Episode 84: Adele Myers, author of The Tobacco Wives
Adele Myers, debut author of The Tobacco Wives, which New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis described as, “a story of courage, of women willing to take a stand in the face of corporate greed, and most definitely a tale for our times.”
Adele Myers chats about the eight-year road to publishing her debut novel, shares her advice for writers who have not yet been published, lists the books that influenced her, and shows us family objects that inspired the novel.
Books Mentioned:
The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
The Maid by Nita Prose (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
The School of Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
Connect with the author:
Transcript:
** Transcript created using AI (so please forgive the typos!) **
Ashley Hasty 0:00
Hi, Adele, thank you so much for joining me.
Adele Myers 0:02
Hi, thank you so much, Ashley, thank you for having me. My pleasure.
Ashley Hasty 0:06
Before we dive into the book, and you tell me a bit about your journey to publication, like start with your background, what did you study?
Adele Myers 0:13
Sure, sure, yes, I so I studied journalism, I got a journalism degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And so I've always written, I started out by writing short stories. And actually, the tobacco wives started out as a short story in a class that I was taking at night, over 20 years ago. So it's been a very long journey, I focused on short fiction for a while, and then, you know, decided at a certain point that I wanted to pursue writing a novel, you know, had been working on it for about eight years, the last eight years, you know, in between my my day job as an advertising executive and raising a son. And so it's been a long journey.
Ashley Hasty 0:57
So what inspired you to make the transition from journalism?
Adele Myers 1:01
Initially, when I when I was in college, and I was studying journalism, like, I gravitated to advertising, which is actually the field that I ended up working most of my career and I still work in and was
Ashley Hasty 1:13
the tobacco was your first manuscript you ever wrote, or were there others that were shelved either indefinitely, or for the time being?
Adele Myers 1:21
Well, it was my first manuscript, although I have to say it's probably been completely rewritten and revamped like six times. And I've, I went through three different titles. Initially, it was called the clearing, and then it was called Bright leaf, which is the fictional name of the town where the book is set. And then actually, during the process of pitching agents, I decided to change the title. And I spent a lot of time really crafting my pitch. And it was very interesting, because I got a lot more interest with this title. And with this new pitch, even though the manuscript was in the same shape,
Ashley Hasty 2:00
I find that so interesting how titles can make such a difference for how interested someone is. Well, now that we've covered how you got to this point, I do want to dive more into the book The Tobacco life. So can you tell our listeners what the tobacco wines is about?
Adele Myers 2:16
So the tobacco wives is the story of a young seamstress, 15 year old Maddy Sykes, who finds herself suddenly immersed in the world of the wives of the wealthy tobacco executives in the fictional town of Brightleaf, North Carolina, and to her, you know, she comes from a lower socio economic background and to her, you know, she really looks up to these these women, these wealthy beautiful women who seem to have it all.
Ashley Hasty 2:45
Do you grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, supposedly not too far away from fictional Brightleaf? When the novel takes place? Do you remember the first time you heard the story of the tobacco wives? Was this a story you grew up Hurry hearing? Or did you learn about it later,
Adele Myers 3:03
my, one of my grandmother's was a hairdresser. And she did the hair of the wives of RJ Reynolds Tobacco executives. So I always knew about about that. And then my other grandmother was a seamstress, and she specialized wedding gowns and also in evening wear. And so in many ways, it was more my imagination and kind of what I did with the idea of these women, you know, they did my grandmother's did call them the tobacco wives. I think what was interesting to me during the process of writing this book to is I realized that everyone was kind of wed to tobacco in one way or another in North Carolina during this time. And it was actually a tremendous source of pride that people had helped to build the tobacco capital of the South. And so, you know, that kind of gets to the crux of this conflict that my protagonist faces and also, that I struggled with, it's, you know, how how, you know, most of these people have felt to realize that their pride and joy of the state, and everything that they had built was actually harming people, killing people. And then what do you do with that knowledge? Because there's so much at stake.
Ashley Hasty 4:22
Yeah. It's hard for us to imagine now knowing what we know already,
Adele Myers 4:26
I know. It really is. Yeah, that was one of the things that I struggled with a bit. And I by talked to my father about it, because both of my parents grew up in Winston Salem, and my father worked. In the summers when he was a teenager, he worked in some of the tobacco factories in the cigarette factories, and I said, you know how, like, it's hard for me to imagine that they really didn't know that it was dangerous. And he said they we really didn't
Ashley Hasty 4:53
that Maddie says at one point in the book, that how could tobacco some things don't Trouble be so harmful to people? And I thought that was one in one line an excellent encapsulation of what people thought at that time.
Adele Myers 5:09
Yes, I actually I like that line as well. You know, it's, it's I think people saw it as a gift of the land and their good hard work. You know, it's like, how could that possibly be bad? So yeah, that that's, that's one of my favorite, my favorites as well pictured
Ashley Hasty 5:26
on your website, which I would encourage our viewers and listeners to check out are a number of visuals from the 1940s, including tobacco advertisements that you say help informed your novel. So could you expand on your research process a bit, besides the advertisements,
Adele Myers 5:43
Pinterest boards, where I not only, you know, pulled examples of advertising from the time, but also, you know, fashion, what were women wearing? You know, one of the things that's, that's fascinating, I think about historical fiction is you really have to check every little detail. And so even, you know, looking up photos of, Okay, what did telephones look like? And was it common for everyone to have a phone in their home in 1946, things like that. So I use a lot of visual references, but I also found a number of books that were really helpful. One in particular, addressed the role of Southern women during that time. And there were personal stories that really shed light on kind of this image of the Southern Belle, and what was expected of women. And the fact that women were not that it was frowned upon for them to, you know, express themselves, you know, in many ways, and that was another thing that I found interesting, because you, you know, looking at these wealthy women, you would think, Oh, they have all this power, but when you really look at what what things were like, at that time, they, they had influence, but they didn't really have true power. So anything that they need any change that they wanted to, to drive, you know, they had to kind of find creative ways to do it, you know, through their husbands through through relationships through women's groups. So I found that fascinating. And then, as far as the tobacco, the downfall of big tobacco, I was able to read through the congressional archives to see, you know, when the heads of the tobacco companies, the major companies were questioned, in front of Congress about what they knew, and when they knew it, as far as nicotine being addictive. So all of that's available, like, and I love looking at old documents, and, you know, kind of reading verbatim transcripts and things like that.
Ashley Hasty 7:52
I imagine researching Big Tobacco had some more difficult moments, today, we are well aware of the harm of tobacco can do. But that's always been the case, what are some of the more difficult things that you learned or stories you heard while researching?
Adele Myers 8:06
Well, a couple of the, like, the practices in the factory, you know, there are a couple of scenes in the book, there's one in particular, that is based on my family experience working in a factory, that they would sweep up, you know, the discarded tobacco, and whatever else happened to be on the floor. So does you know, whatever it was, and take that to a separate factory that was under guard. And this is true, like this is the way it worked. It was you know, high security, no one was supposed to know what was going on there. And they would cook this, you know, the remnants from the floor, and put them into the no name, brand non branded cigarettes, and it was called recon for short. So that stands for reconstituted, so reconstituted cigarettes. So that was pretty alarming to me. Just to know that practice, and I thought, gosh, that's really disgusting. And, you know, and telling, and, you know, the conditions in the factories as well, were really, really awful. And I think factory work in general is, is very difficult, but the exposure to the smoke, the fumes, you know, and the long hours and all of that. And, you know, I thought it was really interesting. I also decided to set the book in the end, like the mid to late 1940s, because that's when a lot of women had taken over jobs for men who were at war. And the men were beginning to come back from World War Two and they wanted their jobs back. And so I really was fascinated by how that dynamic I think, and a lot of scholars will say that that that time was really the the origin of the modern women's rights movement, because these women had an opportunity to make their own money, many of them for the first time in their lives. So I also thought it was interesting to look at these wealthy women who it was frowned upon for them to work outside the home, because you know, the husband should be able to care are these women who, although these are difficult jobs, see that they can take care of themselves, they can support themselves. You know, there's real freedom in that, that these wealthy women didn't have.
Ashley Hasty 10:29
Was there a piece of research some factors story that you wanted to include in the novel, but it didn't fit the story for whatever reason, or had to be cut
Adele Myers 10:37
in the book now, you know, it focuses squarely on the maternal fetal effects of smoking. And that's kind of the main focus in earlier drafts. I also had a storyline around like the the lung, like lung issues, asthma, lung cancer, and really, that's where the first science began to emerge, that linked cigarettes to, you know, Bill health effects. So some of that was interesting, like, you know, and it started in Europe. And, and, you know, the only reason they were able to, to make the connection is because the cases of, of lung issues and lung cancer and disease, just, like skyrocketed, at the same time that smoking became popular, and it was, it was pretty clear. Another thing that I thought was interesting, but also alarming is that, you know, the first study to come out about the link between smoking and disease only looked at men and the effects on men. And it took another 16 years before the Surgeon General looked at the effects on women. And that's still the case. Now, like, a lot of times, research that's done in the pharmaceutical industry is only done on men. And, you know, I think it's interesting, like there's a line from cigarette add, you know, you've come a long way, baby. And like, have we come a long way, baby? How far have we? We have, but we have it in some respects.
Ashley Hasty 12:18
Yeah. Well, you're the first debut author, I'm interviewing for this podcast. So I'm especially interested in your perspective on this next question, what advice do you have for aspiring authors who don't yet have an agent or a publishing contract?
Adele Myers 12:33
I think what was really important for me is to set the intention, you know, that I believe that it's possible. And, you know, I made it, I made a very clear decision, I had always kind of wanted to do this, you know, wanted to publish a book someday, you know, and had this dream, but at a certain point, and I think what encouraged me to, to commit to do it is I got a small piece published, it was a nonfiction, a creative nonfiction piece, like an essay that I wrote, and I, it was published on a literary in a literary online magazine called literary mama, people were able to comment, and that gave me such a vote of confidence, I thought, wow, you know, I got something published. And then I just started working, working toward it, you know, I kind of put that put that out there set that intention for myself. And then it was really, I think, over time, I just would take actions I signed up, or not signed up. But I was invited to be a part of a writer's group with a couple of other women. I live in Brooklyn. And one of my neighbors is a published author, she's a YA author. And she said, you know, why don't you, you know, join this group with us a small group. And three of the women were published authors. And, you know, I had probably one chapter of the tobacco wives, which was called something else at the time. And the feedback from them really encouraged me, you know, they said, We think you can get this Publish, and I was like, wow, really, you know, so it was kind of a journey. It was a long journey. That sounds kind of cliche, but it really was, it was a, you know, it takes a lot of perseverance, I think. And it's easy to doubt yourself, and there lots of ups and downs. And that's okay. Just keep at it. Just keep working towards it.
Ashley Hasty 14:33
And it's one of the things I love about this industry is that it's very tough, but authors are the most supportive people. And if you can find a good group of them, and it's not hard to find a good group of them, they're the most supportive of other authors careers as well. Absolutely. Tell us a bit about your reading world. What authors do you draw inspiration from or what books would you recommend right now?
Adele Myers 14:58
It's interesting. I I'm reading a lot of debut novels right now, I just finished the made by Anita prose, which was delightful and was, you know, very different from, you know, my genre of historical fiction. But I really enjoyed the unique voice. I don't know if you've read it yet. But, you know, there's such a distinctive voice to this character, and, you know, just drew me into this world. So I really like to escape, you know, as we all do into a good story, I also just started the school of good mothers, just also a debut novel. That is fascinating. It, yeah, I'm only a few chapters in, but it seems to be kind of a, it takes the the idea of, you know, being a good mother to an extreme, you know, there's this world where basically, the main character, leaves her young child alone for a very brief period. And it's discovered that she did that and the child is taken away. And I think she's gonna end up in a school for good mothers, where she's gonna learn how to be a good mother. So that's very interesting. But, you know, when I look back at the books that really influenced me, and that, you know, had a lasting impact on me as a writer, I would say, Maya Angelou, I read, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in high school, and I just that voice and the, the raw honesty of that book really spoke to me and has always stayed with me. I feel the same way about Amy Tan and the Joy Luck Club. Just kind of exploring those deep emotional connections. And she did that. And at the time, I think there weren't many writers who were really delving into those relationships between mothers and daughters in such a raw honest way.
Ashley Hasty 16:59
Well, I believe once people read the tobacco wives, they'll be eager for another book from you. Do you have a work in progress? What can you tell us about it?
Adele Myers 17:08
I am in the research phase on my next book, still in the concepting stage, but I think it's safe to say that the setting will will be in the south again and it will relate to uncovering true the truth uncovering difficult truths and secrets.
Ashley Hasty 17:29
Okay. I also want to share how people can find you your website or Adele Meyers, author calm your Adele J. M, on Twitter, and Instagram and on Facebook, Adele dot Meyers one. Before we wrap up, is there anything else you'd like to talk about that we haven't covered yet?
Adele Myers 17:48
I would just like to thank you so much for having me. I mean, one of the things that's been really interesting about this whole process of getting published and leading up to the launch of the book is just all the support of book bloggers and, you know, Bookstagram, and these communities are just incredible. So, you know, I really feel like there's this whole network of, of, you know, new readers and writers who, you know, I'm now a part of that has been, you know, very, very supportive, and gratifying. So, thank you.
Ashley Hasty 18:30
Well, it's our pleasure. Before we wrap up, there were a few personal items that I wanted you to share with our video viewers
Adele Myers 18:38
to our Sure. So, you know, I edited the book during the lockdown. So of COVID Like back in late 2020. And so I kept a lot of little items with me, this is a this is a an antique thimble that my grandmother, the seamstress left to me when she passed away and there's a little tobacco flower on there. I you know, helped her and assisted her when I was a little girl with some of her sewing. I don't know how much help I was, but I attempted to help you. Yeah, yeah. Some of the details about like, there's one detail about the scissors like there are certain scissors for cutting fabric. And she was very particular about that because I would try to cut all kinds of stuff. The other thing is, you know, my family just was so the routes to Winston Salem and the Tobacco Town and even RJ Reynolds ran and still run very deep. And this is a charm bracelet that my mother left to me and my mother and father met at RJ Reynolds High School. So there's a big our from their junior and senior prom 1963 And that's not for our last name. That's for Reynolds. So that was really interesting. And then I have a couple of examples of ads and there are our ads on my website. So for those of you who are not tuning in by video, you can take a look there. But just to give you a sense, you know, some of these were so this one is for Lucky Strike. And it says is this you five years from now, when tempted to overindulge reach for a lucky instead. And it shows this outline of an overweight woman and a thin woman. And so, you know, it's just was, there was such blatant, you know, campaigns out there, that position cigarettes, as you know, this product that was going to keep you thin, and that was going to make you beautiful. And this one is an example of a camel ad. And this says not one single case of throat irritation due to smoking, nine out of 10, doctors recommend camels or smoke camels. So, you know, they also use they used physicians in order to legitimize cigarettes, and, you know, give the product credibility. And at the time, there weren't that many regulations later, the Federal Trade Commission cracked down on that kind of false advertising, but at the time, they were able to make pretty much any claims that they wanted to make. And looking back, you can kind of see I mean, I've worked in public relations and advertising for 20 plus years. It's called Market shaping. It's basically when you know, that you want to shape, you know, public opinion in a certain way. And, you know, I believe that knowing that the the science was going to come out eventually about the dangers of smoking, that they purposely went out with messages about the health benefits and used doctors and other professionals to, you know, lend credibility to those messages.
Ashley Hasty 21:56
And this is fascinating. I am loving the tobacco wives. Thank you so much for joining me.