My History Hysteria

Did anybody else catch Andrew Ward on The Daily Show the other night, promoting his new book The Slaves' War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves?



(Oh, who am I kidding, we watched it on Hulu yesterday afternoon. Cable's for suckers.)

As Ward described his book I turned to Mary and said something along the lines of "Holy crap, I must read this immediately, as of yesterday, stat!" I think I may have startled her, actually. But my eyes were popping out for a good reason: not only does Ward's book look painfully interesting, but I'm guessing it makes a nice corrective to the time-honored "great man" approach that old-school Civil War historians reliably trot out, towards which my sociologically-trained brain is somewhat suspicious.

I think I'll put it, along with Chandra Manning's What This Cruel War Was About: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War - an examination of Union and Confederate soldiers' attitudes towards slavery as a cause of the war, as evidenced in their letters, diaries, and regimental newsletters - on a new summer reading list.

Better still, this would be the perfect opportunity to read the rest of Shelby Foote's military history (I've only read the one on the Siege of Vicksburg, which is probably grounds for familial excommunication, but there you go). I suspect the comparisons will be enlightening, to say the least.

A Q&A with American Eve Author Paula Uruburu

Earlier this week, I reviewed Paula Uruburu's American Eve, and it knocked my socks off.

The story of America's first supermodel, Evelyn Nesbit, her tragic relationships with architect Stanford White and coal heir Harry Kendall Thaw, and the brutal crime that thrust her into the public eye in a way her photographs never had would appeal to any true crime fan or history buff. However, Uruburu's account digs beneath the sensation and spectacle to uncover much more -- not only the circumstances leading up to the 1906 murder, but also a critical side of the story that's previously gone untold -- Evelyn's.

Uruburu, an English professor at Hofstra University, was kind enough to answer a few questions about the book, and on top of that, she also sent some wonderful images that didn't make it into American Eve (including one of Harry Thaw's very scary mother). Enjoy!

Even though the events of American Eve took place over 100 years ago, your narrative has a very intimate, in-the-moment feel -- the scenes where you describe Stanford White's parties for Evelyn come immediately to mind. Was there a moment in your research when you began to understand the figures in this story on a deeper level, and if so, what brought it about?

Ghosts can be very instructive if one pays attention. It also helps to live so close to Manhattan where so much of the story takes place and have a passion for true crime and -- I would hope -- a sensitivity to gender issues and what I call in the book “the currencies of power” that saturate and define American culture – power, money, sex, beauty and celebrity. After spending ten years with Evelyn’s own writing in memoirs and letters, tons of contemporary newspaper accounts and subsequent articles, family reminiscences, the original trial transcripts (which had not been seen in 100 years) I really did begin to live in the period and put Evelyn into the larger cultural context she herself could not see while in the moment.

It also helps that as an English professor with a specialization in the Gilded Age and turn of the century literature and culture, I already had an intimacy with the language of the times, the social milieu, etc. I have a background as well in art history and theater, which also helped me write about a world I felt I knew on a deeper level and wanted to recreate as faithfully as possible. I eventually got to a point where I wanted a steak and glass of champagne from Delmonicos.

How did you track down the photographs, postcards, and ephemera used in the book, and of these, what was your most exciting find?

I had to become what I call a stealth detective, often entering into dark dusty places off the beaten track (and as I say in my notes, in a pre-Ebay, pre-internet world). My research required a lot of traveling to libraries, historical societies, archives, various sub-cultures of different kinds of collectors, to finding people who knew Evelyn, even to the former asylum Harry was in which is now a correctional facility in upstate New York. I have a great deal more material than is even evident in the book, and almost think I need to write a book about the experience of writing American Eve (think Flaubert’s Parrot or the film Adaptation).

My most exciting find early on was the original first trial transcript (all 6000 pages) which the generous grandson of the original judge in the case let me copy. The other exciting find has to be uncovering the private collector who had 400+ letters that Evelyn wrote. He also generously let me use them as source material for the book. Just seeing her own handwriting, her incredible wit and sense of humor in these letters helped me continue when I realized she never gave in to the idea of being a victim. They made me want to reveal the human being behind the myth and the Mona Lisa smile.

I couldn't believe how quickly public sentiment turned against Stanford White during Harry Thaw's trial, especially considering how unsympathetic a figure Thaw was. Of course, White wasn't around to defend himself, but why do you think the people chose to stand behind a madman who brutalized chorus girls and was shunned by most of the upper crust?

“Timing is everything” as they say -- and it is also the reason why I think the book is incredibly relevant today -- tragically and depressingly so. Not only did new technology make it possible for the Thaws to wage a media war in Harry’s defense, led by the indomitable Mother Thaw and her dead husband’s millions, but it was a culture in crisis. The so-called new Century of Progress was ripe for change and class wars -- and social/culture clashes were inevitable. The Thaws, with their well-paid alienists and spin-doctors, created a media blitz (using everything at their disposal including sheet music, postcards, pulp-type accounts, film, etc.) that the old-money old guard would not have sullied themselves with -– and as you said, Stanford White wasn’t around to defend himself. Those who might have tried to defend him high-tailed it out of town to avoid any guilt by association.

In addition, the invention of the female force of reporters that I describe in the book (the sob sisters) saw an opportunity in Evelyn’s pathetic tale to break into the newspaper business, playing initially on the melodramatic, almost operatic aspects of a battle of the sexes being played out in public for the first time. It took a while for people to realize that Harry was not the knight in shining armor but rather something much, much darker and that White was not the wholesale villain the Thaws wanted to promote to save Harry from the electric chair.

You mention in the acknowledgments that Evelyn's surviving family members were very supportive in helping you with this project. What were their thoughts when you first approached them, and what do they think of the book, now that it's finished?

When I contacted the person I thought was Evelyn’s son, Russell, it turned out to be Evelyn’s grandson, also named Russell (his father had passed away a decade before). He was initially reluctant to talk to me, having been burned in the past by unscrupulous collectors and “just plain kooks” every time Evelyn resurfaced in the popular culture (first in Doctorow’s Ragtime and again in the 1981 film –- he was too young to remember much about the time when The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing came out starring Joan Collins as Evelyn).

But I eventually gained his trust (it helps to be sincere and have credentials as a university professor) and he then invited me to visit, to look through family artifacts, home movies, photos, etc., and to talk to his mother, whom Evelyn lived with for twenty plus years. I was of course very anxious about the family’s reaction but am happy to say they appreciated it on several levels —- in fact Russell really liked it (including the writing style), saying that at first it was very weird, looking over my shoulder into his own family’s history and his grandma’s life and the “wicked, wicked” circumstances that always threatened to engulf her. He also thanked me for showing how she was the victim of powerful men and social forces and not the vixen she has been made out to be historically. It was extremely rewarding and quite a relief.

American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the "It" Girl, and the Crime of the Century, Riverhead, May 2008

Also, American Eve is on YouTube -- more great images from the book.

A Q&A with Investigative Journalist and Author M. William Phelps

If Looks Could Kill: Money, Marriage, Adultery and... Murder by M. William Phelps

On June 16, 2001, a motorcyclist drove up to Jeff Zack's car, parked outside of BJ's Wholesale Club in Akron, Ohio, and shot him in the face. Although the shooting took place in broad daylight and in view of many witnesses, police were unable to make an arrest for nearly a year. Zack led a messy life, and had more than a few enemies. However, when the circumstances surrounding Zack's death began to unravel, police discovered a trail of deception, manipulation, and betrayal.

Zack had been involved in a long-term affair with wealthy Akron socialite Cindy Rohr-George, the wife of a restaurant owner and mother of seven. George was eventually arrested for conspiring to kill Zack with John Zaffino, also her lover. However, the wild testimony that emerged during the trial, and its shocking outcome still have Akron reeling.

M. William Phelps, investigative journalist and author of Murder in the Heartland and Lethal Guardian, conducted over 100 interviews and studied police reports connected with the case. In If Looks Could Kill, he cuts through the sensationalized myths surrounding the case -- gun smuggling, drug dealing, and domestic abuse, for starters -- to discover the truth.

Phelps was kind enough to chat with me via email about his research for the book, upcoming projects, and the dangers of cybersleuthing. The insights he shares about the case, and about everything else, are incredibly interesting.

This is a case where what is known, or what is thought to be known, has been constantly changing since Jeff Zack's murder, nearly seven years ago. At what point did you begin to follow the story, and what in particular interested you about it?

Actually, the facts have stayed pretty much the same throughout. It’s the interpretation of them through the media and the Georges which beckons confusion for everyone. But the case itself has never changed. This was a classic whodunit.

In my author’s note, I talk about how I became involved. Without giving it all away: I was on an Ohio radio show promoting Murder in the Heartland in 2006 when this story—and a very important source—literally dropped into my lap. (There’s always someone out there that wants to get the truth out!) What interested me about this story at that early stage was the fact that when you look at it, you’d think the logical way for this to unfold would have been: Cindy George, beautiful wife of a wealthy (much older) restaurateur, mother of seven kids, becomes bored with her life, finds a lover and together they murder the husband and take off with his money. That is a classic true crime plot (something Ann Rule, in other words, would be all over).

But that’s not what happens here, as you know. The story unfolds quite a bit differently from the norm. This hooked me right away. I am always looking for classic cases with a special twist that changes the entire dynamic of everything and everyone involved. And let’s be honest: whenever you have good looking rich people in a suburban setting, adultery, steamy sex, drugs, guns, murder and two trials, you’ve got one heck of a true crime case that is very marketable. And what most budding authors in this genre don’t understand is, marketing is a major part of choosing cases (which is another conversation all together, maybe for another time).

Regardless of her guilt or innocence, I'm amazed that George's family members remained so loyal to her throughout the trial, her imprisonment, etc. In your research, what kind of person did you find Cindy Rohr-George to be?

A master manipulator. Someone who understands and even studies others’ weaknesses to use that knowledge to her advantage. Those pregnancies of Cindy’s where she was bedridden taught her a valuable lesson for later on: people who love you will do anything for you if they believe you’re sick and/or hurting.

Cindy was able to draw on the sympathy of those around her and use that to her advantage for whatever purpose she needed. Remember, Cindy was from a just below middle class family in North Canton, a neighborhood of rather post-World War II cookie-cutter homes. From early on, because she was so stunningly gorgeous (although this is certainly not the case now), things started to come to Cindy. As she grew, she wanted more and more and more. Look at it this way: the garage attached to the house Cindy lives in with Ed George and her seven children outside Akron is bigger than the house she grew up in.

The George family are devout Catholics. All the kids went to Catholic schools. They all went to Mass regularly. They love her. They believe in her. They stuck by her—and still do—because that is what Jesus Christ would want them to do. And again, this divine devotion is something Cindy used for her own selfish needs.

How did the people of Akron respond to the George and Zack families during all of this? How did people seem to feel about the outcome of the trials?

People are devastated that Cindy got out of prison and can never be tried again. They feel her wealth bought her a get out of jail free card. Akron has a reputation for being a “money can buy you happiness” city of wealth and status. There’s always been some sort of controversy brewing in town. I spent a week there while I was in Ohio researching If Looks Could Kill and experienced it myself. There’s an “us against them” feeling in town: Us being the working class, Them being the rich. Moreover, Ed George knows a lot of people. He has been in the restaurant/cabaret business for decades. When you know that many people, things come a bit easier to you. The world you live in treats you differently.

The Zack family left the area. Now that is a family I feel for. Bonnie Zack and Jeff’s son and Jeff’s family in Arizona really didn’t ask for any of this. They were drawn into a mess of a life Jeff created. As a cautionary tale, this case proves—if nothing else—how infidelity in a marriage can truly cause a ripple effect that is, in many ways, being felt years after the actual affair ended.

Also, how did they respond to you when you began your research - how willing were they to discuss Zack's murder?

It’s the same with every book. You have those who will talk and those who absolutely won’t. Then you have those who sit on the fence and watch, listen, and ultimately come to you when they feel you’re doing a decent enough job and your only goal is to tell the truth.

The Georges, of course, wouldn’t talk to me. As I point out in the book, the Georges carefully picked who they spoke to—and wouldn’t speak to anyone until they needed a certain “story” to get out into the press—and timed those interviews with pivotal moments in Cindy’s case. Cindy gave one newspaper her only face-to-face interview, where she spewed all sorts of rhetoric that she had never said before.

I had a lot of anonymous sources come forward during the process and give me some solid information. But let me say this: the documents I was able to obtain—which no one beyond key law enforcement has yet to see—tell quite the story, and truly show who is lying and who is telling the truth, not to mention how far the Akron PD took this investigation. The Akron PD got pretty beat up during the trials. The Akron PD Crimes Against Persons Unit, however, did one of the most thorough jobs I have ever seen in a murder investigation. They left no stone unturned. And the truth is, whenever they turned a stone over, Cindy’s face was right there staring back up at them.

You had mentioned in an email to me something about Iranian gun smugglers potentially being involved in this story. You see, that was a tale put out there. I got to the bottom of it and found it to be a lie. Wait until you see the credibility of the person who made this accusation. You won’t believe it. Jeff Zack was a lot of things and not a very nice person. But he was not a gun smuggler or drug dealer. Nor is there any evidence that Jeff Zack ever abused Cindy George, as she now claims.

Do you think the book is closed on the Cindy Rohr-George and John Zaffino cases?

Yes. From Cindy’s position it’s a done deal.

Although, I do think John Zaffino will, someday, come forward and tell all he knows. I spoke to John. I detail that correspondence in the beginning of the book. John is a funny guy. Brute of a man. Drunkard. All those things you’d expect a killer of his caliber to be. I tell his complete story—which is very interesting. Makes you wonder how Cindy ever ended up with John and, more important, why. Where they meet, for instance, is as telling as a phone conversation they have one night as John is standing in the Cuyahoga Falls National Park woods with a gun waiting to kill Jeff Zack.

Many of your books, this one included, have taken on very recent criminal cases as their subjects. However, you have a book on the American spy Nathan Hale coming out, and I read on your website that you're working on two other Revolutionary War-era subjects. That's quite a departure - could you talk a little about your interests here?

I also co-wrote a book with Thomas Craughwell titled Failures of the Presidents (it’ll be out on September 1). I don’t consider my subject choices as much of a departure as others might. When you write books for a living you need to focus on a lot of different aspects of the publishing business. You have to view your work as a job, and pay attention to what the market demands. For me, I follow my heart and see if that fits into what publishing is looking for at the time. I consider myself a nonfiction book author and journalist. Period. If someone wants to label me a true crime author, that’s fine. I don’t mind. But I just follow my heart and listen to what my business manager, Peter Miller, tells me. Peter is my coach. We talk about ideas and he advises me on which way to go.

I approached Nathan Hale the way I approach any other project: studying documents and getting the story into my head and then going out and finding other “sources” to fill in the gaps. Whether we’re talking about a police report or a journal from 275 years ago, it really makes no difference when you approach it as a storyteller and writer.

There has not been a biography of Nathan Hale written for some eighty years, so my book will be the first “true” biography of an American icon we have all heard of, but know very little about.

I am interested in whatever moves me. I like to tell people that my literary calling is American history. But I also write about contemporary true crimes cases (my day job, if you will). Some authors choose to teach at colleges and write books in their spare time. I choose to write all day (and night, lately). To me, one is not more important than the other; but all of us have our own vision of who we want to be, and we try to live that out in what we do. I am so grateful that I am able to get up every morning and do this for a living. I never forget that. I thank God for that blessing every day and for also having so many loyal readers. I worked hard, sure. But I’m also very lucky and very fortunate to be able to do this. And I never forget that.

I'm also curious, what do you like about the process of historic research versus investigative journalism? What challenges do you find with each?

The two are interconnected. I think “investigative journalism” sometimes is viewed as some sort of mysterious, intriguing job we do while wearing a trench coat, fedora and sunglasses, sneaking around, meeting people in back alleys. I’ve done my share of digging through Dumpsters and meeting people secretly, etc. But a lot of this is reading documents and putting the pieces of a puzzle together via interviews. The other part is getting your hands on documents others haven’t seen. For example, in the Cindy George case, I was able to get hold of hundreds of pages of documents no one outside law enforcement had ever seen. This changed to the entire scope of my book.

The challenges I face are the same: getting people to help. If people aren’t willing to open up and lend a hand, you’re stuck.

The other part of this is staying away from the Internet. Too many people today think that investigative journalism is about searching the Internet for Websites and old MySpace pages and emails and things left behind in Cyberspace. And granted, some of that may help. True investigative journalism is about picking up the phone and calling people and tracking down documents and sources and filing F.O.I.A.s until you just cannot stand to write another one. Cybersluething and investigative journalism are two totally different things and shouldn’t be confused.

One of the worst things you can do for a story is rely on what cyberspace provides. I cannot stress this enough in today’s Internet world of instant information. I would suggest, for anyone looking to grasp a further understanding of what I mean, that you read James B. Stewart’s book, Follow the Story. I don’t know him, by the way. So I’m not shilling for a friend. But in that book, you’ll notice that the Internet is not even discussed as a serious investigating tool for a working journalist. We have to watch out with what’s happening right now. Information is too interchangeable and stepped on. You do not know what you’re getting off the Internet. I’ve gotten hard copies of magazine and/or newspaper stories and matched them up to their Internet counterparts and noticed that they’ve been changed or added to or even edited. That scares me. Moreover, how can we rely on a MySpace page as fact? Anyone can publish anything about anyone. There’s no fact-checking process involved with this sort of research—which is really terrifying from a true journalist’s point of view.

IF LOOKS COULD KILL is being released today. For more information, visit M. William Phelp's website.

A Q&A with Debut Novelist Mercedes Helnwein

The Potential Hazards of Hester Day by Mercedes Helnwein

Novelist Mercedes Helnwein has always been a writer, but until recently, was better known for her visual art, which has been called "an exciting mixture of purity, mysticism and raging beauty that follows the concept of no rules." And now, she's written a novel, which has gotten nice write-ups in Los Angeles Magazine and PW, to boot.

In The Potential Hazards of Hester Day, we meet the lovably disillusioned Hester, recently graduated from high school, and anxious to get out of a pit commonly known as Florida. If Mommy had her druthers, young Hester would be off to become a brain surgeon, but Hester knows that any proper escape has to be on her own terms.

After arranging a hasty marriage of convenience to her arch-nemesis from the public library, a prickly amateur scholar named Fenton Flaherty, Hester finds herself in hot water. So, she leaves home with the only decent member of her family, her 10-year-old cousin, Jethro, and hitches a ride in Fenton's camper.

Soon, the unlikely trio is off on a road trip through the South and Midwest, embracing the eccentric and the surreal with open arms. Of course, none of this can end well, and certainly not as our heroes expect.

I recently got to chat with Mercedes about the book, her research road trip to the South and Midwest, and the connection between writing and fine art.

There's a lot going on in The Potential Hazards of Hester Day -- a spontaneous, unconventional marriage, kidnapping, makeshift families, and a road trip, to mention a little of it. Was there any particular spark or idea that served as your point of entry to the story?

The entry point to the story was definitely based on the characters. Hester was developed fully in a short story called "Amazing Grace". I knew immediately that I had to write a lot more for this character -- I was far from done using her. And this was paired with the idea of putting her into a mismatched but genuine friendship with a ten-year-old kid. For some reason that was enough to let loose the rest of the novel.

What drew you to writing about the Midwest and the South?

I got into the blues when I was about 14 and immediately became obsessed with this music. I fell in love with the lyrics and felt that it was the first time I heard something that was completely honest.

I also read "Huck Finn" around the same time and a little later got into Steinbeck. All these things were about old America in the South and Midwest -- different angles and views and layers of it, but somehow the same thing.

I'm very old-fashioned when it comes to ideals and aesthetics. I think this modern age has lost a lot of qualities that were once naturally part of every-day life. Going through the Midwest I was kind of looking for traces of Good Old America -- proof that it existed and maybe still does in places.

I also understand that you took a road trip through the Midwest as research for the book. What kinds of things did you discover, and what was your favorite stop along the way?

Yes, in the winter, just like in the book. This was the first time I had ever gone through the Midwest/South, so I was extremely ecstatic and, to be honest, it really didn't take much to fascinate me.

There are a few things that come to mind. Crossing the Mississippi for the first time. Driving through the Kentucky hills on a quiet Sunday morning, and seeing people walking to an old, white-washed country church. Getting lost in the extreme middle-of-no-where Kansas. Visiting Mark Twain's boyhood home. Eating a weird lunch in this tiny restaurant off the side of a road in Kentucky, where everyone knew each other.

Even just seeing a barn for the first time. As I said, it didn't take much. I was easy to impress.

At one point in the book, Hester tells another character that all she wants is to embed herself in situations that are surreal; however, she seems to gravitate with equal enthusiasm towards what is romantic -- is there a connection between the two?

Yeah. I think that just depends on the person gravitating towards the romantic. In Hester's case, she's odd enough to where the romantic could be the surreal for sure.

What is the relationship between your writing and your visual art? Does your work in one medium inform the other? And are there things about the creative process that are the same (or different) for each?

It's related, and yet it's not. The two of them compliment each other extremely well. The fact that I do all this visual work, helps me in my writing and vice versa. Subject matter-wise, I'm not sure if there are that many similarities. Some people say there are. For me personally it's hard to tell, because the two activities are so different; I'm in very different mind-sets for them. But at the same time, they do kind of inspire each other, so I guess there are ties between them.

What are some of the things that inspire your writing?

Old American folk songs and blues songs. Music in general. Anything weird enough to grab my attention -- conversations, bumper stickers, commercials, viewpoints, news stories. Great sentences no matter where they come from.

What are you reading now?

I'm reading through a collection of Bukowski poems. Open All Night.

What are you working on right now, writing or otherwise?

I'm working on a new series of drawings for a solo show in L.A. this September at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery.

I'm also working on a new novel, as well as a screenplay. It's a very interesting combination of work going on all at once. I definitely never have nothing to do.