Melanie Benjamin's historical novels are Alice I Have Been and the newly released The Autobiography Of Mrs. Tom Thumb.Recently I asked her what she was reading. Her reply:
I just finished Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. I’m coming late to McMurtry, for some reason. I’m a huge fan of westerns, and historical fiction, of course – one of my ambitions is to write a western some day, myself! – so I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to read his work. Of course, I’d seen the miniseries a couple of times, but as fine as it is,Visit Melanie Benjamin's website.the book is infinitely better. I love escaping into entirely different worlds, and McMurtry creates a fully realized universe, not just a world!
I’m currently reading The Bolter, by Frances Osbourne. This is a biography of Idina Sackville, a scandalous figure in 1920s British society who was famously fictionalized in Nancy Mitford’s books. I do love to mix non-fiction and fiction, real history with imagined. I think this is what prepared me so well for writing historical fiction.
The Page 69 Test: Alice I Have Been.
The Page 69 Test: The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb.
My Book, The Movie: The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb.
--Marshal Zeringue
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