Q & A with Michelle Black

What prompted you to write fiction and not practice law?
I moved to Colorado in 1993 and was not licensed to practice law in that state. I did not plan to get licensed because the town I lived in was too small to support a practice.

I was raising two sons who were quite small at the time and I used to take them on hikes in the mountains. Because I lived near Breckenridge in what used to be an active 19th century mining district, the surrounding countryside was dotted with old ghost towns. I loved to explore them with my sons, collect old square head nails and fantasize about what life must have been like there a hundred years ago.

I began to study the histories of these old towns in earnest and soon found stories and characters churning in my imagination. That first summer, I started writing Never Come Down. The first line of that novel was actually inspired by a then-popular bumper sticker: “There are no rules above ten thousand feet.” That slogan was taken very much to heart by the locals and its theme would probably have suited the nineteenth century residents as well.

Was Eden Murdoch, the main character of AN UNCOMMON ENEMY, SOLOMON SPRING, and THE SECOND GLASS OF ABSINTHE based on a real person?
Eden Murdoch is a fictional creation, but was inspired by two separate events. Custer mentioned in his field report, filed the morning after the battle, that they found the body of a white woman in Black Kettle's camp. He did not identify her and never mentioned her again, though he wrote extensively of the Washita Battle in later years.

The identity of this mystery woman has never been solved by scholars, but it must be assumed that it was not the body of another white captive, Clara Blinn, who was found a week later in another location. Despite this lack of documentation, General Sherman, Sheridan's superior, used it as conclusive proof that Custer struck a hostile camp, when he testified before Congress on the matter.

My novel poses the question, what if that woman had been found alive, and what if she did not tell the story the Army longed for her to tell? What if she instead gave an articulate report of the battle from the Cheyenne point of view?

Eden's character was inspired by the story of another white captive, Cynthia Ann Parker, a woman "captured twice," as Eden was. Parker was captured by the Comanches, lived among them, married into the tribe, and lived there for more than two decades before being "recaptured" by the Army and forced to return to white civilization against her will. She was never able to see her children again, one of whom grew up to be the great Comanche chief, Quannah Parker.

What historical resources did you utilize?
I found the Congressional Record from 1868-9 to be invaluable. Each of my chapters begins with an actual quote from some real-life person who was involved in the conflict. Most of those quotes were from the Congressional Record since Congress held extensive hearings into the Battle of the Washita. Custer wrote about the Indian Wars in a number of magazine articles that were later published in book form called, "My Life on the Plains, or Personal Experiences with Indians." It's still in print after all these years. Plus Custer's personal correspondence is available on microfilm from the New York Public Library.

In addition, I strongly recommend Stan Hoig's "The Battle of the Washita," and Jeffrey Wert's Custer biography.

Was Solomon Spring a real place?
Yes, I learned about the Waconda Spring in north-central Kansas while researching An Uncommon Enemy. The mineral waters of the spring were thought to hold wondrous healing properties by the Indian tribes who made pilgrimages there. When white populations moved into the area, they bottled and sold the waters as a miracle elixir. A health spa was opened at the site in the early 1880’s and continued in operation until the 1950’s. The Spring was dredged in 1895. They found countless Indian offerings and artifacts, plus one item they did not expect– a human skull. What mystery novelist could resist this setup?

How did you become interested in Absinthe?
I learned of it a long time ago while reading a biography of Oscar Wilde. They claimed it was his favorite libation and that he was particularly fond of the ritual that went with drinking it. I was intrigued, but many years passed before I got around to researching what that ritual was.

Absinthe was very popular among the artists and writers of the 19th Century and is particularly associated with the Belle Epoch café society in Paris. Its legendary fans include Degas, Van Gogh, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Picasso, and of course, Wilde.

Hemingway also drank absinthe. My favorite quote from him is, "Got tight last night on absinthe. Did knife tricks."

Describe the Absinthe drinking ritual.
Because the herbal ingredient called wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) was so bitter, the liqueur needed sweetening in order to be palatable. Because sugar does not readily mix with alcohol, the absinthe ritual was born. A sugar cube was placed on a slotted spoon over the glass containing a shot of clear peridot green absinthe. When icy water was drizzled through the sugar to melt it, it begins to louche. That is, the clear liqueur becomes cloudy and palest jade in color. This signals it is ready to drink. My main character in the book calls this ritual "watching the clouds come out."

What were the historical underpinnings for The Second Glass of Absinthe?
Leadville was hit by its first labor strike in the May of 1880 and many of the details presented in the book actually happened even though the Eye Dazzler mine was a fictional creation. That summer also saw the arrival of the railroad and former President U.S. Grant was the celebrity "first passenger" on the train. The event I describe was taken, in large part, from actual news stories in the Leadville Herald.

How did you become interested in Leadville?
I lived in Frisco, Colorado, for nearly ten years and visited Leadville often. It was only a half-hour drive from my home. So much of Leadville's astonishing history has been eclipsed by the Tabor-Baby Doe story that I longed to write something else, anything else. Tabor's influence so dominated the Leadville landscape that it was impossible to ignore him, but I did not make him a main character, at least.

How did you go about researching Second Glass?
A wealth of information exists about this time period in Leadville. I was even able to look at old tax maps to know where everything was situated and the names of all the hotels, music halls, mines, restaurants, and saloons. Leadville was a wild place in 1880. Anything could happen and usually did. I was lured there for the same reason as my main character, Kit Randall: the promise of sex, drugs, and rock n'roll.

What fascinated me most was the collision of Old West and New West–for example, they already had telephone service by 1879, yet still routinely lynched people on those omnipresent telegraph/telephone poles.

Is it true you have a wolf tattoo just like the one you describe Lucinda Ridenour wearing in the book?
Absolutely! It was a case of life imitating art. I wrote about it and then decided I wanted one for myself. Why should my characters have all the fun? The tattoo is based on the logo of my former bookstore, Wolf Moon Books.

The occult plays a large role in the book. Why is that?
The Victorians were obsessed with the occult. Spiritualism had been on the rise since the end of the Civil War. I think the unprecedented loss of life in that conflict wounded the soul of the entire nation and there was a great hunger to make contact with all those lost loved ones.

Bella Valentine's idol, Madame Blavatsky, was a real person. Some credit her with starting the movement we now loosely refer to as "New Age." Her books are still in print.

Spiritualism was not considered a legitimate calling by some, but they had national organizations and held conventions, just like any other profession. Séances were popular, sometimes as mere parlor entertainment, but more often taken quite seriously by many including captains of industry like Cornelius Vanderbilt and novelist Arthur Conan Doyle.

Mary Lincoln held séances in the White House, trying to contact her dead son. President Lincoln attended these.

The occult will play an even larger role in my current novel-in-progress.