Before I become a novelist, I worked as an actress in Manhattan; getting inside a character's skin is vital to me. I need to know how the food tasted, how the fabrics felt, the smell of the streets... And, yes, I bought a corset so I could experience how tightly laced life could be. The answer is VERY. No wonder "fainting couches" were popular. In the case of my female characters, the dichotomy between inner strengths and outer submissiveness was painful to write. But also important. Letters from women readers make it apparent that this tension continues to resonate.

I've been criticized for overpopulating my novel, but my studies of the mid 1840s reveal that cities were bursting; and I wanted to expose not only that sense of claustrophobia but also the resultant intersection of the lives of the most affluent and most impoverished. My heiress, Martha, may have no cognizance of the prisoner, Ruth, but their paths parallel one another's.

Historical research feeds and transports me. Touching the real newsprint of the period, examining the record books of the insane asylum, or reading personal diaries is transformative, and permits me to enter the mind set and linguistic style of the era. But ultimately the characters dictate their daily choices. As far as I'm concerned Martha Beale is very much alive and evolving as a person, as is Thomas Kelman.