00:00:00.000hello and welcome to vulgar history a feminist women's history comedy podcast today i'm so
00:00:16.140delighted to share this interview that i had with vanessa riley who if you aren't familiar with her
00:00:21.740work like you're about to be and you should be her books are so good i was really thrilled to
00:00:27.100be able to chat with her about her new book, Queen of Exiles. So it is the story of Queen
00:00:32.700Marie-Louise Koivadad Christophe, who was, she was the queen of Haiti. And she lived
00:00:38.320in a period of time that I often think of as just like the Regency era, like the early
00:00:43.3401800s. And this book talks about the history of Haiti. It talks about what was going on
00:00:49.000in Europe at the time. This book goes to Italy, it goes to England. But at its core, it's
00:00:54.420really a story of Queen Marie Louise. And we talk in this interview that you're about to hear a lot
00:00:59.660about who the real life person was. Vanessa also talks a lot about how she came to write this book,
00:01:04.240the research she did, like it included some European travels, which sounds so lovely.
00:01:09.260And Vanessa, just so you know, she was the 2023 Georgia author of the year award winner for her
00:01:16.420previous historical fiction book, Sister Mother Warrior. She's written so many books, all historical
00:01:21.660fiction, some romance novels, some murder mysteries, some like this book, straight up
00:01:27.080fiction, all so good. And I'm really excited for you to hear this interview with Vanessa Riley
00:01:32.500about Queen of Exiles. Hi, so I'm joined today by Vanessa Riley, whose new book is called Queen
00:01:44.420of Exiles. And I am so excited to talk to you about this book and to talk to you about the
00:01:50.060main character who is a real historical figure. I have so many questions for you, but first,
00:01:55.660I just want to say welcome, Vanessa. Well, Anne, thank you for having me. And I just can't wait
00:02:00.360to talk about Queen of Exiles. There's a couple of things I want to talk about just to sort of
00:02:04.620ground everybody in the story and the history, because to understand who she is and the
00:02:09.260significance of her life, we need to talk a bit about the history of Haiti. So can you sort of
00:02:13.720set the scene of the world that she was born into? So when Marie-Louise Covidad is born,
00:02:22.240we'll just call her Louise, she is in a blended family. She is the daughter of a hotelier owner.
00:02:29.680So her father, a free Black man, owned this very exquisite hotel in Saint-Domingue, which is the
00:02:38.080capital during that timeframe. So you get a lot of Westerners coming in. They called it the pearl
00:02:43.420of the Antilles so that she was very used to that lifestyle because her father had catered to them.
00:02:51.520And so his daughters understood that life. But, you know, Senator Bing is a tale of two or three
00:02:57.740different factions. You have the Grand Blancs, which are the wealthiest, the wealthy. You have
00:03:04.220the petite Blancs who want to be Grand Blancs. Then you have free coloreds who are mixed race1.00
00:03:10.240children of Blancs and enslaved people who are now free, then you have just this wave of0.99
00:03:18.500enslaved Blacks. So you have a Frenchie that could also be free Blacks, but you have also this0.94
00:03:23.500underbelly of society of enslavement. And everyone but the Grand Blancs is unhappy.0.98
00:03:30.280Everybody wants more freedom. Everybody wants the ability to move up socioeconomic classes.
00:03:34.760and this constraint of, I will steal you from the continent of Africa and force you in these0.99
00:03:41.160camps. And I won't care about the condition you're living in and how the life expectancy1.00
00:03:46.080is just cut short for these people. So there's a lot of pain and whatnot, but you have this
00:03:51.840almost idyllic life in the same place. She is the hotelier's daughter. Well, a free man comes to the
00:04:00.300in one day. His name is Henri Christophe. He's fought in the American Revolution. He has ambitions
00:04:06.500to join the growing rebellions, but he instantly falls in love with this young girl. Family keeps
00:04:13.280them apart for like two years, but they end up getting married. And now she's a soldier's wife
00:04:19.180and the rebellion explodes. All factions of Haiti is burning. And finally, Jean-Jacques0.85
00:04:27.440Dessalines, commands the forces. He is able to push France away. Henri Christophe is in second
00:04:34.540in command and Haiti is now free. She is now the, you know, being the wife of the general who's the
00:04:43.240second in command is, you know, a lot of authority. I've read about the dinner parties and whatnot that
00:04:47.920she would hold at her house. But Henri Christophe is an ambitious man and there's discontent because
00:04:53.380Dasselines has now appointed himself as emperor because he's trying to best Napoleon during this
00:04:58.880time frame. It's a time of crisis and there is discontent because those free coloreds are upset1.00
00:05:06.200that the black generals have all the power. The free coloreds have more education. The ones who1.00
00:05:13.460excelled in combat are with the free blacks. So there's this thing between Haiti where you have0.92
00:05:21.000coloreds and free blacks and they're fighting. They can't get along. Jean-Jacques Dessalines1.00
00:05:26.960is assassinated and the country splits into two. So the Republic is in the South. The free coloreds
00:05:32.360are running that. The black generals, they are running the kingdom in the North. And it1.00
00:05:37.780eventually becomes a kingdom. Christophe becomes its first king and his wife is the first queen.
00:05:43.680And so I gave you probably too long of an explanation. No, no, no. It's necessary.
00:05:47.940Right. It's a part of history that I knew very little about going into this book. And I mean,
00:05:57.380I do want to let all the listeners know, like in the book, like you explain this step by step,
00:06:01.240so everybody knows what you need to know. But just in terms of this conversation and this podcast,
00:06:05.600for people who haven't read the book yet, like the history of Haiti, it's so interesting. It's so,
00:06:11.920I didn't know any of these details until I read the book. So we've got this woman who met this guy
00:06:17.440at her family hotel. And now suddenly she's the queen of Haiti. Can you talk about what that era0.55
00:06:25.140was like for her being the queen? Like he built a palace, Sans Souci, and they're hosting balls.
00:06:30.920It's this elegant, glamorous time. I've written her as a reluctant queen because
00:06:35.660she was content being a soldier's wife. Then she had to become content being a general's wife.0.95
00:06:43.740Then she had to become content being the president's wife. And now he's he's wanted to be a queen because Christophe believes that France is going to come back.
00:06:54.140His overarching thing is France is going to come back. And if Haiti does not have friends in Europe, in America, that will always be the way France is going to come back and no one will stop them.
00:07:05.220So he decides that I look at the English court, I look at the Prussian court, I look at the Italian court. Everybody understands these peerages.
00:07:13.740we're going to create that in Haiti. So we're going to have, I will be the king, you will be
00:07:17.880the queen, we'll create dukes or comtes and dussles. We will match the European aristocracy0.59
00:07:27.060because if they see us as their peers, they will see us as human and then they will understand why
00:07:33.460we need to be free and never under France's yoke. In doing so, you know, women for the revolution
00:07:40.140were a huge part. The African identity was a huge part. And so there is a battle now.0.61
00:07:48.080What got us to be free? Women acting, women carrying the battle cries, the way of African1.00
00:07:56.420battle movement and tracking. And now you want women to go back to just being pretty faces1.00
00:08:01.420in beautiful gowns. And you want to divorce yourself from this African identity to accept1.00
00:08:06.980this European identity because you believe that is the way.0.98
00:08:10.360And Louise, the practical woman, is trying to balance because she does see he is right.
00:08:16.500We need to have friends in the outside world, but at the same time, we cannot forget who
00:08:36.980having this kingdom. It is a struggle. And there are successes in the kingdom that you find out.
00:08:44.500Like, you know, it blew my mind that they had immunizations. You know, you could literally
00:08:51.060go into schools and these children who once were picking in the fields, the sugarcane,
00:08:56.820are now learning French and English in the classrooms because he understood our people
00:09:02.800have to be educated. We've got to be able to match the peers of the world. He was bringing in
00:09:07.380scientists from America, from all over Europe. And it's just a lavishness. I mean, he's buying
00:09:14.000things from the best furniture makers in Germany. Also, you know, the Milners in London. I mean,
00:09:21.780the jewels, it's all of his things because he's mimicking European society and the things that
00:09:29.720he believes that they value. And so when they come to visit, they will see it, they will identify
00:09:33.780with it, and then we can all fit in and we will have support in the world. So it's a fraught
00:09:40.160experience. And as a woman who understands the needs of that, but also understands where the
00:09:45.520people are and how far his vision is so far ahead of where they need to be and that the problems,
00:09:51.900she's trying to right the ship, but sometimes it's just a bigger task than you are able to do.
00:09:58.220And then can you explain where you're describing all the things he was purchasing, how all the things that he was doing to make everything look similar to England and other royal courts like that.
00:10:09.340Where is the money coming from? It's sugar exports, right?
00:10:12.960Yes. When Desilene is his emperor, he begins to rebuild the economy because, you know, war has trashed the economy, the burnings of the buildings, the burning of the fields.
00:10:25.760So people are given land and they have to farm this land and they give a portion of this land to the government. So they give a portion to Henri. Well, Henri is selling this to the world. So when the money comes in, there's fees, there's transfer fees. That's going into his pocket, into his collection, and the rest goes into Haiti.
00:10:46.900And so there's literally there's there's points where they have to his ministers come to him like, OK, hey, man, we're going to split this up so that everybody knows what's what is the country's what is yours.
00:10:57.300But at one point, he actually has more cash on hand than the king of England.
00:11:01.980They are wealthy in property and lands and jewels. But you talk about coal, hard cash.
00:11:06.360Henri actually has more because the lust for sugar did not stop with Haiti becoming free.
00:11:13.860It is still the drug of choice of all over the world. And the imports are within, I forget the
00:11:21.860metrics, but within a couple of years, they were exporting a great deal of sugar to the world.
00:11:28.620And I really wanted to understand where the money was coming from because that becomes such a major
00:11:32.800plot point. And it's funny talking to you about this book, you know, people listening who haven't
00:11:37.280read the book yet. The book is not told in chronological order. You're kind of, you see
00:11:42.500some of this, the time period you're talking about when Henri is so ambitious and she's being the
00:11:47.400queen. And then you're also seeing earlier and you're also seeing later. But so I think we can
00:11:53.260jump around her life a bit and it's not going to spoil the book for people, but she ends up in
00:11:57.740Europe, basically. And there's a question of how is she going to support herself? And it turns out
00:12:02.840that there is a substantial amount of money she's able to have, right?
00:12:08.620Yes. Yes. And that was, it was, it was interesting rebuilding all of that because there's,
00:12:13.880to me, it was always a disconnect. When people talk about Louise, they, I always hear poor and
00:12:20.500sorrowful, always attached to her name. And she came to my attention, one, because of the research
00:13:11.860Or does it make more sense that she actually has access to money?
00:13:15.200And when you look at that financing, Henri has banks that he's dealing with in America.
00:13:21.600He has banks that he's dealing with in London.
00:13:23.540When he dies unexpectedly, they're still holding on to large portions of that money.
00:13:31.380That, in my opinion, that's what she draws on.
00:13:33.460She utilizes, she retains the same people.0.94
00:13:35.780They are able to make settlements with all of these banks.0.97
00:13:39.040And that is what she has to live on because they do extensive travel all across Europe.
00:13:44.160The properties that she owned or leased are immaculate.
00:13:48.660You cannot do that if you have no access to money.
00:13:51.580So she was able to rebuild. She didn't have it at first because, you know, we see her living in hotels.
00:13:57.760We see her living on the kindness of some of the abolitionists that were working with the kingdom at first.
00:14:04.260But then when she comes into her own, it's significant and she's able to live well and she's able to make sure her daughters who came with her are have the princess experience, so to speak, that they are treated like royals, which they were.
00:14:20.860This is all, and you mentioned, you know, it's happening over the 19th century. So starting off
00:14:26.560in kind of the, what we think of, what I think of is like Regency England. You know, when I think
00:14:30.180about that time period, that's the most famous country at that time. And then getting later into
00:14:34.540the 19th century and she's, you have in your book, you include, and I think you say there are actual
00:14:40.980news clippings of stories about things. She was so well-known and so famous at the time, like as
00:14:47.120just this wealthy queen in exile traveling around Europe like she it blows my mind I've never heard
00:14:54.440of her before I didn't know any of this right this completely blew my mind and at one point0.88
00:15:01.360I was suckered into this okay well maybe she had some money but you know maybe she wasn't accepted
00:15:06.180in society and then I start doing this research and I find these news clippings and she was very
00:15:12.420well received in society. Marriage proposals. You have your fortune hunter chasings as well,
00:15:20.200and people pretending at different points that they are related so that they could get part of
00:15:24.040this money that she has. So the fact that people know she has money and they're curious, what is
00:15:29.440this woman doing? How does she appear? Where is she going? The best example of how far she climbed1.00
00:15:38.920and how far she was held in status was there was this huge opera opening.
00:15:44.800And I think, I believe it was David Copperfield is cataloging this for his memoirs
00:16:38.820And so the newspapers literally tell you the story that everywhere she went, people are following her, not necessarily taking pictures, but they are recording what she's doing, where she's going, who she's meeting with.
00:16:51.120Her papers were during, I think, the First World War, maybe in the second, but her papers were bombed and destroyed.
00:16:58.160I would have loved to get my hands to get a deeper dive into what she was thinking was going on because she saw, you know, all of her enemies die.
00:17:09.420They all died in Haiti or when they went abroad.
00:17:13.160Everybody that came against her, she's literally, in my opinion, a living legacy of the achievement of that society.
00:17:22.020And I think we do such a disservice where we rationalize in our heads what we think has happened in history as opposed to what has actually happened in history.
00:17:34.600when you were discovering these newspaper articles and other like that detail you just
00:17:41.040gave about her sitting front row i mean what what were you think like because you went into this i
00:17:47.300would imagine not knowing any of these details and then just detail after detail explaining that she
00:17:51.640was this she was literally a queen she was a queen like any other queen she was traveling around she
00:17:56.780was getting out you know she's wealthy she was respected like what was it like to discover these
00:18:02.200details? It blew my mind because I had bought into, you know, it still stopped making sense,
00:18:10.100right? I had bought into the lie that this Black woman is there with her daughter. She's poor.1.00
00:18:17.140She's ostracized from society. And I wasn't looking for a story of sadness. I wanted to see,
00:18:24.800so I was desperate to find some hope, something to show that, you know, that though there is
00:18:31.260suffering in her life, that is not her life. And then we go into it and use newspaper after
00:18:37.260newspaper talking about her jewels, talking about her going here, going to different spas. I mean,
00:18:44.940it is enormous how well-documented Queen Louise is and her travels in Europe. And yet none of that
00:18:54.140remains in our present psyche. We go back to poor, sorrowful, because the kingdom fell.
00:19:01.720She was part of that kingdom. That is not that woman. This woman is so much more than the kingdom.0.94
00:19:08.080And in my opinion, everything that Henri wanted to achieve, this acceptance, she got it
00:19:15.240when she was in Europe. She was a queen, recognized as a queen. So it's, to me,
00:19:24.140we do a disservice when we don't look at the facts, when we just assume based on systemic
00:19:32.300racism that this is the way this woman is going to be treated. We make all these assumptions and
00:19:37.340we are literally putting her in a box that she was never in. She overcame. And I'm not saying
00:19:43.420her life was easy by any stretches of the imagination. A lesser woman might've been1.00
00:19:48.340broken and whatnot. She kept her dignity and she marched through life with her head up, not down.
00:19:58.420So she was, she had joy in the midst of sorrows. She found victory where people wanted her to be
00:20:05.260defeated. She's a woman we need to know. Absolutely. And that's, that's part of just
00:20:11.360reading this book. And then I love that you put in the newspaper articles because that really
00:20:15.860is like, this is true. This is real. This is what happened. Because I kept reading this and I was
00:20:20.380like, how could this be true? And I've never heard anything about any of this. And what you just
00:20:25.540explained is... And that's why I love the fact that they let me put the newspaper clippings in
00:20:29.800because you got to see it. Because sometimes with historical fiction, you don't know what's true,
00:20:34.540what's not. Where is the author's imagination? I mean, it is fiction, right? Because I wasn't
00:20:40.640privy to these conversations there you do do an approximation of like if the if i'm living in the
00:20:46.420sphere i'm in the palace these are the possible conversations i'm going to have but when you see
00:20:52.060in black and white these newspaper articles i mean it's it's truth is stranger to fiction
00:20:59.380and i was like i'm gonna have to put this in just so y'all will understand this is true yeah this
00:21:05.560is real this is happening no exactly and that's that was exactly what my experience when i was
00:21:11.720reading it i was just thinking i'm like okay there's a part in the book where she there's
00:21:16.980another suitor who comes on the scene and i was like okay well i you know vanessa's probably
00:21:20.740imagining that she's probably making this plot i know no in the newspapers it's like these two
00:21:24.680people are seen together like there were rumors that he had proposed to her i'm like oh okay
00:22:37.500and armies scattered like bones in the dust.
00:22:40.660Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world,
00:22:45.320praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.
00:22:48.520But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.
00:22:52.500This is old-school adventuring at its most cruel.
00:22:56.360Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job.
00:23:02.260This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make.
00:23:09.820This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back.
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00:23:37.000Explore the mechanically magical vistas of Vale
00:23:41.000The paranormal mysteries of liminal London
00:25:50.300And particularly because I originally I was trying to find more meetings within the British aristocracy.
00:25:57.640But when I started looking at the whole of Europe, because she travels, so that's where you find all these other very interesting connections and meetings and the life that she lived. She was very European in her travels, in where she lived.
00:26:14.980And so with Queen of Exiles, I wanted to give you a taste of all of this that this woman has done that we should really know about. That's the other disservice. We've done a disservice to ourselves by not knowing about this woman.0.94
00:26:30.120Or even looking at Haiti in today's lens as a society that's of struggle, as opposed to what it was and what it could have been if countries had stepped up and done the right thing and kept France from coming back.
00:26:47.200So in your, I think it's in the postscript, like at the epilogue of the book, you mentioned just briefly, and we don't need to get into it a lot, but you said you do a comparison to Bridgerton, you know, the thought of having black people at these elegant balls, you know, having these titles and stuff.
00:27:04.300And you say, like, that's what was happening in Haiti.
00:27:08.080And I was like, that comparison just really sat with me because, you know, there's been all these discussions about Bridgerton and with Queen Charlotte and stuff.0.65
00:27:15.300And just what does it mean that that show, which presents a fantasy world, a fantasy version of England where black people are in the aristocracy.
00:27:22.260And you're saying, well, in Haiti, that was what was happening.0.94
00:27:25.400Exactly. I love Bridgerton because there's something magical about seeing this diverse cast and seeing love is love on the big screen. Right. It's incredibly magical. It's escapism and the fabrics and the beauty.
00:27:44.020And but that's fantasy. They take bits of truth. And like some of this, you know, like the fashions aren't even, you know, if you weren't be a stickler, the fashions aren't exactly Regency-esque or, you know, but that's not why we go to Bridget.
00:28:01.160We go for pure enjoyment. We want to watch the story evolve. We want to root for our people.
00:28:08.380But when we look at history, there are people to root for. There are stories to be told.
00:28:14.460And Haiti is a special place. And what they had for the exact same nine years as the Regency from 1811 to 1820 was magical.
00:28:32.940And all the lovely intrigue and court life that you love in Bridgerton, it was happening over here in Haiti.
00:28:41.340So with the same levels of opulence and the crazies and the balls and they would bring in opera troops.
00:28:48.340I mean, it was just when you read it and you realize the culture aspect that was happening, it just blows your mind.
00:28:58.060To me, I was I constantly was like mouth open and I'm like, nobody's going to believe this.
00:29:07.940And so, you know, like I said, I that's one of the reasons I highly document things.
00:29:12.620I'm like, y'all don't believe me. You go look at the bibliography.
00:29:15.180I mean, you look at this. There's a newspaper. Make of it what you will. But I don't know how we do it. But somehow we're going to have to evolve where the facts matter. And we can't just write things off or close our minds to things because we assume it's it would have to be this way, particularly on the acceptance of a royal woman coming from the Haitian court.
00:29:41.360One of my favorite antidotes was Prince Saunders, who was an American, went to England and actually had breakfast with the Prince Regent because his name was Prince.
00:29:53.040Prince Regent and his people didn't realize that Prince Saunders, Prince was his first name and not an honorific.
00:30:01.880But once again, if you come and you have titles and you have money, you are accepted into the fold.
00:30:09.180Now, it doesn't mean you're exempt from scandal or they're looking for scandal.
00:30:13.260You know, they're waiting for you to do something.
00:30:15.240But it doesn't mean you're not exempt from scandal.
00:30:17.780But there's a level of acceptance that money has bought.
00:30:20.800So this is a thing that I don't think people really realize.
00:30:25.560And then the whole history of Haiti, it was amazing.
00:30:30.900And to me, it always asks that question.
00:30:34.600What if they've gotten a little more support?
00:30:36.400Because Henri had actually achieved that. Russia and England had stepped in and forestole France from coming back in 1818 and 1819, but then he dies in 1820. And five years after he dies, France comes back demanding repayment for the losses of the war.
00:30:58.940I don't know if you know the musical Camelot, but, or even just the concept of Camelot, you know, there's that song that they sing and that it's like for one brief shining moment, there was this amazing thing. And that's the way you're describing Haiti and the way it's in the book. It's just like, it was, you know, and that's another thing I appreciate about the way you wrote the book, which is not in chronological order.
00:31:19.480So in the scenes that are set during that sort of glory time, when the kingdom was thriving, like you're sitting there in that moment and there's not a sense of you're right there. It's live. It's happening. You're not thinking like, oh, it was just a short period of time. Oh, you know, things got bad afterwards. It's, you can sit there and be like, this is basically, it felt to me similar to reading about Regency England. You know, it's just princes and princesses and like, you know, who's going to marry who and all this courtly intrigue.
00:31:47.940Like it's not, the people in it didn't know it was going to end so soon.
00:31:52.020So they were just living like this was going to go on forever.
00:32:08.960So, you know, they're still rebuilding pieces of Haiti because of the, you know, the years of war.
00:32:15.300they have these moments of very high culture that to me is exciting. And it's a discovery that I
00:32:22.800wanted to share and bring you in. And you're right. I wrote it so you don't feel that dread
00:32:29.040that this is, you know, looking at the clock, oh, only five more years, only three more years. No,
00:32:34.020I wanted you to be there and to see the problems that they had within the kingdom. And then when
00:32:40.460you jump back, you see the problems outside of the kingdom. And I did want to also mention,
00:32:45.840so two other important characters in the book are her two daughters who leave Haiti with her,
00:32:50.540who are with her in exile. Can you just talk about them, their stories and how you learned
00:32:56.800about them and which details you included in the book? So she has two daughters who flee with her.
00:33:03.180The younger daughter is of a sickly nature. She's very curious about the world,
00:33:08.560very supportive of her mom. The older daughter was, I would say, the beautiful one in Haiti.
00:33:17.420She was getting the acclaim within her father's construct. She's the princess royal.0.65
00:33:22.780And now you come to England and you want to have that social life. And this is before they're able
00:33:31.280to really reclaim their money. And so they're only put in the little boxes here. But the world
00:33:37.740begins to slowly is that money starts being recovered, beginning to expand. And, you know,
00:33:43.640they're going to parties and balls and they're wearing these expensive gowns and whatnot. And0.80
00:33:49.020they're fitting in, or so they think they're fitting in, uh, in England because, you know,
00:33:53.780they're, these are very old peerages, peerages older than your peerage. That begins to be a
00:34:00.100play. And then that whole identity of what is beauty, you know, what is, what is the standard
00:34:04.880of beauty. You know, in that particular timeframe, a healthy blonde girl is the ultimate. It wasn't
00:34:13.620these little skinny things that we see right around nowadays. It's healthy girl because you0.89
00:34:18.460can bear some babies. That was the standard of beauty. Black is not on the scale. It's not that1.00
00:34:24.060people didn't find Black beautiful. There's always been an appetite for Black bodies,0.99
00:34:28.180But this is something that's being wrestled with. And so how, as a mother, how do you give the world to your kids? How do you give society? How do you? And then when she gets rejected because of who she is, how do you deal with?
00:34:47.480And then there's always that, you know, like the Moses looking back with people like we we had bread back in Egypt.
00:34:54.620Maybe we should go back because people thought I was beautiful and I fit in back in my Haitian world.
00:35:00.440And it's like, go back to what? They're killing anybody associated with us.
00:35:05.800And if you marry somebody with political intentions, your husband and your children will also be at risk because they're fearful that the Christophe line will reign again. There is no future for you in Haiti, not as it is. How do you deal with that?
00:35:22.680And so when they finally begin to travel, the world opens up more than when they were in England. And in the European stage, because now they have their full access to the money and they can go to the various places, it is back to peerages matter more than race and standards, beauty. People see beauty in people at this point.
00:35:45.580And so that is showcased in these daughters. But at the same time, how does a mother who's dealt with tragedy, knowing that her youngest daughter is sickly and that one day she may not be able to breathe, she may not wake up, how do you give her enough of this new life so that you feel like you've done everything for her too?
00:36:38.180And then to suddenly, so just, which is such a different childhood from what their mother lived. So she's trying to understand their understanding of the world. It was, it's just a really interesting balance. But again, and I think you mentioned this a couple times in the book, there's some parts where the main character herself is thinking about, you know, what does it mean to be black and to be royal and to present a role model to these girls who don't have anyone else to look at, look up to, who is that? And what does that mean?
00:37:07.940And there's a part in the book where I forget the name of it, but it's a book that was written in that time period about.
00:37:26.280I'm very Southern in my pronunciation.
00:37:28.040So, yeah, that's a true book. And the connection is the Viscount, who befriends Madame Christophe. And that book, to me, is like one of the most horrible books. But it's, what's the nice way to put this? These are the kind of books that have been acceptable in publication for a long time.
00:37:51.320It's kind of like, I call it the pain-pouring quantity, right?1.00
00:37:54.300So you give enough Black tragedy and Black pain, and that's a winner right there.1.00
00:37:59.680Because it just gets to the audience, and people get to feel sorry about things they didn't do, and just jitter.1.00
00:38:08.380And it's like, written by someone who doesn't understand the beauty of Black skin, who doesn't understand the journey or the walk when you are Black, trying to write a Black person.
00:38:19.420and coming up with, it must be sorrowful.0.95
00:38:23.680It must be, you don't want to be Black.1.00
00:38:26.240You want to be anything other than Black.1.00
00:38:28.220And then the descriptions of this book about a devil
00:39:11.440To me, I had to put it in because it's a capstone.
00:39:15.060It's a stake in the ground of this is what the world potentially could be thinking of you and your daughters and why we think you're going to fail and why I can't fail as Queen Louise.
00:39:27.360I have to make sure I succeed. I have to make sure my daughters succeed so that we don't become Eureka.
00:39:32.840Yeah, just the moment where I forget, it's one of the daughters, but they had been raised as princesses, you know, surrounded in a place with black nobles and aristocracy.
00:39:40.980and then she reads this book and she's like oh my god this is she didn't realize that that's how
00:39:46.260she is seen by other people and it's this sort of major moment for her but then you also say in your
00:39:51.540in your afterward of the book and you mentioned earlier in the interview as well you didn't want
00:39:55.460to write a book about tragedy and pain you wanted to find a story of hope so i thought that that was
00:40:00.660an interesting parallel that in the book it's a way that you can mention in the book you know that
00:40:06.320this is both your characters feel this way and you obviously feel this way. Why do black stories
00:40:12.300always have to be stories of grief and misery and pain? And why can't it be a story of triumph and0.74
00:40:17.720hope? And that's what this book is. And that's what this is. You've written so many books,
00:40:22.360all of them historical, I think. And that's very much what you're doing, right? In all of your
00:40:26.540books. Exactly. No one's figured that out yet. The little rebel Vanessa.
00:40:36.320But yeah, there is so much to the existence that is more than just pain.
00:40:54.500You hang on to joy much more fiercely when you know sorrow.
00:40:58.560And I see that's what these people did.
00:41:01.220And, you know, Queen Louise, she lost a lot and then had to leave her homeland in order to make sure that her daughters were safe and that they could have a safe future.
00:41:11.940That is a that is a great burden to put on someone.
00:41:15.840But I cannot see how you can go to every spa city in Europe and be unhappy.
00:41:27.540I'm convinced that they found moments of joy.
00:41:29.960The fact that they still took to the opera, because if they stood in their depression or really were consumed with how much we lost as opposed to what we have, they wouldn't go to opera.
00:41:44.480They wouldn't be concerned about what they wore.
00:41:47.080They wouldn't go to these various places and follow the royal tours like they did if they were worried about all of the pain that they had suffered.
00:41:56.040They were trying to make their futures.
00:42:27.740Yeah. You know, unfortunately, sometimes these gems are hidden and the pain stories are the ones that get the that we all know.
00:42:38.100You know, I was one of those kids that was glued to the TV when Roots came on. Roots is a very important story, but it's not the only story.
00:42:46.820But it seems like since that was successful, that told everybody in the world, oh, these are the kind of stories that everybody wants to see.
00:42:53.320We want to see some of those stories because it's important to remember, but we also want
00:42:56.720to see the heroes and the revolutionists.
00:42:59.820We want to see the people who just made discoveries, the inventors, the business people, the politicians,