Caravaggio, Cosa Nostra, and the Catholic Church in House of Honor by Margaret Ann Philbrick

Join me as I chat with Margaret Ann Philbrick, author of two novels listed on Art In FIction: House of  Honor listed in the Visual Arts category and A Minor listed in the Music category.

View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vUuYVDmYdDQ

• Genesis of House of Honor
• Obession with the life and work of Caravaggio
• Heist of Caravaggio's Nativity (still unsolved) as inspiration for the novel
• Use of color plates of Caravaggio's work in the print and ebook editions of the novel
• Why is Caravaggio's work so compelling?
• Writing in Caravaggio's voice in House of Honor
• Researching the mafia and the Catholic church for House of Honor
• The character of Orazio Bordoni - redemption and the prodigal son
• Reading from House of Honor
• Travels in Italy and Orazio's neighborhood in Rome in the 1960s.
• Music and Alzheimer's in A Minor
• Why Margaret doesn't have a smartphone!
• One thing Margaret learned from writing her novels that she didn't know before

Press Play now & be sure to check out Margaret Ann Philbrick's novels on Art In Fiction: https://www.artinfiction.com/novels?q=philbrick

Margaret Ann Philbrick's website: https://margaretphilbrick.com/

Music Credit
Paganology, performed by The Paul Plimley Trio; composed by Gregg Simpson

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Transcript

Carol Cram

Hello and welcome. I'm Carol Cram, host of The Art In Fiction podcast. This episode features Margaret Ann Philbrick, author of House of Honor, listed in the Visual Arts category on Art In Fiction, and A Minor, listed in the Music category 

Margaret Ann Philbrick is an author, gardener, and teacher who desires to plant seeds in hearts. She is a frequent contributor to a wide variety of magazines, and her poetry has been published in numerous anthologies. She has a BA in English Literature from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and a master’s from National Louis University.

Welcome to The Art In Fiction Podcast, Margaret. 

Margaret Philbrick

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. 

Carol Cram

I have to tell you that I was absolutely blown away by House of Honor. There's so much depth here with several interconnecting stories and themes. I just really love being swept up in the sheer variety that you pack into this novel.

So, tell us about the genesis of House of Honor. 

Margaret Philbrick

Yeah, the genesis. I would say that it all started, we were on a trip in Italy, and it was to celebrate our son's graduation from college. And my youngest son had just been in Italy six months before. And he said, as we walked up to San Luigi dei Francesi, Mom, you have to go in here.

And I said, another church. I mean, we've been in a lot of churches, and he said, no, no, no, you have to. There's three paintings by Caravaggio in this church and you just can't believe it. So I said, okay, we went in and walked all the way up to the front. And it's in this tiny chapel over on the left. And there was this priest putting euros in a metal box to light up these paintings by spotlights. And the lights only lasted about a minute and a half and then he had to put in more coins. And so, all these people, these seminarians, were there being taught about the paintings in Italian. And I was sort of in the background.

And then they cleared out and we put our money in the light box, and we walked into this little chapel, and you're surrounded on three sides by these just giant paintings by Caravaggio. And honestly, it was so arresting. I just didn't even want to leave. I just stood there.

I couldn't believe that this was one person that had painted these. And my mom was an oil painter, and she was just a very talented artist, and she brought me into the world of art. And she never really talked about Caravaggio. She had such an impressionist style in her own painting and a portrait painter. And so, it wasn't part of her oeuvre, really. And so, all of a sudden, I'm in a different world of art and I'm in this dark, musty church, and I had that feeling—and I'm sure you know this, Carol--of when you see something. It's so moving. You kind of feel like you're just sort of being gutted and things are spilling out of you onto the floor.

And then you don't want to leave your guts all over the floor. So, you sort of try to pull yourself together, but you pack everything back in and then you have to decide what are you going to do with all that? I was just so wrecked. I couldn't even really focus on the art.

I went to the bookstore and I bought a book about Caravaggio. And that sent me on, that was it. Then I was just going. And in that first book, I learned about this painting of his that was taken in 1969. And I started reading more and more about that painting. And then it just led me on the trail.

It was like just being given breadcrumbs and following this trail to try and figure out what in the world happened and who was this artist and what was he trying to do with this art? It was killing me. So, I got crazy. I got obsessed. I just went into a massive obsession. And the book was the outcome.

Carol Cram

It is amazing because the heist of Caravaggio's Nativity actually happened, right? Was it one of the top five art heists of all time? 

Margaret Philbrick

Correct. Yes, unsolved, of the unsolved heists. And the Gardner Museum heist is probably the biggest unsolved heist ever. But yeah, this is right up there and there's just a zillion theories about what happened to this painting because so many different mafioso have testified about it, so composedly about it in court, and all the stories are different. and so, nobody really knows where it is. 

Carol Cram

That's just such a wonderful inspiration for a novel. an unsolved art crime. And so basically, you solved it in your novel, but we'll eventually never know. 

Margaret Philbrick

Yeah, right, right. And I think that part of the joy of the book, for me in creating it, was that I didn't know about this artist. It wasn't Monet or Cezanne or Pisarro or Manet or Sergeant. These are people that really influenced my mother's art. And so, I had books about them in our house and I grew up with those painters. And so, they felt very familiar. And I love the fact that this was something other, it was just so shocking, how real his portrayals were of these scenes and these vignettes for the church.

And I just couldn't believe it. I was just taken by it. So that's what really set me on it, is what it did to me. And I guess because, like I said, it was new, it's something so new to you and it's encountering your heart and your soul in a way that is really deconstructing. And so, you want to construct something back, right?

You want to make something out of that. 

Carol Cram

Yes, and I mean, this is why personally I enjoyed the novel so much, for so many different reasons, but not least, it's because of Caravaggio. Like, I thought I knew Caravaggio, I know my history of art, I've seen his paintings, but I didn't know he did so many.

And of course, the thing that I absolutely loved about the novel is that you included the actual pictures, which is something you almost never see. I'm actually just curious as an author myself, how did you get to do that? How did your publisher let you do that? 

Margaret Philbrick

Yeah, yeah, that was the really painful part of the journey of this particular book. And that was because there were a number of really pretty highly regarded publishers that liked the novel, but they did not want to put the art in the book. And it just adds a much greater layer of complexity and production. And it's not like, oh, this local artist over here who's just getting started, it's, this is him. It has to look good. And I did not want to surrender that dream of the art being the undergirding of the plot line. And when I picked the paintings, part of my goal would be that the paintings laid out in chronological order would actually tell the story themselves. If you had read the book and then you just laid all those paintings down, you could see the story of what happened in the novel.

And I just felt that was so important that I just had to keep going and find someone who was willing to do it. And all the rights to these kinds of classic works, all books use Bridgman Art Library. And they're the ones who own the photography rights for these paintings, like The Goldfinch and Girl with a Pearl Earring, all these books go through Bridgman licensing to be able to use those representations.

And that's what happened here. 

Carol Cram

The publisher actually did allow that. Is it same in the print book? I read the ebook. 

Margaret Philbrick

Yes, that's my favorite part. It's interesting. I have really learned a lot about this because I've never done it. My first novel had the music embedded. Its classical music embedded into the book, and they also created a website of the classical music for people who weren't reading the ebook. And in this case, the quality is impacted by the paper type. And there's quite a bit of conversation about paper. And the paper that I have in the one I brought with me today is quite shiny.

I was surprised by how glossy it was. But then when I look back at my first book that I did with my mother that has her art in it. And that also is pretty glossy. And I guess I kind of figured out, oh, well, this is the way that you depict art that allows it to be the most crisp in its representation.

The problem is it makes the book a lot heavier. This book is very heavy and that makes it cost more. So, they're still trying to refine how to lighten up the paper level and still make the art look good. So, it's still a work in progress in that way. 

Carol Cram

I'm just so thrilled that you had this. It really helped, reading the book and seeing the painting that you would then, it had the letters from Caravaggio describing it, and then you actually saw the painting. It just gave so much more depth. 

Anybody who's interested in Caravaggio, you have to read this novel. Even if you're not interested in Caravaggio, you're going to learn. And actually, that was my next question. What is it about Caravaggio's work that makes it so compelling? 

Margaret Philbrick

That’s such a good question. Because he has been compelling, ever since he created these paintings. I mean, when Steven Zaillian who created Ripley, which just came out on Netflix this earlier this summer, he wrote into Patricia Highsmith's novel scenes of Tom Ripley going to see a Caravaggio painting in each of the episodes.

And he, as the con artist, being directly impacted by these paintings. And I think that they're so graphic. And they're so human, you don't have this kind of idealized romanticized vision of what was going on in the conflict of good versus evil. That was really the way it was painted prior to his day.

You had the cherubs floating and all that. And he was interested in just dispelling that and making real people be the subjects of what they were. Truly telling in those stories of those paintings. And if you look at David and Goliath, I mean, he painted his own face on the head of Goliath with all of the blood and the guts and the cords just dripping out while sweet David, so sweet and so young, holding this massive head in the foreground.

And that just had never been done. And even today, that painting looks contemporary. So, there's a timelessness of what he was doing there that people are just drawn to, and they see themselves in those paintings. He saw himself in the paintings, and I can look at a painting, one of his paintings. 

I love his other Nativity painting. That's probably one of my favorites, and there's such a sweetness of the way the shepherds and these people, the kings are not in it. It's just really the shepherds coming into the scene. And it's so intimate and there's such a humanity to it that is really rare even today.

I mean, that kind of humanity generally, I feel like is put with this quality of just, oh, just like, overexposed. And his has the subtlety, but yet it has the reality and the naturalism, and it's so provocative. 

Carol Cram

It is, and you really enhance the paintings by having these letters written by Caravaggio where he describes what he's going to paint.

Now, were those real, those letters, or did you write them? 

Margaret Philbrick

No, I wrote them. 

Carol Cram

I thought so. 

Margaret Philbrick

Good for you. I'm so proud of you. You got that because the editor on the book, the senior editor, she said to me, we need to be footnoting these. This is really bothering me that this is not referencing documents.

And I was like, no, it's not because he didn't write anything down. I mean, he just didn't, he wrote a few things, a couple of letters, but not a lot. And so, what we know is what we know from his art and then the biographers who described what was going on in his life. And now the current people who have written just tons and tons about him.

But that was just the big research quest for me was to be able to make those journal entries so authentic that you would actually think that, oh my gosh, I didn't know Caravaggio had a journal. I wanted people like Andrew Graham Dixon, current day biographers, to read those and say, wow, this person really, they did their research and yet have it have the voice of someone who's deranged and crazy.

So that was the hardest part of writing the book was honestly those journal pieces. It really was. 

Carol Cram

I would imagine. They were so well done because I love the way he would describe his own paintings. There was one line in particular when he was describing the Nativity actually, about how Mary's sitting on the ground with her hair disheveled because she'd just given birth.

I thought, wow, that was just so well done. It was a beautiful description, and as a mother, you go, yeah, I get that. 

Margaret Philbrick

Oh, thank you. That's so sweet. The Catholic church got really mad at him. I mean, just so mad at him. I mean, they were so just couldn't handle it, but yet they wanted his work.

They understood the prestige of having those altar pieces and how powerful they were. So, he was always in this terrible tug of war with the church, and so yeah, he did a lot of things with the representation of Mary. They did that one. 

Carol Cram

No, I wouldn't imagine they did because she really looked like a real woman. It was wonderful. So, I was going to ask how Caravaggio's story, as you told it through his journals and his letters, it kind of parallels the story of your main character, Ocasio. Can you talk a little bit about that? 

Margaret Philbrick

Yeah, I think that when I finally got my arms around the whole of Caravaggio's life, and I thought about this genre of books, which is very much a mafia, some people would say it's a mafia book.

Some people would say it's an art book. I did feel that it was important for the main character to be able to get free of what was entangling him. And I knew that if I were to create a parallelism, at some point those paths would diverge. And that was just part of the fun of dreaming up for Orazio Bordoni what is going to be the event that allows him to diverge from his crash course of Caravaggisti craziness. And that was a fun little thing to figure out. I don't want to give that away, of course. 

Carol Cram

One of the joys of reading this novel was there's so many different elements, so many working parts, so many different characters and scenes, and you're reading and going, wait, where's this going?

And that's the joy of it because you really have no idea, I think, until it starts to kind of coalesce towards the end and it all comes together beautifully. And your main character, how do I say his name again? I forgot. I think I said it wrong. 

Margaret Philbrick

Orazio. That's okay. Orazio Bordoni. 

Carol Cram

I wrote it down wrong. Orazio is a wonderful character. I really liked him because he was not very likable. There were times I'm reading the book, I'm going, you can't do that. To do that to your parents and whatever. I got really quite invested in him. That's of course what we want as authors, isn't it? To have our readers actually yell at the characters. 

But talk about how having such a flawed character contributes to the theme of redemption in the novel.

Margaret Philbrick

Yeah, I think that Orazio, he represents, and I hope that in some way there is a Caravaggesque quality about him, which is that he's a universal character. He is a person who has what all of us have, this need to sort of strike out on our own way, apart from what we were raised in, to find our calling, to find what we're here to spend our lives for. And then to, at some point in life, see value in the home that we were given despite its failings.

And there is no perfect home. There is no perfect church. There is no perfect anything. And I heard this hilarious quote recently that, if you think you've found the perfect church, it's not because you just stepped into it.

And Orazio is this kind of person that is going out to make his own name and he's going to do it his own way. And I respect that about the character, and I expect him to make mistakes, but I believe all of us are on a journey, that same journey in many ways, no matter how old we are in the course of our lives.

And at different places, we begin to see the value in things that we really couldn't see, or we were blinded to, because of setting out on that hero's journey. So yeah, I think that that's very much Caravaggio's story. He lost all his male relatives when he was very young to the Black Plague and his mother wanted to save his life. And so, she shipped him off to be an apprentice in an art studio so that he hopefully wouldn't die. And so, he was just cast out into his giftings and that's good for all of us. but probably really difficult for him in the long run. And he was just trying to establish himself as his own person throughout his very short life through what he was gifted to do.

And I think that Orazio is trying to do the same. And I think we all are, honestly. 

Carol Cram

Yes, we are. I mean, our lives are a constant, journey, isn't it? To try and, figure things out. 

Margaret Philbrick

I mean, what is the contribution? I mean, my mother, she died of COVID, and it was very sad, not expected. And yet we have her paintings all over our house. And so, she's alive in her work that lives on and look at your husband's beautiful paintings behind you. I mean, these things last. And that's one of the great things about art that we love is that it lasts.

Carol Cram

It does. Yeah, that certainly resonates with me. I lost my mother a few years ago, not to COVID, but COVID-related for sure. And she was an artist as well. So, we have a few things in common. So, I know I was very fortunate. She was a fabulous woman.

Margaret Philbrick

How old was she when she died?

Carol Cram

Oh, she was 94, so she had a wonderful life. 

Margaret Philbrick

Oh, lucky you. 

Carol Cram

Yes. I was very fortunate, and I was with her right to the end, so I was very fortunate. But I thought it would sort of be easier when your mother was older. No, it's not. It's still, but no, still a wrench. 

Margaret Philbrick

No. Every death is a tragedy. It just is.

Carol Cram

So actually, your novel really is kind of a prodigal son story, isn't it? 

Margaret Philbrick

Yes, it is. I think that there is this quality of starvation that comes with striking out on your own and having to really figure out what is it that I can contribute to the world that's of value and maybe I will be compensated for it and maybe I won't.

So many artists, right, posthumously, yeah, we all know who they are, but it isn't just the way it works necessarily that you're going to be able to provide for yourself through your art or through whatever the thing is that you're creating. And I think that I wanted to depict his soul starving and the ways that he was trying to fill it, Lena, and sweet Lena, she's so sweet.

I mean, he thought that that was going to be it, that was going to work. And it takes a lot. So yeah, it's easy to fall into places. And I think that the character really falls into a place there where he's trying to fill gaps with the Giotto family.

I mean, he has such great gaps in his own life that once he meets Lena and he's on to this new trajectory, he's got to plug those holes, for his own sort of soul value. He’s on a journey and he's just going to take what he can get and do it. 

I had this character sketched far more lasciviously than he ended up in the book. The publisher took him back a few steps, way, way more than I wanted them to. But it's, like, that was their choice. I'm still happy with the book. It's just that I wanted him to be a more edgy, much more edgy character. 

Carol Cram

Really? I thought he was fairly edgy. I guess he could have been more. I don't know. I liked him. 

Margaret Philbrick

I grew to love him a lot. 

Carol Cram

Yeah, he's good. Because you just see yourself in him. It's so fascinating. I think we all see ourselves, because we've all kind of screwed up. And we see ourselves in him trying, just trying to make his way, trying to fill his soul.

He's trying to fill the gaps, which we're all trying to do.

Margaret Philbrick

Yeah. I mean, my good friend said that was her favorite character. And it's, like, why is that? And she said, because he's so lavish. He's such a lavish, opulent character. And I was, like, fascinating. I mean, I don't think of him that way.

I think of him as impoverished. But she's talking about all the things that he is surrounding himself with, and the way he's approaching wanting to do in life what he's doing and how wonderful it is that he just decided to do that. And it took a lot of courage to do it. It really did. I mean, to tell you that to your dad, that I'm out of here, it's just, I mean, in an Italian family, that's unheard of.

So yeah, it's interesting. 

Carol Cram

But I also love Vincenzo, his brother. He was a nice guy. Yes. I like Vincenzo. How could you not? And he wasn't a goody two shoes or anything. He was just a really nice person. You kind of thought, oh, I'd like to know him. 

Margaret Philbrick

Yeah. That's really funny. Well, and I have a son. My oldest son is, he's just never, he's kind of always wondered why would you read and write fiction when life is so short? You should be spending your life reading and writing nonfiction.

And it's just like, oh, I mean, story is how the, that's just how the world turns. I mean, it's like we can't live on facts. Yeah. And so, I think that's interesting. 

Carol Cram

Well, to be human is to tell stories. I mean, everything revolves around stories, all our belief systems, everything. It's all storytelling. So yeah, and it's so much fun as a novelist to spend your days telling stories. I know it's great. I love doing it.

Margaret Philbrick

Oh, it's so fun. I mean, I do too. And you can understand what it's like to drive around in your car and just be soaking up the world that you're looking at but actually carrying on a conversation with your character in your mind and being so enraptured with their thoughts that you begin to really have a relationship with these fictional people that are just out of your imagination. And that is kind of, to me, the sad part of being a writer of this kind of work is when they are gone and the book is done, you're kind of over their lives and I miss them. Now I miss them. And so, this is why people write sequels.

Carol Cram

But in addition to Caravaggio and your wonderful main character, there's so many other machinations in this novel. You've got the mafia, you've got the Catholic church, you've got big business. I was absolutely in awe of the depth of research that you must have done.

So how did you do that to get all these different elements? I mean, particularly about the mafia and the church behind the scenes. 

Margaret Philbrick

Yeah, I did not. I know a fair bit about the church, but I'm not Catholic. So, I had to learn a lot about the Vatican. I read a ton of books and yeah, and then I had to make it fun, I didn't want to just, like, live on the computer. So, I went to London when the National Gallery was having the Beyond Caravaggio exhibit and I went to see that exhibit. 

I decided to do something so fun, which was to reserve as many books about Caravaggio as I could in the Victoria and Albert Museum Library, and you can reserve your books ahead of time, like, you can be in the States, get a library card and reserve your books, so that the day you show up, you're just given your stack and you just get to have it taken to your desk and there you are.

And I just read so much, and I took photographs of certain pages, and I just spent days and days there reading about the Vatican. That's really where I did a good bit of my Vatican research. And, also with the mafia, that was a little bit longer. I didn't know anything about the mafia except what my parents told me because they grew up in Oak Park, River Forest, Illinois, and there was a pretty significant mafia presence there when they were growing up.

So, I knew some of their stories. And I ended up creating a timeline on this giant, bigger than my arms reach, piece of paper of everything significant that happened in those years of 67, 68, 69, and then a little before and a little after so I could have a sense of what would plausibly be possible here in terms of the mafia taking this painting, and how and why would that ever happen.

And the main reason, and I think this is kind of funny because I was just recently criticized by someone who is Sicilian that said that this was implausible, but the book I read said that often art is used as a bargaining chip to even get mafioso out of jail. And that is a piece of the research I actually used in the book.

And I thought it was funny that this person who is Sicilian was saying, yeah, that would never happen. It's not. And it's like, of course it would, anything would happen with the mafia. It's like, how could you question it? They can do anything. So yeah, that was a big section of the research.

But the biggest for sure was the Caravaggio component, because I was going to write those journal entries. We've all seen The Godfather. I mean, we all have our own foundation of the mafia, and our own sense of who they are. And so, I had to kind of cherry pick within Italy, within this time frame of the stealing of the painting in real life, what was going on.

So that's how I sort of wove that together. 

Carol Cram

Yeah, it was absolutely remarkable. I could not get over your depth of research. Yes, I was amazed. Thank you so much. Would you like to do a reading now from House of Honor? 

Margaret Philbrick

Sure. I think it's always fun to read from one of your favorite characters. I listened to B. Shapiro's podcast, and she said in there, you do have to love your villains. It's important to love your villains. And I agree with that completely. And as I was writing this character, as my mother would say, drawing this character, I was just laughing out loud as I was typing about the banker, because he's such a quirky, weird character. 

And so, I want to read the introduction to the banker, so people get a sense of who he is, because I love him. 

Carol Cram

He was a great character. I would like to hear more about the banker. You have to write another novel with the banker. It was great. 

Margaret Philbrick

I know, I had people write to me and say that, yeah, I hope that you're going to write the Banker's story and I'm kind of like, I'm not sure that's going to happen. Okay, the Banker, this is in Milan, Italy, the section, he's up in Milan. 

The Banker shuffled down the street, knocking into a hunched woman in a black shawl who was trying to sweep with her equally antiquated straw broom.

“Get out of the way, befana,” he yelled, glaring at her. Muttering to himself about her inefficient means of removing cigarette butts from hit the street, the Banker cut through the crowd, fearful of being late to work. His new clients were on the verge of a financial breakthrough, and he didn't want to miss one minute of the first call of the day.

He checked his watch, just as he stepped off the curb. BEEP! A forest green Fiat swerved to avoid running him over. 

“Che cavolo! You cabbage!” he shouted while jaywalking his way across four lanes of city traffic. 

Banco d'Italia de Milano kept a small office for him in the basement, since he preferred to conduct all business privately via phone. Meetings in person wasted time as the participants invariably talked about their mother, their daughter's wedding, or their grandson's christening, for at least thirty minutes before getting down to business. Seeing his bodyguard open the steel door for him at eight a. m. on the dot brought a tiny measure of peace.

“Bongiorno, Estefan.” He smiled at the familiar face as he headed for the iron staircase. Maybe this day will proceed according to plan. 

His office looked like an underground bunker left over from World War II, with reinforced concrete walls, a desk with a single phone line, no file cabinets, no credenza, no windows. The one thing that stood out was a small white porcelain sink in the corner, where he washed his hands twenty-four times each day, once every morning hour and twice during the afternoon hours to make up for how he couldn't wash them while he was asleep. He thought about hand sanitizer, but it was new, and he couldn't trust it.

An exceptional detail of office decor was a Renaissance painting by Raphael of the Madonna and Child, Madonna dell’Impannata—an original, painted in 1514. The one hanging in the Medici's Pity Palace was a copy, but not many people knew that. He wanted the Sleeping Cupid by Caravaggio also in the Pitti Palace but switching it with a reliable forgery proved too difficult, even for his estimable Florentine contacts. Anyway, he loved Madonna. She became his companion when the short, dark days of winter engulfed him in seasonal affective disorder—SAD, they called it, but he never felt sad. He preferred to think of himself as melancholic. He took comfort in knowing that the Madonna looked out for him over his left shoulder while he was working, and the rest of the time from his right breast pocket, where he kept a color photograph of the painting next to his heart.

He glanced at his watch. 8. 01 a. m. The caller was late. Stretching his back on the clean straw mat proved a useful antidote to drumming his fingers on the desk. Nimbly, all five feet, four inches of his designer-suited frame lowered onto the mat. And the second he achieved the uncomfortable downward dog yoga pose, the phone rang. Trying to maintain downward dog, he reached with his right hand to grab the receiver. He listened for identification—all of his callers knew to identify themselves first, or he wouldn't speak to them. 

“Giotto from Palermo, update per favore.” The familiar voice on the line always provided his name, location, and the purpose of the call.

“Si, si. Twenty-five million in the Union Banquiere of Switzerland has been wired to the Messina Pizza Corporation in New York. And another twenty-five million from Leinhardt Bank to Rossetti Imports in the British Virgin Islands. I prefer working with family-owned entities. Two more significant transfers next Monday. Call then for confirmation. As discussed, I'm interested in being paid in fine art for my services, solo. Grazie. Ciao.”

Don Giotto took a deep breath. He knew the banker disliked long conversations. “Un momento, per favore. Cardinal Missoni from the Vatican will be calling you in fifteen minutes seeking your assistance. 

He looked at his Patek Philippe watch. “Bene, bene. Grazie, Signore Giotto, ciao.” That left him plenty of time to have Estefan bring him a cappuccino from upstairs to savor prior to the next call. 

Carol Cram

That's great. That gives a really great overview of the Banker. So, your Italian is great. Do you actually speak Italian? 

Margaret Philbrick

Oh my gosh, I wish I did. I so wish I did. I had to learn some Italian and I have worked on it, but I mean, I am not fluent in Italian, so I had to have the book go through a number of fluent Italian speakers.

And it turned out that Alison Wells, who was the first editor of the book, her best friend was Sicilian. So, she took all of the Sicilian dialect to her from the Sicilian sections to make sure that that was authentic, autentico. And it was, she really fixed it for me. So, I was able to distinguish in this book between the different, more formal Italian versus the Sicilian Italian. And that was just because I had great people in my circle that helped me because, yeah, I could not have done that. 

Carol Cram

We love editors. I always make sure to get experts to read those bits. So, you travel to Italy a lot, I presume.

Margaret Philbrick

I've been there four times, and I was so fortunate when I was young, I went to school after college. I went to Cambridge in England, and I studied the postmodern poets, and I studied Shakespeare. And as part of that, I just absolutely met the greatest friend. And we went to Italy when I was so young, I was 21 or 22.

And we just did this Italian trip together. And that was my first sort of virgin encounter with this country. And I have gone over probably every decade since. And it's been really interesting to see it change and how the more I go, the more I want to go. And so, it's dangerous. It's a dangerous place in that way.

Carol Cram

Yeah. That's something else we have in common. I also went to university in England. I didn't go to Cambridge. I went to Reading, but I did my BA in Reading, back in the ’70s.

Margaret Philbrick

Oh, that's a treat. That's so neat. Oh my gosh. 

Carol Cram

And I also went to Durham, which is in Northern England, but we used to go to Cambridge. And my boyfriend at the time had friends in Cambridge. So, I remember going there. What a great city. 

Margaret Philbrick

Yeah. I loved it. I so loved it. Yes. Yeah. 

Carol Cram

We go to Italy a lot. My husband tends to show his work there. There's so many galleries and so many opportunities that he keeps getting shows so we keep going.

Margaret Philbrick

And I think, yeah, I think in the book, that's one of the things I was so fascinated by was in the Renaissance, what was happening then with art, obviously, was just an explosion. But at this time, in the ‘60s, it was also going on. And so, it made sense that Orazio was going to make his way in Rome as a person so interested in creating art and collecting art, because that actually was happening there at the time.

And so, and that was just a stroke of luck that in the reading, I was able to discover that art was having its sort of a heyday in the ‘60s as it was everywhere. But, I mean, I just thought that was the pop art was such a thing. And it was just neat to that. I think of that as an American kind of art when it was actually everywhere, and it was just really fascinating that he could have done that.

He could have become a collector of fantastic new wave art in the ‘60s in Italy, and he was just setting out to just do that, so that was kind of fun to discover that. 

Carol Cram

The neighborhood where he lived was right near the Spanish Steps, wasn't it ,I seem to remember, because I particularly love that, because on our last trip to Italy this past May, we stayed right around that neighborhood, which was, for me, actually quite a new neighborhood. I know Rome quite well, and I've never stayed in that area now, before. In those days, it was quite bohemian, as you talk about in the novel.

Margaret Philbrick

Yes. Now it's very upscale. 

Carol Cram

It's very rich now, but it wasn't back then. So, I thought, oh, it's the same neighborhood. Yay. I recognized some of the places you talked about.

Margaret Philbrick

Yeah, the Montechiani. That's the Montechiani. 

Carol Cram

I'd also like to briefly talk about your debut novel, A Minor, which I unfortunately did not have time to read. But I see that it has a connection both to music and to Alzheimer's, which is kind of close to my heart because I've lost both my father and my brother to Alzheimer's, and my brother was a composer, so I think I'd have to read that novel. Can you tell us a little bit about the novel? 

Margaret Philbrick

Sure. The novel is a love story. It's more of a love story than this book, and I just thought to have a piano prodigy, someone who is that so extraordinarily gifted, have this relationship with his teacher depicted. And he's on his way to the Tchaikovsky piano competition. That's what they're trying to get to. And then to have her be diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's. So, she's in her early fifties in the book. How are they going to navigate the relationship? And the music is the hero. And that is just an interesting aspect of art that it can have this heroic presence in our lives if we allow it to be that. And so, it is about that language. When things are ascending and things are declining, where does music come into that relationship and be able to speak for us and to us?

And I was really caught up in that at the time because I had some relatives who were diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and our oldest son, who the book is dedicated to, is just such a fine pianist, and he had a really very special relationship with his piano teacher. And one of the things that happened, why I wrote that book, was she made me as the mother sit in on these piano lessons and take notes.

And then I had to go over the notes during the week with him while he was practicing at home to help him remember these fine points of these lessons. And then he went off to college. And I had all these notebooks and I'm looking through these notebooks and I'm like, there's just a great story here, and all the research was coming out. Your Brain on Music had come out and Oliver Sacks, and all of his musicophilia was coming out. All of that was new at the time that I had these notebooks. And I just thought, wow, I just have to write this love story of these people and how they navigate these challenges through music, and what does that do to their relationship?

So that was what happened. That's how that happened.

Carol Cram

Yeah, I definitely have to read this novel. Definitely sounds like something I would really enjoy. Yeah. Well, because music and also the relationship to Alzheimer's. As I said, my brother had early onset as well. He died at 65, I guess he was. I know, it was absolutely tragic, and he was a fantastic composer. He was a jazz composer. And yeah, he was a pretty amazing guy. But not all that long before he passed, we were still playing together. I play piano as well. 

One question I wanted to ask you before I went on is, I’ve actually read on your website that you don't have a smartphone. Tell us how not owning one has helped you as an author. I was very impressed by that.

Margaret Philbrick

Oh my gosh. Oh, it's, oh, it's helped so much. I think I talked about this in the article. Yeah. Being present. We’re just lost in our culture. And because of that, that actual in-hand technology, we've really lost, generally speaking, the ability to be a hundred percent engaged and fully present to another person, or to a forest, or to this writing center that I'm sitting in, without this constant deviation and distraction of ding or whatever it is.

And when that technology was coming into the forefront and of course my children were frothing at the mouth to have it, I just saw this takeover happen and I was working on a book at the time and I just felt like if I go into that world, I'm never going to finish this project. And finishing well is definitely sort of a thing I try to do and be intentional about and that would just be such a deviation from the creative process, the innovating presence in my own work as well as with other people, and I just couldn't do it. 

I just, oh, it just gives me chills. And so, I mean, this has been spoken into by many other people. It's not just my own ideas here. I mean, I remember being at a writing conference in Grand Rapids and a professor from Duke Divinity School held up his iPhone in this talk, and this was years ago. This is easily more than a decade ago. And he said, this is the most powerful and destructive tool that you as a writer will ever hold, and you will have to steward it well, or it will eat you alive. And that just terrified me. I was like, I don't want that. I don't want to have that happen. So, I didn't. I just act like I'm not going to do it.

Carol Cram

Good for you. I wish I could do that. I know I have to learn just to put it aside because I find that it has impacted me, especially in the last few years. I'm far more distracted than I should be. But I was inspired to read that. Although I probably won't give it up myself. But just to know that you did, that somebody doesn't have one and managed to produce such great work that you have is very inspirational. So, thank you for that. 

Margaret Philbrick

It's just all about stewarding it. I think if you just said to yourself, okay, there's one day a week, I'm just going to live without my phone. I'm just going to do it. Just one day a week. It'd be so interesting to see as an experiment. What would that be like? Right? 

Carol Cram

I definitely want to do less, put it that way. 

So, one of my goals with The Art In Fiction Podcast is to inspire other authors. What's one thing you've learned from writing your novels that you didn't know before?

Margaret Philbrick

I would say this, I don't write on, like, like B. A. Shapiro. I mean, she's writing on contracts of books where she has time frames that are laid out for her, and she has to finish by a certain date, right? It's just how it works. And I've not been in that situation. And so, I actually like having this kind of freedom, to be able to say it takes as long as it takes, and not pressure myself that, oh my gosh, this has taken me five years.

What am I doing here? There's a lot going on and it's okay. Like give yourself permission to take as long as it needs to take to refine it to the place that it needs to be and to be living. And I think that that has been a big learning for me is to get away from the timetable and be willing to accept what it is.

And it's like, you can't control it sometimes. And it's okay. You really need to just sort of let go of this American, we are going to get this done by X day or it's a failure, you know? And I appreciate that about our culture for sure, because a lot gets done, but it also can be for a creative person a burden.

And so, I, with this book, I had to let go of that. I was like, it's going to take what it takes. And that's okay. 

Carol Cram

Yes, that totally resonates with me. I think one of our big problems or one of my challenges as an author is comparing myself to other authors, which really is not a good idea, because as you say, it takes what it takes, one novel might take three years, one novel might take 10, one might take six months, who knows, but you can't compare yourself to other authors.

Margaret Philbrick

That's right. But you can, you can do this. I like this kind of comparison. I love hearing things like, well, The Help was rejected 69 times, or, JK Rowling was rejected 45 times, or there's all those kinds of comparisons, right? Mark Halperin always spends 10 years between his books, so there is, like, helpful comparing, and then there's very unhelpful comparing, right?

Carol Cram

Yeah, the people who churn out five good novels a year, it's like, how do you do that? Anyway, you can only be yourself. Nobody can write your novel except you.

Margaret Philbrick

That's right. 

Carol Cram

So, tell us a little bit about your process as an author. Do you start with the research, or do you do it as you write, or how do you do that?

Margaret Philbrick

Yeah, there's a behind the book section in House of Honor that gives perspective on things. And this is one of the things, and I think it's good to have, be in touch with, why are you writing this? And I definitely am a person of pretty high-level curiosity, and I think anyone who's a writer has to be.

And so, a significant question or an event that probes a question, like seeing those paintings by Caravaggio and then learning about that heist.  I'm going to be set on a trail. To hound down the answer to a question. And that's generally how all of my books roll. What would happen if a prodigy entered into a love relationship with this teacher and she got Alzheimer's, what would that look like?

You know? So, it's always a question and it's a question that I will spend a fair amount of time researching, it could be up to a year where then I'll look at it and step back from it and say, okay, is there something here? I had many years invested in my notebooks with my son's piano teacher and there were the lessons and so I'll really kind of then zoom out from it and say, what do I have here?

Is there a scaffolding here that I really want to embrace and put the meat on? And then if there's not, I can just leave it and it's okay. Because I know another question is going to come along. It's going to be something. And then what I try to do is whenever I take on a big project. So, one of the questions I'm dealing with right now is back because I've done music, classical music, and then this is visual art, and my daughter's a professional dancer. I really do want to do a novel about the dance world, and I need to do a novel that has a female heroine because all these books have been male protagonists, and I'm a woman, let's write about a woman here.

I will do a book, hopefully, God willing, about the dance world and there was a moment in the Bolshoi a number of years ago where there was such a giant fight over roles and who was getting what roles and who wasn't that there was an event where someone threw acid in the face of the artistic director and severely burned this person. And so that raised all kinds of questions for me. What is happening here? And so that's been running around in my mind for a bit of a time. And I don't know if I'll actually write that book, but that's the kind of thing that happens for me is I just get arrested by a question and I have to sort of think it through and figure it out. And I'll work on these big projects in an effort to answer that question. I'll do a fair bit of research, like I said, and then I'll step back and really think through what kind of a plot is there potentially here. Do I love it? And I'm always writing poetry on the side. And so, I love this kind of poetic take on the world and what I'm seeing that is quick.

I do it through my Instagram. It's very quick. It's pretty rough. I don't spend a lot of time on it, but if I see something, I'll take a photo of it. It'll spark an idea, and I'll just generate a poet, a poem on it and get it out there. So, I get this really fun balance of the deep and the wide with the short.

And the fire, and I like kind of swirling in between those two worlds and that's my writing process. That's kind of how I do it. 

Carol Cram

Oh, fantastic. I can relate to that as well. Interesting. Thank you so much, Margaret, for chatting with me. As I said, I'm so inspired by your novel, and it's been just delightful talking with you.

Margaret Philbrick

Thank you. I've been delighted to talk to you about it. Thanks for caring so much about the literary world that we're living in. I appreciate that. 

Carol Cram

I've been speaking with Margaret Ann Philbrick, author of House of Honor, listed in the Visual Arts category, and A Minor, listed in the Music category, on Art In Fiction at www.artinfiction. com. 

Be sure to check the show notes for a link to Margaret's website at www. margaretphilbrick.com. You'll also find a link to a 20 percent discount on a subscription to ProWritingAid, a fantastic editing tool for writers.

If you're enjoying The Art In Fiction Podcast, please help us keep the lights on by making a donation on the Ko Fi website. The link is in the show notes. Also, please follow Art Fiction on Facebook. And remember to give the Art Fiction podcast a positive review or rating wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks so much for listening.