Books: The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë

Interview with author Syrie James and review of her novel about Brontë and the man who secretly loved her *** 3 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Gosh!TV) 10/30/2009 “I was astonished to discover that much of Jane Eyre was inspired by Charlotte’s own experiences,” says The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë author Syrie James. “Despite her difficult circumstances at home, including the fact that her brother became an alcoholic and a drug addict and her father nearly went blind, she and her sisters Anne and Emily [who wrote Wuthering Heights] all became published authors at the same time. I can’t think of any other family in history who’ve achieved a similar literary feat. I knew it would make a fabulous story, and it had never been told.”

The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë tells the story of Charlotte Brontë from her point of view. In her diaries, she’s very honest about who she is. Brontë has traveled a bit and fallen in love, but that love was not to be. Brontë is secretive, as all the Brontë sisters are about their writing. When they admit what they’re doing, they’re there for each other. The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë was selected by the National Women’s Book Association as a Great Group Read of 2009.

“While in Yorkshire, touring the former Roe Head School which Charlotte attended in her youth, the Director of the school took my husband and me up into the spooky, rambling attic and told us old legends of the Ghost of Roe Head,” says James. “He and others have seen strange apparitions, including an inexplicable, icy presence which haunted the main hall.  I feel certain that legends of the same mysterious, attic-dwelling ghost influenced Charlotte’s Jane Eyre.”

“Her father’s curate, the tall, dark, and handsome Arthur Bell Nicholls, carried a silent torch for Charlotte for more than seven years before he had the nerve to propose,” says James. “Charlotte greatly disliked him for many years, but her feelings eventually changed. She came to love him with all her heart.”

For her research, James poured over countless Brontë biographies. She read all the poetry of the Brontës, their published novels, Charlotte’s juvenilia, and her voluminous personal correspondence. More than 500 letters exist, preserved by Charlotte’s publisher’s literary adviser William Smith Williams and her friend Ellen Nussey. James studied the art of the Brontës which she found “quite remarkable”.  She also read everything she could find about the life of Arthur Bell Nicholls.”

“I went to Haworth, England,” says James. “I walked the village’s steep, narrow main street, and made an extended visit to the Brontë Parsonage Museum, which has been preserved to reflect the way it looked when the Brontës lived there. I haunted the church and the rooms and lanes where Charlotte and Emily and Anne lived and walked, and strolled through that gloomy graveyard in the pouring rain. I visited the Brontë library, where I was allowed to hold and read a selection of original letters and manuscripts penned by Charlotte and other members of the Brontë family.
 What an unforgettable thrill!”

Syrie James was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. She currently lives in Los Angeles.

“After my sons were born, I began to miss school and writing and enrolled in a writing workshop class.” says James. “The teacher was very encouraging and recommended that I attend a Romance Writers of America conference. There, I learned a wealth of invaluable information about structure, characterization, plot, and dialog. I wrote two books while raising babies.”

“Then my husband had a job offer to move out of state,” says James. “I wanted to stay in California, so I told him that I needed to stay in Los Angeles because…thinking fast…I wanted to be a screenwriter!  (We’re both total movie addicts.) Always supportive of me, Bill said, ‘Okay. We’ll stay. But you’d better make good on that promise, and write a screenplay.’  Fortunately, staying in California was the best career move he could have made for himself at the time. But for me, the gauntlet had been thrown. I had to follow through.”

“I chose the most difficult subject imaginable for my first screenplay, a medical thriller,” says James. “What was I thinking? I have no medical training!  The script required untold hours of medical research and interviews. I found that I truly enjoyed the research aspect of the project. I ended up selling nineteen screenplays and teleplays in a variety of genres to every major TV network and several studios.”

“Flash forward to 2004. I felt compelled to return to my first calling, writing books,” says James. “This meant finding a new literary agent in New York and starting over again from square one. I spent a year and a half writing that first novel . . . and again, it was a medical thriller.”

James used the website agentquery.com, to find her agent. “The site enables you to create a list of potential agents according to your specific genre and their area of interest. I spent a week writing that first, all-important query letter, and then began the grueling, six-month process of sending out queries and synopses, sample chapters, and copies of the manuscript to a list of thirty agents.  At last, to my delight, a terrific agent, Tamar Rydzinski at the Laura Dail Literary Agency, offered to represent me.  Despite her best efforts, she didn’t sell that medical thriller …yet.”

Rydzinski suggested that James write another book in a completely different genre. “In response, I sent her my favorite spec screenplay which I’d written several years earlier,” says James. “Inspired by my love for Jane Austen’s books and the films based on those books, I had written a script revealing the untold story of Jane Austen’s secret, life-changing, passionate romance. Tamar read it and called me up in great excitement, saying: ‘If you can write this as a novel from Jane Austen’s point of view, and sound like Jane Austen, I can sell it in five minutes!’”

“I was a bit intimidated at first by the task before me,” says James. “It had taken me 18 months to research and write that script. It’s far easier to write a screenplay, which is basically an outline with dialog, than to attempt to reproduce, in a novel, the voice of Jane Austen, one of the most famous authors in history. Could I do it? Did I dare even try?”

“I went back and immersed myself in my research all over again,” says James. “While I wrote the novel, I only read books by Jane Austen or about Jane Austen. I had a fabulous time bringing that story to life on the page. When the manuscript was finished, Tamar sold it to the wonderful Lucia Macro at Avon, an imprint of HarperCollins, in a two-day bidding war between three major publishing houses. The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen went on to become a bestseller and was named a Best First Novel of 2008 by the Library Journal.”

“It seemed to make sense to write my next novel from the perspective of another 19th century British writer,” says James. “This time focusing on the life and romance of Charlotte Brontë, the famed authoress of one of my all-time favorite books, Jane Eyre. I wanted to know and understand the woman who wrote this remarkable novel, which is still so popular today. As I did my research, I was quickly captivated by the true story of Charlotte’s real-life romance.”

Even thought James’ book is called a dairy, it’s not written in diary format. There are occasional references where Charlotte addresses her diary. The book is more conversational, as though Charlotte is telling you a story. James researched her subject thoroughly. Charlotte, her friends, and family come off as plausible. James adds details that are available. The drama isn’t over done. James’ characters are real people. As you read you can understand their feelings and why they do the things they do.

James makes Charlotte’s relationship and subsequent marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls romantic, as Charlotte might have written herself. After reading this book you’ll want to go back and read the Brontë’s books. At the back of The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë there are is an afterward, question-and-answer section for the author, and excerpts from some of Charlotte’s letters, as well as some poems by the Bronte siblings.

James’ next book, to be published in 2010, is Dracula, My Love: The Secret Memoirs of Mina Harker. It’s the untold story of Bram Stoker’s classic Victorian thriller, revealing the heroine’s scandalous, secret passion for the young, charismatic Count Dracula. Mina is torn between two men, a loving husband and a dangerous lover. A lover who’s a vampire. He struggles against the evil within him, has a past that may have been misunderstood, and who would do anything to win the heart of the woman he adores.

James’ website is www.syriejames.com.

The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë by Syrie James

Trade Paperback, 512 pages, Publisher: Avon, June 30, 2009. Language: English,  ISBN: 9780061648373 $14.99