Acquired Book By: I was selected to be a tour stop on the “Girl Waits With Gun” virtual book tour through HFVBT: Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours. I received a complimentary ARC copy of the book direct from the publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
On why this book sparked an interest to read:
I must admit, I had regretted not being able to read The Drunken Botanist when I had initially found a copy of it at my local library – mostly, because it stood out to me as being quite altogether different than what I might usually pick up to read. For starters, I love Herbology (plants used for alternative/natural medicines) and I love how you can grow an apothecarist garden. This previous release of hers takes it a step further and dictates how plants can be used in mixology to produce different drinks and a fetching taste whilst you blend together elements you might not have felt worked well together.
When it was announced Girl Waits With Gun was going to be going on tour, I didn’t want to be sidelined again with an author who drew a line of curiosity into my brow to read!
Note on the Cover Art: Cover art by itself never leads me to reading a novel, however, snazzy sharp cover art might implore me to read the synopsis and if within those small ounces of text I find a murmuring of a focus about a story that might yield itself to being warranted to reading, odds are in favour I will do exactly that. Otherwise to me, cover art becomes another medium of art to be admired solely for that purpose. In this instance, it was the combination that intrigued me but to focus on the artwork a moment: how can this not garish interest? It’s quite catching!
Girl Waits With Gun
by Amy Stewart
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Drunken Botanist comes an enthralling debut novel based on the forgotten true story of one of the nation’s first female deputy sheriffs.
Constance Kopp doesn’t quite fit the mold. She towers over most men, has no interest in marriage or domestic affairs, and has been isolated from the world since a family secret sent her and her sisters into hiding fifteen years ago. One day a belligerent and powerful silk factory owner runs down their buggy, and a dispute over damages turns into a war of bricks, bullets, and threats as he unleashes his gang on their family farm. When the sheriff enlists her help in convicting the men, Constance is forced to confront her past and defend her family — and she does it in a way that few women of 1914 would have dared.
Places to find the book:
ISBN: 9780544409910
on 1st September 2015
Pages: 416
Published By: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, (@HMHCo)
Available Formats: Hardback, Audiobook, Paperback & E-Book
Converse via: #GirlWaitsWithGun
My Review of Girl Waits With Gun:
Constance, Norma, and Fleurette are a bit of a hoot and hanny as far as women go – they are so uniquely independent and set in their ways as to draw your inside their story with a piqued interest bent on the curious nature of how they approach their ordinary lives. Each of them has their own reasons for not wanting to enter into a hasty relationship much less to be committed to a marriage – yet, it’s how they deal with regular affairs, such as the automobile vs buggy accident which opens the scene as you dig inside Girl Waits With Gun. A bit of a spectacular for their neighbours, but for the sisters, it was a strife that put their independence in a bit of jeopardy with their over-grieving brother Francis who believes they are ill-wont to look after themselves.
Constance is the leader of the pack, this you can surmise quite quickly as she’s the one who noodles out the way to circumvent their adversities – in this case, how to get a buggy reconstructed by getting the bloke who ran them down to pay for the repairs. It’s another way of her proving her mutton with her brother, in order for him to see they can live without his advice and interference. Constance is the type of woman who likes to put herself forward through her tenacity and stand on her own feet with integrity. She likes to think through problems logically and when she cannot resolve an obstacle placed in front of her she tucks inside her mind a bit to see if something is aloof. She’s a thinker and her sisters, although blessedly comforting in their presence, get her veins a bit vexed by their antics. Norma I think would be the closest one she could bond too, but Norma has her own ideas about how to spend her hours in the pursuit of safer modes of communication; in her case, carrier pigeons.
Fleurette is a bit of a novice in the ways of the world, taking her whimsical fancy and innocence wherever she goes, without being overtly concerned with how dangerous living without caution can become. When she starts to see the darker shades of humanity through the interactions Constance has with the silk factory owner, it opens her world to realising nothing is as innocent or quiet as life on the farm. The sisters work together through thick and thin, but it’s a bit of a dichotomy of a story between city and country life inasmuch as decorum and the balance of civility.
Constance definitely has the head for crime solving – she’s self-assured, resourceful and has a whipper snap notion of how things fit together when it comes to sleuthing. In some ways, Constance is the character your reading the most to find more about, as she’s quite a remarkable woman for her time. She’s not afraid to back-down from an unwelcome enquiry and she easily aligns herself with the law; nearly brokering on the level of being their equal despite the difference of pay scale and lack of a badge. This is her story of coming into her own whilst attempting to protect her sisters from a danger they never realised they could face due to a minor traffic accident which led to increasing difficulties thereafter. It’s a story of a woman finding her own voice and her own path towards filling a need of hers to have worth in this world with just the right amount of moxie to pull it off!
Amy Stewart has you cosy up to the sisters as if you’ve always knew them:
The manner in which Stewart tells her story, you’d think you knew the sisters quite well already! Your quite cosy into their hours, where they talk frankly and openly about what is happening around them whilst being openly honest about their feelings on the matters too. It’s a close-comfort view into how their lives might have been lived, as this is another example of Biographical Historical Fiction; a new side interest of mine in the historical realms. (see my review of The Beautiful American for more info)
During a recent conversation on Twitter (#LitChat) you’ve mentioned writing is one of the hardest of all art forms – what made you express this to give the impression that despite your passion for words and crafting stories (in both fiction and creative non-fiction) you find it incredibly tedious work? Aside from your analogy about chess and Systems 1 & 2 what do you individually find is not inherently intuitive?
Stewart responds: Oh, I wouldn’t say that it’s tedious–tedious implies that it’s boring or monotonous. Writing is the very opposite of that. But it is difficult work. So is mountain climbing and heart surgery and lots of other kinds of work. It’s still very worthwhile.
I think that writing is a more difficult art form than, say, painting (which I also do) or music (and I grew up with a musician father, so I know about that) because every line requires a writer to grapple with language and find a more precise and poetic way to say a thing. We use language constantly, and because of that, it’s even harder to make art out of it. A painter and a musician can develop enough skill to allow them to work quickly and fluidly, but good writing that is free of clichés and different from our ordinary, everyday language almost never comes with that kind of ease.
You also mentioned in #LitChat you’ve taught a class about how non-fiction writers should use novelist trade secrets to write their works – what specifically do you feel translates the best between both mediums of the craft? What part of a novelist’s tool chest can help the non-fiction writer the most? Is it how to convey emotion and feeling into the heart of the piece?
Stewart responds: The kinds of novelists’ tricks that I teach in my nonfiction class have to do with story structure–how to create a three-act story structure even in a short nonfiction piece–and how to see real people as characters. I also talk about interviewing techniques that will get the best dialogue out of people, and how to best employ dialogue in a nonfiction piece. I talk about how to build conflict and drama and how to write a scene and stay in that scene, rather than wandering off into exposition. It’s all very nuts-and-bolts stuff like that.
How expansive do you feel this series will carry forward? Do you have it outlined in your mind how many books in sequence there will be and what the focus of those stories will evolve into being? Do you focus more singularly on the novel in front of you and pick up the rest as they arrive next?
Stewart responds: I know quite a bit about what happened in the lives of the Kopp sisters over a 15-year stretch, and I hope to continue to keep telling their true story with some fiction woven in to fill in the gaps and help to make sense of their world. I don’t know exactly how many books there will be, but I have a good idea about the next 2-3 in the series. I definitely have to focus on one at a time, but I try to map out where they are going so that I’m laying the groundwork in each book for the next one.
Do you find writing historical persons of the past more complicated than the imagined characters who take a whisper to our imaginations and inspire us to tell their stories? Why do you think historical persons are so tricky to reincarnate through historical fiction?
Stewart responds: Well, I am writing imagined characters. They are based on these real people, but they are not the real people. It’s very clear to me in my own mind that these real people actually lived, and I have photographs of them and papers they signed and, in some cases, I know their relatives. Then I create imaginary characters who might be very closely based on them, but can’t actually be them. I think all characters are tricky to write, regardless of the time period. Of course, it is a challenge with historical fiction to create a world that lets the reader feel that they are transported to another time and place, but that’s true of contemporary fiction, too. If I were to write a novel about my hometown, set in present day, I’d still have to create that world in a convincing way for people who don’t live there.
How important was it to have a series focused on women who were living non-traditional lives and not focusing on their personal lives (i.e. romantic encounters)?
Stewart responds: I think the Kopp sisters have very interesting personal lives–there’s quite a lot going on in their lives that just doesn’t happen to involve any romantic relationships with men at the moment. One thing that really appealed to me about their story was that it wasn’t all about getting a boyfriend. Constance said very clearly in interviews that she wasn’t interested in marriage, and I know that Norma wasn’t, either. They probably had very practical reasons for this. In 1914, marriage meant keeping house and raising children. If you were a woman in those days and you didn’t want to do that, it would have been very hard to find a man who would go along with your ideas. I think it’s great to tell stories about women that aren’t all about landing a man!
What sparked your interest in breathing life into this type of story and serial?
Stewart responds: This story found me. I was researching a gin smuggler named Henry Kaufman for my last book, The Drunken Botanist. I thought I should do a little more investigation to see if Henry Kaufman went on to do anything else interesting. I found an article in the New York Times from 1915 about a man named Henry Kaufman who ran his car into a horse-drawn carriage driven by these three sisters, Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp. They got into a conflict over payment for the damages, and it escalated from there. The sisters received kidnapping threats, shots were fired at their house, and they were generally tormented for almost a year. I never did figure out if this Henry Kaufman was the same man as the gin smuggler I’d started the day looking for, however!
Who was your best cheerleader?
Stewart responds: In terms of cheerleaders, I have a very supportive family. My mother made little books of all my poems and stories, and my father is a musician and was always keenly interested in whatever we wanted to do in the arts. I had uncles who gave me stacks of great books at Christmas, and a great-grandmother who gave me boxes with locks on them filled with notebooks…I had plenty of encouragement.
Did you always intend to open up a bookstore or was there a moment where interacting with the bookish and readerly inclined felt a natural next step? What sets your bookstore apart from others and what is your happiest moment since it’s opened?
Stewart responds: My husband is a rare book dealer. He always said he didn’t want to have an open shop, but when we found out that Eureka Books was for sale, he told me that he’d always imagined buying that store! So we did, and he runs the store with a business partner. It’s in a beautiful old Victorian building and we’ve got a great mix of new, used, and rare books, plus a lot of maps and prints and photographs and (for the moment, anyway), vintage vinyl records.
What centers your joy when you’re not creating or working professionally?
Stewart responds: I’m trying to think about when that might be! I work every day. It’s my whole life.
My questions were inspired and influenced by participating in Ms Stewart’s appearance during #LitChat on the 28th of September, of which was a free-flowing conversation between the moderator of the chat itself, the author, and those of us who tuned into the chat in the twitterverse. I try to drop in on @LitChat as regularly as I can, as I enjoy getting to know the stories and the authors who pen them on a more personal level through the interactions the chat yields for us all.. Please read the complete transcript of the #LitChat with Amy Stewart for more info.
This blog tour is courtesy of: Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours
{ click-through to follow the tour & find more reader’s impressions! } This review was delayed due to lightning storms which caused a variety of technical issues which left me offline for the greater portion of late August through mid September, which is why I had to re-schedule my review. After I re-scheduled my tour stop to the last day of the blog tour, I took ill and therefore my review and interview were postponed until today }
I look forward to reading your thoughts and comments on behalf of this review. Especially if you read the novel or were thinking you might be inclined to read it. I appreciate hearing different points of view especially amongst bloggers who picked up the same novel to read on a blog tour.
{SOURCES: Cover art of “Girl Waits With Gun”, book synopsis, author photograph of Amy Stewart and the tour badge were all provided by HFVBTs (Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours) and used with permission. Ruminations & Impressions Book Review Banner created by Jorie in Canva. Photo Credit: Unsplash Public Domain Photographer Sergey Zolkin. Comment Box banner created by Jorie in Canva. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets embedded by codes provided by Twitter.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2015.
I’m a social reader | I tweet as I read:
Not quite what I thought it might be,
yet entirely curiously written to the brink
I turn the pages in wonder— Jorie Loves A Story (@joriestory) October 11, 2015
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 2015 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge
I must say your comment about the cover pulled me in. It’s perfect for the title. :) Fab review too. Thanks for sharing! xx