The House of Velvet and Glass (62 page)

For one thing, I had higher expectations for myself. I’m proud of
Physick Book
, but there are parts of that novel that I would improve if I could, or that I wish I had been able to do differently. So the writing of
Velvet and Glass
was complicated in part by my constantly looking over my own shoulder, both trying to make it the best story that it could possibly be under its own auspices, but also to improve the areas of my writing that I wished could be better in
Physick Book.

And much as I tried to put it out of my mind, I couldn’t escape the knowledge that I have a community of readers whose good opinion matters to me. I have been fortunate to hear from many people who found something personally resonant in
Physick Book
, and I wanted to give those readers another story that they would respond to and enjoy. I hope that I have been able to do that with
The House of Velvet and Glass

What made you choose to center the novel on the tragic sinking of the
Titanic?

The
Titanic
was a potent symbol even before it sank. It was designed both as a technological marvel and as the pinnacle of opulence in a staggeringly opulent (for some) age. But the fact that it did sink, and on its maiden voyage to boot, with some of the world’s wealthiest and most influential people clinging to its decks, means that the largest and most spectacular ocean liner in the world can barely hold the prodigious weight of its own significance, even one hundred years later.

I started thinking about the aftershocks of the
Titanic
’s loss, which are tremendous, both for the families of those lost, but also for the culture at large.
Titanic
was the first use of the new nautical distress code “S.O.S.” Before that, the distress code was “C.Q.D.,” and the parameters had just been changed. The spread of news by wireless was a key part of the
Titanic
story, both because of the ad hoc reception of
Titanic
’s distress signals by other ships, and because the newspaper reportage of
Titanic
’s loss depended so drastically on wireless reportage. Monuments to
Titanic
persist even when we don’t necessarily know that we are seeing them—in the name of the Harvard University library, for example.

In particular I was intrigued by the fact that the
Lusitania
was lost only three years later. The
Titanic
’s loss was still fresh in Americans’ minds when a similarly luxe ocean liner sank, also in the North Atlantic, and also despite the fact that the public had widely assumed that its speed and technological superiority would keep it safe. The outcry surrounding the
Lusitania
’s torpedoing referenced the
Titanic
at length, with serious implications for the United States’ eventual involvement with World War I. For the fictional Allston family, I was particularly drawn to the idea that the ocean could make a fortune, could take a fortune away, could completely transform a family both for good and for ill.

What are you currently working on?

I am deep in the research for a new novel, which will be in the same vein as
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
and
The House of Velvet and Glass
. It will be obsessively researched historical fiction with a slightly fantastical twist, this time set in nineteenth-century New York City. I have been absorbed with Hudson River Valley ghost lore lately, in particular the strange paradox of the way that ghosts can simultaneously embody ideas of permanence and impermanence. My story will look at a young Dutch girl who disappears in the New York of the early nineteenth century and reappears in the late nineteenth. I’m tentatively calling it
The Appearance of Annatje van Sinderen.

In addition to spending time in nineteenth-century New York, I am also working on a second installment for the story in
Physick Book
. I haven’t quite been able to get those characters out of my mind, and there are a few people who show up fleetingly in the first book who I would like to get to know better. I’m eager to see where the story of the Dane women will take me next.

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction and the events, incidents, and characters are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 Katherine Howe

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011.

The Library of Congress has catalogued the original print edition of this book as follows:

Howe, Katherine.

The house of velvet and glass / Katherine Howe. — 1st ed.

    p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-4013-4091-9

1. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 2. Mediums—Fiction. 3. Boston

(Mass.)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3608.0947H68 2012

813’.6—dc23

2011034052

eBook Edition ISBN: 978-1-4013-4284-5

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Cover design by Laura Klynstra

Cover photograph of woman by Veronica Gradinariu/Trevillion

Cover photograph of
Titanic
from the Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

Cover photograph of scrying glass by Mohamad Itani/Arcangel Images

Author photograph by Laura Dandaneau

First eBook Edition

Original hardcover edition printed in the United States of America.

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