City of Desire : Questions and Answers with Author Sidney Morrison Why the title City of Desire The novel is about New York in the 1830s, then the most populated city in the country, the place to which so many dreamers, immigrants, hucksters, artists, writers, fortune hunters, criminals, and lost souls came to remake their lives. Sex and prostitution are central to this story. Entire city blocks were devoted to the sex trade, and countless men, married and unmarried, rich and poor, found their desires fulfilled temporarily there. But the reference to desire refers more than to sex; it also refers to ambition, dreams, the journey to find oneself and fulfillment. In the remarkable opening of Proust''s In Search of Lost Time, the narrator, Swann, has a sexual dream from which he is suddenly awakened; but the memory lingers, and he declares that if the woman in his dream resembled someone he already knew, he would abandon himself "altogether to this end: to find her again, like people who set out on a journey to see with their own eyes some city of their desire." Proust could not have said it any better, and my novel is about Helen''s journey to see with her own eyes the fulfillment of her highest hopes, success in New York, her city of desire. How did you first learn about Helen Jewett? Reading a history of New York City, my hometown, I noticed a reference to the murder of a prostitute in 1836 and the ensuing press war between the New York Herald and the New York Sun about the guilt or innocence of the accused killer. At first, the press story intrigued me more because I had assumed that salacious press tales of sex and murder, commonly called "yellow journalism," became popular at the end of the nineteenth century.

Crime reporting with detailed depictions of corpses and crime scenes began in the 1830s, scandalizing traditional newspapers that lost readers to short, cheap sheets called the "penny press." Central to its popularity was the case of Helen Jewett. What attracted you to her? She is the center of the story, not newspaper reporters and publishers? Originally, I had two central stories, the rise and fall of Helen, and the rise of the penny press. At first the manuscript was twice as long, but I progressively became more interested in Helen''s story, and she emerged as the heroine of City of Desire because Helen embodied a central theme of the city''s history as a place where people remake themselves and become successful through grit, guile and perseverance. She fell in love with New York because it allowed her, within the limits imposed on women in the 1830s, to become what she wanted to become, the most successful and well-known prostitute in New York. Why did she become a prostitute, and why did you choose a prostitute to tell your New York story? All the documentary evidence reveals that she was a remarkable young woman, intelligent, well read, curious, beautiful and charismatic. But nineteenth-century America imposed strict limits on women, especially the poor and uneducated with limited prospects. Add scandal and a damaged reputation, and the prospects for women were even more limited.

Because of the tale related in the novel, Helen became a prostitute after her seduction becomes known, and she was thrown out of her employer''s home. Without references, she did domestic work in a house of prostitution, and then decided to become one herself after diligent study of prostitutes, their clients and their needs. Determined to be successful, she went to New York City, the center of prostitution in the entire country, and joined houses where she could reveal her charms and demonstrate her value. Helen attracted me especially because she chose success over victimization and blame, and made the most of her narrowly defined circumstances using her sexual and literary skills. She was a voracious reader and letter writer, and she used these attributes to attract and maintain clients. Writing for her became an instrument of sexual manipulation and fantasy; and she wrote hundreds, if not thousands, of letters. Reading them, I was fascinated. "Who is this woman," I asked.

I had to know more about her, and researched her story in books and newspapers. What is true, and what is not? What is fiction, and what is not? These are perennial questions for historical novels and their writers. Let me make this clear: this is a novel, not a history. Although based on the facts of a life, a murder, a trial, and a press war between two newspaper editors, this is an imagined retelling of a story. Historical facts of chronology and place have not been changed (after all, I was a history teacher), but these facts became the foundation for my story about what happened: the characters, their motivations, their internal thoughts, their comments to others, are all my creations, and therefore cannot be used as proof of anything. I make no claim that City of Desire is the truth about Helen and her rise and fall. Her murder is a historical fact, but there is no proof beyond doubt that Richard Robinson was her murderer. In fact, there have been arguments in novels and detective nonfiction for other people.

What about the trial? There was a trial, The City of New York v. Richard P. Robinson , and there is a record of the proceedings by reporters. It is not a transcript because there were no stenographers, but reporters were recently allowed to attend trials and reveal the cases for the prosecution and the defense, and the treatment of witnesses. It makes for boring reading; most trials are boring. But this trial attracted more attendees than any other trial in the history of New York City up to that time; over a period of five days, thousands tried to get seats, eager to hear about New York City prostitution, see prostitutes on the witness stand, and cheer for the accused, now a popular icon for young men in town. For me, the trial demonstrated many of the themes of the novel. Robinson was ultimately acquitted, but the trial says more about the mistreatment of women than the guilt or innocence of Richard Robinson.

I wanted to dramatize that treatment in the novel. You claim that he is guilty. Does it matter? As was his right, Robinson never spoke on the witness stand. But his acquittal was a travesty of justice. The "transcript" clearly revealed that important witnesses were not called, an entire range of questions and evidence was declared inadmissible, and the presiding judge was clearly prejudiced against prostitutes. He asserted to the jury that because prostitutes were morally depraved, their claims had no merit in the case whatsoever! However, the final decision of the jury, after only eight minutes of deliberation, deepened the press war and inspired some major investigations. Every quotation from the press used in the novel comes from actual newspapers of the day. But in the end, power and privileged prevailed, and Helen Jewett became a forgotten woman.

I didn''t want her to be forgotten because her story, limited as it is, is an American story about ambition, recreation, renewal, and meaning making. What is true and not true about her? Again, this is a novel. The bare facts can be found in the history record, where she was born, where she worked as domestic before leaving for Portland, Boston and New York, and where she worked in the prostitution houses in New York. The history of NY prostitution is well documented, and many of the details of the sex trade revealed at the trial have been verified. Also many of Helen''s letters have survived. The letters she wrote to Robinson, and his letters to her are quoted, and they became the basis of dialogue and reflections. Those letters reveal the psychology of an intense, obsessive, manipulative and ultimately destructive relationship. I became very interested in the dynamics of such a relationship; how it began, its ebb and flow, and how it ended with murder, with all the hysteria, appeal, excuses, acts of forgiveness, and repeated cruelties that are part of abusive relationships.

Was Helen an abolitionist? There is no documented evidence that she was an abolitionist and contributed to the American Antislavery Society. However, the evidence reveals that she discreetly contributed to charities and was generous toward those in need. The evidence also suggests that she was outraged about bigotry, injustice, and discrimination, and was willing to serve men of all colors who met her financial requirements. Nevertheless, New York City prostitution was segregated, and the most successful houses served only prominent white gentlemen. I made her an abolitionist because it made her more interesting, more complex, more ambiguous. She was smart, beautiful, controlling, obsessive, and reckless, believing that she could charm and subdue anyone. But she fell in love with a disturbed man, whose own father told him in a letter he was a child of the devil. Helen''s love and need to control Robinson blinded her to the truth of her situation, and she suffered the consequences.

Helen was complicated, a bundle of contradictions. She was fascinating, but not perfect. I was devastated when I had to dramatize her growing depression, hysteria, her vain attempts at reconciliation, and ultimately her murder. She became so real to me I mourned her death. How did you write the novel? What was your writing process? It began with research, becoming familiar with the case, the customs of the time, the cultural, economic and political realities of that era, with a special focus on prostitution and the role of women in nineteenth-century America. Again, there are several sources, both primary and secondary, about New York City and life there in the 1830s. I list a partial bibliography at the end of the novel. But at some.