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| Traci L. Slatton, Author BROKEN |
Traci L. Slatton
describes her new book, BROKEN, as a “paranormal historical fantasy.” Set in Paris
in 1939-1942, the novel tracks the activities of a fallen angel trapped behind
Nazi lines. She creates credibility in her story by “paying attention to
details” and assuring historical accuracy.
Slatton is currently
working on Book IV of her romantic dystopian After Series. Her love of art has produced several books--both fiction and non-fiction; and she has also written a book of poetry. She
lives in Manhattan, does yoga every day, loves wine, enjoys travel, and has
been posing for her artist husband, who is sculpting her, for the past year
(see photo below.)
Q: How did you
conceive of the plot for BROKEN—a fallen angel getting trapped in a
Nazi-occupied country? In what genre would you place BROKEN?
Traci L. Slatton: I spent a month in Paris in
2013, researching a different WWII novel, one set primarily in Germany. I had
meant to use Paris as a base from which to travel into Germany, because I love
Paris and can negotiate the language. I found myself walking the streets of
Paris when I should have been writing. For hours and hours every day, I
wandered around Paris, starting from the Boulevard du Montparnasse and straying
into every arrondissement. I got to know the city from the street level. Then I
started taking the walking tours, and reading about the history of Paris. I
find Paris incredibly sensual, with its white limestone buildings and the
curving Seine and the sense of history.
Somehow
all those kilometers of walking inspired BROKEN, and the sensuality of the city
led into my protagonist’s sensuality.
I guess
I would call BROKEN a paranormal historical fantasy. Does that work?
Q: How do you create
credibility for your story? Is believability important to entice readers?
Traci L. Slatton: I create credibility by paying
attention to details. In a historical novel like BROKEN, that means I have to
get the details right for the time period. For example, Alia the fallen angel
makes an offhand comment about her lover Pedro’s Brylcreem. It’s a throwaway
line but fashionable men of the time used Brylcreem, and Pedro, who is a
bullfighter and concerned about his public image, would have.
Yes, I
believe that believability is important. It sucks the reader into a world that
the author has created.
Q: What makes readers
care about a fallen angel? How do you develop the character?
Traci L. Slatton: In some ways, a fallen angel is
a character like any other character, and there are techniques for building
likeability. For example, Alia loves her neighbor’s little daughter and is very
generous to the girl. Kindness toward children is an appealing trait.
However,
Alia, as a fallen angel, is also different from other humans. I imagined her as
ethereal, tolerant, mirthful, and profoundly sensual.
Alia, I
imagined, was ethereal, with a kind of appealing lightness and delicacy of
being, because she had originated in heaven. She was tolerant because she had
chosen to fall, which is a straightforward choice to sin. So she wouldn’t judge
anyone for their choices. She was mirthful because she had a large perspective
on things. She’d seen the panoply of history, after all.
The
sensuality came partly from mythology, from the stories of Cupid and Psyche,
Cupid being a winged being who had a sensual relationship with his wife Psyche.
Cupid’s Greek counterpart is Eros. I also had in mind Canova’s deliciously
sinuous sculpture of Cupid and Psyche, and the Biblical stories of angels
mating with human beings. So these images combined to give Alia her erotic
nature.
Q: Is the concept of
villain vs hero relevant to BROKEN?
Traci L. Slatton: Yes. The Gestapo agent Knochen
is a villain, both personally, because he is an evil man, and as a
representative of the Nazis and everything they represent. Alia and her friends
are heroes, and so is the city of Paris.
Q: Reviewers of some
of your earlier books praise the emotion that you evoke in your writing. How do
you create pathos so readers embrace your characters or the story?
Traci L. Slatton: Interesting question. I suppose
what I do is create a character with whom readers identify, or with whom they
empathize, and then I put the character into horrendous circumstances. Story is
built on conflict and obstacle. Treachery, betrayal, suffering, torture, loss,
disease, poverty, heart-break, and injustice are some of the best obstacles
going—and they elicit strong emotion from readers.
Q: In BROKEN, how
helpful is back story, ie, history of Nazi Germany, to creating a suspenseful
story of tension? How important was historical accuracy?
Traci L. Slatton: I consider historical accuracy
to be supremely important. Because this era was relatively recent and the
population as a whole knows a lot about it, I
researched this time in Paris thoroughly. Many of the details are accurate,
such as the way Parisians were always hungry during the occupation. Several
documents said that Parisians ate only about 800 calories per day at this time.
Also, over a million French men had been taken into compulsory work service in
Germany, so the Resistance drew on women, high school students, and the
elderly. At one point, Alia the protagonist, who is a fallen angel, is walking
down the street wearing a jaunty red hat. There are references to those red
hats as a kind of subtle rebellion; French fashion continued during occupation.
However, sometimes I depart from accuracy to achieve truthfulness.
Truthfulness and accuracy are different issues, and truthfulness is always the
most important for me as an author. So, for example, in this novel, Sartre and
Camus are together at a party at Alia’s apartment before the war, reading
poetry and drinking wine. There are conflicting reports about when these great
thinkers met, but it is generally agreed that they met after the war. However,
for purposes of the themes of this novel, since they are not just people but
also voices of their generation, I put them together at Alia’s before the war.
This was a deliberate choice in which I diverged from historical accuracy.
Q: Your bio says that
you are especially interested in Renaissance Italy, and I notice that you’ve
also written books about art. Are you an artist? What drives your interest in
it?
Traci L. Slatton: Ah. My hands are clumsy, such
art as I possess is in my stories. However, my husband Sabin Howard (www.sabinhoward.com ) is a famous classical
figurative artist. He sculpts in clay and casts in bronze, and his works are
likened in the press to Michelangelo and Rodin. The thing about Sabin is that
he is all art, all the time. He has tremendous integrity as an artist—art is
literally his first thought in the morning and his last thought at night. He’s
been a wonderful role model for me in his relentless perfectionism and
dedication to his craft.
Because
of Sabin, and because of my own predilections, I have an abiding interest in
art. Michelangelo and Da Vinci and Botticelli are regular topics of
conversation at our dinner table. We go on vacation to Italy (where Sabin has
relatives) and we go to the Met and to art galleries all the time. Art is my
husband’s life. Luckily I love it too!
Q: Did you write
BROKEN strictly to entertain? Or were you trying to educate or deliver a
message?
Traci L. Slatton: I wanted to do both, to
entertain and to deliver a message. Isn’t “both” more fun? The message is one,
that the belief in an external, patriarchal, hierarchical God is the source of
great evil; two, the power of love is infinite; and three, spirit informs
everything.
Q: What’s next?
Traci L. Slatton: I am currently working on Book
IV of my romantic dystopian After Series. I had thought to title it “Fire
Storm,” but a friend of mine ranted that there were too
many books on Amazon with that name. Also, Fallen,
Cold Light, and Far Shore are the first three novels in the series, so maybe that
is too many “F” titles.
Anyway,
this novel is fun for me as an author because my male protagonist goes mad. It
was always in him, but now it erupts in full force. It’s very cool to write a
crazy character!
Q: Tell us about Traci L. Slatton. What do
you like to do when you’re not writing?
Traci L. Slatton: I have four daughters, three
and a step. The big ones are
About Traci L. Slatton
Traci L. Slatton is a graduate of Yale and Columbia. She lives in
Manhattan, and her love for Renaissance Italy inspired her historical novel
IMMORTAL. THE BOTTICELLI AFFAIR is a playful and suspenseful tribute to her
delight in the Old Masters and rich passions. FALLEN is the first in a romantic
trilogy set in end times permeated with love, loss, and strange psychic powers.
THE ART OF LIFE, written with Sabin Howard, is a book about sculpture and the
philosophy and history of art; DANCING IN THE TABERNACLE is her first book of
poetry. COLD LIGHT furthers the dystopian tale begun in FALLEN, and FAR SHORE
is Book 3 in this romantic cycle. THE LOVE OF MY (OTHER) LIFE is a bittersweet
romantic comedy that addresses the question: What worlds would you move to be
with your soulmate?
About BROKEN
Power is pornographic
Can love sustain light when the forces of evil close in?
Paris, 1939-1942. A fallen angel is trapped in the web of German
occupation. The deadly noose of Nazi control grows ever tighter, ensnaring her
and two of her lovers, a bullfighter and a musician working in the fledgling
Resistance. Can she save them and the Jewish widow and her child that she has
come to love, or will betrayal take them all?
Links
Immortal, a historical
novel, a rags-to-riches-to-burnt-at-the-stake story.
Fallen, a dystopian
romance, Book 1 of the After Series, “When the world ends, all that’s left is
love”
Cold Light, Book 2 of
the After Series, “In the end, love demands everything”
Far Shore, Book 3 of
the After Series, “Love is Salvation”
The Botticelli Affair,
an art history mystery vampire romp
The Love of My (Other) Life, a bittersweet sci fi romp
The Art of Life, a
photoessay on figurative sculpture through the ages
Goodreads:
Author Links
I found your great blog through the WLC Blog Follows on the World Literary Cafe! Great to connect!
ReplyDeleteThat was an informative interview.
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