Authors Talk of Boston's Past

Two local professors of history warmed up the sub-freezing Wednesday evening and brought listeners back to 18th century Boston with a lively reading of their collaborative novel at the Harvard Book Store.

Jill Lepore, a Harvard professor of American history, read several passages from her new fiction book, “Blindspot,” discussed its historical background, and signed books along with co-author Jane Kamensky, also a professor of American history at Brandeis University.

The historical romance-mystery story follows the arrogant Scottish painter Stewart Jameson and Fanny Easton, a fallen woman from a powerful Boston family who disguises herself as a defiant boy named Francis Weston.

“We left the political story more backstage to focus on ordinary people,” Lepore said. “We wanted to show that the ordinary humble citizens weren’t waiting around for the Revolution to descend on their heads. They’re busy deciding: What’s for dinner?”

The novel alternates between Jameson’s memoir and Fanny’s letters. The two are also interspersed with articles from the Boston Gazette, a Revolutionary War-era newspaper. Blindspot, which was released in December, is written in “two predominant voices, by two authors,” Kamensky said.

Lepore, who was responsible for developing Jameson’s character, explained that the story was written first over weekly e-mail exchanges. Then, after the two protagonists finally met in person, so too did the authors, at each other’s houses over cups of tea.

“It’s a book full of life, sex, and dirty jokes,” Kamensky said.

“Historians gone wild. That’s us,” she added later, drawing laughter from the audience.

Writing in fiction was a significantly different experience from writing in the academic discipline, Kamensky noted. “There was a point where we—and I mean Jill—wanted to footnote every little historical detail that we knew. And finally we stopped that.”

Lepore and Kamensky have known each other since childhood and attended the same graduate program at Yale, according to Lepore.

“We both ended up in Cambridge and had kids at the same time,” she said, adding that the narrative was originally intended as a birthday present for a mutual friend.

The event left many listeners wanting to learn more.

“I enjoyed hearing them explain the epistolary and picaresque forms and how they merged the two in a historical setting,” said Emily A. Click, assistant dean of ministry studies at Harvard Divinity School, referring to the novel’s mix of prose and letters.

Estimating the event’s attendance to be around 50, the bookstore’s marketing manager and organizer of the event, Heather L. Gain, called the book reading “a success, especially for 12 degrees [outside].”

After the discussion, wine was served in the children’s section as “a nice touch to facilitate conversation,” Gain said.

—Staff writer Helen X. Yang can be reached at hxyang@fas.harvard.edu.