LUCY BURDETTE: I met Sarah (SK) Golden in Key West this winter and realized we are both published by Crooked Lane Books. Of course I wanted her to meet you—Welcome to the blog SK!
S.K GOLDEN: It’s taken me three books to do it, but I think I’ve finally got a good grip on how to do historical research. Not a great grip, mind you. Not very firm. But I’m hanging on, and I’m doing my best.
I’m fortunate that my cozy mysteries are set in the late 1950s – there’s lots of information available about that time, from movies and tv shows, to friends I’ve made that lived through the era. The bigger events have, of course, been easier to include because they left such a big impression. 1958 is right between the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Russia has launched a satellite into space. Eisenhower throws the first Halloween party at the White House. That last one might only have been a big deal to me, but, whatever. These things have been easy to research for my work. I have a newspapers.com subscription, and it has paid for itself many times over now.
What has been a bit of a struggle has been the small details.
I found out what rent in Yonkers for a small apartment would’ve cost by reading a memoir. That wasn’t even why I read the memoir. I read it to help me get the feel of the time beyond what I was seeing in Marilyn Monroe movies. The memoir gave me lots of other details about the late fifties: like handheld cameras were becoming a thing thanks to Zunow and Bolex, so photographers had more options than the flashbulb-heavy styles used by the press; what types of alcohol were popular; and which automat had the best coffee. But the biggest help was the small sentence about rent.
The answer is $29 a month, by the way.
Fashion is a big focus in my books. My main character, a twenty-one-year-old agoraphobe who lost her mother at a young age, uses her appearance as a way to manage her anxiety. She can’t control the things that happen around her, but darn it, she can make sure her shoes and her belt are a perfect match, and her nail polish isn’t chipped.
One of the best things I’ve found to help me write about 1950s fashion so my sleuth can stop her freakouts comes in the form a Sears catalogue. Actually, it’s multiple Sears catalogues from the ‘50s combined into one edited volume by Joanne Olian. I love that thing. It has saved me so much time. Instead of searching Pinterest for hours trying to make sure the outfit I’ve found is era-accurate, I can flip a few pages and pick. It even gives item descriptions! It’s been great not only for my main character, but for my side characters, too.
This should come as a great relief to the – now two – readers who have emailed to let me know that my use of the word ‘pantyhose’ is anachronistic by several months.
As I said at the beginning, my grip on historical research is getting stronger all the time.
Is there a small detail from the past that you find fascinating? Like, the price of rent in 1958, or the first White House Halloween party? Or maybe the scandal of pantyhose arriving before their time?
S.K. Golden is the author of the Pinnacle Hotel cozy mystery series. Born and raised in the Florida Keys, she married a commercial fisherman. The two of them still live on the islands with their five kids (one boy, four girls — including identical twins!), two cats, and a corgi named Goku. Sarah graduated from Saint Leo University with a bachelor’s degree in Human Services and Administration and has put it to good use approximately zero times. She’s worked as a bank teller, a pharmacy technician, and an executive assistant at her father’s church. Sarah is delighted to be doing none of those things now. Follow her across all platforms @skgoldenwrites.
Congratulations, Sarah, on your latest book . . . I can imagine it's all the little details that are the most elusive of all . . .
ReplyDeleteOh, identical twins! How wonderful! May I [also an identical twin] ask how old they are?
Thank you! They are eight years old :)
DeleteHi Sarah. I know 1958 is an historical period, but since I was born in 1954 and can remember at least a few things about when I was four, it always surprises me to be reminded. A piece of history that always interests me is what year New World food like potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and corn (maize) started to be eaten in different countries in Europe, Asia and Africa.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I get what you mean. It's a bit wild that something within living memory is considered "historical"! And the history of food is so interesting! I read a book once about Dr. Borlaug who won a Nobel peace prize for increasing the global food supply. I think he brought famine resistant wheat to Mexico, but I don't remember all the details. Guess I better reread that book!
DeleteCongratulations on the new book, Sarah! I've written two historical mystery series, but there's nobody still alive from 1888, and nearly no one from 1926, to catch me out on details they remember from their lives. I also used a replica Sears catalog for all kinds of information.
ReplyDeleteI found a fascinating detail in a manual of police procedure from 1880: an officer had to lay a hand on the arm or shoulder of the person he was arresting as he said the words. It's absolutely the little details that bring the story to life.
Thank you, Edith! And that is so interesting about the arresting officer. Did he have to say their rights or just that they were being arrested? I learned while writing these books that the police didn't have to say the miranda rights as we know them here in the states until the late 60s.
DeleteNothing about rights at all! He had to touch the person as he uttered, "I arrest you for...."
DeleteI adore historical research. It may be the only thing I'm truly good at. My family has always thought I should hire myself out. I have tracked information through archives all over the world. The problem is that about certain places/eras I end up knowing too much for it to feel useful for the purposes of fiction. It also wrecks my enjoyment of fiction set in those places/eras, because almost always, they are "off." Why do it, then? Simple. For me, it's addictive. (Selden)
ReplyDeleteOkay, wow, that is so cool! You definitely sound like someone who should be hired out!
DeleteS.K.: Congratulations on your new historical book!
ReplyDeleteBut I find that there is a lack of consistency on what is considered historical within the crime fiction community
.
For example, this year's NOLA Bouchercon committee has decided books set before 1949 are eligible for the Anthony historical book award. So, your book would NOT be considered historical.
By comparison, I voted for the Lefty crime awards in March. They considered books written before 1970 to be historical, so your book would be eligible in that category.
Since your book in 1958, I am ok that it is considered "historical". That is before I was born.
What you do think? Opinions.
Interesting, Grace. I thought the cutoff was fifty years or more before today. I guess I was misinformed.
DeleteGrace and Edith, the fifty-year cut-off for 'historical' in the US was established through the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966.
DeleteThere is a lack of consistency! When I started writing the series, I pitched it strictly as a cozy. Crooked Lane put it in the historical category. I've heard anything more than 20 years now is considered historical. Which means X Files is historical.
DeleteThe Historical Novel Society considers "50 years prior to current year" a rule of thumb for determining historical fiction, but organizations are free to come up with their own definitions.
DeleteCongratulations on your new book, S.K. and how wonderful that you met our Lucy/Roberta. I do have lots of memories of the 1950's, but from a child's point of view, so that might not be helpful. I remember wearing garter belts and hose well into my teen years, so pantyhose was a welcome change. I didn't have pantyhose until sometime in the 1960's. I am pretty sure I wouldn't have written to you about that. Please tell us a little more about your main character and your mysteries.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Roberta is so lovely and kind! Lets see, Evelyn is my sleuth. She lives in her father's hotel in New York City with her dog, a Pomeranian named Presley. She has an eye for fashion and an ear for gossip, and is very, very good at finding things. Like the occasional dead body.
DeleteCongratulations! Happy to hear about your research, S.K. because to me it is what makes books fascinating. I well remember the time period you are talking about. As a matter of fact, just the other day I was telling my son how I got a record player for my birthday. I was in the sixth grade. I also got 3 records: All I Have to Do is Dream by the Everly Brothers, the Purple People-Eater by Sheb Wooley, and Ballad of A Teenage Queen by Johnny Cash.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to hear that pantyhose was anachronistic by several months. I didn't know about them, or at least didn't own any until more than 10 years later.
It really takes me out of the story to read about the simple things the author got wrong. although they almost always get the big things right. The one I complained about the most was people sitting on hay bales in the 1780s!
Looking forward to reading your books!
Thank you, Judi! Also, you have excellent taste in music. I love Johnny Cash!
DeleteCongratulations on the book, Sarah! I spent a whole day once reading about how washing machines worked in 1942 - for a single line in one paragraph. LOL
ReplyDeleteWords trip me up. I use a online word history dictionary, but I still get dinged by my critique group occasionally.
The Online Etymology Dictionary is your friend! https://www.etymonline.com/
DeleteOh, Liz, I feel you! Hours of research for a single sentence haha I have been there! Have you tried etymonline.com? I use it, but I admit, I still get words wrong sometimes!
DeleteYep, that's the one I use. All the time, but like I said - I still make mistakes. Fortunately, I have good critique partners.
DeleteLiz, I had to chuckle at your day of washing machine research as a vision of my grandmother's washer with wringer came to mind. No wonder most women couldn't get jobs outside the home. Who had time?
DeleteLove this topic, Sarah! Congratulations on your newest book and wishing you many more in this series! In the last years of my career, I wrote up many small histories for project reports. These were fairly cut and dried, but I always reached for that nugget of interest to enliven the history. One of my favorites was centered on a small town with a Methodist seminary. The town was so genteel that many retired ministers made their home there. Then, oil was discovered! In Ohio! The railroad brought in carloads of workers. The town exploded with services to attract the workers' money. The retired ministers and the seminary students were scandalized!! The school dwindled, then closed. Many of the retired folks sold up and moved elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much! And wow—that story about the seminary town is incredible! I love those unexpected twists in local history. Sounds like the perfect setting for a novel, honestly!
DeleteFascinating. My parents grew up in Yonkers, although they had moved to NJ by 1941. I'm always fascinating by what people ate and how they behaved. Common foods and etiquette have changed so much over time. Somewhere in my fascination with history I remember finding an article that instructed young women in the 50s how to eat spaghetti like a lady. No more than four strands on a fork! The article was illustrated with a two photos of the young woman in question. one with four strands wound round her fork, the other of the same woman with a forkful that was obviously going to smear her lipstick. O, Tempora! O, Mores!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations, Sarah, on your new historical fiction novel.
ReplyDeleteSince April is DEAF HISTORY MONTH, I will share something that I thought was interesting. When I was a child, my family got this big heavy machine that was called a TTY - teletypewriter device for the Deaf. When I was watching a PBS series about Winston Churchill, I noticed that during the Second World War, they had a machine that looked like our TTY. I think it was a transcribe machine or a codebreaker. Maybe it was the Engima machine?
I have a WIP set in the late 1880's where my female main character has to select a team of oxen for a trip from Maryland to Virginia. I had to read/learn about oxen ad nausem.
ReplyDeleteNorma, I did something similar for a book where some of the action is set in the very early 30s. My protagonist gains the trust of the farmer he's questioning by helping him harness and chain up his team. Hours of research for two or three pages.
DeleteNorma, ad nauseum? LOL. I love oxen. My shearer raises and trains oxen just for the fun of it. And, Julia, to give you an idea of how liability laws have changed over the years, when I was 11 the "test" at summer camp that allowed me to tack up and drive a pony and cart was to memorize the names of all the harness pieces! As someone with a visual memory, that paper test was the easy part. I still could pass it and I MIGHT be able to harness a single horse but harnessing and driving a team is a very different matter. (Selden)
DeleteI should add that the historical things that are hardest for me to research are the typical "female" skills, because women wrote less in the past and when they did write, rarely wasted paper on subjects like laundry or spinning flax or cooking in an open fireplace, because "everyone knew that." I know historical male skills and farming because I've pushed myself to learn them. For the female ones, thankfully, these days there are reenactors and Youtube videos. (Selden)
DeleteSelden, places like Old Sturbridge Village and Mystic Seaport are excellent resources for household skills. I think they must have experts who are willing to share their knowledge.
DeleteI've had books with portions set in the 30s and 50s, and the amount I had to research for just that gave me mad respect for historical fiction writers. So. Much. Research!
ReplyDeleteI've found the trickiest part in what I think of as "near history" - ie, there are still people around who remember it - are the things you're not sure are the same or not. Did they have Band-aids? Penicillin? Breath mints? Because, as you show with the pantyhose remarks, one reader or another will send you an email if you get it wrong...
Julia, exactly. You write something, then you think: did they have X then or Y, because, yes, you want to get it right. :-)
DeleteThis is very true. When Margaret Mitchell wrote GONE WITH THE WIND in the 1920s she asked the elderly about all the details of the war and shortages sixty years earlier (the 1860s). I realized it would be like asking older people today about the 1960s! (Selden)
DeleteLovely to meet you here, Sarah. I love the small details that make character's lives seem real. Memoirs from historical periods are great, as are letters. Now that people no longer write them, I wonder what future writers of historical fiction will use for their research. Blogs, perhaps?
ReplyDeleteIt tickles me that the X Files is now historical!!
When I was first “allowed” to wear nylons in 7th grade, I had to use a garter belt. It wasn’t until 8th or 9th before pantyhose was available. That would have been 1969 or ‘70. (And the reason for the quotation marks around available is that I believe most of us now find having to wear stockings to be a pain. But oh, it was a sign of growing up to young women back in the “olden days”.) Congratulations on your book! I can’t imagine you have time to do research, let alone write a book, with five kids. Good for you! — Pat S
ReplyDeleteLaughing about the pantyhose...because i remember the before time, when we wore garter belts (or girdles!) with nasty little metal clips that might dig into your skin. And then, there was pantyhose. What a wonderful invention. (I was in college) Someone put them on, rolling them up her legs, in Mad Men, generally considered very well researched, and I thought "Nope. Pantyhose didn't come along for another year or two."
ReplyDelete