mystery, part thriller, part true crime, The Girl From Greenwich Street revisits a dark corner of history—with a surprising twist ending that reveals the true story of the woman at the center of the tale.

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Transcript

Molly Fader (00:30):

Oh, hello day drinkers. I am so excited today. Oh, I skipped the thing already. Oh, see, I'm too excited. Welcome to Day Drinking with Authors, the podcast series where I pick a book, my author picks a drink, and we discuss both. I'm your host Molly Fader, and today I'm very excited. I was so excited. I forgot the spiel. One of my longtime heroes, an auto buy book, Lauren Willig, is here today to talk about the girl from Greenwich Street. And if you have never read Lauren's books before, one of the things that I'm so crazy about with them and it's such a magic trick, is that it's also deft and tender. The history, the characters, the settings are woven together in such a way that it doesn't feel like fiction and it doesn't feel like nonfiction. It just feels like a very real peak into the lives and times of the people that she's writing about.
(01:25)
And she's written across a lot of lives and times, and we are going to get into it. But I'm going to read the first or the back cover copy because my mom likes that. And mom, you would love this book At the start of a new century, a shocking murder transfixes Manhattan forcing bitter rivals, Alexander Hamilton and Erin Burr to work together to save a man from the gallows. Just before Christmas, 1799, Elma Sands slips out of her Quaker cousin's boarding house and doesn't come home. Has she eloped run away? No one knows until her body appears in the Manhattan. Well, her family insists they know who killed her handbills circulate around the city accusing a carpenter named Levi, weeks of seducing and murdering Elma. But privately, quietly, Levi's wealthy brother calls in a special favour. Aaron Burr's legal practise can't finance both his expensive tastes and his ambition to win the 1800 New York election.
(02:14)
To defend Levi Weeks is a double win, a hefty fee, plus a chance to grab headlines. Alexander Hamilton has his own political aspirations. He isn't going to let Burr monopolise the public's attention. If Burr is defending Levi Levi weeks, then Hamilton will too. As the trial and the election drawn near Burn Hamilton race against time to save a man's life and destroy each other part. Murder mystery, part thriller, part two crime, the girl from Greenwich Street revisits a dark corner in history with a surprising twist ending that reveals the true story of the woman at the centre of the tale. Lauren, welcome to Day Drinking with Authors. Lauren Willig (02:49):

Molly, thank you so much for having me. I am so happy to be here. Molly Fader (02:54):

Well, I have got a tonne of questions, but first thing we're going to talk about is what are we drinking today? Lauren Willig (02:59):

Well, I think today we're going to be drinking some cherry bounce, which is what the people in the case, we've been drinking like so many early American, I was about to say cocktails, but that's not a thing. Like so many early American libations, it basically involves boiling things with sugar and spirits. In this case, you boil cherries and sugar and you pour in a generous T of brandy or rum or whatever liquor you happen to have lying around the house and you get really, really blitzed because those drinks were strong. Molly Fader (03:34):

The cherry part is self-explanatory. The bounce is whatever you've got, right? Lauren Willig (03:39):

It bounce is how you feel after you've had a cup or two of it, of course, because it's sweet. It's got the sugar, it's got the fruit. I mean, so many of these, you don't really feel it until it's actually hit you, but it was safer than the water. Molly Fader (03:52):

And then it takes you safer than the water. Oh, weirdly, I've had this before. Lauren Willig (03:59):

You've actually had cherry bounce. Molly Fader (04:01):

I know. So I was in a wedding in kind of rural Michigan and it's like having a comeback there with all the local distilleries. So Lauren Willig (04:12):

That's fascinating. Molly Fader (04:14):

I mean, I can't imagine that it's, maybe it's the same kind of recipe, but yeah, it was quite powerful. It was a cure for sure. Lauren Willig (04:23):

Yes, Molly Fader (04:24):

But delicious. Lauren Willig (04:25):

That's amazing. Well, a lot of these historical recipes are making comebacks. I am fascinated by the number of historical cookbooks out there now that lightly sanitise things for a modern audience. Molly Fader (04:37):

That's true. We're eating a lot of game all of a sudden Lauren Willig (04:43):

And cherry bounce. Molly Fader (04:44):

Yes. So to get right into the book, did you have any second thoughts? Worries? Anticipation. Excitement? How did you feel deciding that you were going to step into the points of view of both Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, considering the way that they have exploded in the zeitgeist thanks to the musical? Lauren Willig (05:08):

Oh, I was absolutely terrified even before the musical, we have such firm ideas of who Hamilton and Burr were. They're frozen in time. You've got Hamilton the hero, I mean hero of economics, nerds everywhere. He is the man who made the bank. And you've got Burr who's become the consummate American villain. My 7-year-old son is really into who will win books. I sort of feel like, oh my talk about a flash Molly Fader (05:37):

From the past. Lauren Willig (05:39):

I was just thinking between if there were a who will win American villain edition. It's really a toss up I think between Aaron Burr and Benedict Arnold in the public imagination because Burr really has become the sort of the joker of American history. We see him in this very specific light. And so how do you peel away those layers, which were really ossified partly by Hamilton's death and the dual four years after all this happened, and partially by really good PR for Hamilton and bad PR for Burr get into the heads of these men before they were the legends at this very specific moment in their lives. And I mean, I was so scared because most of my books have had real people, but I haven't been in their heads. My books tend to habit the category of imaginary people interacting with real events. So I've had George II and Napoleon and all these other people pop up in my books, but they're side characters.
(06:40)
And I'm in the heads of imaginary people whose emotional lives I can control. But in this case, these were real people and I felt we owe them a debt to try not to make them caricatures, to try to make as real as we can. And actually, funny side story, my kids go to summer camp with Allison Pataki's Kids and we belong to the same local library and all that. And we were watching the kids on the slip and slide as I was starting work with this book. And I'm like, how do you do it? How do you write real people because it's so damn hard? And she's like, you'll be fine.
(07:18)
Your kid just fell off the slip and slide. But she talked me down off my ledge and I had to fetch my wet child. But I found for me what made the difference was really immersing myself in this tiny corner of their lives and reading their letters and all of the material they've left behind so I could hear their voices. And when you focus on a very small period instead of the scope of someone's life or the legend, you really get a sense of where they are at that moment. And I mean in this case, Hamilton, this was not a good time for Hamilton. He was feeling incredibly disillusioned. He's working like crazy even by Hamilton standards. He's the Inspector General of the Army and being Hamilton, he is organising all the things from the number of corners that are cocked on the hats to the number of ideal it's Hamilton. And the more Molly Fader (08:16):

Give it a rest buddy. Lauren Willig (08:19):

And the problem too is the more of control he feels, the more he micromanages. So he's going nuts. And he knows President Adams hates him. The only reason he's Inspector General of the Army is because Washington pushed it through. But Washington died last month in January of 1799 and sorry, January, December of 1799. And Hamilton is alone. He knows his army project. He's poured all this work. Adams is going to bring down the hammer on it at any time. And also he's constantly in need of money. He has a tonne of kids. He's promised Eliza, he'll build her a country house. So he has a very busy commercial law practise. And then we've got the April, 1800 elections coming up and he does not want Burr and his Republicans to win, but he knows they're actually gaining ground. And so poor Hamilton, he's scrambling on all these levels and he's middle. I mean these guys, Hamilton and Burr, they're both in their mid forties and they had that glorious youth during the revolution and now they're dealing with the aftermath of everything. And this midlife moment of Wait, what am I doing? What's my legacy going to be? What's going on? This was not the way it was supposed to be. And so that I felt that made them more accessible. Sorry. As you can see, I can talk about this till the cows come home. Molly Fader (09:40):

No, but having them in this very limited timeframe, I felt like you got to see as a reader, I got to see, obviously it's well documented what happened between them and how it started. But this low simmering resentment and Burr kind of keeps, he's needling him about the bastard stuff, but he's also sort of trying to work around him and he's being very sort of patronising. You can see all the resentment there as it's happening. And it's like the comfort of it being specific to that period of time. You didn't have to go too far afield. Lauren Willig (10:22):

Well, I thought the thing with this particular moment is you see so many good examples of the way their relationship works. Basically they are middle school frenemies. That's what it reminds me of middle school girls. They often actually are friends, but it's a tragedy of character where each one has attributes that annoy the other. And let me tell you, I can see why Burr was constantly annoyed with Hamilton
(10:49)
And also why Hamilton cycles through working with Burr and then being incandescent with rage about Burr. Because one thing actually that gets said about this case that's wrong, there are many things that gets said about this case that are wrong, but one of them is that it's unusual for Hamilton and Bur to be co-counsel. And the truth is it wasn't unusual at all on a number of cases. At the same time, New York, the whole Bar Association is like 50 people. Everyone has to play nice together and they're constantly switching off and being co-counsel with each other case by case. And so Byrne Hamilton, they work together constantly and they work together in other ways too. So there are two great stories specific to this particular case and this particular time, and I think really exemplify the relationship between Hamilton and Burr. And one is the Manhattan Company, so well, yeah, we mentioned Cherry balance being safer than the water. Well, water was a big problem. And 1799 New York and Burr came to Hamilton with this idea for a water company that was going to bring clean water from upstate into the city so people would stop dying of yellow fever. I mean, spoiler. Now we know that's not how Yellow Fever works, but Molly Fader (12:08):

They have limited resources for science or Yes. Right. This Lauren Willig (12:12):

Actually Burr's brother-in-law, Dr. Thomas Brown, who is actually a doctor. He didn't just play one on tv. He had this idea about clean water preventing yellow fever, and this was really his scheme. And Burr picks it up and runs with it and goes to Hamilton, Hamilton's like, yes, clean water, let's do this. And of course, being Hamilton Burr gets Hamilton to draught the legislation for him for this bill. The Hamilton lobbies, the legislature on burr's behalf for this Manhattan company, and he puts his brother-in-law on the board of directors. Hamilton is doing all the work for Burr because Hamilton's like, yeah, I love this idea. I will do it because Hamilton doesn't trust anyone to do anything. Right. And then right before the bill goes up to vote, first sneaks in this clause allowing the Manhattan Company to use surplus funds for investments. Molly Fader (13:04):

Oh geez. Oh golly, Lauren Willig (13:06):

Yes. And there's one guy who notices this and votes against it, but it's too late. Hamilton has lobbied really effectively for this Manhattan company and the bill passes and what it creates is not a water company, it's a bank, and it's a bank deliberately designed to rival Hamilton's Bank of New York and to fund Burr and the Republican party. And Hamilton is livid. I mean this is a nightmare for him politically. And he did it himself. Bur completely faked him into doing this for him. And I think that is classic Hamilton and Burr, and it's the way their relationship works is Hamilton will be incandescent with rage over something like this. He'll stomp around writing angry letters to people about how horrible bur is. And then Bur will pop back up and be like, so I had this idea. And Hal will be like, oh my God, that's so cool. Yes, I'll come out and play. And it just happens over and over. And I suspect had things not escalated four years later to the point where there was a jewel, they would've reenacted this pattern in various degrees to the rest of their lives because there are ways in which they're useful to each other, but their characters are fundamentally so different. I mean, Hamilton thinks he's a manoeuvre, but he's really not. Burr is actually a manoeuvre. Molly Fader (14:21):

Yeah. Gets him every time. He's Lauren Willig (14:23):

So clever, he out manoeuvres himself. Molly Fader (14:26):

Part of this book is this argument about who's going to do the opening statements and who's going to do the closing statements because it's all very political. And Hamilton writes, he's going to do, burrs says, I'll do the opening statements. Hamilton will do closing statements. Hamilton sends him the closing statements and burrs steal everything. He steals everything so that there's nothing for Hamilton to say Lauren Willig (14:54):

It's classic. Although then, so this story for readers who haven't read the book yet, what happens is, so back in the early 19th, late 18th century, it was a rule that if you were admitted to the bar first you got the place of honour which was delivering the closing statement. That was where the cool kids went delivering the closing statement. And the junior lawyer on the team did the opening statement, and Burr was actually admitted to the bar slightly before Hamilton, so he's the senior. But there is this legend recounted by Burr's, biographers that in a case in which Hamilton and Burr were associated, Hamilton insisted despite the fact that he was actually admitted to the bar a couple of months after Burr, that he should get the closing statement and Burr instead of saying as would have been his, right. No, no, no. My bar admission was this month and yours was that month.
(15:50)
That's mine just says, sure, fine. You can take the closing statement. Enjoy. Go ahead. But Hamilton, again, being Hamilton and falling for it every time, shares his notes with Burr, and then when they get to trial as the opening statement, Burr delivers Hamilton's closing statement, leaving him nothing to say. And one of the weird anomalies in the Levi Weeks case that legal historians have talked about for centuries is that the opening statement is this glorious Hamiltonian oratory. And it is so, I mean, it's P Hamilton, you read it, you hear the Federalist papers. It's very Shakespeare and rumours stuck about with tongues and whatnot. But we know it was delivered by Burr. Multiple commentators mentioned that Colonel Burr gave the speech and no one could figure it out. And I was like, wait, what if no one ever names which case Burr pulls this trick on Hamilton with?
(16:44)
But that would explain why we've got in the courtroom. And then, but Hamilton, and this is classic Hamilton, and here's what drives burn nuts instead of folding. Because here he's been left with nothing to say. His speech has his speech. He spent so much time, Hamilton cares about his writing, and it's been delivered by Burr, by Wrights Hamilton should be flipping out. But we get to the end of the trial, it's three in the morning, they're debating on whether they need to go for a third day, which is unheard of. And Hamilton stands up and says, this case needs no more laboured elucidation. I seed my closing statement. And so it's this amazing act of Hamiltonian and bravado where Hamilton again and again, there are things that should crush him and he just pulls it out. And that's another case. So Burr out wits him, and then Hamilton pops back up again. It happens every time until the doula, of course, when Hamilton didn't pop up. But Molly Fader (17:39):

That's right. But that's many years. Well, it's only three years down the line. So one of the things that I was really interested as I was reading this book, so you do have this, the Alexander Hamilton and the Erin Burr of it all, but then you make some choices about some other points of view. And we have Katie who is the Quaker wife and mother who runs the boarding house. You use the point of view of Holly, her younger sister who has a little moment with Levi weeks, and then you also use the prosecution, cold water, cold water, cold Lauren Willig (18:16):

Ken Colding. Molly Fader (18:17):

Okay. And so talk me or talk to us about what were your choices with those points of view? Because Go ahead. Lauren Willig (18:27):

Well, I mean, it was part of what frustrated me as I was researching this book and many things frustrated me as I was researching this book was that in their eagerness to get to Hamilton and Burr, many historians have trampled over both the central character, in this case, Elma Sands and her relatives. And it's their lives that have been turned upside down by this case that often the question of who killed Elma Sands, it's an exercise in cleverness. People aren't really thinking, okay, here's a real woman who died. Who was she? What happened to her? She's a pretence for getting Hamilton and Burr into the courtroom and doing a who done it. And what I wanted to do was I wanted to capture the upstairs downstairs
(19:15)
Feeling of this story where on the one hand, yes, you have these powerhouse politically well connect and socially well connected lawyers, Hamilton Burr and their third co-counsel, Brock Holst Livingston, who is also a character. And for them, this is a career opportunity. They know this trial is a media sensation and they're using it to play to voters and to further their own interests, but their lives are really otherwise unaffected. But you've also got Alma's family. First of all, there's Elma who's dead, but you've also got her cousin Katie, who owns the boarding house, Katie's younger sister, hope. And their lives will never be the same after this trial. They've just had, first of all, their close relative has been murdered. But on top of it, as the defence and the prosecution chew over what happened to Alma, their private lives are being turned public and all sorts of things are coming out on the stand about their lives and their household. And so I wanted to capture their side of the story. They're the ones really living with this in a way that Hamilton bur aren't. They get to go home at the end of the day. I also, I conceived of this book, I love Golden Age mystery novels. And one thing I love is the way writers like, oh gosh, why am I now Patricia Wentworth in her Miss Silver Novels
(20:46)
Or Agatha Christie, so on, yes, you have your detective, you have your Ms. Silver or your poro or your marble, but one thing these writers all do is they cycle around viewpoints. So you see into the heads of a lot of the people concerned. And that's another thing I wanted to do with this book is have that kaleidoscopic effect of the case coming together through different viewpoints in people's different reactions. Molly Fader (21:11):

Katie's viewpoint was the most effective to me. I felt everything she was going through. And I feel like as you were putting together that point of view, because there are all of these instances during the course of the trial where you see what her kind of marriage is like, and it's cold, right? You'd be reading these historical documents and it's over these court reports, but the living with the, if you wouldn't mind telling the story about how her husband gets asked to leave the courtroom. Lauren Willig (21:47):

Oh my gosh. Well, actually, so one thing where I was very lucky was that this is actually, some people call this America's first murder trial. Of course it's not people were murdering each other from the second people said, Molly Fader (22:01):

Lots of murder, lots of murder Lauren Willig (22:03):

Really ever since Cain and Abel. But what this is is America's first fully recorded murder trial. Molly Fader (22:09):

Oh, Lauren Willig (22:11):

The work of the court. William Coleman had learned this cool new thing called shorthand. And so he took down 99 pages of testimony verbatim. I mean, really, there are some discrepancies and omissions and stuff, but it is incredibly close to verbatim. And so the voices come through so strongly, and instead of having one of those five page summary accounts of the trial that you see for previous trials, and we actually have some of those for this trial too, and they really don't tell you much. We have 99 pages of exactly what people said and what happened. And crazy stuff happens in this courtroom. And as Molly was mentioning, one of the things that fascinated me was, so Catherine Ring, she and her husband Elias are both witnesses in the trial and the defence team requests as is their right that Elias be removed from the courtroom during Catherine's testimony. But Elias breaks in, I didn't make this up, this actually happens. It's there in the transcript. While Catherine is giving her testimony, Elias breaks in and stands behind her chair clearly to try to intimidate her. And you have to wonder what is it that he doesn't want his wife to say, and they have to order the bailiffs to drag him out because he will not go. I mean, really, you can't make the stuff up. Molly Fader (23:32):

And it just like the Elias of it all. I mean, you do this thing at the end of the book, which is sort of what happened next for everybody. And I'm delighted that Katie got to live a million years and have a thousand grandkids and go back home to where she really wanted to go. Anyway, I'm delighted that she had a happy ish ending because this period of time in her life was terrible destroying. Yeah, Lauren Willig (24:00):

I mean, so for those who haven't read the book yet, poor Catherine Ring. And it's amazing how modern, I mean, I've always, one of my hobby horses as a former historian has always been that people remain the same, that ma change and circumstances change, but fundamentally, you do see people wrestling with the same problems. And here's Catherine Ring. She's in her late twenties. She has four young kids ranging from nine to a year and a half, and her husband, he is a failed entrepreneur. He has a timber business that went bust. He's, gosh, I used to know these exact details, but he's something like 15 years older than she is, and he's clearly having his own midlife crisis here. But his big thing was he has this patent water wheel. He's convinced it's going to make their fortune and no one is biting. And meanwhile, Catherine is keeping them going with her four kids, by the way, she's running a boarding house and she's running a military out of the boarding house, which in employs Elma and another border and her younger sister, hope and a bunch of other people in high season, the Aria, gosh, employs more than a dozen women.
(25:09)
And so Catherine is keeping everyone going, but she still has to do all the basic work of the household. She's taking care of the kids and making the porridge and trying to get her younger sister hope and her cousin Alma to pitch in and do this. Fundamentally, it's all down to Catherine. And I think many of us working mothers know this feeling well, and there are bits in the testimony that just jumped out at me where she talks about she's worried because Alma hasn't gotten home that fateful night, and she wants to go listen at Levi's door and see if Alma's in there and she hands Elias the baby to fix, which is their euphemism for change the diaper. And you can just see her being like, here, you take her, change her diaper. I want to go do things. Because we all know that feeling of having a toddler in your arms Molly Fader (25:59):

24 hours a day. Yeah, Lauren Willig (26:01):

Exactly. Molly Fader (26:02):

Now, the one that got me was the front door, which is a part of the testimony. The squeak of this door becomes like, was there one squeak or two squeaks? So the door's been broken forever. She's been trying to get him to fix it. He does a terrible thing, does a terrible thing, and then fixes the door. Well, I fixed the door and then he wants a parade for fixing the door. And he kind of keeps bringing it up. Lauren Willig (26:31):

I felt like it was such a gift to me because all of this is there in the testimony. Oh my gosh. And especially if you read carefully, it really jumps out. And what amazed me is how other people over the centuries have had the same testimony in front of them. And there's so much that jumped out at me from this trial transcript where I'm like, wait, how did no one ever see this here before? I guess they were reading it for different things. Molly Fader (26:56):

Yeah, the women's perspective of it. And the big question mark in the middle of this is there's no information really in your creation of this book. There's no information about Alma. She's a real question mark Lauren Willig (27:11):

Cypher. Well, and what frustrates me about Elma is that for the most part, she gets FLA based of on the tactics taken by either the prosecution or the defence. She's either a virtuous woman seduced or she is a melancholy la addict. Nac. I mean, no, you got a lot in the middle. And within hours of her body being found, her family is spreading the story that she's sweet innocent, that she was seduced by the evil Rogan seducer Levi Weeks, who impregnates her under promise of marriage and then strangles her and flings her into the well to avoid having to marry her. And they do determine at the coroner's inquest that she's not pregnant at the time of her death, but the story continues to circle. Yeah, Molly Fader (28:03):

It doesn't matter at that point. Yeah, Lauren Willig (28:04):

The virtuous woman seduced, which is totally in line with the novels that are popular at the time, like Samuel Richardson's, Clarissa, this American book, the First American bestseller, Charlotte Temple, which is a huge bestseller at the time. And it's all about a virtuous woman seduced and betrayed. So people are like, yeah, innocent Elmo seduced and betrayed. And on the other side, you've got the defence. Or well, maybe she was melancholy and the odd tip of lanu, and maybe she was sleeping with lots of people. But for me, the real task was first of all, trying to assemble the basic facts of Alma's life because people, the sloppiness is unbelievable. You get people getting her family relationships wrong all over the place. So I, to go back and try to reconstruct exactly who Elmo's parents were, where she fit into this family structure, what her childhood was, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but eight weeks, I think that's incredibly important to who she was. What were the forces that shaped her? Why did she leave the boarding house on the night of December 22nd, 1799, and with whom? And I don't think you can figure that out unless you understand who Elma was. And so there was a lot of work went into trying to reconstruct Elma Molly Fader (29:27):

And it wasn't an easy task. There weren't a lot of things that you could pull from. And I felt like what you nailed so well, both with her and both with kind of the energy of this boarding house was there were three young women and there were a bunch of good looking labourers. It was the thing that it was excited, giddy flirtation. And I just thought it was one thing Lauren Willig (30:00):

People haven't really pegged, of course, is that there's a cloud over Alma, and this is something people don't mention, but I think the key to the whole story is she is Catherine's illegitimate cousin, Catherine's dad. David Sands is this famous hell, fire and brimstone Quaker preacher who had a much, much younger sister. We're talking like a full generation younger who gets pregnant at 16 and has Elma. So Elma is the family disgrace, but Elma, and here's where Alma's character comes through. Elma doesn't allow herself Speaker 1 (30:31):

To Lauren Willig (30:31):

Mind being the family disgrace, her cousin and Catherine, poor Catherine reveals so much more in the stand than she means to because she says stuff like Elma was too gay for a Quaker, and then quickly add, but she tried to adjust her dress in manner to please me, which we know translates to. No, she didn't. She never joined the meeting, although we wished her to. And you get a sense that Elma, I mean she grew up in this very strict, very devout Quaker household and consistently pushed back and refused to join the meeting. And she liked the clothes she died in are an attempt to dress fancily the more upper class women. They're not Quaker garb. Alma had a very strong character in that that comes out through these little bits and pieces. Molly Fader (31:20):

She was fascinating. Katie and Alma and hope were fascinating because they were just thwarted wishes. They were, they lives thwarted. They were things that could have gone another way and they were trying the best they could. Lauren Willig (31:37):

I think that's the most fascinating thing in any murder mystery is you have this horrible traumatic event. You have a murder, and then you watch the way people's lives are twisted by this, that moment where the murder didn't need to happen, that moment where everything could have been different and they could have all gone on with their lives in the normal pattern. But then this thing happens and there's a before and an after, and they're all asking, wait, how did we get to hear? And what do we do now? Molly Fader (32:08):

And one of the things that I really liked about the book, and I don't want to give away too many spoilers, but I do want everyone to go read it and then email me so that we can talk about it, is that in my opinion, the man who's being tried is not the killer. I don't think I Lauren Willig (32:25):

Would say Go read the transcript because I urge everyone after they read the book, go read the transcript, because I had that reaction. Well, oh gosh, I shouldn't give too much away. I can see a scenario in which Levi weeks is guilty of sin. There's a way I can argue it, but I read that transcript and my strong impression was this is a guy who he was. So like you were saying, you've got these young people. Levi is 26, Alma is 22, hope is 19 or 20. I used to know these things two years ago. I was researching, I have a family tree taped to the wall next to my desk, but I'm not at that desk. But anyway, so they're all really young. There's also Peggy Clark who lives
(33:07)
In the boarding house and works in the military, and she's really another live wire. She is lively, outgoing, flirts. So the story is that when Levi gets to the boarding house, he flirts first with Peggy because Peggy is someone you can flirt with non seriously then hope he takes to the charity sermon and invites her to his brothers. And then there's a yellow fever epidemic, and Catherine takes her four kids in hope out of town and leaves Alma alone in charge of the boarding house with Elias and Levi and the rest of the borders. And it's at that point that something happens. And the question is what between Levi and Alma? But the sense I really get from all of this is that Levi is kind of a happy go lucky guy who's just excited to have three pretty girls to flirt with. And he does. He forms a close relationship with Alma, but the nature of that relationship is open to question.
(34:05)
At one point he tells his apprentice, and I find this line hilarious, that if he's spending time alone with Elma, it's not for courtship or for dishonour, but only for conversation. Like we've heard that before, buddy. Yeah, exactly. There really isn't sort of open question. I mean, there's a banter between them. There's another story that comes out of trial about how he invites hope somewhere with him. And Alma says, well, why did you never ask me? And he says, well, I know you wouldn't go if I asked you because she's turned down invitation. There's an interesting dynamic between them, but whether it's romantic or not, I think is really open to question Molly Fader (34:51):

The points of view that you choose. You talk about that moment where it's like the lives are going along, this terrible thing happens, and all the destruction is, I felt like all of those points of view, if not the murderer, they were not the murderer and they're not the person killed. And it was just the destruction or in some cases the launching pad of what happened next, which was such an interesting way to look at this very famous murder trial. Lauren Willig (35:25):

It's all the law of consequences. Catherine Ring takes her kids and her sister out of town for the yellow fever in the summer of 1799, and everything unravels from there. But how is she to know? It's so funny because I did a talk the last week or the week before last, and my in conversation person said, well, really, it's all Catherine's fault. She should never have left Alma alone in that house. But how is she to know? And that's why I find fascinating about, and there's this British TV show I adore called Line of Duty that what I think works about is you see people making decisions that are logical in the time, and then something that they could not have anticipated or maybe could have, but you'd have to really think it through. Something goes wrong, terribly wrong, and then they double down and they make another decision and another and another. No one is doing anything evil for the sake of evil. It's normal. People blundering along making mistakes we can understand until suddenly there's somewhere horrible and unrecognisable. Right? Molly Fader (36:31):

I mean, I'm not going to blame Katie come on. She was doing, I mean, she was taking care of her kids with a dead weight husband. It ended up being his own kind of trouble. Lauren Willig (36:49):

I do think though it betrays something about how she thinks about Alma and how the family thinks about Alma, which is Elma is the expendable one. Molly Fader (36:56):

Yes. Lauren Willig (36:56):

That that is true. If just way behind in risk catching yellow fever, it's Elma. I think that also explains a lot about why Alma is the way she's, she's a grab life with both hands person. No one is ever giving her anything. Molly Fader (37:07):

That's very true. That's very true. So as you said, this is not the first murder trial, but it's the first recorded trial, and I feel like it was the first trial that was more than one day. I felt like it was, and this could be wrong, but it felt like at the beginning of the trial as cold Waller was trying to set precedent, and they were like, Nope, those are precedents from other countries. Other times we are setting our own precedent right now. It felt like in a lot of ways this was a very, the first murder trial that really set precedent and creative. It was the first time jurors were sequestered. It created a sort of modern, the beginnings of what we see now. Lauren Willig (37:55):

Yeah, I mean, you can definitely feel sort of origins happening here. So there was a common law rule that a jury found once sworn could not be dispersed until they'd rendered your verdict. Everyone knew this, but trials were generally short. There weren't the big mechanisms that make trials last forever. Now like discovery in tonnes of witnesses. And so the only other American case I know of, although I haven't looked too closely, I'll admit, was pre-revolutionary in 1770, the Boston Boston Massacre, that trial went five days and the jury had to be sequestered and everyone was scrambling. They didn't really have provision for this, but this is New York. 30 years later, none of these people were involved in that trial, and no one expects this trial to run more than a day. But Ed Waller, Colden, the poor prosecutor, he is a half generation younger than these three heroes of the revolution, Titans of New York Bar and hits one against three.
(38:50)
He knows he's outnumbered. He's a romantic. He really feels for poor murdered Alma. He believes Levi did it. And so he goes and assembles this insane mountain of evidence because you know that type, the type who knows he's not as smart as the other kid, so he's going to work harder and do all the extra credit questions. That's our poor cat wallet. Very, I mean, he's very earnest and they swear in 75 witnesses. And so you have this crazy moment where they get to it's 2:00 AM on the first day of the trial, and we've only got through half of kid Walder's witnesses. And everyone's like, what do we do? And Judge Lansing is all for powering through. He's like, we can do this and the jury are all we want to go home. And so like you said, they really have no mechanism in place for sequestering. And eventually they decide on the fly at two in the morning, they're going to put the jurors to sleep on the floor of the picture room in federal Hall where the trial is being held, and they'll bring them snacks and blankets, and you can imagine how much the jurors love this one. Molly Fader (39:53):

Yeah, terrible. All their gout flaring up. Lauren Willig (39:57):

I really think the only reason that trial really should have run into a third day and possibly a fourth, and the only reason it gets wound up in the wee hours of the morning the following day is because no one wants to spend another night on the floor of the picture room. And so there's this moment where they've gone through the witnesses and no one's done their summations, and they're all like, and Ed Wall or Colden, our poor overwhelmed 31-year-old prosecutor is begging for another day. He says he's sinking under the weight of fatigue, he just can't do it. And there's still the defense's closing statement to go. And then his summation, and he's like, I just can't. And that's when Hamilton stands up and says, I seed my closing statement and he gets to look like the big man here. And the judge is like, guys, we're wrapping this up and gives the most pointed directions to the jury. He basically tells them to acquit Levi weeks. He wants out of there too. And the jury spends no time delivering because they want to go home. So this case really wraps up. It's like when you can tell an author is under deadline and has gotten all the conflicts resolved in five pages, and you're like, what just happened here? Not the end of five weeks trial. Molly Fader (41:11):

So how long has this book been in your life? Because obviously this is a case you would've studied in law school to some extent. Actually, Lauren Willig (41:19):

This never came up in law school because even though it's, it's fascinating from an armchair historian point of view, and it's also, I am a native New Yorker, and this is one of these cases that's here in the ether in New York. The well is purported to still be under a store in Spring Street. And there are ghost tours. People wander past and they claim they can hear poor betrayed Elma still crying for justice from the well and so on. And so this is something as a New Yorker I was aware of, but actually what really caught my attention was, I think five or six years ago, I follow all these New York history Instagram sites and there was a post about this case and everyone else. I was like, oh, Hamilton, burn the courtroom. How cool. And so I started digging and then I realised that's actually not cool. That happens all the time. But what was cool was this transcript, I read the transcript and I was hooked because their voices are so clear and there's just so much in there. So anyway, that's how I came to this case. It wasn't through law school. I mean, there are interesting for lawyers out there, there are interesting arguments about things like hearsay law that they're just working out really
(42:34)
On the spot because you've got this new republic and what precedent applies and they've done after the revolution. New York state deliberately does some statutory reforms of criminal law and all that, but there's a lot of stuff that's really still in flux because the decision was to continue to apply the British common law except where it conflicts with growing American common law, but how can you tell what's, Molly Fader (43:01):

Until someone argues it better than the other guy? There is this moment where there's the 70 witnesses where the judge is, these 13-year-old boys are coming up and he's like, did you actually see anything? Do you actually know anything? He's like, no, I heard a story. And he's like, you're out. The next guy Lauren Willig (43:20):

I know. Poor Ken. I mean Ken Waller, he tries so hard and he flubs so many things. And yeah, he really, you get the sense lined up half the city. And yeah, it really is pathetic that there's a point in the trial where among other things, you had to be competent to testify. And so many of his witnesses weren't competent. They were too young, they didn't know how to read. There were very, and the judge is really another one. Why are you reading that time? Molly Fader (43:48):

So can you talk a little bit, you have written in a lot of different historical time periods and a lot of different places. Can you talk a little bit about, so this is a two-prong question, how long you're researching before you start writing? And then can you talk about that jumping off point where you're like, okay, I've done all my research, now I am ready to create these people on the page. Lauren Willig (44:20):

So I always follow what I think of as the immersion method. This was back in my misspent teenager hood. I had a subscription to the writer magazine, and there was an article by John Jakes talking about how before he wrote any book, he spent a year just reading nothing but reading, reading broadly, anything he could find on his topic or any of his subtopics, not even taking notes, just laying it all soak in to inform the story. And I love this, and I try to do, of course, with book contracts, yeah, you're not getting a year. I mean, I'd be a book behind by that, but I try to always spend depending on the book, at least a couple of months, just immersing and letting the story float in. And for me, I mean this book was different because I naively had thought, okay, there are all of these people who have written about this.
(45:09)
There are two nonfiction books, including a very popular recent nonfiction book on this. People who have done the legwork for me, I will just be able to read the transcript. And I knew I was going to have to immerse myself in burrs and Hamilton's letters to get their voices, but I thought most of the work had been done. And I found out actually a lot of the work on this trial is terrible. When you follow the footnotes, they're wrong. The information is just plain wrong. I mean, it's lies all lies. Most of the stuff that's repeated is fact about this case. Once you start digging, it falls apart. It doesn't work it, yeah. So I wound up doing a two year archival deep dive that I did not actually expect to do most of my books. However, what happens is I do my sort of literature review where I'm reading, wherever I can find, I do my three months of my John Jakes routine of reading whatever I can find on the case. And I usually know I have hit that point where I'm ready to start writing when I start coming across the same information over and over and over again. Or also when I get close enough to deadline that I realise that there's no way I can do this. Got to go.
(46:21)
We are not MMK or John Jakes. I mean, I always love that. I think MMK spent, I can never remember either nine or 11 years writing the far pavilions, and it's just, I'm supposed to write at least 10 books in that stretch of time. That's not happening for me. So there are the realities to contend with. So you have to balance your obligation to your historical characters and your audience with the realities of modern publishing contracts. Molly Fader (46:47):

Right, right. A devil's bargain for sure. One of the things that I really liked in your, I think it's in your acknowledgements where you thank your editor, and one of the things you thank her for is for never asking you to write a World War ii, Lauren Willig (47:01):

Which I was like, it was not entirely a joke. So again, the realities of modern publishing, my former publishing house, my editor was fired. And so I knew I was going to be looking elsewhere, and I had a book set in Colonial Barbados that I had really watched, that I had begun researching. I had, I'm trying to remember if I had sample chapters, but anyway, that was going to be my next book. And we started shopping it around and people kept coming back to my agent and saying, yes, we'd love Lauren, but can she write us something set in World War ii? And I was like, I hate World War ii. I mean, I understand its appeal to readers in this particular moment in time. I think that the battle of Good versus evil, where things are sort simpler, it's very attractive. But I like the complicated periods of history where their right and wrong is nebulous in some ways, like the English Civil War where it's just a muddle or Hamilton versus Burr for that matter. Anyway. And my editor was the only one who was like, oh my God, colonial Barbados. Yes. Because she's also a history nerd. And every time I've been like, so I found this cool cache of papers about Smithies who go to the front in World War I, she's like, awesome. Or I told her I wanted to write about Hamilton Burr, this murder trial, and she's all over it. So thank goodness for other history nerds. Molly Fader (48:22):

Yes. Yep. Agreed. Agreed. Well, and speaking of fellow history nerds, you do, is it a yearly collaboration with Beatrice Williams and Karen White? So talk about, I mean, they're beautiful books. Talk about how that came to be and how that continues to come to be. This is a longstanding Lauren Willig (48:49):

Oh, yes. Well, we joke, it's the old story. Three authors walk into a bar. It was actually back in the old days at RWA, we became friends through the conference circuit and we were at the bar after the reads one night, and I think I had just had my ninth or 10th book out. Karen had a whole bunch of books too. Beatrice's debut had just come out and we were talking about how lonely it was to tour by yourself. When you're going from city to city, you land somewhere at three in the morning, you have no idea where you are, where you're meant to be going, and how much more fun this was to be together. At this point, we had a couple of bottles of wines and some bikinis, and one of us was like, oh my God, if we wrote a book together, they'd have to tour us together. And we thought this was a brilliant idea, and we decided we were going to write an anthology, send Scotland called 50 Shades of Plaid.
(49:42)
Anyway, but we sort of stumble onto the lobby, we run into Karen's tea totaling editor, and we're like, oh my God, we have the best idea ever. Karen's a cocktail napkin for your right, the contract. And she's like, okay, why don't you go upstairs, drink some water, have a cup of water, you'll feel better in the morning. And we felt horrible in the morning, but we really liked this idea of writing together. We had no idea if we could write together. None of us had ever ridden with anyone else. We didn't know if we could, but we wanted to spend more time together. And at that point, fast forward several months, Karen has this idea about a book set around three women in different time periods in the same house. Beatrice is like, oh my God, I know the Perfect House in New York, which actually turned out it was an old Gilded age mansion that had belonged to her mother's family at one point, but by now was the same hospital for special surgery where my parents go for their colonoscopies. Molly Fader (50:40):

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Lauren Willig (50:43):

I had a nine month old and I was like, anything to get me out of the house for an hour. And so they came down to New York and we met to have tea and just throw around some ideas and see if we could come up with something. And it was the most amazing experience because our ideas built on each other. And usually when you're brainstorming a book, you are alone with these characters in your head. But we were all seeing them. They were so real, it felt like they were at the table with us. And so we sort of hunkered down at Alice's Tea Cup for something like five hours ordering umpteen pot of tea. And by the end of it, we had an outline. So we went to our agents and our editors with this idea, and they were like, oh God, please God, not the thing with the 50 Shades of Plaid.
(51:26)
And we were like, no, no, no. This isn't a joke. This is a real book. And they thought that was even worse because first of all, they reminded us of the books we were already under contract for and the deadlines we were late for. And then they said, but also, this is a dead end. No one is ever, people don't buy anthologies. And we're like, but it's not anthology. It's a book with three authors. And they were like, that makes no sense. You can't have one book with three authors. The Penguin really wanted to keep Karen happy. And so they pity bought it. Speaker 1 (51:57):

Yes. Lauren Willig (51:58):

Then the book went on and it hit all the lists. It hit the New York Times list for a couple of weeks. It hit the USA today list. And they were like, okay, you can do this again. So we've written now four historical collaborations, which are all multi-time period, past present, sort of Kate Mor esque stuff. And then our fifth one was a madcap murder mystery, a madcap contemporary murder mystery, sat in a remote Scottish island. We wanted to call it 50 Shades of Plaid, but in the end, we called it The Author's Guide to Murder. But it's about three authors because whenever we're on tour, people ask us if we were put together like The Spice Girls,
(52:41)
And we're always like, yeah, you can tell we really hate each other. And so this book is about three authors who claim to be besties who met at the bar at a conference, but we're really put together like the Spice Girls by their editor and can't stand each other, but they're going to have to learn to get along because they find themselves suspects in the murder of a male author at this castle in Scotland. And so they have to bond together to prove their innocence anyway, and now we're working on our six collaboration, which is back to our historical roots, is going to be another multi timeline historical. Molly Fader (53:17):

I feel like you can tell how much you guys like each other by how fun that idea is. You can feel the joy in that you are unfettered and joyful working together. Lauren Willig (53:28):

Yes, that's exactly what it was. It was so cathartic writing that book and so packed with all sorts of personal in jokes. Molly Fader (53:35):

Perfect. Lauren, I've kept you long enough. This has been fantastic. I have five other questions that we didn't even get to, but thank you so much for taking the time to come and chat with us today. And everybody out there, please go pick up this book, the Girl from Greenwich Street. You're going to love it. You're going to love it. It is a perfect historical mystery. It is great fun. Lauren Willig (54:02):

Thank you so much for having me. I so enjoyed this. Molly Fader (54:05):

Thanks. Everybody. Read a book. Stay safe, Lauren Willig (54:09):

Stay Molly Fader (54:09): 

Drinking.