Foodie Lit
Amy Maroney's Girl from Oto
I love the details of life, especially from another era or from another culture. Amy Maroney handles these complexities remarkably well in her dual timeline novel. Tension is created as the locations connect, modern characters discover what we the readers have learned in the past timeline and we yearn with the main characters for the resolutions in their lives.
Amy creates a vivid portrait of the late 15th century in Spain and the Basque country. This is a favorite aspect of historical novels for me. I asked her about how she gathered this information. “I read a lot of books and papers by scholars who focus on late medieval/early Renaissance Europe. I speak French so I was able to access resources about life in the Pyrenees in French libraries and databases. I enjoy research and I love finding tiny “throwaway details” about people and their relationships and their worlds in notary agreements, wills, tax records, church records, etc.” Spending time in the Basque country gave Amy a sense of this area, including its history and daily life in this pre-Christian domination.
Mira and Zari live 500 years and continents apart and yet are linked by the uncertainties in their lives, their love of art and their hope for stable and supportive relationships. Zari comes to Europe in search of Renaissance female portrait painters for her doctoral studies. Her original theory unravels as she picks up the scent of an unknown and possibly female painter. In the late 15th century, Mira lives in a time and place when women had little freedom as daughters, mothers or wives. Brought to a convent as an infant orphan, Mira has simultaneously more and less freedom than others. She is allowed an excellent education, not afforded most women even from the upper classes, and yet she is constrained by the order of the day, the strict dress code and her freedom of choice.
Freedom, or rather its lack, for women in the 15th century is a core theme in the novel. It must be said that in this era, and beyond, there is a lack of freedom for both men and women, arising from the volatile political situations: constant wars, religious controversies, the Spanish Inquisition, the fight between Catholic Church and Monarchies for power and wealth. Yet there is no doubt that women in their lives lacked political freedom, independent decision making and financial control. While there were some minor exceptions, as this novel shows, women were ruled by the male members of their families, often cruelly and without recourse. Even high-born women were in the same position, with demands for male heirs a priority. As shown in Amy’s characters, women were often blamed when girls were born and there certainly were cases of infanticide for girls or resulting divorce and disgrace for wives.
Amy shared with me, “The feudal societies that dominated Europe at that time were violent and patriarchal. Women were often married off to neighboring nobles for political and economic reasons—some of them before puberty. Producing sons was their one job. There are many examples in the historical record of women being cast aside or murdered by their husbands if no sons resulted from the marriage. (Anne Boleyn is probably the most famous.)”
Amy nonetheless creates strong women, who succeed to gain some degree of independence through their wits. We see the Mother Abbess of Mira’s convent as an example of a woman who ran all aspects of the convent, from the religious life, business, to even its flocks of sheep, collection of wool and eventually its weaving and its sale. Surprisingly, this was common at the time. Amy told me, “My research showed that before the Council of Trent in the mid-16th century, religious women had significant power. Abbesses were free to travel, convents were open to visitors, women could have quite a bit of agency within those spaces. My story takes place when all of that was coming to an end, but it celebrates a way of life for women that history books tend to ignore. Nuns weren’t all silenced, cloistered, powerless women at that time. Some of the medieval era’s most beautiful art and brilliant writing comes from women living in religious communities.”
The Girl from Otto is an artful combination of genres. How did Amy accomplish this? “History, mystery, thrillers, and romance are my favorite genres, and I was writing the book I’d always wanted to read. I’ve always enjoyed romance as a component of other genres rather than as the main story. That’s what I set out to do,” Amy told me. She continued by talking about one of the goals of this novel and the others in this same series. “I really wanted to tell the world about the great women artists who did exist in early modern Europe. Like most people, I was taught that Old Masters were all men. That is untrue. Researchers are changing this story to reflect the truth now. But when I was in college, I believed my art history textbook, which did not include a single woman artist from that era in Europe. It really disturbs me that the historical record is so biased and full of holes. Ultimately, I want to illuminate some of these lost voices and stories with my fiction.”
She has been able to accomplish this goal masterfully, absorbing me to the very last word! (and go on to the other books in her series!)
Zari and her boyfriend Will spend some time eating delicious food in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, all of which boast fantastic chocolate. I couldn’t resist! I know they would have delighted in this Chocolate Mousse Cake, with its decadent chocolate cake, mousse and ganache! Go ahead and splurge!
