Almost fifteen years after I first put my fingers to the keys, and after a hiatus of well over a decade from writing altogether, a story near to my heart will finally go out into the world next spring.
It’s longer than fifteen years, probably twenty or more, since I first came across the story that would underpin my sixth novel The Intuitive. It came from the late social scientist Stephen Jay Gould’s book The Mismeasure of Man, about the racist and sexist misuse of science in the early twentieth century to promote the idea that white men of financial means were at the top of the heap because of their superior intelligence. The book was so mind blowing for me that I assigned it for several years as a text in my critical thinking classes at San Diego City College.
Only a sentence or two about Ellis Island is buried in Gould’s book about H.H Goddard’s use of “intuitives” to make critical decisions about the fates of immigrants processed there. Goddard, called the Father of American Eugenics, felt that there were women whose intuitive sense was so great that they could pick out a “feebleminded” person on sight. He received a grant from the United States government to bring a few of these “intuitives” to Ellis Island. For the duration of the grant, these “intuitives” marked with chalk immigrants they picked out as mentally deficient, based no more on observations of their expression, gait, or other behavior. Those marked would then be tested, and because of the cultural biases in the tests, many would fail. These unfortunate souls were then forced to return home as unfit to enter the United States. Fortunately, this trial did not last more than a month or two, not did it result in a lasting policy of using the services of these women, despite Goddard’s insistence that the high failure rate on the tests was evidence that the “intuitives” were indeed picking out the right people, and they were thus saving the country from dilution of its gene pool.
My novel is about a New York socialite who, after the catastrophic loss of her family, goes to work as an intuitive as a means to deal with her grief. Convinced she possesses no special gift, she quickly develops moral qualms about her work, and after quitting, her feelings of guilt are so great that she tries to find and help one family who was torn apart by her actions. That, and her efforts to help another young woman who has been institutionalized for life at a school for the “feebleminded,” become central concerns of the story. I’m not going to say more here, because I will be writing about it more in the future.
It should be clear from what I’ve said, that the novel has a heavy sociopolitical foundation, but it is by no means a dreary book. There’s so much love at its core, and many compelling historical and fictional characters. Making readers more aware of historical issues through a good story is one of the great strengths of historical fiction, and it’s been my main impetus in all six of my novels.
I started this novel back when the United States looked very different. Though I might have pushed forward to publish it then, perhaps there was a bit of the intuitive in me, because I think the right time is now, when ugly ideas are openly expressed about how some groups of people are superior, or more American, or more deserving than others. I think of how much better we can do if we open our hearts and minds, as my protagonist Zorah does. I hope above all, that the healing power of love is the message you take from this book when it comes out next April. Stay tuned!