The Unmasking by Lynn C. Miller
ISBN 978-0-8263-6171-4 | $19.95 paper | 246 pp., 6 × 9 | Oct 2020
You’ve described this novel as a “twist on the locked-room mystery.” What appealed to you About that type of mystery, and how did you reimagine it for The Unmasking?
Many mysteries are set in isolated places where all the characters––including the suspects and the perpetrator(s)––are stuck together. As in the Gothic novel, there’s only one way in and one way out. In the locked-room mystery, someone is killed inside a room, and it isn’t apparent how the murderer got in, did the deed, and exited. Agatha Christie was a master of this kind of claustrophobic setting, which has always intrigued me as a novelist as the stakes steadily rise.
In The Unmasking the central characters know the dean was murdered, but as he was alone in a car, they can’t figure out how the deed was done . . . until they do. This novel plays with these conventions in a lodge in the country populated by a small number of people performing in the Chautauqua. It’s a place where disturbing events escalate. Everyone fears that they are at risk, that “someone here did it.”
The Unmasking plays with the idea of performance. The characters perform literally, as they bring historical figures to life, but they also perform social roles that obscure how they truly feel. Tell us about this tension between the faces we present to the world and our actual selves.
One of the themes of this novel is the mystery of personality. When a character chooses a historical figure to perform, her choice is very revealing because it indicates that she admires and perhaps wants to emulate some qualities of this person. For example, the wife of the murdered dean longs for wealth and prestige—to be a player. She chooses to portray the heiress and patroness of the arts, Mabel Dodge Luhan. The performance allows one to hide behind the façade of another.
There is also Carl Jung’s concept of the “shadow” part of the self, the hidden side we don’t recognize in ourselves but that we project upon other people. These shadow aspects of certain characters —sometimes dark, sometimes needy, at other times Machiavellian—are explored in The Unmasking. The keys to unraveling the clues that solve the mystery are often found once these shadow qualities surface. Lt. Crane, who investigates the dean’s murder, is astute at discerning these.
Much of The Unmasking takes place at a Chautauqua, a public educational event where speakers perform as historical figures and give literary lectures. Chautauquas were originally popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Are they seeing a resurgence? What do Chautauquas offer to modern audiences?
Chautauquas have seen a resurgence since the 1970s. In neo-Chautauqua, scholars / performers present famous figures through monologues and then appear as themselves to answer questions from the audience. Presenters digest historians’ views and showcase the lasting contributions, significance, and foibles of their chosen figures. Modern audiences appreciate learning about these historic people in a live setting in the present moment. They become witnesses to history. These programs are often called “living history” and are very interactive as well as educational and entertaining.
The year 2020 is the hundredth anniversary of the nineteenth amendment, which granted US women the legal right to vote. Your characters perform as groundbreaking historical women, including Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for the US presidency. Do you see connections between this novel and the anniversary of women’s suffrage?
Absolutely. I’m delighted that the novel is coming out in this year and that it celebrates significant women from history. Woodhull, particularly, is not well known to many contemporary readers, while Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf, for example, are. I think that in this year we are looking back at the strides women have taken as well as the cultural limitations that still are obstacles for women of various racial and economic backgrounds long after the first wave of women’s suffrage. Each of the characters’ presentations reveals aspects of her era that resonate in our own today: Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for US president in 1872, raised issues of class and misogyny that pervaded the election of 2016. In her writing, Gertrude Stein explored lesbian sexuality and her long union with Alice B. Toklas. Edith Wharton and Virginia Woolf wrote brilliantly about the constraints of women’s lives.
Women’s relationships—marriages, affairs, old loves, friendships—are central to The Unmasking. How do you see the interactions between and among the women driving the action of the novel?
A staple of the mystery genre, subplots abound in the novel: All of the characters are suspicious of the dean’s wife, Barbara, who seems to exude confidence and a steely resolve. Fiona’s current partner, Darryl, once had an affair with Bettina, her best friend. Although Bettina has gone back to her husband, and things with Darryl are solid, Fiona still winces at the memory. Vivian, Miriam’s wife, worries that her sexual history with Barbara might be a threat in the present. All of the colleagues at the Chautauqua, organized by the ebullient Patricia, feel they must appear at her event in Silver City even while some of them have stage fright or other reservations around participating. Miriam, who presents the keynote address on the locked-room mystery, colludes with Lt. Susan Crane to unearth the motivations behind the dean’s demise. Daphne, a psychic and close friend of Miriam’s, provides an intuitive guide to underlying and darker forces at the lodge. Through it all, strong friendships flourish and provide the ground for the plot.
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