Bestselling author Mary-Anne O’Connor has a combined arts education degree with specialities in environment, music and literature. After a successful marketing career she now focuses on writing fiction and non-fiction as well as public speaking. Her previous novels are Gallipoli Street (2015), Worth Fighting For (2016), War Flower (2017) and In a Great Southern Land (2019).
Mary-Anne O’Connor’s latest novel is Where Fortune Lies, an epic and lyrical tale of love, adventure and gambled fortunes that ranges from the wild cloaked woodlands of Ireland to the Victorian Alps of colonial Australia (perfect for fans of Nicole Alexander, Colleen McCullough, and Fiona McIntosh!). If you order a copy of Where Fortune Lies between March 1st, 2020 and April 30th, 2020, you’ll enter the draw to WIN 1 of 2 signed prints of bush landscapes by renowned Australian artist Kevin Best OAM!*
Today, Mary-Anne is on the blog to talk about the influence of history on her fiction-writing. Read on!
Mary-Anne O’Connor
Historical fiction. They’re two words so intrinsically linked that when I write sometimes I wonder which came first in my planning–the fiction or the history? Certainly I tend to think about when very early on, but who can come from left of field too and leave me looking for an era to place a character before I even begin.
Especially someone like Lola Montez. I stumbled upon this real life character when I was researching my novel In A Great Southern Land, but by the time I found her story it was too late to make her a main character in the book–and this was a lady entirely too amazing to be relegated to minor status.
For a start, Lola wasn’t her real name; it was Marie Gilbert, and she began her life as a young Irish woman of modest means. Certainly no-one could have foreseen the incredible life she would go on to lead, fabricating an exotic persona and travelling the world at a time when such an undertaking for a woman was largely unheard of. That she would become the mistress to a king, a countess, a courtesan, a political reformer, an activist and eventually an exotic dancer in the goldfields of Australia reads like an incredible novel in itself, but it was more her audacity that intrigued me. That she would have the courage to choose something so far beyond convention. How could I not be inspired by such a muse?
I was moved to base the main character in my new novel, Where Fortune Lies, on Lola, taking an average and seemingly plain Irish girl, Anne Brown, from obscurity to centre stage on the other side of the world in Australia. There she performs as Chrystelle Amour and leads a very adventurous, passionate life, indeed. However, I couldn’t place her in the goldfields having just completed a novel about the Eureka Stockade.
And so this is where history dictates the story and I knew I had to find the right time and place for my intrepid girl. How about twenty or thirty years later? What was going on in Victoria by then?
Lola Montez
As it turned out, quite a lot! The late 1870s saw the desperate days of bushranging reach a dramatic crescendo, and life on the frontiers was wild and dangerous with the common man pitted against a still-corrupt police force. Gold mining towns were now seeking wealth above the earth in the form of farming, wine making and industry, and opportunity was often seized in moments of fortune. Or by force.
What a perfect time to place the daring, spirited Chrystelle and how easy it was to build a cast of characters to surround her, finding inspiration in the story of the Kelly gang and other notorious outlaws for a start. It wasn’t hard to invent their individual personalities either, penning caricatures of some colourful friends of mine, and it was enormous fun giving them walk on roles, so to speak. (By the way, if you’re reading the book, Ivan Reed isn’t really that evil, although he is rather naughty. Case in point that he asked to be written as a villain.)
Additionally, I drew upon the avant-garde artists, ambitious politicians, the impassioned working class and wild colonial boys of the day. All were destined to dictate the direction of our culture and I was gripped by the historical drama as I took my characters on a wild ride, as the era seemed to dictate. What an exciting and rich canvas to paint words upon!
And what a place to set the scene. I have long loved the countryside, but in particular the High Country up in the alps in Victoria. My father, Kevin Best, was a well-known Australian artist, capturing the area many, many times, and we shared an awe of the breathtaking mountains and majestic Snowy River. There is a romanticism about it. An ageless beauty that attracts all manner of artistic expression and to research and envisage it as it was back then was both fascinating and a privilege. It felt like a great overlying character, moody and dangerous, yet uniquely beautiful in ways only the High Country can be.
So to answer my own question–does fiction or history come first in planning these novels?–I can only really conclude that they are intrinsically entwined. For every idea is linked to a time, person or place and only collectively do they become a story.
–Mary-Anne O’Connor, author of Where Fortune Lies (HarperCollins Australia), out on the 23rd of March. Find out more about Mary-Anne here.
Order a copy of Where Fortune Lies between March 1st, 2020 and April 30th, 2020 for your chance to WIN 1 of 2 signed prints of bush landscapes by renowned Australian artist Kevin Best OAM (pictured below)!
Where Fortune Lies
Order your copy to win!
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