Interview with Lisa Medved author of 'The Engraver's Secret'
Interview with Lisa Medved - author of 'The Engraver's Secret'
My Review is here.
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Publisher: HarperCollins Australia
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About the author:
Lisa Medved is the author of The Engraver’s Secret, a novel with a dual timeline set in modern-day and seventeenth-century Antwerp. The Engraver’s Secret is a story about family secrets and father-daughter relationships, the consequences of betrayal and prejudice, and the challenges of learning to trust and forgive.
The Engraver’s Secret was published in English by HarperCollins Australia on 3 April 2024 in Australia, New Zealand, UK and Ireland. It was translated into Dutch and published as De Graveurby Horizon Publishing in February 2022 in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Lisa is currently working on her second novel, which is set in fin-de-siècle Vienna and post-WWI London, focusing on the art of Gustav Klimt and two women searching for where they belong in the world.
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INTERVIEW
What inspired you to write The Engraver’s Secret?
The idea for The Engraver’s Secret came to me about ten years ago when I visited the Rubenshuis in Antwerp, which is the former home of Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens. An engraving by his chief engraver, Lucas Vorsterman, was on display alongside a brief description, which suggested the two men were close then had a falling out.
Intrigued, I did some research and came upon a little-known story about a disagreement over who owned the original copper engraving plates and who had the right to reproduce the images. Intellectual property wasn’t widely considered in early seventeenth century Flanders. I began dreaming up a story about lost seventeenth-century treasures and a modern-day academic trying to discover their whereabouts.
Please give us an overview of the story.
The Engraver’s Secret is an art thriller set in Antwerp with a dual timeline, featuring two women, a mysterious map, and a family secret spanning four hundred years.
The seventeenth-century timeline features a girl called Antonia – shown on the front cover – who is the daughter of an engraver who works in the studio of the famous artist Peter Paul Rubens. Antonia is drawn into the life of the studio and the Rubens family and soon realises that secrets are being kept and people are betraying one another. She begins to realise that she can’t even trust her own father.
The modern-day timeline is revealed through the eyes of an art academic called Charlotte, who arrives in Antwerp and quickly becomes embroiled in a 400-year-old art mystery while trying to make a name for herself in a highly competitive field. At the same time, she meets her father for the first time. Like Antonia, Charlotte discovers that people are keeping secrets and betraying one another, and no one can be trusted.
Antonia and Charlotte are strong, determined women with unique challenges. Tell us a bit about each of these characters. Include their qualities and obstacles.
As I began writing The Engraver’s Secret, I was keen for one of the major themes to focus on the constraints placed upon women, and the challenges women face in controlling their lives.
Antonia was an unusual woman for her time. Most women in that period, whether from the lower-, middle- or upper-classes, were expected to marry, bear children, care for their families, run the household, and attend church. This was their duty in life. Women who didn’t marry would often enter a religious order, such as a convent or begijnhof. A very small number of women would embark on a career of their own, such as the painters Clara Peeters and Artemisia Gentileschi, who I mentioned in the story.
I created Antonia to be bold and ambitious, encouraged by her father to master foreign languages and academic subjects and think for herself, and not merely learn how to manage a household and be dependent on the men in her life. Which is ironic because she was financially and legally dependent on her father, no matter how much her father encouraged her to think of herself as independent, at least in the first half of the story.
Despite encouraging Antonia to study academic subjects, her parents still controlled her life, including chores, pastimes and prospective bridegrooms. As she approached adulthood, she was directed along a path toward marriage, while her artistic skills and yearnings were regarded as frivolous. She was not permitted membership to the artists’ guild because of her gender.
Throughout the story, Antonia struggles between being bold and ambitious, and being vulnerable and timid. I tried to focus on this same tension when I created the character of Charlotte for the modern part of the story.
Working in a male-dominated field, Charlotte grapples to make a name for herself and be successful in the workplace. Her academic mother had encouraged Charlotte to be assertive and wary about trusting others. Charlotte has contended with so many misogynistic colleagues and male figures who have let her down in her life that she has built a wall around herself, and struggles to trust anyone.
Charlotte wants to be daring, ambitious and independent, but treads a fine line with being labelled reckless, aggressive and aloof. A turning point in the first part of the story is when her work colleague, Miles, tells her she is “difficult”. Ironically, if a male peer had conducted himself in the same way as Charlotte, he probably would have been hailed as a daring go-getter.
Learning how to trust others, balancing ambition with integrity, and discovering her own path to control her destiny are major lessons that both Charlotte and Antonia learn during the story.
Who is your favourite male figure in The Engraver Secret and why?
SĂ©bastien Sterck is a wonderfully complex character, who is perceived differently by various people in the story. Some regard him as supportive and helpful, willing to help others and expecting nothing in return. Others consider him aloof and secretive of his private life, hyper-focused on his career, and showing little empathy towards others.
I enjoyed experimenting with this discrepancy and using it to build tension in the story so that readers were constantly asking themselves the level of honesty behind Sébastien’s actions and words, and whether he could be trusted.
What two things did you discover during your research that amazed you? Did you take any special trips to learn about the topics you cover in The Engraver’s Secret?
During the seven to eight years I spent writing The Engraver’s Secret, I completed masses of research before I started writing and also during the writing process. The search engine on my computer was constantly open, along with etymology websites to check the accuracy of words and objects for specific times or places. For example, if cobalt blue pigment wasn’t invented until 1803, then I didn’t use the term in the seventeenth-century timeline, but rather used the more accurate terms of ultramarine or smalt.
Given that I was constantly checking the etymology of words, I was amazed how much languages have evolved over the centuries. If I wanted to be 100 percent historically accurate, the seventeenth-century dialogue would have been completely different, sounding something akin to Geoffrey Chaucer or Constantijn Huygens. It would have been very difficult to understand, unless you had a PhD in European linguistics.
Although I studied European history at university, I didn’t become familiar with the important role of begijnhofs in Flanders until I began researching my book. These religious complexes, designed to house lay religious women in a community, became enormously popular from the thirteenth century in Western Europe. Antwerp has a particularly well-preserved Begijnhof, which is now used as private housing. For the purposes of my story I used some artistic licence to create a group of modern-day begijnen living there for my story. The Begijnhof is such a peaceful place, which contrasted perfectly with my characters who become caught up in a dangerous search for lost treasures.
I visited Antwerp numerous times while researching and writing The Engraver’s Secret to become familiar with its major historic sites, such as the former home and studio of the artist Rubens (now the Rubenshuis museum), the Plantijn-Moretus printing museum, major churches and the catherdral, the Begijnhof, the Brabo fountain in Grote Markt. It was fun to learn about the origins of the name Antwerp and even the hand-shaped biscuits that were popularised in the city.
There are two timelines set in Antwerp: modern day and seventeenth century. What advantages and difficulties did this pose in the writing of The Engraver’s Secret?
I’ve always enjoyed reading dual timeline novels because it allows me to experience a story from two different perspectives. It’s like being at a party where you interact with guests in the garden, then you move inside the house to chat with other people, and discover the two conversations are related. Different people, different viewpoints, same story. Or are they? Perhaps they’re different stories, but with strong connections.
Experimenting with such interconnections is one of the reasons I enjoy writing dual timelines. It allows me to pose questions in one timeline then see how they relate to another, reveal the actions and motives of one character then link them to another character, years or centuries apart.
Keeping the reader interested in two stories simultaneously is the main challenge when writing a dual timeline story. Each timeline needs enough forward momentum and pacing, enough links between the two stories, and enough questions about the past and future, to make the novel intriguing. At the same time, there can’t be too many questions, otherwise the reader may become confused or overwhelmed.
I wrote one timeline in full, then the second, which allowed me to completely focus on one set of characters and era at a time. In subsequent drafts, I pieced together the two stories like a jigsaw puzzle, providing links between certain events, characters, themes, locations, even objects.
While writing, I developed a large spreadsheet to help organise the various parts of the story and show their connections. The spreadsheet included a brief description of each chapter, which characters are present or mentioned, key themes, relevant dates or times, focal objects – for example, a seventeenth-century map folio – and also the questions posed at the close of each chapter. These include mystery questions about events that have occurred in the past, and suspense questions about what may happen next. Hopefully, by the end of the story, the main questions are resolved.
I also rely on trusted beta readers and editors who read the manuscript with fresh eyes and point out any parts of the story which may be confusing or too complicated, or places where the links are either too vague or too obvious. Finding the balance is the main challenge.
Photo by Harry Fabel
