Author Confessions: Erika Robuck

On her latest novel, her rock bottom moment, and the Hemingway line she lives by.

I first picked up Erika Robuck’s latest historical novel The Last Twelve Miles while on book tour at the Barnes and Noble in Myrtle Beach. The author and I met through a historical fiction writer’s chat we were on lovingly nicknamed the “Historical Fiction Bitches” by Lisa Barr, author of The Goddess of Warsaw (read her Q&A here). We were tempted to make shirts. LOL.

Anyway, I hadn’t read any of Erika’s work before so I was excited to dive in. Lucky me! As soon as I started The Last Twelve Miles, I became engrossed. A cat and mouse game between two women on opposite sides of the law during prohibition—one a 5’3 cryptanalyst in heels, the other the determined wife of a rumrunner who vows to get her family out of the black—the book is action packed and full of fascinating characters. But the real excitement comes when the Washington cryptanalyst becomes obsessed with catching the Bahamas-based rumrunner’s wife. Read: you’ll find yourself in sultry tropical locales in a “Catch Me If You Can” like story.

It’s a really captivating read, so I asked Erika, who is based in Annapolis, to stop by Dear Fiction to tell us more about the book, her process and why she chases down spies in her free time.

How did you come up with the idea for The Last Twelve Miles? How did it evolve as you did research?
Several people at several book events for my women in war intelligence novels suggested I write about another woman from the shadows of intelligence history: cryptanalyst Elizebeth Smith Friedman. When I started researching her life, I was overwhelmed by the scope of a career that started during the Great War and continued through WWII and beyond.

After writing two WWII novels, I wanted a new frontier, so it was Elizabeth’s time in U. S. Coast Guard intelligence during Prohibition—nabbing bootleggers, rumrunners, and smugglers—that caught my attention. Once I found a dynamite and somewhat sociopathic woman rumrunner Elizebeth chased—who operated out of the gorgeous South Florida, Bahamas, and Cuba regions I love and had written about in my novel Hemingway’s Girl—I knew I found my story.  

What was the most surprising/shocking/scandalous piece of history that you uncovered?
The greatest and most pleasant surprise for me was the number of women in power positions on both sides of the law at a time (the 1920s) when the majority of women didn’t work outside of the home. I was dazzled by their talents, their positions, their accolades, and the fact that many had husbands and children. As far as shock and scandal, there were countless hilarious to gruesome anecdotes from rumrunning history that were too juicy not to include in the book.

The most amusing was a newspaper story about a smuggler who took his baby girl on boat runs as a front to distract the feds from the illegal business he was conducting out of the fish locker. The article included the fact that the grizzly boat mates didn’t use their usual foul language when the baby was awake and on decks. “Nope, no cursing around Baby Betty."

Hilarious. I love that. Is there a theme you continue to return to in your work? Can you give an example of how that theme is a thread in all of your books? 
From the wives and muses of famous writers, to women writers, to women in intelligence, I’m continually drawn to women in the shadows of history. It gives me great joy to find these women and turn a much deserved light on them. I also enjoy presenting women as foils for one another. In Call Me Zelda, Fallen Beauty, Sisters of Night and Fog, and now The Last Twelve Miles I return over and over again to pairing very different women with others whose facets illuminate and in some ways complete them. 

What has been your hardest day as a writer? Why? Be specific.
I remember this vividly. I had published four novels with Penguin Random House, and they didn’t want my fifth:  a novel set in 1910s Ocean City, MD, that dealt with very dark themes of domestic violence and racism. I returned to the drawing board, researched and wrote a pitch (100 pages and a synopsis) for a novel about the legend of Mary Magdalene heading from Jerusalem to Gaul (modern day France) with her siblings Martha (who reportedly slayed a dragon) and Lazarus (the one who had been raised from the dead.) Think “Game of Thrones” with all the violence and none of the sex.

No one wanted that.

So I wrote another pitch for a novel about Florence Stoker, artist and wife of DRACULA’S Bram Stoker. No one wanted that.

I got my final rejection for that book as I was pulling into the driveway of my house, and Maren Morris’ “Girl” (about a woman at her breaking point) came on the radio. I sobbed. I told myself to try one more time before giving up.

Shortly after that I found Baltimore’s Virginia Hall—the WWII spy with the prosthetic leg who hiked the Pyrenees with the Gestapo on her tail, and destroyed and evaded Nazis—and that book sold to Penguin Random House in a two book deal. To all the writers out there: keep going. 

If you could relive one day in your publishing/writing life, what would it be--and why? 
Ah, the best day brings such a smile to my face. Like all women Gen X’ers, I grew up reading and loving books by Judy Blume. She lives in my favorite place, Key West, and has a bookstore there, Books and Books. Every time I go, I’m dying to run into her. I once saw her post on social media recommending a restaurant in Key West called Saluté on the Beach, and it has become a favorite. Every time my husband and I visit we look for her, and one night, we got our reward. (#stalkers)

She walked by with her husband and sat at a table nearby, and while I was quietly freaking out the waiter noticed and encouraged me to say “Hello." After a little liquid courage, I did just that. I gushed over her in all the ways she must be quite used to and then returned to my table. Shortly afterward I got the thrill of my life. Judy Blume and her husband came to my table, asked if I was the author who wrote HEMINGWAY’S GIRL, and said it was a bestseller at the store. *FAINTS*

I still get tears in my eyes thinking about this.

Holy smokes. That is so cool. It’s so funny when authors fan girl over other authors. I’ve done the same thing with Beatriz Williams. The first time I met her she told me my novel was on her nightstand and I nearly died. LOL. Is there a line or scene you feel like you really nailed in this story? Please share what it  is and why you're so proud of it.
It comes down to a scene with my antagonist and the chess game she's playing in rumrunning. She has orchestrated a rather dramatic and wild takedown of the “King of the Rumrunners” by the coast guard—including a boat chase that runs by a Mardi Gras party at Miami Beach’s glamorous Flamingo Hotel. When it concludes to her satisfaction, she takes a plastic crown decoration from a table, contemplates crowning herself queen—which is her ultimate goal—but then decides to crown her husband (pawn) the new “King of the Rumrunners” as a guise. While the other man’s blood stains the sand at her heels she curtsies to her husband, crowns him, and says,”The king is dead. Long live the king.” It’s chilling and when I finished writing the scene, I did think, “nailed it.” Ha!

Yassssss! Totally. Great example. One last question. What is the best piece of writing advice you ever received? 
It comes from Ernest Hemingway. I’ll paraphrase: "Always stop writing when the action is high. Then it’s easy to pick up the next day.” Ending a day’s writing at the conclusion of a chapter is the kiss of death for starting up the next day. One must always walk away when it’s almost impossible to do so. 

Erika Robuck’s The Last Twelve Miles is out now. Order it here or here or here.

One Last Thing

I’m halfway through The Ministry of Time on audiobook, and while the novel is well done, I’m so confused listening to it. I’m giving up. I’ll buy the book at some point and read it on paper. In the meantime, what audiobook have you listened to lately that was really great? Don’t say Sandwich! LOL. I need something else. Need recommendations now. :))

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