Fortune’s Fool
A Psychic Socialite Story
By Jane Sevier
A parade of fascinating characters glides through this period piece set in 1930’s Memphis by Ms. Sevier. Nell Marchand, a recent widow with no money, is saddled with a mansion, her life-long domestic, Hattie, and the mother of Nell’s scoundrel husband. The mother-in-law, Bess Marchand introduces Nell to her spiritualist medium, Dr. Joseph Calendar. Nell sees Calendar as the charlatan that he is, but he becomes an important force in her life.
Desperate for money and after failing at practical ways of earning a living, Nell stumbles upon her grandmother’s Tarot cards. Grandmother had a gift. Nell decides to try to make a living as a Gypsy fortuneteller and reinvents herself as Madame Nelora. Nell knows that she doesn’t have “the gift” but believes she can help comfort people and do them no harm. Everything is fine until the visions start.
Ms. Sevier lulls her reading into a light tale that’s a lot of fun until the first murder occurs. Then the darkness settles in with evil all around.
The characters are a varied lot, ranging from the poor dirt farmer, Luther Evans, searching for his missing teenage daughter, Ginny, to the wealthy banker, Franklin Bryant. Mildred Epps, the fancy floozy, contrasts with Aunt Mary, the hoodoo doctor and provider of mojo sacks. Mobsters Little Nick and Blackjack Kelly scheme while Boss Crump, with righteous indignation, tries to clean up his city.
It is a fun, light story, but beware, it does have a very dark side.
Fortune’s Fool was a 2010 finalist for the coveted Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award.
Interview with Jane Sevier,
Author, Fortune’s Fool, A Psychic Socialite Story
The author of award-winning novels and screenplays, Jane Sevier began her career as a feature writer. She covered fields as varied as artificial intelligence and the arts and traveled on assignment to exotic locales as diverse as Ecuador, Sri Lanka, and Texarkana, Texas. Several of her feature stories garnered national and regional awards.
Jane loves travel and has lived in Dallas, Paris, Washington, D.C., Austin, and Nashville. An 8th-generation Tennessean, she will always be a true child of the South, no matter where she hangs her hat.
MJT: Jane, I have to ask about the Tarot. It’s a great concept for drawing out Nell’s psychic powers. What did you know about Tarot cards before you started writing the story?
JS: Mike, I know accomplished Tarot readers like my friend Deborah, who has a real talent for interpreting the cards. But I certainly wasn’t an expert in the art myself. I’m still not. I have a Tarot deck that I use for writing prompts with the writing guide Tarot for Writers.
In writing Fortune’s Fool, I consulted works by gurus like Rachel Pollack. Because Nell doesn’t know much about the Tarot herself, I figured she and I could study it together. And you’re right—Nell’s grandmother’s deck is an important channel for Nell’s visions. Her powers are more about her visions than her ability to decipher the Tarot, although Nell is discovering a aptitude for that as well.
MJT: Do you believe some people have a gift of psychic visions or have you ever known anyone to experience them?
JS: Psychic visions encompass a lot of territory— channeling, divination, premonitions, retrocongnition, scrying, and so on. I absolutely believe there are people who have abilities and sensitivities beyond those of most of us. I once had a critique partner who experienced visions. My friend Eileen is blessed with an uncanny gift for reading petro rocks or spirit stones, which come out of a Native American tradition. The human brain is such an intricate organ that we’re only beginning to unravel its mysteries. I’m with Hamlet, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
MJT: Some of your readers may not be aware that one of your characters, Boss Crump, really was an influential politician in the state of Tennessee as well as Memphis. What sort of research did you do for your novel and are there other historical characters in Fortune’s Fool?
JS: Weaving historical characters into the narrative is one of the ways I ground the fictional world of the Psychic Socialite series in 1930s Memphis. I used figures like Boss Crump and Memphis Mayor Watkins Overton in fictional ways to serve the story. A wonderful website called—you guessed it—Memphis History (www.memphishistory.com)—was a great resource. I read several histories of the city and consulted books of photos. Linton Weeks’s Memphis: A Folk History comes particularly to mind.
Because Ed Crump was such political power for so long, I was able to find articles written about him in the ‘20s and ‘30s. Most of the other important historical figures like W.C. Handy are mentioned but don’t have actual roles in Fortune’s Fool. If they become characters in later works, I will brush up on my research to do them justice. And, of course, I keep reading. Memphis history is fascinating.
MJT: In the Acknowledgments at the end of your novel you give credit to NaNoWriMo. This is an organization that encourages writers to complete a 55,000-word novel in 30 days. Did you do this and how did it work out for you?
JS: I love the National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/en) challenge, which comes around again in November. Fortune’s Fool began life as a NaNoWriMo book. I wrote the first draft during the challenge month and then put it aside for a couple of months while I finished a screenplay I was revising. When I went back to Fool, I was happy to see that the bones of a story were there. It’s still essentially the same tale now that I blasted through that November.
The new book, which will be out this month, was also a NaNo book, and I plan to draft the next one during this year’s challenge. In April, there’s a similar challenge for screenwriters, during which I’ve written both of my scripts. The hell-for-leather, don’t-look-down experience of powering through the first draft while thousands of others around the world are doing the same is exhilarating. Talk about a feeling of community!
MJT: You also mention the companionship of “writing dates.” Sounds like a writers critique group. Share with us how your group functioned and its value.
JS: No, not a critique group. Writer friends gathered in a coffee shop or bookstore for a set amount of writing time, each of us working on her own project. Although someone might ask advice on a word or phrase, we wrote more than we talked and didn’t discuss what we were working on. Then we’d usually have lunch or supper together afterward to get the socializing in. That kind of quiet companionship with other people undergoing the same joys and trials and who understood was enormously comforting and inspiring. Writing can be a solitary undertaking, and occasional reminders that you’re not really alone are good things. And it was a thrill each time one of the books we worked on in those sessions showed up on the shelves.
MJT: You’ve had a career as a journalist. That job is writing about facts. Writing fiction is mostly about making up stories. How difficult was it for you to make that transition?
JS: I’ve been making up stories ever since I can remember, so the real transition was to writing news and feature stories. All my life, I wanted to be a writer. That desire lead me to my career. Feature stories were particularly satisfying because you can use a lot of the same storytelling principles we employ in fiction. I worked on in-house magazines at a university in Dallas and at a U.S. government agency and an international development bank in Washington, D.C. While I was in D.C., I became a book editor, too, so I’ve always been lucky enough to work with words. That’s heaven for a language nerd like me. Eventually, I knew that if I wanted to write fiction, I’d better get with it. I’ve come full circle.
MJT: Fortune’s Fool is the first of a series of Nell Marchand novels. What can you tell us about the next one? How soon before we can read it?
JS: The next book in the Psychic Socialite series, A Billy Sunday Kind of Love, is in production now and will be out later this month. A killer strikes close to home, and Nell is determined to unmask him. This book is more her confidant medium Joseph Calendar’s story than Nell’s, although she is still the central figure. Billy Sunday explores an ancient enmity from his past—and Nell’s—that threatens them both. There’s magic, malice, and some old-time religion, all seasoned liberally with ambition.
MJT: What’s the best way to stay sane as an author?
JS: Grow a thick hide. Trust your instincts. Don’t let anyone tell you no. Don’t compete with anyone but yourself, and most of all, be truly delighted for your writer friends’ successes.
