Stephanie Dray on Becoming Madam Secretary

I’m absolutely delighted to feature Stephanie Dray again on Triclinium. She is not only a talented author but a lovely person who is very generous with her time. She is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal & USA Today bestselling author of historical women’s fiction. Her award-winning work has been translated into many languages and tops lists for the most anticipated reads of the year. Now she lives in Maryland with her husband, cats, and history books.

As fellow ancient history buff, I loved Stephanie’s Egyptian novels but she has moved forward in recent years to explore America’s history with America’s First Daughter, My Dear Hamilton, The Women of Chateau Lafayette and now Becoming Madam Secretary.

You can connect with Stephanie via Facebook, Instagram and her Amazon page. She also runs a terrific newsletter with lots of giveaways so be sure to sign up via her website.

Becoming Madam Secretary is a captivating and richly dramatic novel about Frances Perkins, one of the greatest political figures of the twentieth century, and an unsung heroine whose legacy is woven into the fabric of every American life. I was interested to learn more about Frances and how Stephanie came to write the novel.

Can you tell me how you came across Frances Perkins?

I knew that she was a groundbreaking political figure–our first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet. And I thought someone ought to write about her; I just wasn’t convinced it ought to be me. I had the impression that she was matronly, stern and dull. That is, until I stumbled over a photo of a very young Frances Perkins, who was stylish, dashing, and anything but dull. She used to go undercover to expose pimps and human traffickers, for goodness sake. So I had to know how the intrepid young Fannie Perkins, the daughter of a stationery store owner, rose to White House. And it’s quite a story!

How did you approach researching her story?

I started the novel in March of 2020 just as everything was shutting down for the pandemic, so I knew I would have to approach this differently. I couldn’t go anywhere or talk to anybody face to face, so I started out relying heavily on biographies and her transcribed oral history at Columbia University. Eventually I was able to get eyes on her personal papers too, but it didn’t start from that point of view.

What challenges do you face in bringing strong women characters to the fore within the limitations placed on them during the era?

I love writing about women who I consider to be Founding Mothers of my country. It’s been clear to me that Jefferson, Hamilton, Lafayette, and the others could never have been what they were without the women behind and beside them. But I’m often reconstructing their lives based on the fragments we find about the men in their lives. There’s little primary source material on the ladies. For me, it was a natural jump to Frances Perkins, who is undoubtedly a Founding Mother of the 20th century, whose work shaped an entire century. But what was different about her from the start is that there was an enormous public record I could use. She was in the newspapers constantly. And she had far more agency than most of the ladies I’d written about before. I knew she would have found a way to be consequential with or without Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In fact, he wasn’t even her first political partner. So even though she was in FDR’s orbit, he was also in hers and that made the difference to his whole presidency.

What was the most surprising thing you learned about Frances?

That she had a great and playful sense of humor. People talk about her as an unfailingly serious person of boundless wisdom and philosophical depth. She certainly was that. But her own oral history proves that she was also funny and she enjoyed being around party girls like Mary Rumsey and cut ups like Sinclair Lewis. I feel like women are always expected to fit into one box. The madonna or the whore. The brainiac or the bimbo. And so on. I think Frances wanted us to put her in the box of serious cabinet secretary, because she thought that’s what she had to be to represent other women well, to represent the country well, and to fulfil her mission as she saw it. But Frances wasn’t only ever one thing. None of us ever is.

Did you form a different view about Franklin D Roosevelt after learning about Frances’ interaction with him?

Yes!! I still think FDR is one of the greatest and most consequential presidents in the country’s history. I put him up there in the top tier with Washington and Lincoln. But oh, he could be such a jerk. Such a completely opportunistic political animal. Such a coward at times. LOL. Again, I guess that just goes to show you that people–especially leaders–are very complicated.

Do you have a particular favourite image or artwork associated with the period in which your book is set? Why?

Dorothea Lange’s iconic image from the Great Depression  “The Migrant Mother” is emblazoned on my brain. It effectively conveys the kind of struggle and desperate trouble the country was in when Frances Perkins was called to serve.

Is there anything unusual or even quirky that you would like to share about your writing of Becoming Madam Secretary?

I don’t know if this is exactly quirky or unusual, but it is meaningful to me, so I will say that four of my grandparents lived through the Great Depression and they all had stories. One of the most tragic was that my grandfather’s teenaged older brother decided, in desperation, to steal coal from a passing train to keep the family warm during a very cold Rochesterian winter. He died in that attempt and the family never got over that loss. My grandfather would go on to join the Civilian Conservation Corps when he was old enough and he was very proud of the lumberjacking skills he learned serving the country, and of his ability to send home some money to keep the family afloat. So I was very moved to learn just how involved Frances Perkins was in that program. I’m not sure my family would have survived without her and then I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale!

Tell us about your next book.

Thanks for asking! I’m now working on a novel with my good friend and sometime co-author Laura Kamoie about a little-known Founding Mother named Abigail Adams!

Raised on tales of her revolutionary ancestors, Frances Perkins arrives in New York City at the turn of the century, armed with her trusty parasol and an unyielding determination to make a difference.When she’s not working with children in the crowded tenements in Hell’s Kitchen, Frances throws herself into the social scene in Greenwich Village, befriending an eclectic group of politicians, artists, and activists, including the millionaire socialite Mary Harriman Rumsey, the flirtatious budding author Sinclair Lewis, and the brilliant but troubled reformer Paul Wilson, with whom she falls deeply in love.

But when Frances meets a young lawyer named Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a tea dance, sparks fly in all the wrong directions. She thinks he’s a rich, arrogant dilettante who gets by on a handsome face and a famous name. He thinks she’s a priggish bluestocking and insufferable do-gooder. Neither knows it yet, but over the next twenty years, they will form a historic partnership that will carry them both to the White House.

Frances is destined to rise in a political world dominated by men, facing down the Great Depression as FDR’s most trusted lieutenant—even as she struggles to balance the demands of a public career with marriage and motherhood. And when vicious political attacks mount and personal tragedies threaten to derail her ambitions, she must decide what she’s willing to do—and what she’s willing to sacrifice—to save a nation.

Thanks so much for taking the time to tell us about Frances Perkins. As an Australian, I always find it fascinating to learn about pockets of American history that is not familiar to me. You can buy Becoming Madam Secretary and all Stephanie’s back list here.

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