The author talks history, height, and moving past guilt.
Joel Fishbane’s new novel, The Thunder of Giants, features two fascinating women: Anna Swan, a Nova Scotian giantess from the 19th century who spent time as an attraction at P.T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York City, and Andorra Kelsey, a woman struggling to make ends meet in the 1930s who is hired to portray Anna in a film.
Like life, certain portions of this story feel enchanted and read like a fairytale, while others are grittier. Throughout, the author blends fact and fiction, employs several different writing styles, and weaves two separate narrative strands into a cohesive and engaging story.
What interested you in writing about the lives of two giantesses?
I’m a bit of a musical-theater freak, and I had been listening to the musical “Barnum” by the inimitable Cy Coleman. It occurred to me I didn’t know much about Barnum, so I went right to the source: Struggles and Triumphs, P.T. Barnum’s autobiography and a bestseller of the late 19th century. In it, he has one paragraph where he discusses Anna Swan. “She was an intelligent and by no means ill-looking girl,” wrote Barnum. I was intrigued, so off I went to the computer. The Internet did the rest.
Because we know so little about her, Anna Swan’s story seems to dance on the edge of myth. We’re left to invent a large portion of her life, which seems to be exactly what happened even when Anna was still alive. Her measurements were exaggerated by promoters, as was every other aspect of her life, including her marriage, which became a public spectacle (we know a lot about the wedding because it was covered extensively in the press).
It occurred to me that this continual exaggeration might have been her greatest struggle. Which version of Anna was real? Are we defined by how we see ourselves or how others see us? The subject felt like rich fodder for fiction because Anna and Andorra’s size can easily be a metaphor for anything that others judge us by — race, gender, sexuality, etc.
When writing an historical novel such as this, how do you decide which details to include and which to leave out?
For the first draft, I put everything in, which probably explains why the book used to be three times as long as it is now. After that, it’s just a question of editing. Historical novels aren’t meant to be history books. The history is there to serve the story of the characters, so any facts that aren’t essential to their story need to be cut away. The historical facts that I fight to keep are always the ones that illuminate character and personality — such as Anna’s pet monkey or the fact that her husband was said to still wear his Confederate uniform decades after the end of the Civil War.
When a woman is 7’11” and 320 pounds, it is hard for strangers to look past her physical self. I was impressed that Andorra and Anna both do a pretty good job of seeing themselves as more than just a very tall person — as do many of the people they encounter. Is the world divided into two types of people: the gawkers, and those who can see past the extraordinary body and see only the extraordinary person?
I don’t think it’s as simple as that. There are times when each of us has judged a book by its cover and times when we’ve looked inside. I think the goal should always be to judge people by the content of their character, but I don’t think any of us can help making snap judgments about a person based on some initial impression. Anna and Andorra were extraordinary to look at, and I doubt anyone could ever ignore their size completely, but as they themselves argue throughout the book, their size is merely one part of who they are.
Is there a lesson here for all of us? Not only in how we see and react to other people, but also in the grace we give to ourselves?
I try not to write things that end with “lessons,” but I think the book definitely offers an argument for the importance of looking past a person’s more obvious characteristics (appearance, gender, race, etc.). As for personal grace, none of us can escape the fact that we live in a world where the media projects ideas to us on how we should look, act, and behave. We each have to come to terms with that and not let ourselves become unhappy because we don’t have a supermodel’s body or a movie star’s good looks.
Andorra carries a lot of guilt with her. Rutherford, her Hollywood agent, tells her “Absolution is a myth. We make mistakes and we either learn to live with them or we don’t.” When she isn’t convinced, he continues: “You can live with this. We can live with anything. We just have to want to.” Is that really true? Can we truly let go of guilt if we want to?
I don’t think Rutherford’s argument is about “letting go” of guilt, but rather coming to terms with it. He isn’t advising Andorra to simply forget the things she feels guilty about, but rather to make the choice to move on. That doesn’t mean she lets go of her guilt, just that she learns to live with it — exactly as she has come to live with her great size.
In the end, Anna and Andorra each find a way to embrace their unique nature and live life on their own terms. They refuse to settle. Anna says it best when she refuses Colonel Goshen’s proposal: “I don’t know why God put me here. I’m sure I’ll find out one of these days. And if I find a husband, I won’t care whether or not he’s normal.” In this instance, “normal” refers to height, but is anyone truly “normal”?
“Normal” is an entirely subjective term. In the world where Anna lived, it was “normal” for doctors to never wash their hands. The definition of “normal” needs to always be flexible to accommodate all the ways in which society evolves. So I don’t think we can ever define normal other than to say it’s whatever we say it is at this particular time.
Do you believe Anna and Andorra find why God put them here in the end?
I’ll have to leave that to readers to decide!
Mandy Huckins holds a Master of Arts Degree in English from the University of Charleston. She lives in the Washington, DC, area with her husband, an Air Force officer. When not reading, Mandy works for the Combined Federal Campaign-Overseas, which provides uniformed service members and DoD civilians serving overseas the opportunity to make a charitable contributions to one or more of over 2,500 different organizations.
