. To quote:
1. Your first two novels were about Marie Antoinette and her
daughter, so you researched the lives of famous historical personages and recreated
them as historical fiction characters—particularly with Marie Antoinette, a
historical person many people think they know all about. Was or how was your
research different when writing about your ancestors?
The research was extremely difficult because, even as there is
a great deal of information available on Marie-Antoinette, the information
on my ancestors is largely unpublished, except for some scant information on
Daniel himself. So my research had to consist in sifting through private family
archives, those I was able to access, that is. I had a cousin, Mary O'Connor Kaiser,
who was helping me, but she died in 2005, a great tragedy. I was able, however,
to go do a great deal on my own and with the help of other relatives, accessing
public records and going through letters and memoirs. The book is history at
the grassroots level. Also, because there is so much unknown about their lives
I had to be much more creative than in my books on the French Royal Family.
2. Anti-Catholicism is a threat to Daniel and his family both in
Ireland and in Canada. Why do you think hatred, ignorance, and fear of
Catholicism is so persistent and often so deep in English/Canadian/American
culture? what effects did the Irish penal laws have on the O'Connor family?
The Irish penal laws forced the O'Connor family in Ireland into
poverty. The O'Connors had been among the High Kings of Ireland and lords of
their own land, but when the penal laws were passed in the late 1600's they had
to pay rent for the land they had always lived on. They had been part of the
Irish nobility but in order to live they had to become farmers and tradesmen,
since they were barred from receiving any formal education or having a
profession. Of course, if they had become Protestant, they could have had
everything, full civil rights.
As for the deep anti-Catholic prejudice in the UK and
Commonwealth, it goes back to Tudor times when Protestants saw Catholics as
being allied to Spain or France, and placing obedience to the Pope higher than
allegiance to the King or Queen. It was an obedience to the Pope as a spiritual
leader, not as a temporal ruler. But in those times when religion was a state
affair, many people assumed that Catholics were natural traitors to a
Protestant government.
3. I loved the scene at the dinner table as Daniel defended the
Catholic faith--the humor in that scene was delicious (just like the
dinner)--did you have some record of such a conversation from family history?
The fact that Daniel would invite the ministers to dinner is
mentioned in his obituary and in several private family memoirs. The purpose of
inviting the ministers was so he could debate religion with them in order to teach
his children the truths of the Catholic faith. At this time, many Irish
Catholics in Ontario were becoming Anglican or Methodist for social and
political reasons. None of Daniel's children ever left the Catholic church. The
topics of the conversation I gleaned from a notorious book called Fifty
Years in the Church of Rome by a Canadian ex-priest named Fr. Chiniquy, a
highly anti-Catholic diatribe. I built the discussion around accusations
against Catholics mentioned in that particular book.
3a. I also have to tell you that the high point of that discussion
was the defense of the Church's use of Latin: as though Anglo-Saxon English was
less pagan than Roman Latin!
There are times in writing a novel when the characters take over
and speak their minds and the author does not feel he or she has much to do
with it at all. That scene was one of those times. It all came together. It was
pure grace. (Read more.)
