The Visiting Girl

Madge Walls really hits her mark in her new historical novel, The Visiting Girl. The characters, scenes, setting, and historical accuracy make this an excellent read for those who love to settle in and follow a story from beginning to end. The friendship between the two strong main characters, Caroline and Lily, takes some interesting turns throughout the story and beautifully depicts a time in our collective history during the women’s suffrage movement.  Welcome, Madge!

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Interviewed by Debbie A. McClure

Q Could you please give us a brief synopsis of your new book, The Visiting Girl?

Graduating from Bryn Mawr College in 1901, Lily Paxton is out of funds and at loose ends. With no immediate family, not raised to work, and no husband in sight, she becomes a “visiting girl,” going from home to home among her married friends in Philadelphia.

When the visiting circuit pales, Lily disappears, leaving her best friend Caroline a note saying she is off on an adventure out West. Lily keeps to herself that she is three months pregnant and has left with a man she barely knows—a man who is not the baby’s father.

Twenty years later, Lily writes to Caroline from Portland, Oregon, where she is dying of leukemia, asking Caroline to come to her in her final days. Caroline leaps at the opportunity to reconnect with her long-lost friend, but soon discovers that Lily has a hidden agenda that threatens to destroy both their families.

The Visiting Girl is inspired by the young life of movie star Katharine Hepburn’s mother, an early graduate of Bryn Mawr and a leading suffragist.

Q What inspired you to write this story?

A friend sent me the book, Katharine Hepburn, by Barbara Leaming, a respected biographer of celebrities. I was blown away by the story of Katherine’s mother, also called Kate. Orphaned young, she audaciously hired an attorney to force her guardian uncle, who did not believe in higher education for women, to honor the terms of her mother’s will and allow her to enroll at Bryn Mawr College in the late 1890s. The term “visiting girl” may have been coined by Leaming, as I can find no other reference to it on the Internet. I’ve given her full credit in the acknowledgements.

Q When you began writing this story, what was your objective for the reader and for yourself?

I simply wanted to write the kind of novel I like to read—strong women overcoming life’s obstacles, supportive friendships among women, a bit of suspense, and maybe a nice man or two. No screeching car crashes, no bloody murders smeared across the stage, (almost) no domestic violence, no vampires—you get the picture. Also, my previous two novels were set in Hawaii, where I lived most of my life. I later moved to Colorado and now Oregon to be near children and grandchildren, and I wanted to see if I could write authentically about the Mainland and of an earlier era.

Q How much research did you have to do in order to get as many of the historical facts of the time accurate?

A lot: Leukemia, Pullman trains and porters, Bryn Mawr, divorce laws, care of premature infants, and more. Interestingly though, I got to the end of a robust first draft and realized my twenty-two year timeframe, dictated by Lily’s graduation from Bryn Mawr in 1901, included The Great War (WW I), women’s suffrage, the Spanish Flu pandemic, and Prohibition. I’d barely mentioned those world-shaking events in the initial narrative, so I had to go back, dig deep, and weave my characters’ lives through them. LOTS of research, but a much richer and more believable story as a result!

Q Was it difficult or easy to find research sources for this book?

I found books and websites with more information than I could ever absorb. I tried to verify everything with at least two references. The most fascinating book was The Strange Case of Dr. Couney, by Dawn Raffel. It’s the nonfiction account of a doctor who, in the early 1900s, believed that premature babies could be saved with loving care and warmth instead of by being set aside and watched to see if they survived or not. In order to get attention for his methods, he displayed them at carnival freak shows. Really!

Also, The Justice Bell Story, found on the website of the Justice Bell Foundation. Fashioned after the Liberty Bell, the Justice Bell toured Pennsylvania in a pickup truck with its clapper chained silent during the final years of the suffrage fight. The Pennsylvania suffragists rang it in triumph upon the passage of the 19th Amendment.

Q What have you learned about the women’s suffrage movement while writing the book that you hadn’t realized before?

I had no idea it took so long—1840 to 1920—eighty years! By the time the 19th Amendment was finally passed, its earliest proponents were dead. And many women were vociferously against it—a harbinger of Phyllis Schlafly’s successful fight to derail the Equal Rights Amendment, which is still not the law of the land. I also learned about Abigail Scott Duniway, who led the fight in Oregon, where I live now. She had a disabled husband and six children and supported her family financially while fighting the fight. Even her brother, the editor of the Portland Oregonian newspaper, wrote many editorials against it.

Q What has surprised you the most about the writing and publishing processes?

I was surprised by how do-able (although tedious) the Amazon KDP self-publishing process was. The instructions are every clear. A high note was conquering the x-ray function for Kindle books. I use x-ray a lot in my reading (it allows you to find earlier references to characters you have forgotten when they pop up again). The x-ray has to be “enabled” by the author or publisher. It’s also a tedious process. You can’t just hit the button and move on. My twelve years as an indexer of nonfiction books helped!

Q Early in Caroline’s story you introduce the reader to a young girl on a train who faces the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy. What was your intent by including that section of the story?

Others have asked that question. I didn’t want to write, “Caroline waved goodbye to her daughter at the Philadelphia station, and five days later she disembarked in Portland, Oregon.” How boring is that? Quite honestly, Donalee sashayed down the train car aisle in my head and demanded to be in the story. So I gave her quite a scene. It shows Caroline as a caring person, and begins to wake her up to the many changes in attitude she will experience in the story. It also illustrates the dangers of illegal abortions.

Since the story deals with the many women’s issues that we still face today, I thought it fit. I originally intended to follow through with Donalee’s mother being one of Lily’s suffragist friends, but I ultimately decided I couldn’t manage any more to the story. I loved the scene and apologize to readers who expected more of a payoff!

Q What was the most difficult part of writing this story for you?

I really wanted to include a frank talk between Lily and Caroline about marital sex, specifically how one’s wedding night in those days could set the tenor for the rest of a woman’s conjugal life. How naïve were they, and how did their husbands treat them? Was it traumatizing? Pleasant? A chore? A bore? Did women back then even know it could be pleasant for them? I don’t know many answers, nor did Lily and Caroline. I just wanted to throw open the discussion—a discussion that never happened in my life. Would women in book clubs want or be brave enough to discuss this? While writing it, I tried to open the discussion with several of my women friends. Everyone changed the subject. Now that many of my friends have read the book, only one person has brought up this scene. I almost left it out, especially as I have three grown sons. Waugh! But I ultimately thought it was important, so I left it in. Let the readers decide!

Q What was the most interesting part of writing and publishing for you?

As for writing, I loved what I learned about the many subjects I had to research. As for publishing, I knew it would be near impossible to find an agent and publisher. Many whom I queried sent a stock reply that they were not accepting any new authors at this time. Covid? Dunno. Even if I did get an agent, I’m too old and impatient to wait another two or three years for potential publication. I decided to self-publish via Amazon KDP, which was not difficult and gave me total control of the project.

No matter how you get published, you are in charge of your own marketing, so that’s where I am now. Online marketing has grown exponentially since the publication of my previous novel, Buyers Are Liars. I’m really enjoying following that trail and the positive results I’m getting.

Let me give a shout-out to my daughter-in-law, Heather Walls, who designed the gorgeous cover. At first all the glowing feedback was about the cover. I began to fear that maybe the story did not live up to the cover’s promise…until I began to hear that it did.

Q When writing, are you a plotter or a panster, or a little of both?

First, I had to look up what a panster is. I guess that’s me! I start with an idea and begin writing. Outlining/plotting reminds me too much of the many research papers I had to write in high school and college—boring. I know the point I want to make and I have a general idea of how I’ll get there, but for me the real thrill is sitting down at my computer every day and watching the next scene play out in my head, and writing down what I see. In between writing sessions, the plot advances in my imagination with no help from me. I usually, but not always, know where to start when I sit down again. I try to stop in the middle of a lively scene, so that I’m excited to get back to it.

One thing I have discovered in being a panster is that you can easily find yourself going down a rabbit hole—something you love writing, but distracts from the story. See above where Caroline meets Donalee on the train to Portland. Give me credit, though, for throwing out the backstory of John’s mistress. Maybe I’ll put it out as a promotional bonus if I can figure out how.

Q What advice would you give to new writers just beginning their journey?

1. Write every day that you can. Writing only when you feel like it won’t get you anywhere, because mostly you won’t feel like it. I wrote my first two novels by getting up an hour early before work (except on the days when I walked on the beach with a friend!) I never felt like getting up to write, but the smell of coffee, set up the night before, coaxed me out of bed. Building momentum creates excitement, and you’ll want to get back to it as soon as possible. If you can squeeze out only 2 sentences or stick to it for half an hour, so be it.

2. Don’t get sidetracked by the research. Hit it lightly as you encounter things you need to verify, but save the heavy digging until you have found out if your story holds together. My first attempted novel got derailed by the research. I spent three years pre-Internet researching (and enjoying it), then found I’d lost interest when it came to the writing. Not that the time was wasted—I learned a lot about home life in the South during the Civil War (sitting in my mountain-view condo on Maui!), but I never got beyond a first draft.

3. Join a serious (but fun) critique group, in person or online. My first critique group was via manila envelopes and snail mail!

Q What’s next for you, Madge?

Wistful Creek is a story set just west of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, where I lived as a young bride in the late 1960s. While there I heard about a valuable piece of jewelry, found by a woman on the outer edges of my social circle, in a most unlikely place. The finder tried her darndest to locate the owner, but it proved impossible. This incident has been dancing in my head for over 50 years. I decided to turn it into a murder mystery, another challenge. I just started writing and can’t wait to find out how it all turns out!

Q Where can our readers find your book and connect with you online?

My website: Madge Walls Books

My Facebook page: Madge Tennent Walls

Books on Amazon.com: The Visiting Girl—A historical novel of friendship, loyalty, secrets, and love set in Philadelphia and Portland, Oregon, in the early 1900s

Paying the Price—A tender tale of mothers and daughters, and a real estate deal on Maui that goes spectacularly bad

Buyers Are Liars—As Maui Realtor Laura McDaniel’s elderly client slips deeper into dementia, Laura becomes increasingly caught in her downhill slide while trying to sell her house