Author juggles history and mystery: Alice Hoffman talks about new novel

A main character who quietly endures great internal agony. The transformative power of a major episode in history. Small miracles, dashes of magic and amazing human resilience. And, against all odds, love emerges victoriously.

“I’d say that about covers it,” author Alice Hoffman said in a recent phone interview upon hearing a recitation of themes she often writes about.“Yes, to the lonely individual who secretly suffers for a long while and, yes, to the eventual triumph of love and the human spirit. And to small miracles. I write about the things I need to hear about, and I need to hear about survivors, those who have great strength of spirit. I need to hear about how love can change the world.

“Don’t you think everybody needs to hear about those things?”

Hoffman — author of 29 works of fiction, from “Practical Magic” and “Here on Earth” to “The Dovekeepers” — will be in Atlanta at two locations this week to discuss her expansive new novel, “The Museum of Extraordinary Things.”

The story takes place in New York City and builds to the main plot in the spring of 1911. In late March of that year, 146 garment workers died in the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. The vast majority of victims were young women 16-23 years old, recent immigrants who worked dreadfully long hours for a few dollars a week. Because doors to all exits were routinely locked, many workers jumped to their deaths from ninth-story window ledges rather than succumb to the smoke and fire.

“The Museum of Extraordinary Things” will remind many readers of E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 novel “Ragtime,” set in the same city and era, and it also seamlessly merges fiction with real events and people. Hoffman, a New Yorker, acknowledged the debt.

“I believe ‘Ragtime’ changed the way historical novels could be written,” she said. “I mean, E.L. Doctorow took so much rich material and brought it together in such a creative, captivating way. I was definitely influenced by what he did.”

“Museum,” like “Ragtime,” is packed with history and mystery, an introspective and full-bodied fairy tale for adult readers. How did the author juggle so much and ultimately achieve a nice flow and balance?

“It’s probably a good thing that I did not think in terms of the hugeness of it all,” Hoffman said. “I just kept diving in.” While diving, she learned of another huge fire that occurred in Brooklyn just two months after the Triangle fire. On the very night before it was to open, the newly imagined and elaborate Dreamland amusement park on Coney Island was destroyed by fire. In diving deeper and adding a major Coney Island plotline, Hoffman knew her novel was morphing into “a much bigger beast.”

With “The Dovekeepers” (2011), which Toni Morrison called “beautiful, harrowing, a major contribution to 21st century literature,” Hoffman swept readers into ancient Israel and the tragedy of Masada. Going from that setting to New York in 1911, well, was no small departure.

“I always wanted to write about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire because it was a real turning point, yet it has been forgotten,” Hoffman said. “But I also wanted that fire to be … like a planet … with all these moons spinning around it.”

One of those moons is Ezekiel “Eddie” Cohen, a tall, dark, dashing but hard-hearted young man who, when still a boy, fled from his father and their community of poor Russian immigrants. Eddie has an uncanny talent for finding that which is lost, and earns a meager living taking pictures of crime scenes. As the Triangle fire blazes and young women leap from above him, Eddie and his camera document the tragedy.

Eddie’s eventual love interest is a fellow outcast, 18-year-old Coralie Sardie. Coralie is the quiet, obedient daughter of “the Professor,” who runs the low-budget Coney Island freak show known as the Museum of Extraordinary Things. Coralie’s webbed hands doom her to a water tank. She is gawked at as “The Human Mermaid,” right alongside other “living wonders” like the hairy Wolfman (who loves “Jane Eyre”), and Butterfly Girl (with wing-shaped stubs instead of arms).

From early on, the reader knows that Eddie and Coralie are star-crossed lovers.

Hoffman dedicated “Museum” to her two grandfathers, both of whom were immigrants.

“I always wanted to write about their experiences in some way,” Hoffman says. “One came from Poland, one from Russia. One was a member of the unions and fought for the rights of the working man. The other one worked in a factory when he was 8 years old. Well, they both did that, but this one became a capitalist. So my grandfathers are strong examples of the very different paths that an immigrant’s life could take once coming to New York.”

And why the freak show?

“I think it’s the idea of creation being a miracle, no matter what it is,” Hoffman said. “I’m interested in the idea of being different as something that’s not negative, but that’s more of a miracle. Might it help us to become more accepting of one’s differences? There’s a part of everybody, I think, who feels – set apart.”

What’s next up from this versatile and prolific novelist? She never wants to discuss a book in progress, but she did reveal that her next novel will be set in 1850 and “carry readers to someplace new.”

Hoffman said she has “many more stories to tell.”

“I can never tell them all. The writer’s life, for me, is not so different from the reader’s. We all need the stories and the characters to help us understand ourselves and the world. I write the way I read – I cannot stop because it is so interesting. It’s a transcendent experience, and you just go to another place entirely.

“The difference is, I have to do a lot of research!”