00:00:25.040Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast.
00:00:29.180My name is Anne Foster, and this week I'm so excited to share this chat with you that I had with author Jack Gems, whose new book, Empty Theater, just came out yesterday, actually.
00:00:41.580So if you check her website, she's doing a lot of promotional events and things, and you can learn more about it.
00:00:46.060But the thing is, it's like this book was written specifically for you, the listeners, and me, a.k.a. the Tits Out Brigade, because this book involves Lola Montez.
00:00:56.200it's got lots of scandalousness it's primarily about empress cc who we all know about and her
00:01:02.760cousin ludwig who we talked a bit about in that episode it's also written in a really interesting
00:01:07.820and innovative way that i really vibed with and i think you will too and also if you're like i
00:01:13.880don't know if i've heard of jack gems you might have seen her face before because if you follow
00:01:18.200me on instagram if you scroll around a little bit there's a picture of jack posing at the grave
00:01:23.940of Lola Montez that she shared with me before this interview, and that I posted on Instagram.
00:01:29.240Anyway, it was such a fun time just like geeking out with her about various historical people,
00:01:33.840and I hope you enjoy this chat with Jack Gems. Okay, so I'm joined here today by Jack Gems,
00:01:41.560author of the book. Well, actually, so the book title is Empty Theater, but can you,
00:01:48.300from memory, or not memory, can you say the full title of it? I was just curious, can you?
00:01:52.360um i can read it to you but i don't actually have it memorized and i realized recently i really um
00:01:59.720it is my responsibility to memorize it i mean it is your title i assume you invented so yes yes i
00:02:07.640did um but uh yeah i can't recite it do you want me to read it though could you read it yes uh
00:02:15.540empty theater or the lives of king ludwig the second of bavaria and empress sissy of austria
00:02:21.260parentheses queen of Hungary and parentheses comma cousins comma in their pursuit of connection
00:02:27.940and beauty despite the expectations placed on them because of the exceptional good fortune
00:02:32.980of their status as beloved national figures period with speculation into the mysterious
00:02:37.800nature of their deaths period for real I tried to when I was setting I was just like making a
00:02:45.320place to save this file and I copy paste it and it was just like that's too long you can't call
00:02:49.400I was like, interview with Jack Gems, brackets, author of, then I copy pasted the title.
00:06:03.580know that that's the alias you're looking for like it's so I love that you just kind of like
00:06:07.620oh Lola Montez is here and you are a person who has researched her and you knew oh Eliza Gilbert
00:06:12.100that's the grave yeah yeah yeah I mean yeah because that's the confusing thing too is they
00:06:17.800don't they have her listed as Lola Montez on the map and say nothing about like under the name
00:06:22.760Eliza Gilbert yeah so I too when we arrived to it I was like where is she where is she and I was
00:06:27.800like oh right it's i remember that there are all these inaccuracies on the on the headstone doesn't
00:06:33.880it it has like her wrong age at death as well it's like the grave itself is yeah i think it has her
00:06:38.320wrong birth date and then from when she dies calculates her age wrong too yeah yeah which is
00:06:47.220like for her perfect perfect yeah even in death she's still pulling a fast one on everybody
00:06:53.280somehow but yeah so I was really excited to know that there was going to be like I've read your
00:06:59.560book I got an advanced reader copy of it everybody should read it this is like mandatory list like
00:07:03.980reading for everyone who listens to my podcast it starts with Lola Montes like I knew because
00:07:09.060you'd visit her grave I'm like oh Lola Montes will be in the book but like your book opens
00:07:12.040with like Ludwig the first like the one who she was lovers with and I was just like well this book
00:07:17.560starts with Lola Montes like I'm in like I'm already in because the title is like 125 words
00:07:22.980long. It's about Zizi and Lola's there too. But can you explain what the book is about beyond
00:07:29.040the title, which I guess does kind of explain what the book is about? Yeah, yeah. So what the
00:07:35.520book has ended up being, though, it's been through so many iterations, is primarily a book about
00:07:42.340Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Zizi of Austria. And they were cousins and also close friends,
00:07:52.340Probably as close a friend for Ludwig as he had. And Sissi always kind of, I think, saw him as kind of like almost like a little brother or something.
00:08:01.100it's about the kind of the the way that they were both iconoclasts it within the within the palaces
00:08:09.200that they inhabited and so ludwig was a very ineffective ruler in terms of perfect uh
00:08:15.680protecting bavaria from absorption into the um the larger north german confederation prussia
00:08:23.440like modern-day Germany. And Sisi was, you know, kind of not doing her job either as being a very0.62
00:08:32.800visible figure of the Austrian crown, and instead favored freedom in all ways, you know, traveling
00:08:42.360and following her own interests in terms of kind of prioritizing the Hungarian constitution and0.67
00:08:49.380and freedom over the power being imposed by the Habsburg House. And so, yeah, and I should also
00:08:59.580say that Ludwig, in place of doing his job of protecting Bavaria, was mostly just interested
00:09:05.420in paying for Wagner's operas and building big frothy castles that were out of their time and
00:09:11.200that he couldn't afford. So, you know, what happens with him eventually is that he is
00:09:17.140declared insane by a doctor who's never met him who was hired by his cabinet um to do exactly that
00:09:24.560and then um and then he and his doctor are both found murdered very soon after um and no one knows
00:09:30.800what happens um and then sissy and i i say all of this in the prologue of the book so um so i'm not
00:09:36.860precious about no spoilers or anything you know like we can all look at the historical record if
00:09:42.540we want to. And Sissy is murdered by an Italian anarchist. So they both meet these kind of
00:09:48.000untimely ends that, you know, where they're kind of martyred for causes that they're not even
00:09:55.020particularly, they don't have a particularly strong allegiance to. So yeah, so that's kind of
00:10:02.160the core of the book. But the reason that I begin with Lola is because there is this kind of
00:10:08.060historical precedent for the kings in the Bavarian line getting distracted from the
00:10:18.600primary goal. And so Ludwig I, who's Ludwig II's grandfather, of course, was seduced by Lola and
00:10:26.680eventually gives up the crown so he could be with her, but then fails to even be with her.
00:10:32.400right ludwig the first had there's this history in the family of being distracted by
00:10:38.860favorites so that's you start with ludwig the first to sort of establish that
00:10:43.380and also just sort of to establish what the situation is that ludwig
00:10:48.140the second is he the second or is he the third like the main one in your second yeah because
00:10:53.980his father's name is maximilian he's not actually yeah there isn't a second between them yeah yeah
00:11:00.600so just sort of establishes like here's what this world is like and then so the book kind of goes
00:11:04.480back and forth like what cc is up to in bavaria and then you know meeting the emperor and stuff
00:11:10.400versus like as ludwig so it's kind of like i don't know if it's exactly switching off chapter
00:11:15.680to chapter but it's sort of like both of them okay but you alluded to this that this book has
00:11:20.340gone through very many permutations so like what was what was it originally what which which
00:11:27.560storyline were you most excited about like how did this project even come about yeah so the book0.78
00:11:33.460definitely started with Ludwig but then I just started finding all these fascinating women
00:11:38.940around him and I was like well I don't only want to write about Ludwig Ludwig I want to
00:11:43.380try to bring in some some ladies too and so there was a full Lola storyline through the book at one
00:11:50.980point of course she like dies before Ludwig does so it sort of like cut off at a certain point
00:11:56.700And there was also Elizabeth Ney's storyline. She's the kind of like sculptress turned spy who sculpts Ludwig, but like Bismarck kind of tries to talk her into winning Ludwig over to his cause.
00:12:13.080And there was a whole section that was about her.
00:13:02.680So, so that got cut first, but, but yeah, there were definitely, the book used to be
00:13:09.520much longer and just had a lot more kind of threads woven into the braid.
00:13:15.140So it was sort of like, I don't know if you know this book, Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow,
00:13:20.500which is not a long book, but it's like, I don't even know, 25 different characters who
00:13:25.420were all in America in like 1905 or something.
00:13:29.820Yeah. Like it was four storylines instead of what's now basically two.
00:13:34.640Okay. And not having read the previous version of it, you know, I'm all about
00:13:39.500about a Lola Montes based story, but I think this book works so well as Cece and Ludwig,
00:13:44.520like just kind of, because the two characters and the way the cover is, it's their two heads
00:13:48.120kind of inverse of each other. It's funny. A few weeks ago, I just shared a portrait I came
00:13:53.400across of Ludwig. He's wearing these like over the knee boots. Like it's a really, it's a really
00:14:00.860stylish looking portrait. And I posted it and somebody was like, oh my God, this is boy Cece,
00:14:04.580like his face his lips like like physically the two of them look very similar so I think it's an
00:14:10.640easy an easy comparison to put them together in one book yeah absolutely I think it makes sense
00:14:17.120and I think the fact that they're joined by by this kind of friendship that you know goes through
00:14:22.820through some hard times in the book too but yeah I think they make sense as kind of foils to one
00:14:29.140another and um and they were both beloved for being so beautiful and romantic such romantic
00:14:35.580figures so yeah ultimately it did just make more sense to to kind of think about them in a more
00:14:44.280focused way alongside one another rather than trying to kind of like pull in all these other
00:14:49.620ideas and and interpretations with the other two characters so how did you come across ludwig in
00:14:57.460the first place. Like you said, that was the first character he wanted to write about. Where did you
00:15:01.020hear about him? Yeah, I went on vacation and went to Ludwig's castle in Neuschwanstein in Bavaria
00:15:09.000and went on a tour of it and just got obsessed with the story, you know, loved the, loved just
00:15:16.700being inside of the castle and what a romantic space it is, but then also was totally taken in
00:15:24.820by the whole mysterious ending uh thing and and wondering like okay so do people really not know
00:15:32.240what happened or have has it just been covered up over time or or what so yeah so my my last novel
00:15:39.600was not historical fiction but was like a haunted house book contemporary haunted house book and so
00:15:47.380So the idea of kind of psychologically loaded spaces and the idea of using architecture as an expression of internal states is something that was already kind of of interest to me.
00:16:01.580And so then being in a space like that, like his palace, was, you know, I think I was like intrigued by the idea of approaching some similar ideas in a very different way.
00:16:13.700so have you written historical fiction before this like even unpublished no okay
00:16:19.500no no I um yeah this is totally new to me now granted I've been working on it since 2015
00:16:27.460so you know now I'm eight years in but but no no I just um who knows why I thought that that
00:16:35.560was something good to do. I just, yeah, I was excited about the idea of just thinking about
00:16:43.980another time and place, I think. And, and also the allure of trying to figure out how to make
00:16:50.680a novel out of kind of facts that already had their own timeline and arc and figuring out,
00:16:58.220you know, okay, what, what does that look like in a fictionalized way then?
00:17:02.720Yeah, you've got at the very end of the book, I think I remember there was like a very long list
00:17:06.640of kind of like, here's the readings I did. So like, you've done the research, clearly.
00:17:12.380Yeah, too much research, probably, but I wouldn't change it because I feel like it
00:17:16.760helped me believe that I knew what I was talking about. And yeah, I needed to convince myself that
00:17:24.160I was qualified to write what I was writing about. And the style of it is a typical historical
00:17:31.620fiction novel would often take like here's two or three or five years in the life of somebody
00:17:38.760and they kind of I don't know how to describe the way that your book is different from that
00:17:43.380well your book there's a huge swath of time that it covers but also it's got this kind of
00:17:48.280like the voice of the narrator it's not a narrator but the voice of the author is very present it's
00:17:53.360kind of I don't know what to compare it to but yeah the style of it is very different and unique
00:18:00.680And how did you come upon that as your style?
00:18:03.780Yeah, you know, yeah, I would say that it is like an involved narrator, like it, you
00:18:09.560know, like it has an, the narrator has an opinion about the characters and about the
00:18:16.500And, you know, I think that, and it covers the entirety of their lives, you know, like
00:18:21.780it's not choosing just like a limited span of time to consider.
00:18:25.500I wanted to, you know, a lot of that ended up being shaped by the research and just like realizing, okay, here are all the things that are just so fascinating to me that I wanted to include.
00:18:40.240And that's kind of like, that's what I wanted to do is to think about, okay, I'm actually don't read a ton of historical fiction.
00:18:49.560You know, like I started reading more when I started working on this project and thinking about, okay, what are the kind of like standards of the genre? Who are the people who have departed from those tropes? How have they done it? Why have they done it?
00:19:06.880you know with both of these characters because they're they're both so obsessed with beauty
00:19:12.720they're both kind of resistant to the dominant historical narrative that what they felt was
00:19:20.420trying to be like manipulated about them you know I I wanted to try to find a way to tell their
00:19:26.560stories that also departed from from the more accepted formats that are normally taken and so
00:19:36.080I kind of arrived at this more fragmented, staccato, kind of like jumping around with
00:19:43.060moments of their lives, because it felt truer to me in the way that they kind of experienced
00:19:49.500joy or, you know, kind of dipped into depressions or that it wasn't quite as,
00:19:57.200as kind of smoothed over as a typical, you know, historical biography or novel might be.
00:20:04.480I'm just remembering there's a part I forget what the phrase was exactly but it's after
00:20:09.000Sissy has had one of her children and she's not doing great emotionally and then the book says
00:20:14.520something like well because the term postpartum depression hadn't been invented yet no one knew
00:20:18.680what was going on with her so there's like these like modern things like I think some historical
00:20:23.500fiction novels kind of recreate the writing style of the time period in which they're writing about
00:20:28.940but yours is very much like someone from today telling the stories is the vibe yeah yeah yeah
00:20:34.320absolutely i was like very aware of that kind of anachronistic voice because i just let i i i don't
00:20:43.400know yeah for better or worse i couldn't think about all of the things that are going on in this
00:20:48.420story without kind of bringing my current sensibility to it and realizing no wonder there
00:20:54.980were all these problems you know like the the world was failing them in so many different ways
00:21:00.020And granted, they're figures of incredible privilege, you know, but yeah, that kind of like anachronistic thing was in my mind. And, you know, I was thinking about, I was thinking about films when I was thinking about the tone of it, you know, like I was thinking about Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, and I was thinking about the favorite and, and thinking about like the way that those feel so current and relevant.
00:21:25.440And even like, like, I remember seeing Amadeus when I was really young and just being like, what, this is what life was like back then, you know, but realizing, oh, there's this kind of like, anachronistic, like, kind of sense of humor that's been placed on it and makes it feel more, more present, you know.
00:21:43.540And I love that approach, like in the movies you just mentioned, where when you take something in history, and this is kind of the approach I have on my podcast too, it's like when you take it in history and you treat it like this is an important, special, captured in amber thing, or even when people are talking about Shakespeare's plays or something, it's like, it was like the people off the street who were like, illiterate and poor and covered in mud, like it was funny stories for them to enjoy.
00:22:09.140And now it's like, we study them in universities where, so I don't know, do you know the movie
00:22:26.820It's like, yeah, that song was not written then, but that was the vibe.
00:22:30.920And to a modern day audience to understand, instead of someone being there with a lute
00:22:34.960playing Hey Nani Nani where we'd be like oh this is this is precious this is whimsical it's like
00:22:40.340no these are just like rhythmical like it's like a it's like you're in a stadium watching a soccer
00:22:45.560game so it's a way and this is what your book is doing too I think just to sort of instead of being
00:22:51.080like oh it's history so it has to be like at arm's length it's like no this is what these were people
00:22:56.060and here's what they're what they were thinking yeah well good good that's yes that's definitely
00:23:02.700what I was kind of hoping for. And I think, yeah, and that is the thing that, you know,
00:23:08.060the book's not quite out yet, but just the people that have been, have gotten advanced reader copies
00:23:12.900and are reading it seem to kind of like understand, or it seems to be reaching an audience of people
00:23:18.460who might not typically read this kind of thing and are still finding ways to enjoy it. So that's
00:23:24.600kind of exciting to me too, to think about, you know, like, you know, what, what's the gateway
00:23:29.580drug to historical fiction yeah and i think well what you said about the fact like you hadn't it
00:23:36.800hadn't been a genre you read widely in beforehand and it wasn't something you had written so you're
00:23:40.660coming to it with a real fresh point of view and so i think that would appeal to a reader who maybe
00:23:45.840hasn't read this genre before yeah exactly i can't you know i can't kind of uh fail to comply
00:23:54.620to the conventions that I don't already know. Exactly. Yeah. I was thinking too about,
00:24:00.360you mentioned something earlier, just kind of the way that society, this is how you kind of
00:24:05.780treat it in your book, the way that society is putting pressure on Ludwig to be a certain kind
00:24:09.320of man and on Sissy to be a certain kind of empress. But there's also today's understanding
00:24:15.980of both of them as these kind of larger than life mythological almost people. So when you were
00:24:22.860writing where you're thinking of ways to kind of like disentangle the myth from like, well,
00:24:26.880what was it really like to be this person? Yeah. Yeah. I think I was mostly, I feel like most of
00:24:36.200the book is thinking about their kind of everyday lived existence for the most part to the point
00:24:42.820where at one point my editor was like, well, you need to remind the audience that what people
00:24:48.920actually thought of these two figures is that they loved them and they just like even though
00:24:53.520they you know you're painting them in this way where they're really complex and and you know
00:24:57.900maybe sometimes problematic like the the general population just love these people um and I was
00:25:05.360like right right right yes okay that is what I knew about them first and I've gotten too in the
00:25:10.520weeds of like showing their kind of like the boredom or loneliness or frustrations of their
00:25:17.340every day and we need to like remember that like outside of the palace walls everyone is you know
00:25:23.140hunting the countryside to see if ludwig dropped a glove or something you know yeah there's a scene
00:25:30.160in the book um i forget exactly what era it's in but it's sissy is like beloved everybody loves
00:25:37.360her and she just is so rarely in public she it was after she shortly after she had given birth
00:25:41.480to one of her children yeah and she's she's thinking about like people she's like oh she's
00:25:44.860so beautiful and she's like if you could see the like pus and the like blood and the like the fact
00:25:50.980she had just given birth and she's just like if like she wants to show them like the pus covered
00:25:54.960rags between her legs she's like really really you think this is beautiful and i was like yeah
00:26:00.580like right the real it was just such a good um comparing the public perception with like the0.96
00:26:06.660human being yeah that she was yeah i mean yeah they're you know everyday life is so gross
00:26:14.380especially when you've just given birth or something like that you know yeah so um and you0.97
00:26:20.880know um sissy well i think both of them but but sissy in particular i think has such a kind of
00:26:26.520like uh dysmorphic idea of what she looks like and yeah and feels this need to stay beautiful0.77
00:26:35.200so that people like you know because she feels like the public that's what they value her for
00:26:40.420but also is kind of disbelieving of the reasons that they're valuing her and if she is living up
00:26:47.920to their expectations. And so, you know, the way that she thinks she looks and the way that people
00:26:53.360see her is very, very different. Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, you said you've
00:26:58.640worked in this book since, what, 2015? So how could you or your editor or your publisher have
00:27:05.340known that it's coming out in this era where suddenly there's this resurgence of interest
00:27:09.380and sissy there's like the there was the netflix series i think it's called the empress that was
00:27:14.240like really popular the german series then there's this movie corsage is coming out there's been like
00:27:19.260a number excited to see it i'm so excited to see corsage it i think you heard the podcast i did
00:27:24.320with um lana wood johnson who's like sissy's number one fan she's just like this like the
00:27:29.640vibe seems correct because a lot of the other projects have been like she's this romantic
00:27:34.420cheerful skipping around the palace person where it's like no she's this like nihilistic chain
00:27:41.860smoking like it seems like corsage gets it like in that era of her life yeah i agree i know i know
00:27:49.660when i um i mean i only found out about corsage maybe you know a couple months ago or something
00:27:55.020you know but I'd known about the the German sissy uh Siri series for a while I was like well maybe
00:28:06.140it won't be that big because it's in German you know like I wasn't sure um and you know and then
00:28:13.320I was expressing trepidation to to my agent and my editor and they were like I think I think it's
00:28:18.400still just a good thing because it's like you know if there's interest in her right now then
00:28:23.380it'll only drive uh interest in the book you know so um yeah but it is you know it's a kind of
00:28:29.220terrifying thing as a writer to be like okay i've spent the last eight years working on this and now
00:28:34.320it's gonna come out at the same time that there's all this other stuff coming out you know it's like
00:28:38.080reminds me of that time that like there were two truman capote movies that came out in the same
00:28:41.940year or something you know but um i don't know it's just you know it's it is what it is i'm i'm
00:28:48.060okay with it. I don't regret having spent the time that I've spent thinking about her and learning
00:28:54.060about her, you know, so. I think it's only good the timing just to have, well, I'm always happy
00:28:58.900when any project about a woman from history comes out in general, because it's just like the world
00:29:04.720needs more of that in general. But I think also if people are like, oh, Empress Cece, like maybe
00:29:10.540that you would watch the Netflix series or, and then you're like, oh, who's this person? And then
00:29:14.560that person's going to be like, I want to read more about it. And then your book is there to kind
00:29:17.740of like expand and to kind of like delve into like the darker corners i have not seen the netflix
00:29:23.420series myself yet i know that lots of people have and lots of people really like it but i believe
00:29:27.200it presents sissy as a love story between her and her husband which is yeah which i do not feel like
00:29:35.740her relationship with franz franz really is like i don't know i think he's very devoted to her and
00:29:42.480i think when they start out she's very you know she's so young she's like 15 or something yeah
00:29:48.480like there's a part of your book where something happened she's had i think three children and
00:29:52.020she's like she's now 19 and i was like she's 19 so much has happened oh my god but yeah yeah sorry
00:29:58.880go ahead um yes exactly so you know like i think that she thinks that she like really cares about
00:30:07.360him early on but you know like he's probably the first person to ever like show her any interest
00:30:13.640whatsoever so of course she was taken in you know yeah but I do not think that they had a very
00:30:20.000romantic relationship in their life and yeah I also think that I mean I watched the the season
00:30:27.460of the series because I think they're making more because it ends very early in her life
00:30:31.580and I also think that they're still kind of making her out to be and maybe this is because
00:30:38.520they're still in the early part of her life where she's younger still making her out to be this
00:30:43.500almost kind of like manic pixie dream girl kind of version of sissy where she's like you know
00:30:48.760she's very adventurous and energetic and um and a little bit rebellious but not a ton you know
00:30:55.220And they've also, I think really interestingly, baked in a couple other like kind of possible storylines into the narrative that I'm like, well, that's not what happened.
00:31:08.520And that's also feels just really soap opera-ish to suggest that it could have.
00:31:55.100Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust.
00:32:00.100Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.
00:32:08.000But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.
00:32:12.320This is old school adventuring at its most cruel.
00:32:15.500Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job.
00:32:21.700This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make.
00:32:29.260This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back.
00:32:34.000Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on youtube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day.
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00:33:20.340I'm Anne Foster, and I have never watched the show Spartacus, Blood, and Sand.
00:33:24.600And I'm Gina Berry, and I've watched this show numerous times.
00:33:28.620On our new podcast, NeferTV, we discuss TV shows and movies set in ancient history.
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00:33:43.420and we're back yeah well that must be so interesting like okay the level like when
00:33:51.960i read your book i had done research on sissy i'd done podcasts about her so i was reading i was
00:33:56.720just like oh this part oh i remember this part so i was just like enjoying because i so for you
00:34:00.880where you've done so much research to watch someone else's take of it you'd be like oh that
00:34:03.860part and then when they veer you're like wait you're doing what with that part like yeah no
00:34:10.000it's so it is so fun you know to see that and it's a nice reminder that like you know it's fiction
00:34:16.560for a reason you know and so you get to kind of like manipulate the facts in the way that you need
00:34:23.360to to like get the kind of point across to the audience I think it's also you know going back
00:34:29.220to that kind of like imposter phenomenon of like oh do I know enough about this to be writing about
00:34:34.620it you know it's like nice to watch something like that and to be able to identify well that's
00:34:41.040not true this is true that's not true um and um yeah it's like it's very gratifying yeah well and
00:34:48.120I think so and what's your take on if you're just like debunking love stories Ludwig and Wagner
00:34:54.020what's your take on their relationship? Yeah I okay so my feeling about this you know I feel
00:35:00.700like everybody when I talk about Ludwig and Wagner the people who know a little bit about them say
00:35:09.340like oh well Ludwig was in love with Wagner right because like you know I don't know if we've even
00:35:15.360touched on this yet but Ludwig's clearly gay you know and so you know and they had this close
00:35:21.400friendship. Um, and so people are like, Oh, he must've also been in love with Wagner. Right.
00:35:27.760I really don't think he was like, I, from everything that I read, like, you know, all of
00:35:33.340the, I get it. Like the letters between them are really effusive. They spend like each other's
00:35:39.020birthdays together. But when you look at like what happens on the birthdays, it's like Wagner
00:35:44.740hired four trumpeters to stand on parapets of the castle and play Lohengrin you know like
00:35:52.500it's not like I don't know it just doesn't seem to me like it's like it's romance and another
00:36:00.080reason and you know this is just like my own kind of feeling about this but like but Ludwig
00:36:07.020really disliked anyone who was less than stunningly beautiful. And Wagner was not
00:36:17.300a beautiful specimen. And I think that Ludwig loved the art that Wagner made. I think he was
00:36:26.940incredibly moved by the operas. But I just don't see Ludwig falling in love with an older man who1.00
00:36:37.960is anything less than gorgeous. And, you know, maybe it's the exception. Maybe he was,
00:36:44.760you know, but like, from everything that I read, I just don't think so.
00:36:49.340and that's the tricky thing sometimes about like I do not know a lot about like queer history
00:36:57.420I'm learning bits and pieces here and there as I'm working on this podcast but
00:37:01.360so when you find two men in history and you know there's the there's a podcast called
00:37:07.860historically very good friends that just like delves into this but it's like oh they were best
00:37:11.920friends they live together like you know so it's but sometimes they are just best exactly exactly
00:37:16.800And it's like, if a character, you know, if a figure is, is queer and it was covered up, it doesn't mean that every person of the same sex, like that they were romantically linked to them. And that's what I think something that sort of like, gets, like interpreted that way, because of that lack of visibility into like, who were the romantic relationships were, with were. And, but Ludwig, I think like, I think there are definitely people who it's clear that he had romantic relationships with.
00:37:46.320but I think that people just kind of like read that same interpretation onto
00:37:49.940Wagner. And I don't think it was. Yeah.
00:37:52.780Well, and I love in, in your book, you come, there's like a passage where,
00:37:56.760and this is where like the Lola stuff you set up kind of like echoes again,
00:38:00.860when he's like so enamored with Wagner and the, I forget who it is.
00:38:04.920The like politicians are just like, Oh, this is just like,
00:38:06.800what should we call him? Like it's like Lola part two or something.
00:43:23.960It's just like, again, your book is coming out in the wake of like Prince Harry's book
00:43:27.480and whatever and like The Crown and people just like reexamining Diana's legacy in a way.
00:43:31.740And I think just stuff like the disordered eating and like being known for her beauty
00:43:35.220and being dissatisfied in her marriage.
00:43:38.120like there's so many parallels there too between her and Sissy yeah there is you know like I have
00:43:43.560to admit like I'm not uh like I don't follow British royals you know like I know I know all
00:43:49.220of the things that you're talking about you know no one should but um but yeah it's like yeah I
00:43:55.600mean these things repeat themselves so much and I also totally understand that there are like
00:43:59.580there are so many problems that women face and it is the way to try and uh gain empathy or0.88
00:44:06.880sympathy for them by portraying a woman who has more power and privilege than any other woman in
00:44:14.060the world maybe not you know but um but it is also just like interesting to see like okay here's a
00:44:19.220woman who should be happy she should have everything and like what are the limitations0.99
00:44:23.040even within that um that kind of realm well and then also just pivoting again to ludwig
00:44:28.960so he was i don't know i feel like in a miniature version my like couple months studying ludwig and
00:44:36.360sissy lola montez mirrored what you experienced because i was like okay i'll do an episode about
00:44:40.280sissy and then in researcher crime like who's lola montez and then i was just like and who's
00:44:44.540ludwig and who's the first ludwig and suddenly i'm just like spiraling but so ludwig the second
00:44:49.880the one who's in your book like he's known like there's a board game the castles of mad king
00:44:53.660ludwig i've never played it but i need to but like the fact that he's known as mad king ludwig
00:44:59.160the guy who built the castles like what was that like to um examine him just from a more empathetic
00:45:05.100point of view not just like this crazy king yeah yeah I think that I think that that is kind of
00:45:12.600like tied to what I what we're saying about like the way that like you know with one identifier
00:45:22.220or descriptor all of a sudden you're like seeing everything is related to that thing you know like
00:45:27.100in terms of like oh he's queer so all of his male relation all of his male friendships must have
00:45:31.680been romantic, right? Where it's also like, oh, he was mad. So everything that he was doing was0.85
00:45:37.120totally mad, right? But if you look at Ludwig, historically, Ludwig I, too, was also obsessed
00:45:45.140with building. The reason that he was revered so highly and was held in such high regard was he
00:45:51.860basically built up all of the important buildings, historical buildings in Munich that are there now,
00:45:57.820You know, like museums and concert halls and things like that. And, you know, if you go to, say, like the Nymphenburg Palace, you know, like it's very similar in the same way to, you know, Ludwig would build these palaces and build all of these little like quaint ornamental outbuildings in the like grounds around the palace.
00:46:20.140and people would be like oh it's it's uh unreasonable there's a moorish kiosk and there's
00:46:25.460like a like a oriental bath house and there's all these like little you know buildings that are just
00:46:31.540like little baubles on the grounds right but ludwig the first was doing the exact same thing
00:46:36.760you know and people didn't think that he was out of his mind even though he was kind of like
00:46:41.860obsessed with like building and supporting the arts you know so i think it's just all a matter
00:46:47.860of like, yeah, what is the, what is that kind of label that you're applying to everything?
00:46:53.840And granted, you know, both, both Ludwig and Sissy have ties to this Wittelsbach line that
00:46:59.540there was an incredible amount of inbreeding and there were family members who had real
00:47:07.260struggles, you know, with mental health.
00:47:09.980And I think that that was something that I was just thinking a lot about in this book
00:47:15.620is like knowing that there's that precedent in the family line, you know, what is the relationship
00:47:20.240that a person can have to trusting themselves to in terms of like, okay, like, am I thinking
00:47:25.560through this clearly? Or is this, you know, some inherited thing that's like bubbling forth right
00:47:32.720now, you know? And, you know, with Ludwig, of course, then to, you know, being queer, he has0.80
00:47:38.860this thing that feel it must feel just like so important and huge that he has to keep as secret0.63
00:47:44.880as possible. And, you know, like, and so he's finding other ways to cope and, and to express
00:47:52.540himself. And other people are reading it that as madness, too, in the same way that they would have
00:47:59.160read his queerness as madness at the time, you know, and so, yeah, I mean, I think Ludwig is
00:48:04.940just an incredibly sympathetic figure. I think that he wasn't born to do that job. And ideally,
00:48:12.680he would have kind of been allowed to opt out of it at some point.
00:48:17.660Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm just thinking what you're saying.
00:48:19.840And that really echoes so much with, I think, of Sissy and her,
00:48:23.420how she's seen then and how she's often seen now or has been by biographers
00:48:28.560where it's just like, okay, well, she's a woman who had mental health issues.
00:48:32.960She clearly had disorder eating where it's just like, okay, so then was everything,
00:48:38.780I don't know, you were saying like how he found ways to cope, Ludwig,
00:48:41.400like with you know having to be closeted and whatever so sissy had these issues and then
00:48:45.940she dealt with it by like going for incredibly long hikes and by horseback riding and by like1.00
00:48:50.900really stringently maintaining her appearance where it's like but everything she did doesn't
00:48:56.580have to relate back to her mental health right right like i feel like we're in a moment now
00:49:04.280where like if you can use exercise to treat your mental health like why wouldn't you right but like
00:49:10.520sissy is like punished for it or seen as like, you know, as being negligent to the kingdom,
00:49:16.520because she's like trying to find healthy ways to kind of like, well, healthy or not, you know,1.00
00:49:22.260like, like orthorexia is a real thing. And like over exercising, you know, as a way of kind of
00:49:27.360like controlling your body. And but yeah, I think she's doing the same thing. I think we're all
00:49:33.140doing the same thing, right? Like, we're trying to survive. And we're figuring out how to how to
00:49:37.660how to do it in a way that you know like where we can keep moving forward well and i think that's
00:49:42.360also the thing too is that for both of them like they had like mental health stuff going on and
00:49:48.020yet neither of their stories end with them taking their own life like they both ended up being kind
00:49:53.320of randomly murdered like they found ways to cope and those ways like were working for them
00:49:59.820for better or for worse like they were sissy i just i appreciate that she spent so much of her
00:50:05.380time just traveling um I love the way that you you put it in your book and it was the impression I
00:50:10.920got as well where she was just like oh no I'm sick could you just send me to like this beautiful
00:50:14.440island off the coast of Portugal that's the only place I think where I could get better thanks
00:50:18.800then she's there and she's like fine like it's just like living her life and like eating fine
00:50:23.680and like being happy or she's like yeah I don't know like in your book it's so like I'm like I
00:50:30.200know that fact and I'm like well I don't know that fact but that sounds like a true fact so
00:50:33.240I'm just like, I, I don't know what you're making up and what you're not. Like it just all reads
00:50:36.940is like, that makes sense. Most of it's true. Yeah. Yeah. Most of it's true. Like scenes are
00:50:42.380imagined or like, so, you know, a few characters are combined in each of their storylines, you
00:50:48.100know, to just sort of like make it a little easier to follow from beginning to end and not
00:50:51.700overcomplicating it. But for the most part, most of it has some like root in, in a seed of fact.
00:50:59.660Yeah. And I think like what you're saying about sissy traveling too, they both kind of have that, right? Like they're both kind of convinced that, that like, if they could just go somewhere else, they could be, they could live the life that they want to, like, in the end of Ludwig's life, he starts sending out servants to like, try to find a new place he could establish a kingdom, like convinced that he could, you know, just like, if he could just be somewhere else, then he could live the life that he wants to live, you know,
00:51:29.380and um and they come back with like places that he could maybe build a summer home or something
00:51:34.380but like he's like no i want a kingdom you know and it's like this kind of like a messed up way
00:51:39.360that he's convinced that like he needs to stay king to keep doing the things that he's doing but
00:51:43.620you know yeah sissy is the same and the way that she kind of just keeps traveling to all these
00:51:47.820places and then she'll like in corfu she builds this beautiful house and her husband thinks like
00:51:52.620finally she'll be happy here uh but then she just kind of gets tired of it quickly and wants to go
00:51:57.240somewhere else you know so it's like I think they're both I think they're both seekers you
00:52:03.800know like I feel like I hear the word seeker all the time now like people who are like really trying
00:52:07.980to like like find the thing that will complete them or give them answers about their lives and
00:52:13.380I think that Sissy and Ludwig are both both seekers and that they try to kind of keep trying
00:52:18.520all these different ways to to find to make themselves happy and they're not you know could
00:52:24.640be successful if they could just realize that the the journey is more important than the destination
00:52:30.240yeah to speak in cliches yeah well it's just like if you keep trying to find the thing it'll make
00:52:36.960you happy but you're inherently not happy like a thing's not gonna make you happy like that's yeah
00:52:42.500but well that's the thing too that's just reading like a book like yours it really delves into just
00:52:46.820kind of the psychology of it all the psychology of people before therapy was a thing um where i'm
00:52:53.680just like oh here's what i would suggest i was ludwig's friend but it's like but no one's going
00:52:58.220to suggest that then and like fair enough so he just like does what he needs to do i think
00:53:02.960i think you've explained your book so well that i think everyone understands now why they need
00:53:07.600to read it but do you have any do you have any other persuasive things to say to convince people
00:53:12.840to read your book oh well if you're just looking for a rabbit hole to go down i feel like there
00:53:18.680lots and lots of minor characters to just like dig in on you know like plenty more beyond the
00:53:24.440ones that i had initially planned to um uh you know include as full storylines like lots of good
00:53:32.140wikipedia ing to make that a verb uh uh to do while reading because you know usually the one
00:53:40.200little detail i've included about someone is just the tip of the iceberg so so yeah i don't know that
00:53:45.560people need more more material in their lives to just kind of keep like finding new tangents to go
00:53:53.180down but um but i do think that there's there's lots more built into it when i think you mentioned
00:53:59.060um what was the name of the sculptor slash spy elizabeth nay yeah so you mentioned like she
00:54:05.620shows up in the book and i was just like elizabeth nay i'm just like write that down researcher for
00:54:09.640the podcast maybe one day like the fact that you had had more about her before or like even lola
00:54:14.680like for people who don't know about her you clearly you know so much about these side
00:54:20.900characters who had been more than when you're reading the book you're like oh that's intriguing
00:54:24.620and then and because it's based in history it's like oh you can read more about these people yeah
00:54:29.760yeah she leaves germany and moves to moves to the u.s with her husband they settle down in georgia
00:54:38.360where I guess there's just like a population of German expats who moved there to to treat tuberculosis because they heard that the weather was dry,
00:54:48.500which I think is really funny for Georgia. And then that doesn't go well.
00:54:53.460So they moved to Austin, Texas, and and she like spends the rest of her life running a farm and also trying to prove that women artists are valuable.
00:55:04.700but like of all places to try to do that Texas is not the place you know yeah it's a fascinating
00:55:13.020history and um you know like I just think about like I did so much travel for this book too in
00:55:20.500terms of researching people in places and for Elizabeth Ney like I went to her plantation
00:55:26.760outside of Hempstead, Texas, and booked myself a tour, but they didn't have regular tours. You
00:55:35.880needed to buy a group tour, but they were only $100. So I went on a group tour alone with a
00:55:42.660woman in a corset and a hoop skirt telling me about the house. And I was like, you can take
00:55:47.620that costume off. It's just the two of us. And she was like, no, no, I'm fine. And she had to
00:55:52.020keep sitting down because she couldn't catch her breath. And it was like, there are aspects
00:55:56.400of the research for this book that I was just like, I went too far. Like I did not need to do
00:56:02.460that, but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, you know, like, like that. That's
00:56:08.480the whole point is enjoying this sort of the, the gaming of that knowledge, you know, and seeing,
00:56:14.320seeing all the places. I, I, um, I think that was the most important and exciting aspect of
00:56:20.200the research to me was to, to go to these places and to feel like what it was like to be in them.
00:56:25.340do you have any um events planned because this episode is going to come out like just as your
00:56:30.540book is being published like on your website like people can know where where to see you
00:56:35.100and to come in yeah yeah there are um there are details about events on my website but i will be
00:56:40.800in i i live in san diego so there will be an event in san diego la portland new york chicago and then
00:56:47.460hopefully the bay area too we're trying to set something up well that's perfect just because i
00:56:51.560know from like the analytics that I see there's a lot of listeners to the podcast who live on the
00:56:55.840west coast so they should all go yeah yes please I would love to see everyone and that's nice that
00:57:02.760I've interviewed a number of authors on this podcast and it's nice that your book is coming
00:57:06.800out in a time where you can do events yes I know I know it's so wonderful to be back in rooms with
00:57:13.220people yeah rather than just zooming it all yeah it makes such a difference can you say so your
00:57:19.840book is empty theater can you read the title one more time please yes yes i can i can read it but
00:57:27.960not recite it um or the lives of king ludwig ii of bavaria and empress the sea of austria
00:57:34.400queen of hungary cousins and their pursuit of connection and beauty despite the expectations
00:57:39.560placed on them because of the exceptional good fortune of their status as beloved national
00:57:44.340figures with speculation into the mysterious nature of their deaths why did you decide
00:57:52.820to make that the subtitle oh sure yeah so um the reason is uh because my editor was like can't it
00:58:04.300can we make a subtitle like with sissy and ludwig's name in it and i was like no no i hate that idea
00:58:12.700because it's gonna sound like it's non-fiction or something it's gonna be so dry like if it's
00:58:16.520empty theater the the Ludwig and Sissy story yeah but then like we were doing research into
00:58:22.56018th and 19th century novels and Victorian novels all have these beautiful long subtitles that
00:58:29.920basically tell you exactly what happens um in them and so like the the title the subtitle for
00:58:36.880Robinson Crusoe is also like a paragraph long. So we realized there's this kind of a timely
00:58:43.260historical referent for, for a big long title like that. So yeah, I just had a fun time kind of
00:58:52.820figuring out what I wanted to be in the title, like as it connected with what the book eventually
00:58:58.960became. And the chapters have names like that too, don't they? Yeah, yeah. Well, some are long,
00:59:05.840but most most are pretty short but like they have a little like in this chapter this happens and i
00:59:10.120love that i love that when i was a little kid writing novels for my own amusement i would
00:59:14.420always give my chapters these long like and in this chapter this happens this happens this happens
00:59:18.440like yeah i think they call that an argument yeah i think i i learned that that's the official word
00:59:25.700for it if you kind of like start your chat if the title of your chapter kind of explains what will
00:59:30.980happen in the chapter yeah well and that's just such a really elegant but also irreverent way for
00:59:37.200like a book like yours that is an unconventional non or not non-fiction historical fiction novel
00:59:42.840but to be using the stylistic elements of a classic novel from that era I don't know it
00:59:49.980all melts together really beautifully and I'm impressed that they your cover designer fit the
00:59:54.080whole title on the cover yes me too yeah I was like how is this gonna work um but yeah
01:00:00.820I feel like she did it in a way that, um, it's almost like, yeah, it doesn't feel like
01:00:06.200too overwhelming, but when you realize it's there, it's just kind of fun and, um, a little
01:00:31.780So here's the thing. This, turns out, has been the 100th episode of Vulgar History,
01:00:38.440which is really huge and really exciting, and I never would have done this many episodes were it
01:00:43.360not for you, the Tits Out Brigade, and all of your enthusiasm. We've also just hit another
01:00:49.880milestone in terms of statistics, which is recently, there's been 2 million downloads
01:00:56.480of this podcast, Vulgar History, which is frankly a surreal number that sounds fake to me. But this
01:01:03.240is all because of you, the Tits Out Brigade, your enthusiasm, spreading the word, telling your
01:01:08.860friends about it. It's really been a really organic growth of finding listeners that I
01:01:15.220really, truly appreciate. And so as an appreciation to you all to celebrate the 100 episode-aversary,
01:01:21.380I am going to be hosting a YouTube live event on Saturday, March 4th at 7 p.m. Central,
01:01:28.480which is 8 p.m. Eastern, which is 5 p.m. on the West Coast. If you go to youtube.com slash
01:01:35.560vulgar history, I would imagine if you go there in your time zone, it'll tell you what time zone
01:01:40.460where what time you can watch that. Anyway, because I know there's listeners all around
01:01:45.920the world, I am happy to do this as an online event so you can watch it from wherever you are.
01:01:50.440I'm going to be joined for this by friends of the podcast, you know them, you love them, Alison Epstein, Lana Wood Johnson, and we're going to talk about the 1986 movie Lady Jane, which stars Helena Bonham Carter, who is a literal child in this movie, Carrie Elwes from The Princess Bride, as well as Patrick Stewart is in it wearing a wig.
01:02:11.080So if you want to watch that movie to prepare to watch this super special YouTube live presentation, it's called Lady Jane, and it's available to rent and stream in basically most of the usual spots where you find films.