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Lesley M. M. Blume is an author, journalist, and columnist. She lives in New York City with her husband. Her first two books, Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters (2006) and The Rising Star of Rusty Nail (2007), have been given starred reviews by Booklist and the School Library Journal, among many other honors. Her third book, Tennyson, was released in January 2008. Rusty Nail was inspired by the raucous rural upbringing of her piano prodigy mother in the 1950s. The Author on Writing The Rising Star of Rusty Nail
"I'm a New York City girl, but my mother grew up in a tiny farm town on the border between Minnesota and Iowa in the 1950s and 60s. We used to fly out there to visit her family when I was growing up, and this was always a bizarre experience, like visiting a different planet. "My mother still remembers the first time she ever brought me into a cow barn; apparently they could hear my shrieks in the next county. I was always a wretchedly behaved child under the best of circumstances, and clearly the barnyard fragrances did not agree with me. "But despite my rather citified ways, I've always adored my mother’s hilarious stories about her upbringing. There is no lore like the lore of a small town. The stories have amused and soothed me for years. They are filled with things like screen doors in summertime and clover-scented air. In this world, the town sheriff can always be found drinking egg creams at the soda fountain. People sit on front porches and actually talk to one another (and about one another too, of course). Sometimes the sole traffic light in town works, and sometimes it doesn't, but it doesn’t matter either way.
"When I decided to write The Rising Star of Rusty Nail as an homage to my mother's childhood, I interviewed her for hours. As with my first book, Cornelia, many of the characters and happenings in Rusty Nail were inspired by real people and events. Like my character Franny Hansen, my mother was a piano prodigy, much to the surprise of her parents. One day she just started playing on a neighbor’s piano, that was all. When they realized how talented their daughter was, my grandparents saved money to buy an old upright piano. Her dad would drive miles away to buy old classical records, and they would listen to them together. "Like Franny Hansen, my mother was indeed mentored by an aristocratic Eastern European woman who ended up in the town almost by accident, and Mom also eventually left Minnesota to attend the illustrious Juilliard School. "And yes, Duke Ellington and his big band really did visit the little town, and as my character Wes Hansen says, they ‘came with three buses of instruments and musicians and people drove in from all over the countryside. And Duke and his boys played hard into the wee hours, and folks were dancing like it was their last night on earth.’ "I loved spending time in Rusty Nail as I wrote the book, and revisiting my mother's past. I hope that you enjoy it as well." |
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