Margaret DeRosia, author of Eight Strings
Margaret DeRosia is a writer, editor, and historian originally from Michigan. She has taught film, literature, and digital media at the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Cruz, Sonoma State University, the California College of the Arts, and Western University. Eight Strings, her debut novel, was an instant national bestseller.
Kobo: What was it about nineteenth-century Venice that made you choose it as the setting for the novel?
Margaret DeRosia: Venice in any era is so gorgeous and compelling, but I was interested in the 1890s because Italy had only just become a nation. Venice was reeling from the late Industrial Revolution: poverty, corruption, homelessness, youth trafficking, labour struggles, and deep economic disparities. I wanted to explore this complex moment right before the twentieth century started, when everything would change.
By 1895, Venice was sensing this next century in tantalizing flashes; for example, the technology of cinema was just developing, which I touch on in the novel. By the 1920s, film would replace much of live theatre as entertainment. For me, this creates a poignant undertone to the novel. We see Venice’s lively theatre and marionette shows, but they’re in their twilight, soon to be replaced by shadows on a screen.
Initially, though, the setting attracted me because it was where Pietro Radillo, real-life inventor of the eight-stringed marionette, lived. History has little information on him, so I began the novel, in part, to speculate on his contributions and spotlight his absence from the historical record. By painting him into the story near his life’s end, he becomes the primary voice for describing Venice’s rich history of marionette culture.
Kobo: Where did the inspiration for the Minerva Theatre come from? Is it a place that one can visit in real life?
MD: When I started the novel, I knew Italy had marionette theatres, and Venice was known for its marionette shows in particular, so I made up the Minerva as a purely fictional place.
Then I learned of the San Moisè, a small but well-known theatre that existed from the 1600s to the 1800s. Musicians as famous as Vivaldi and Albinoni played there. In the 1870s, the San Moisè was refurbished exclusively for marionettes—and renamed the Minerva! My imagined fictional theatre became real. It was even located near where I’d envisioned it. Truth really is stranger than fiction.
Sadly, the real Minerva was demolished and converted into an apartment building in the twentieth century, though some parts were retained, such as the stage door at the back. Today, you can still go down Rio de Teatro San Moisè in San Marco (the street echoes the theatre’s earlier namesake) and find a tiny plaque commemorating the original theatre’s location.
Kobo: Eight Strings centres on a queer protagonist and their coming out and coming-of-age story. Why was it important to you to highlight that story?
MD: One question that sparked Franco into being was how, in this time, a person might come of age as queer. No language or concept of this identity existed yet, only derogatory slang. There was no sense of community, either. Historians have found stories of real-life nineteenth-century gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, but most of them were wealthy and privileged. Money and social standing could offer limited protections if they had “decadent” lifestyles. But in Eight Strings, Franco isn’t rich. While Venice was certainly a playground for European elites in this time, Franco is only on that world’s margins, looking in.
So how and where would Franco come to this knowledge? One of the few places was Italian theatre. Here, audiences could get glimpses of gender-bending characters and tales. Theatre offered a rich backdrop for Franco’s own gender transformation and gathering of self-knowledge.
With Eight Strings, I also wanted to tell a queer story that wasn’t all self-loathing and trauma. Of course, the stakes of Franco’s transformation are high, yet I highlight the joys and pleasures Franco experiences when coming into this more authentic, queer self. By writing the novel in first person, I could put readers in Franco’s deepest thoughts and feelings. In the opening, as Francesca, she’s a terrified teenage tomboy running in the night. At the theatre, though, she morphs into Franco, a confident, masculine stage star who gains confidence, finds friends, and falls in love. For Franco, a big part of that transformation involves being and becoming queer—even if that term wasn’t yet available to claim.
Kobo: A heart-rending, beautiful love story sits at the core of this book. What's one thing that you would love readers to take away after reading Eight Strings?
MD: Eight Strings is a coming-of-age story, in which Franco’s maturity deepens with artistic growth. But the love story forms the novel’s beating heart. Love flowers among this small but scrappy community of outsiders whom the novel also champions. Friendship, mentorship, romance—all contribute to Franco’s growth.
While the novel is from Franco’s point of view, I see it as Franco and Annella’s shared story. Both of them come into their own and grow up together. Franco embraces a more masculine identity but never loses empathy with women—in large part because of Annella’s presence and her experiences.
Annella and Franco’s story also has this playful, exploratory quality. They’re making it up together as they go. They’re not conforming to preconceived notions of what love “should” be. For readers, that may offer a gentle reminder to approach relationships—and friendships—by staying open to the person you’re first drawn to, then seeing what you both might discover as you explore together.
Kobo: What book would you recommend readers pick up after reading Eight Strings?
MD: Oh, I can never pick just one book! Right now, I’m quite swept up in two of Caroline Bishop’s novels, The Lost Chapter and The Other Daughter, and I’d definitely recommend them.
If you like the tone of Eight Strings—historical fiction featuring scrappy outsiders bucking the system, friends and romance with a dash of swagger—then you might also enjoy two of my main inspirations: Kate Quinn’s The Rose Code and Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. They’re both set in the first half of the twentieth century and nowhere near Venice, but I love the verve with which they each bring history to crackling life.
Kobo: What are three essentials you need when it comes to writing?
MD: 1. My tiny black cat, Penny. Who knows, maybe she is my muse. She often visits me when I’m writing and sprawls near me, but not on my actual keyboard, like most cats would. She’s thoughtful that way.
2. Coffee and food. If I’m stuck on a passage for too long, it’s probably time for a snack.
3. My books. They remind me that many writers have gone through this process before me. Writing and publishing take such a long time. Much of what you create never even sees the light of day. My crowded bookshelves remind me that all writers must sit down and let what we love about writing shine through to keep going and tell our stories.
Kobo: What's currently sitting on your TBR list?
MD: It’s quite teetery at the moment, and thus a good sampler of my eclectic tastes. Lately I’ve been rereading E.M. Forster. He’s my favourite classics writer. I revisit him for insight and inspiration when I’m thick in a new project because of his deep emotional intelligence and warm wit.
I have Colson Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle and Selby Wynn Schwartz’s After Sappho out from the library. They’re due soon, though, so I’d better get cracking.
I’m excited to dive into two new books: Mai Nguyen’s Sunshine Nails (out July 4) and Bryn Turnbull’s The Paris Deception (out May 30). They’re two writers whom I met at a recent fundraiser for the Toronto Public Library, and their books sound as great as they both are.
I also love character-driven mysteries and romance novels, so I have Sara Paretsky’s Dead Land and Tessa Bailey’s Hook, Line, and Sinker to round things out—for now!
Eight Strings
An enthralling coming-of-age debut novel about a young woman in late 19th-century Venice who becomes a man to join the male-dominated world of the theater as a puppeteer—in the vein of Sarah Waters.
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