The Postmistress of Paris(116)

Author’s Note and Acknowledgments


Here are a few things that are true about Mary Jayne Gold, the American heiress whose real courage inspired that of my fictional Nanée: She grew up in an Evanston mansion and summered at Marigold Lodge in Western Michigan, went to finishing school in Italy, and flew a red Vega Gull (which did not in fact have a stall horn). She was friends with Danny Bénédite, who really did use his position with the Paris police to arrange French residency permits for refugee artists. She stayed in France after Hitler invaded, and fled Paris with Theo Bénédite, and tried to get their son out of France by claiming him as her illegitimate child. After the armistice, Mary Jayne went to Marseille, intending to leave France. She instead stayed, and joined Varian Fry’s effort to help refugees, contributing her time and thousands of dollars. She rented a place called Villa Air-Bel, where she lived with, among others, the Bénédites, Fry, the Bretons, and Dagobert. They hosted salons there at which they played Surrealist games and hung art from the trees.

But this is not Mary Jayne Gold’s personal story. She did not fall in love with an artist named Edouard Moss, who does not exist except in my mind, on the page and, if I’ve done my job well, in your mind and perhaps your heart. She did not as far as I know travel into occupied France to rescue a Jewish girl. I don’t know if she could shoot a pistol, much less do it so well.

This book did, though, begin for me with Mary Jayne Gold, Villa Air-Bel, the artists and intellectuals at Camp des Milles outside Aix-en-Provence, and the efforts of Varian Fry and the Centre Américain de Secours, as well as those of Hans and Lisa Fittko. Other characters inspired by real people include Miriam Davenport, Justus “Gussie” Rosenberg, Marcel “Maurice” Verzeanu, Charles Fawcett and Leon Ball, Lena Fischmann, Bill Freier, and Hiram “Harry” Bingham IV. With the exception of Edouard Moss, the artists and writers named in the novel, including André and Jacqueline Breton and Max Ernst, are based on real people. The depictions here are meant to honor those involved in these rescues, but all, including Varian Fry, are to some extent products of my imagination.

I hope readers will be inspired by this novel to learn more about the real stories that underpin it. Some of the sources on which I relied include Mary Jayne Gold’s Crossroads Marseille, 1940; Varian Fry’s Surrender on Demand; Miriam Davenport’s unpublished “An Unsentimental Education”; Justus Rosenberg’s The Art of Resistance; and Lisa Fittko’s Escape through the Pyrenees. I also relied on the writings of real artists and intellectuals who were rescued, including Lion Feuchtwanger’s The Devil in France; André Breton’s Letters to Aube; Victor Serge’s Notebooks 1936–1947; and Hans Sahl’s The Few and the Many.

Other sources I found particularly useful include the oral history interview with Mary Jayne Gold on the US Holocaust Memorial Museum website; Villa Air-Bel by Rosemary Sullivan; Surrealism by Amy Dempsey; The Holocaust & the Jews of Marseille by Donna F. Ryan; In Defiance of Hitler by Carla Killough McClafferty; A Quiet American by Andy Marino; André Breton in Exile by Victoria Clouston; Marseille ? New York by Bernard No?l; and the many wonderful resources made available by the Varian Fry Foundation at varianfry.org, as well as those at AndréBreton.fr, and villaairbel1940.fr.

I am so often inspired by photos. For this book, the single photo called variously Nude Bending, The Ghost Wife, and Salvation was inspired by Lee Miller’s 1930 photo Nude Bent Forward. The photo Nanée purchases when she can’t buy that one is inspired by Francesca Woodman’s haunting 1977 photo On Being an Angel #1, Providence, Rhode Island, the title of which I did not know when I chose it as the model for a photograph I did not intend to title. The scene in which Edouard paints on Nanée’s back was inspired by Man Ray’s 1924 photo Ingres’ Violin; the paint is my own. Edouard’s self-portrait is inspired by Maurice Tabard’s Untitled (solarized face). The caped woman is drawn from a photograph Mac Clayton took in Paris, and the br?laged version of it by Raoul Ubac’s The Nebula. And Nanée’s Beautiful Neck bears an uncanny resemblance to Man Ray’s 1929 Lee Miller (“The Necklace”).

Gratitude to so many people on this one, starting with my editor, Sara Nelson, whose indefatigable dedication and good humor are a writer’s dream, and the whole gang at Harper Books who support me so amazingly, including Jonathan Burnham, Doug Jones, Leah Wasielewski, Robin Bilardello, Katie O’Callahan, Katherine Beitner, Juliette Shapland, Carolyn Bodkin, Virginia Stanley, and Mary Gaule, as well as everyone at HarperCollins Holland and the other foreign offices. Thanks to Joanne O’Neill for the stunning cover, and for her patience. And to my agent, Marly Rusoff, and the intrepid Mihai Radelescu, who help me in so many ways.

To the many booksellers who have been so kind to me and so enthusiastic on behalf of my books—I would call you out individually, but that would make this a very long book. Ditto to everyone at the Jewish Book Council and the many book festivals that have given me a chance to connect with readers.

My Flight Team—Captain Christopher Keck and crew Dylan Rich and Brittney Kaniecki—took me on a virtual flight over Paris to show me Nanée’s view and help me understand what avoiding a bird and nearly stalling a plane at low altitude over the lake in the Bois de Boulogne might be like. Thanks also to Sue Hulme, whose father, David Hulme, owned and piloted a Vega Gull, for sharing with me photos, video, and technical details.