Today I’m happy to welcome author Peter Taylor-Gooby for a behind-the-scenes look at his exciting new novel of ancient Greece, The Immigrant Queen. Read on to discover book details and an interview with the author.
Hated as a foreigner, despised as a woman, she became First Lady of Athens.
Aspasia falls passionately in love with Pericles, the leading statesman of Fifth Century Athens. Artists, writers and thinkers flock to her salon. She hides her past as a sex-worker, trafficked to the city, and becomes Pericles’ lover.
Her writings attract the attention of Socrates, and she becomes the only woman to join his circle. She is known throughout the city for her beauty and wit and strives to become recognised as an intellectual alongside men.
Pericles’ enemies attack him through Aspasia and charge her with blasphemy. As a foreigner she faces execution, but her impassioned address to the jury shames the city and saves her. Pericles is spellbound, they marry, and she becomes First Lady of Athens.
Sparta besieges the city; plague breaks out and Pericles is once again in danger.
THE IMMIGRANT QUEEN tells the true story of how Aspasia rose to become the First Lady of Athens and triumphed against all the odds.
What’s the tagline or ‘elevator pitch’ for your book?
“Hated as a foreigner, despised as a woman I became first lady of Athens”
How did you come up with the idea for your book?
I studied classics at school and university and had the good fortune to meet an inspiring teacher who thought that learning the language was not an end in itself but simply a necessary step on the path to enjoyment of the drama and philosophy. Then I realized that so little of the traditional classics I was taught mentions the part played by women in the ancient world. Aspasia was the most successful and inspirational woman in ancient Athens. I wanted to tell her story.
What inspired you to write about that particular era or character?
As I studied Aspasia, I learned how truly remarkable her life was. She had every disadvantage – Athenians regarded foreigners as inferior to themselves. (Male) children were taught to copy out the tag “he who teaches a woman to write gives poison to an asp.” Few women could write, but she wrote dialogues regarded as comparable to Plato’s and advised Pericles on his speeches.
How did you create a realistic setting for your story?
Good question! I study in detail how people lived at that time and try to imagine the “feel” of everyday life, down to what it was like to enter a room (gloomy after the harsh light of the Mediterranean sun), to sit (lower than us), to eat – the different flavours and smells – to greet a partner or a superior, and so on. I visit what remains of that time and try to touch things. But it’s how people would have thought, their expectations about each other, their beliefs, the roles of women, slaves and men, all the details that make up the whole of their world that you have to grasp. You have to work at it.
What surprised you in the course of your research?
A lot. First, how very divided Athens, home of democracy, was. For a start, nearly half the population were slaves, treated (unless they were very lucky) as subhuman. Dividing another way, half were women, expected to stay within the house unless attending the temples or buying food, many of them not even able to read. Democracy was for male citizens, a privileged few, perhaps a fifth.
The other thing was the size of the gulf that Aspasia crossed. Immigrants were attracted to Athens by its wealth and contributed much but had few rights and were subject to heavy taxes and periodic expulsions. Women were of no importance. Yet she became the only immigrant woman member of Socrates’ circle, wrote her own philosophical treatises, respected and quoted by others, advised Pericles on his speeches, a power behind the throne and modelled for the statue of Athene on the Acropolis.
Do your research findings guide the plot, or do you plan out the plot first and flesh it out with research? (Or perhaps both?)
Both at the same time! Many stories surround Aspasia – that her mother was Artemisia, who led a flotilla of ships at the battle of Salamis but switched sides to the Greeks; that she was accused of blasphemy against the city’s gods but stripped in court to show the jury what they might lose. These tales stand halfway between fact and fiction and help to shape the plot.
Name three historical facts or events that helped bring your main character to life.
Her meeting with Pericles – who fell in love with her.
Her trial, which shows how seriously Pericles’ enemies took her.
Her defence of love as an ideal state in Plato’s Symposium, which prefigures the Platonic theory of ideal forms.
Do you completely plan out your cast of characters before writing, or do you sometimes add new characters as you go along? What are some of the reasons you’ve added new characters to a story?
I’ve added new characters, especially her bard, the slave and poet Limander, who is her confidant and whose life story shows the darker side of Athens.
Do you have any tips for other writers about keeping track of your historical fiction research?
You have to work at it and make sure you are up to date with academic research in the field.
Do you prefer to write in silence or with background music? If music, what kind and why?
No music, but I do go for long walks when something doesn’t seem to work and mull it over.
What do you have planned for your next writing project?
A sequel – Aspasia’s life after the death of Pericles and during the Peloponnesian War
What do you enjoy doing when you’re not writing?
Playing with my grandchildren is something I love, then walking in the Kent countryside. The autumn colours are lovely just now.
Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/4EvoOg
Paperback Buy Links:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Immigrant-Queen-Peter-Taylor-Gooby/dp/1836280602/
https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-immigrant-queen/peter-taylor-gooby/9781836280606
https://troubador.co.uk/bookshop/historical/the-immigrant-queen
Peter Taylor-Gooby is an academic who believes that you can only truly understand the issues that matter through your feelings, your imagination and your compassion. That’s why he writes novels as well as research monographs. He worked in India as a teacher, in a Newcastle social security office and as an antique dealer.
Now he’s professor of social policy at the University of Kent, a Fellow of the British Academy, loves playing with his grandchildren and writes novels in what time is spare.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peter.taylorgooby/
Troubadour Author Page: https://troubador.co.uk/author/glndwnle
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Taylor-Gooby
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/author/B001HD2YWQ
Thank you for hosting Peter Taylor-Gooby today. Such a great interview!
Take care,
Cathie xo
The Coffee Pot Book Club
It was a pleasure, Cathie!