Episode 111: Lauren Belfer, New York Times Bestselling author
New York Times bestselling author and winner of winner of the Washington Post Best Novel and NPR Best Mystery of the Year prizes introduces us to her latest novel, ASHTON HALL.
In Ashton Hall, an American woman and her son unearth the buried secrets and past lives of an English manor house
We chat about why Lauren chose for Nicky, the child in the novel, to be neorodivergent. She shares the importance to her of exploring the relationship between Nicky and his mother.
Lauren shares how staying at a real-life at a stately home provided her original inspiration, shares her writing process, and what had to be cut (it had to do with English food and dogs!).
Find book club questions, food ideas, and Lauren’s recipe for British bread and butter pudding at Book Club Bites!
Books Mentioned:
Ashton Hall by Lauren Belfer (Bookshop.org / Amazon )
City of Light by Lauren Belfer (Bookshop.org / Amazon )
Horse by Geraldine Brooks (Bookshop.org / Amazon )
The Matchmaker’s Gift by Lynda Cohen Loigman (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
The Thread Collectors by Shaunna J. Edwards & Alyson Richman (Bookshop.org / Amazon )
Connect with the author:
Transcript:
** Transcript created using AI (so please forgive the typos!) **
Lainey Cameron
We're going to be talking about Ashton Hall, which is really fascinating to me because as a Brit, it's set in Britain with a lot of history elements to it, an American coming to the UK, no less. But also, it's like Gothic and creepy. And I've been reading some of the reviews and people are loving this book. I'm so excited to talk to you about it.
Lauren Belfer
Well, I'm excited to be here. Lanie thank you so much for having me.
Lainey Cameron
And where are you joining me from today?
Lauren Belfer
I'm joining you from my office in my apartment in New York City in the Greenwich Village neighborhood. I love living in Greenwich Village, because it's so historic for apes and the buzz and the energy. I'm a huge nerd City, New York City fan.
Lainey Cameron
Let's start with a bit about the new book. First off, if folks don't know you, you're a New York Times best selling author. This is not your first time around the block with this book, you've won several prizes, big awards that really impressed me. This is your latest foray into a book that is set in modern times, which is a little bit different. Right? Tell us more about the book.
Lauren Belfer
The book weaves together many different themes. But it begins when an almost 40 year old American woman had a Larson goes to England with her nine year old son, Nikki, and they go there to care for an ill relative who's renting an apartment at a stately home, the Ashton hall of the title, Little Nicky is neurodivergent. And soon after they arrive. He goes exploring and a deserted wing of the house and discovers a secret from the past, a secret that he and his mother will unravel through the course of the novel. But Ashton Hall is set in the present, as you say, while being coached in a historical setting. And it touches on themes of motherhood, marriage, sexual identity, and neurodiversity.
Lainey Cameron
I was reading the reviews and how well people were reacting to different parts of this and making that little boy it's a boy right Nikki neurodivergent? Like, tell me more about that decision? Because it seems like it's so pivotal to the book, like what led you there? What was your inspiration for doing that?
Lauren Belfer
My husband and I both have in our families more than one child who is neurodivergent. And it struck me that many families have children who are neurodivergent. And the issues involved are so seldom explored in fiction, very seldom explored from the parents perspective. And I tried to show in the book, the very special joys and rewards as well as some of the challenges of raising neurodivergent children. Nikki, I think is such a character. I mean, to me, he's the hero of the book, he has his areas of difficulty and struggle, yes. But he has such a joy about him at least that's what I tried to give him. You know, the great joy he takes in discovering things in the world around him. Even though his mother often feels you know, he's going too far, it meant a lot to me to explore the relationship between Nikki and his mother.
Lainey Cameron
That's actually one of the reasons I was especially excited to have you on to talk about this book, because we love to focus on the podcast on angles that aren't covered every day and women's fiction. And so I love when someone does this and puts a character in the book who isn't a character who is often shown Bravo. It's hard. It takes work. It takes research and obviously you've done it really well because the reviews people are really appreciating the angle of the book.
Lauren Belfer
Oh, well, thank you. It's been very moving to me. When I see reviews people write to see them zeroing in on this relationship between Nikki and Hannah and being moved by the character of Nicky. Sometimes he does things that he really should not do that are It's hard being his mother. It's that that I wanted to bring out the great love and the as I said before, the joy and the struggle of raising him
Lainey Cameron
and you have some phenomenal blurbs or endorsements for this book. I saw you've got an endorsement from Fiona Davis, which is lovely. We had Fiona on the podcast before I especially loved the endorsement you got from Julie Clark, who's the author of the last flight among other books, and I loved how Julie Clark said that it's got Daphne du Maurier meets Kate Martin vibes, the setting the skeleton, the mystery the lovable characters, she called it an addictive reader who doesn't want to be compared to Daphne du Maurier, for goodness sakes.
Lauren Belfer
I was so touched, flattered and humbled all at once by what Julie said, because, you know, we didn't my publisher didn't ask her for a quote for the book. I was just going through my Instagram one day and I found that I don't know some question she had asked, What are you reading? And that was her response. And you know, I Love her work. Yeah. It's just one of those serendipitous things that come along. And that. Well, I was so humbled that put it that way by, by what she said, such a great writer whom I admire so much. And all of the quotes I mean, Fiona's, quote, terrific writers you admire, take the time to comment on your work. It's very moving,
Lainey Cameron
right? Fiona called it captivating, which, interestingly, is a very common word. In the reviews, I got little posted here of the most common words that show up in your reviews and captivating in gross, sing and immersive are the words that keep showing up again and again. So let's talk about your inspiration. Can you share anything with us about where the idea for this one came from?
Lauren Belfer
I first got the idea of for Ashton Hall decades ago, when I was invited to stay at Blickling Hall in Norfolk. And that's a National Trust home. I had never known that many of the National Trust homes, rent out apartments, but they do apparently it's a way to well raise money for the upkeep and also to make sure that the stately homes continue to be homes and don't just turn into museums. So I went with a fantastic excitement went over to England and went to Blickling Hall to this beautiful apartment, my acquaintance was renting. After the public rooms of the house closed for the day, I was free to wander through the historic rooms of Blickling, which was quite an experience, I have to say, and a little scary, too, I was able to walk up the back stairs and go into the attics,
Lainey Cameron
anytime that you didn't find any skeletons in the walls while you're there.
Lauren Belfer
So that's why the the idea for this novel, you know, came to me when I was wandering through those attics and back corridors, and I made some notes for it, then I just kind of put it aside. And I think I put it aside in retrospect, because maybe I wasn't ready to write that yet. And it wasn't until years later, when my son was growing up. And my husband was invited to be a visiting fellow at an institute at Cambridge University. And we went to live in England for a semester. It wasn't until then, that I remembered my time at Blickling and the notes that I had made so long ago. And I brought them out. And it was then that I started working on the novel then with the perspective of having raised a child and being married. So I was finally ready to start work on it. And I'd already published three books by then.
Lainey Cameron
Well, I think there's a fascinating lesson there for aspiring authors, or those who are earlier in their career about taking notes, which I think is interesting. One of the questions I love to ask is what your Edit process looks like for a book like this. And I've kind of a two part question here for you. Because you have been so successful, I mean, the awards, you've won just, you know, amazed and put me in awe.
I've workedthe same way through all the novels, which is that I like to work fairly quickly in the first draft, and get through to the end, I learned that when I was working on my first book City of Light, I didn't really understand what the book was about until I finished it. And then I could see how all the threads came together. That taught me that, for me, at least in every writer works differently. I like to get all my thoughts down on paper. I mean, I do make a rough outline before I start. And I always like to know where book is going to end. Usually I put the outline away in the drawer and seldom refer to it while I'm actually writing. But I feel this drive to get through to the end. And then in a sense, the real work begins because then I go back and I make it another draft and another I mean, sometimes five or six full drafts before I show it to my agent, who will then come back with, you know, notes and suggestions. And then an editor of course, I was blessed with an extraordinary editor on this book, Susanna Porter and we work very closely. I think a good editor like Susanna is always concerned with making the book more of what it already is. You're not making it veer off into some new direction, but making the themes that are already there stronger and clearer. You know, like many books this book had to be cut before it was ready for publication. It was long. Most of what was cut had to do with English food and with dogs when my editor went through it, you know she I often found these comments, you know, too much dog. Too much dog. Too much food why so many meals are cuz, you know, it's just very funny to me and I loved exploring with food when I was living in England and so I wove a lot of English meals into the manuscript, and one of the main characters of the book is a Golden Retriever named Duncan, who is based on my own dear golden retriever, Jasper. I change Jasper's name to Duncan to protect Jasper's privacy.
Lauren Belfer
I think in retrospect, you know, I hated to lose some of the English food and I hated to lose some of Dunkin and Duncan's dog friends in the book. But now when I reread the finished version of the book, I realized there's still a lot of food and still a lot of dogs. But it's
Lainey Cameron
funny, we don't see it in our own writing. Yeah, exactly. So, like I said, you've won these awards and looking at a little list here, the Washington Post Best Novel, NPR, best mystery of the Year, New York Times notable book, you've been a New York Times bestseller? I mean, goodness for all the aspiring authors who are looking at you, Lauren going like, how do I become that someday? Tell us a little bit about what advice you give.
Lauren Belfer
First, I want to say that it never gets easier. One would hope that this is my fourth novel that this would have been easier to write than my first novel. But it was just as hard if not harder, because you're starting something new and you don't know these characters, and you don't know the world that they live in the two pieces of advice that I have for writers who are just starting out, you know, the most common thing you hear the sort of stereotypical advice for writers is write what you know, it seems to me that it's better to write what you don't know. But what to find out about. And when I was just starting out, I spent a lot of time writing stories about what I knew, I was never really felt excited about it, I never really felt I was going anywhere. And it wasn't until I realized that I could write historical fiction, which had never occurred to me until I was in my early 30s. It just never occurred to me, even though I love historical novels, I don't know what I was thinking. But I would read historical novels, but then didn't think I could write one. But when I realized that, yes, I could do that, then my work really seemed to open up. Because then I was exploring new things that I wanted to learn about. And I could bring that excitement into the work in my first novel, which takes place in Buffalo in 1901. The moral issues in that book and the the issues that the characters struggle with, those are issues that are very important to me, but I've created around them as setting give folks the name of that one, it's called City of Light. And it's about my hometown of Buffalo, New York in 1901. And you don't usually think of Buffalo New York is the City of Light. But in fact, that's what it was called in 1901.
Lainey Cameron
I'll put the link to that. And all of the books that we mentioned in the show notes on the website, best of women's fiction, you can get to all of the books we talk about.
Lauren Belfer
And then the second piece of advice I have is never give up. Now, this was in the days before self publishing, I probably would have gotten that route long before if that had been an option. And those were also the days when you were supposed to send things out one at a time, print it out, mail it in, wait for the mailing to come back as it always seemed to do so. And then when that finally came back with a note from an editor who wanted to accept it, I thought to myself, gee, you know, don't you know that all your peers that rejected this? Why are you accepting it, but that was the thing he was if he was the first editor reading it, apparently he loved it. And that was really shocking to me. After all these rejections, he was the editor of a fairly prestigious journal that really taught me something, you know, just to keep going that if you believe in the work, you think it's the best you can do. Just keep going out there with it. You know, several agents rejected the book. And one agent wanted a complete rewrite, you know, she said, Well, I see you've done a lot of work. So here are my notes on what you should do, that rewrite would have destroyed the novel. So again, I had to stick with what I felt was right, and go on to find an agent who loved the book. And she also had suggestions, but they were suggestions that felt right in my heart agents and editors, they all have an idea of where a book could go and what it should be, you know, as a writer, you should respect their opinions. You also have to know when those opinions feel right to you. And if you wind up thinking, well, that doesn't sound right to me, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Because then maybe this agent will represent me, you know, the work is going to be false, then I know I keep referring to it that way. But that's really what it is that you, you want it to be more of your original conception of it.
Lainey Cameron
I think that's really important. Yeah, the idea of having a creative vision for what you're trying to bring into the world. And if someone's feedback helps improve on that creative vision and helps you meet that creative vision great, but if they're suggesting a different creative vision of what they imagine the book should be, then they're not your partner. They're not the person to partner with. I talk to other writers about this a lot. Their opinion might be perfectly valid, but it does I mean, it's what you wanted to do with that book, in which case it's not helpful and toss it away.
Lauren Belfer
Well, that's right. And you are also the one who goes out into the world as the face of that book.
Lainey Cameron
So let's talk about books because I know you'r an avid reader. I would love to hear what would you recommend that people have a read at, that perhaps you've read yourself recently?
Lauren Belfer
I just finished reading Horse by Geraldine Brooks. This is a book that has several narratives that goes back and forth in time. One of the primary narrative strains in it is the legacy of racial discrimination in America. And it focuses on the black horse trainers before the Civil War, many, most of them enslaved. And this was a story I had never known about in any way, shape or form. Geraldine Brooks makes this story absolutely riveting. I will say that, I don't know anything about horses. And I didn't really think I cared about horses until I read this book. I just couldn't put it down as she just makes you care so much about the people in the book in and about the horses too. And I'm also reading The Matchmaker’s Gift by Lynda Cohen Loigman. Lynda's been a guest here on the podcast, and the matchmakers gift is just a magical book, I learned so much from it. Again, it goes back and forth in time, it's about a woman matchmaker in the early part of the 20th century here in New York and about her grant, her granddaughter Who's an attorney, it's magical to read, and it also has a touch of magic in it. And usually, I don't really like magical realism, I'm very much about, you know, present, rational, real life. But the magic magical part of this book is so beautiful. It just really drew me in and I wanted to believe it. And another book I'm about to start that I'm really interested in is called the The Thread Collectors. And that's by by Shaunna J. Edwards & Alyson Richman . And they've written that as a team. It's about a black woman in New Orleans during the Civil War and a white Jewish woman in New York City during the Civil War and their paths cross. And it's the story is loosely based on Shawna and Allison's own family history. And it provides a perspective on the civil war that I didn't know anything about. I mean, to hear the perspective of difficult to learn about these things. It's a part of American history that's not usually touched on by the descendants of the people who experience these things. And I think it's really important. I'm really looking forward to immersing myself in The Thread Collectors.
Lainey Cameron
I think I'm gonna go seek that one out based on what you've said so far and earlier. But that one, it sounds like exactly the kind of untold story that gets me really excited. Almost at the end of our time here. Is there anything I missed or didn't ask you or that you didn't get to cover that you wanted to make?
Lauren Belfer
I always like to talk for a minute about why I designed the research in the novel The way I did, the character of Hannah Larson a recreates a family from the Tudor era. And she recreates them by looking at their account ledgers. And so the records of things they bought, and also at their library registers, so lists of things they checked out of the library. The idea of unraveling these lives from the past in this way, feels very close to me. i My family came from Eastern Europe, and many members of my family were caught up in the Holocaust and murdered in Europe during the Holocaust. And when I went back and tried to find the town that they were from and find anything I could about their lives. You I started reading business directories and looking at all documents and trying to find birth records death records, I started to think well, what would historians of the future find about me if they began looking at my life? What was so much being online now, and they're not being physical letters that people exchange? And I thought, well, people would have financial records, my credit card bills, my bank statements, tax returns, and they would have library records because I've been an avid reader since I was very young. And if someone had a list of all the books, I've checked out of all the libraries, wherever I've lived since I was a little girl, they would know a lot about me, probably more than I would ever want them to know. And so I thought, as I was contemplating how to write Ashton hall that I would use these two things that I would allow Hannah in the novel to use these account ledgers and see how she could recreate the family based on the tabs to use they put on their walls and the velvet nightcaps that they wore to bed and I based all of this on tutor era account ledgers that I found. And then I created a library register for them lists of books that they checked out of their family library, actual books that they could have read when I think about the novel when I tried it when I reread it now, I feel those people coming alive in my mind based on these things that they bought in these books that they read, and that's kind of cool for me. I, I just hope that's awesome. readers would feel the same as they read the book. And if
Unknown Speaker
folks want to follow you connect with you hear other interviews you do, what's the best place? Where do you share the most,
Unknown Speaker
mostly on Instagram. So at Lauren Beltre, one on Instagram, and then second on Facebook author Lauren Belfer book and a little bit on Twitter, but that's not really where I go. And then my website always has updates on what I'm doing.
Unknown Speaker
I'll put all those links on the episode page at best of women's fiction.com. I just want to say thank you for writing such a beautiful book, which took so much effort I can tell from your passion, the amount of research that went into it as well. I'm so glad we got to have you here on the podcast.
Lauren Belfer
Thank you so much Lainey It was wonderful to talk to you thanks for the great questions.