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Tamara Allen talks with Sky
Schneider about her Lethe Press title
Whistling in the Dark
Whistling in the Dark
Sky: All right, tell us a
little about yourself. You know, where are
you from? Do you have any pets? What's your favorite color? Favorite
curse word, just for fun.Tamara: I live with my husband and son in an unincorporated neighborhood north of Houston, Texas, aptly named The Woodlands. Someone once commented to me that it sounded like a place where elves lived. I haven’t seen any elves (yet), but there is an adorable mouse who occasionally swims in our pool. He’s almost like a pet. We also have a ten-year-old cat, Pillow, who is currently enduring the trauma of dealing with my son’s new kitten. Pil mostly hisses and flees, but Gonzo is gregarious and keeps trying.
My favorite color shifts between shades of green and blue, especially when it comes to vintage dishware. I’m fond of jadite and the greens and blues in old Depression era glass.
As for cursing, I rely on “damn” as an all-purpose expletive. It has a satisfying weight without sounding too vulgar.
Sky: So, tell me a little about your book, Whistling in the Dark.
Tamara: It’s about Jack and Sutton, two young men piecing their lives back together after the disruption of a particularly hideous war and the loss of loved ones in the influenza epidemic. In a world that is changing with dizzying speed, they face an additional struggle against a society not too pleased with their romantic entanglements.
The story at its heart is about finding a place to call home, in more than just the basic sense of a roof over your head. It’s about finding the kindred soul who will help you endure the dark hours and fire you up to chase the dreams you thought were beyond reach. For me personally, it was an exploration of how fear and grief can lead you to examine your priorities and find new appreciation and comfort in the simplest things, like a kind gesture, a good cuddle, or just a shared slice of pie in a cozy diner at a quiet hour of the night.
Sky: What drew you to these characters?
Tamara: The characters came slowly into being as, bit by bit, I did the research for the story’s setting. I had initially imagined a pianist character who was immensely talented but working in a dive or even a brothel. I imagined him living in the mid-to-late twenties, until I delved deeper into the history of radio. As the war was ending, gifted amateurs were the ones doing the first broadcasting, constantly experimenting with improving their equipment and the distances it could reach. Reading about their devotion to the new medium in their own words brought Jack to life in my head. To understand his war experiences, I watched amateur film taken during the war and read diaries which moved me to tears. It deepened my respect for the men and women who had to live that nightmare and cope forever afterward with physical and emotional wounds no one could cure.
October 1919, when the government’s ban on radio transmitting ended, coalesced for me as the ideal setting. Jack, New York born-and-bred, needed a love interest and I wanted someone who was like him, yet not—so changed my pianist to upper class and classically trained. I like the sparks when two people who are not alike are attracted to each other, so Sutton developed traits that were markedly different from Jack’s. Even so, their values are aligned and they are able to find in each other those things they need to cope with life.
Though only a small portion of it ended up in the book, the historical research was some of the most interesting I’ve ever done. At one point, I bought a digital copy of a 1917 automat menu from the New York Public Library—not just for the story’s benefit, but because I was just eaten up with curiosity to see what it was like. I wanted a real sense of being there, in the day-to-day lives of people living in a world so far removed from the one in which I grew up.
Sky: Was there a reason you choose to write about that particular time period?
Tamara: My grandmother, Hallye, sang on the radio when she was a little girl, accompanied by her father, Harry, on the piano. We have no recordings of those sessions. We have only a photograph of Harry at the piano and Hallye at the microphone, an image evocative of the era when radio was as grand a fascination as the internet in its early days. I chose the time period between the end of the war and the commencement of a frenetic, escapist decade because it was so ripe for a story about the ways in which we bear up under unbearable losses, and the ways in which we take care of each other through the worst of our pain.
Sky: What part of the book was your favorite to write, and why?
Tamara: The first chapters were the most vexing. I wrote them, revised them, cut them, rewrote them and re-re-wrote them and even now I’m not in love with them. It wasn’t until Sutton and Jack made their first wary forays into friendship that I had the most fun with the early drafts.
I had a lot of fun creating the relationships between different characters (I’d originally considered turning Harry and Gert’s sparring into an attraction, but in the end it didn’t feel right). I also enjoyed writing Sutton and Jack’s baby steps toward understanding themselves and each other. It brought back the mistakes I made at that age. My experiences in a few ways mirrored Sutton’s (such as leaving home without telling anyone, with no plans, little money, and even less common sense). But those times where I madly improvised to make do—and where I found support and love in the midst of it—are the times that remain most vivid in my memories. Those times make the best stories.
Sky: What drew you to writing in these particular genres, both the gay fiction and also the historical?
Tamara: As I mentioned, I’m fascinated by the day-to-day lives of people who’ve lived in much different circumstances than I have. My favorite childhood authors were Maud Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, and Margaret Sutton. Their stories were romantic in the fullest sense of the word. Friendships in them possessed an intimate quality that seems missing nowadays.
Male friendship in particular seems less impulsively affectionate. It’s a true loss in a world that needs more tenderness and affection. And I like writing a romance that begins as friendship, because I think the happiest, most long-lasting romances begin that way. For me, romance stories between men showcase their vulnerability more intriguingly than stories about heterosexual romance. And it’s simply romantic in itself, the myriad of ways in which we fall in love.
Sky: Lastly, can you tell me what you're working on next?
Tamara: I began a mainstream fantasy novel a few months ago. I don’t have a lot of the novel written yet, due to a couple of false starts. Also slowing me down is an idea for another gay historical romance. Six years ago I was researching for a story set in 1888 London and came across the details of an out-of-the-blue spring blizzard in 1888 New York that was one of the worst the east coast has ever seen. I thought it would make a fun story setting, especially the type of story that strands people together for a period of time. Then as I was finishing Whistling in the Dark, characters began to show up, volunteering to be stranded. So I’m trying to write two books at once and whichever catches me up the most will be the one I finish first.
One more thing I want to let you know. The proceeds from the sale of Whistling in the Dark will go to fund leukemia research. If you're thinking of buying a copy of Whistling, I encourage you to do so for a very good cause. Thanks. And thank you, Sky and Steve, for the opportunity to promote the book.