After her fiancé whisks her off to the glistening shores of Southampton in June of 1957, one young socialite begins to realize that her glamorous summer is giving her everything—except what she really wants—in this new novel from the author of Summer Darlings.
We chat with author Brooke Lea Foster about her new novel On Gin Lane, along with writing, book recommendations, and more!
Hi, Brooke! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m a longtime journalist that made a career change: Now I write historical fiction novels. Both of my novels are summer beach reads that tell powerful stories of women finding their true north. Nothing boring in my books. Expect a few twists! I live by the adage that “It’s always summer somewhere,” and that’s true in my writing. Even if it’s snowing outside my windows in the NYC suburbs, I’m typically experiencing a sparkly warm day at the beach while sipping some kind of vintage cocktail. When I’m not writing, I’m hanging with my hyper adorable puppy named Luna, two kids that love to talk character arcs (seriously!) and a husband that rocks out on guitar when he’s not working as a dentist.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
I was the little girl that kept detailed diaries. There’s one from when I was 8-years-old where I report every single thing I did that day down to what I wore, what I ate for breakfast and what my friend said that hurt my feelings. Details matter in writing! But it wasn’t until after college that I realized I wanted to write for a living. I got a job working in magazines, rose up the ranks to senior writer at a city magazine in DC, and spent a splendid twenty years writing long-form magazine articles for a variety of publications, from the Washington Post Magazine to People.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
Two immediately come to mind: Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls, which follows a boy’s friendship with his two hound dogs. I remember bawling when one of the dogs gets hurt and thinking: How did this writer make me feel this? I was probably 10. Later, in my twenties, I read Beatriz Williams fabulous novel A Hundred Summers, which was one of the first women’s historical fiction novels I’d ever read. I was seduced by the time period, the clothes, the conversations, how the themes of women back then were different and yet entirely the same. I remember looking up from that book while sitting on a beach and thinking: I want to write something like this.
Your new novel, On Gin Lane, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Sexy. Empowering. Mysterious. Atmospheric. Glamorous.
What can readers expect?
You can expect to begin the story thinking that you’re reading one book – the story of a fabulous wealthy engaged couple arriving in the Hamptons in the summer of 1957 – and realize very quickly that their glittering world isn’t quite as a perfect as it appears. For one, they’re residing in a gorgeous summer beach hotel, the resort is “gifted” to my main character by her fiance, and by the third chapter, the hotel burns to the ground. The novel follows the young engaged couple as their relationship unravels, their summer falls onto hard times, and Everleigh, my heroine, realizes that she has money, a handsome fiance and a glamorous social life, but what she really wants is something else entirely.
Where did the inspiration for On Gin Lane come from?
When I was writing Summer Darlings, I came across a tidbit about the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago and the fascinating marriage of promiment Chicago businessman Potter Palmer and his young socialite wife Bertha Honore. In 1871 Potter surprised his new wife with an extravagant gift: the glamorous Palmer House hotel on the Chicago Loop. Thirteen days after its grand opening, the hotel burned to the ground in the Great Chicago Fire. After reading that snippet, my imagination began to reel – the idea that Bertha’s fiance gifted her a hotel, that it burned to the ground thirteen days later, that their relationship weathered such a tragic beginning. I immediately imagined a young, wealthy engaged couple in Manhattan in the 1950s. My heroine’s fiance would give her a similar unforgettable gift: in my novel, a Southampton luxury hotel.
And On Gin Lane was born!
Can you tell us a bit about the challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
One of the challenges is that I wanted the story to read as historical women’s fiction and explore themes of empowerment, mental illness, romance and friendship. But I also wanted the book to unravel like a mystery. I wanted readers to keep turning pages as they tried to figure out who burned down the hotel. Synthesizing those two elements was a challenge. To make it work, I had to structure each chapter so that there was a tidbit that set off a reader’s spidey senses in terms of the mystery while placing the morsel in a scene that was about Everleigh becoming her true self. I think it worked in the end but there was a lot of cutting and moving chunks around to get it to work. At some point, I cut 20,000 words, which is no easy feat. But the book reads much smoother because of it.
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
My heroine, Everleigh, falls in with a Bohemian group of writers and artists that lived in the Hamptons during the 1950s. Think: Jackson Pollack, Jasper Johns, Grace Hartigan. When Everleigh gets a job working for Starling Meade, a ficticious Annie Leibovitz-type photographer who is lauching a gallery showing in East Hampton, the scenes between the two women are electric. They are both struggling to become who they are meant to be, and I think their friendship pushes them both through some tough moments in their lives. At the end, when they say goodbye, I cried while writing the scene. I get teary each time I re-read it, too. I understood just how much they meant to each other, and it comes through every time.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
“Rewriting is a gift.” Anne Hull, a Pulitzer prize winning reporter at The Washington Post, said that at a writing conference once. It’s so true. There are few jobs in this world where you get a do-over. Drafting a novel is the easy part. It’s sitting down day after day, sometimes for years, and revising and reworking what you have that’s the hard part. But it’s a gift because you can always make your writing more succinct, emotional or powerful.
What’s next for you?
I just finished book 3, which I’m in love with. This one is set a little later than my two previous books. A dual timeline in 1967 and 1977 but it’s about a friendship between two women hiding a terrible secret, and how it impacts their lives in these two snapshots in time.
Lastly, do you have any 2022 book recommendations for our readers?
Yes! I read an early draft of Natalie Jenner’s Bloomsbury Girls, and I just adored it. I’m also reading The Maid right now and I’m loving it!
