2. The Woman’s Congress at the Chicago World’s Fair featured some of history’s most influential women, such as Susan B. Anthony. Assign famous female figures to each book club member and have him or her recite a brief biography, as well as any quotes or clips from World’s Fair lectures.
3. Fair Play often focuses on children who are forced to grow up too quickly due to circumstance. Ask each book club member to bring in memorabilia from his or her childhood—a toy, a photograph, a journal entry, anything. Take turns describing what these items represent in your development into adults and how growing up in the 1890s might have shaped you differently.
4. Names and identity are important themes in Fair Play. Have each member research his or her name and its meaning. Discuss how these names may have impacted their identity or choices.
AUTHOR Q&A
1. This is your second novel taking place at the Chicago World’s Fair. What made you want to revisit this place and time in our country’s history?
While writing It Happened at the Fair, it was impossible to include all the wonderful tidbits I learned about the fair. And there were some I so desperately wanted to include—like the fact that the Board of Lady Managers put on a contest asking for women architects to submit plans for the Woman’s Building. Then a twenty-one-year-old girl fresh out of MIT won! Can you imagine having that as your very first job?
So I asked the publisher if the next two books could have a tie-in to the fair. And they said yes—on the condition that the fair be a secondary character, not a primary character like it was in the first book. Thus, we briefly visit the fair in Fair Play but a majority of the novel takes place in the city of Chicago. Book Three of the series will also have a tie-in to the fair, but it will be set in New York for the most part.
This will allow the reader to read these books in any order they like, since they are all stand-alones and don’t build on each other.
2. You are known for writing strong-minded, whip-smart female leads. What was your inspiration for Billy?
I knew I wanted to use the Woman’s Building as my initial backdrop. As I researched it, I discovered it had an infirmary staffed completely by females. Immediate possibilities began running through my mind. I wondered how an alpha male would feel if he collapsed in the Woman’s Building and found himself faced with a woman doctor. That was the moment both Billy and Hunter were conceived.
3. What kind of research did you conduct to learn Texan catchphrases circa 1893?
That part was easy. I live in Texas, where those kinds of phrases have been passed down for generations and are still alive and well. Maybe not so much in the urban areas, but certainly in the more rural ones. It was great fun to include some of my favorites.
4. Did you discover any surprising facts about famous female figures from the late 1800s/early 1900s while you researched Fair Play?
I really enjoyed learning about the president of the Board of Lady Managers, Bertha Palmer. I’d never heard of her until I began studying the fair. She was married to a real estate magnate who was one of the founders of Marshall Field’s. He was twenty-three years her senior, but it was a love match and he placed great store on her business acumen. Each evening they’d sit together and he’d go over all his business transactions of the day, then ask for her input—an unheard-of practice at the time.
He sold his shares of Marshall Field’s to his partners, and built a lavish, opulent hotel as a wedding gift to Bertha. Thirteen days after it opened, it burned to the ground during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. They lost everything. Bertha was instrumental in working “behind the man” to rebuild not only Palmer House Hotel, but their fortune.
5. How much do real people in your life inspire the development of characters in your books? Does Hunter, for example, have anything in common with your husband?
All of my characters are fictitious, but I’m sure my life’s experiences influence how I write certain characters. My husband is definitely an alpha Texan with a dry sense of humor, a touch of bravado, and a fierce instinct to protect those who are weaker. When you’re married to a man like that, it’s not very hard to write heroes who are attractive on the outside and even more attractive within.
6. Billy wants to “have it all,” to borrow a modern cliché, when it comes to having children and a career. Do you believe that’s possible for today’s woman? Do you think men are faced with similar challenges?
As I contemplate this, it seems to me that each person—man or woman—is so uniquely different that it would be impossible to give a blanket answer. One thing that continues to amaze me, though, is that women a hundred years ago were struggling with the same thing women today struggle with: balancing work and home. Or for those who were full-time homemakers, they often struggled to find an outlet for their more marketable talents while still fulfilling their obligations as wife and mother. It is every bit as delicate a balance today as it was then. It’s one I personally wrestle with on a continual basis.
7. What is your writing process usually like? How easy (or difficult) was it to write Fair Play?
My writing process seems to be getting harder instead of easier. When I first started writing, I would research for six months and write the book for six months. But as my career has matured, additional tasks have been added to the process: speaking engagements, social media, book signings, short stories, travel, events, blog tours, etc.
Before I was published, I’d see other authors doing those things and it all seemed so glamorous. But what I have found is, it is very difficult to meet all the expectations and still have time to write the book—especially with my dyslexia. With each new project, I try to come up with a new game plan. Ways I can manage my time so that I don’t get caught at the end of the process with way more book to write than I have hours in the day.
I’ve yet to find that magical formula. Ten weeks before Fair Play was due to be turned in, I worked eighty-hour weeks. Not quite the “balance” I was striving for!
So, if I don’t do quite as many public appearances as I did last year, quite as many blog posts, quite as many online interviews, it’s not because I’m snobbish. It’s because the most important thing I can do for my readers and my family is to put my backside in that chair and write the book.
8. Cullen McNamara from It Happened at the Fair made a cameo appearance in this novel. Will we be seeing Cullen, Della, Hunter, or Billy in any future novels?
I don’t know. I haven’t finished the next book yet! But if I can find a good spot, I’ll definitely include them. It’s something that has to kind of unfold as I go. But if they don’t make an appearance in the next book, it’s always possible they’ll show up in some other book.
For instance, Texas Ranger Lucious Landrum from Love on the Line walked onstage for a quick scene at the end of Fair Play. Had you asked me back in 2011 when that book came out if Lucious would be making any cameos, I’d have probably told you no.
In the same way, characters from my 2006 book, The Measure of a Lady, unexpectedly popped onto the pages of my 2009 book, A Bride in the Bargain—two totally unrelated books.
So I guess the best answer is . . . you never know. (And neither do I!)
© KOREY HOWELL
DEEANNE GIST—known to her family, friends, and fans as Dee—has rocketed up the bestseller lists and captured readers everywhere with her very original, very fun historical and contemporary love stories. Add to this four RITA nominations, two consecutive Christy Awards, rave reviews, and a growing loyal fan base, and you’ve got one recipe for success. She has a very active online community on her website at www.IWantHerBook.com and at www.facebook.com/DeesFriends.
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ILLUSTRATION NOTES AND CREDITS
1. Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Book of the Fair
(Chicago: The Bancroft Co., 1893), 922.
2. Moses P. Handy, The Official Directory of the World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago: W. B. Conkey, 1893), opp. 182.
3. Pictorial Chicago and Illustrated World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co., 1893), 21.
4. A Week at the Fair (Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co., 1893), 178.
5. Bancroft, 294.
6. The Photographic World’s Fair and Midway Plaisance (Chicago: Monarch Book Co., 1894), 208.
7. Bancroft, 269.
8. Shepp’s World’s Fair Photographed (Chicago: Globe Bible Publishing Co., 1893), 445.
9. Week, 103.
10. Courtesy of the Chicago Transit Authority.
11. JAMC_0000_0193_0295, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
12. JAMC_0000_0003_2778, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
13. JAMC_0000_0223_0376, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
14. JAMC_0000_0221_0370, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
15. JAMC_0000_0000_1054b, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
16. JAMC_0000_0198_0316, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
17. Bancroft, 283.
18. Shepp’s, 241.
19. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, National Child Labor Committee Collection, LC-DIG-nclc-04305.
20. JAMC_0000_0132_2603, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
21. Photographic, 191.
22. JAMC_0000_0219_0364, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
23. Handy, opp. 174.
24. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection, LC-D4-19539.
25. JAMC_0000_0000_1506, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
26. Week, 186.
27. JAMC_0000_0296_0437, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
28. The Boy Mechanic, Book 2 (Chicago: Popular Mechanics Co., 1915), 162.
29. Week, 81.
30. JAMC_0000_0192_0286, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
31. Bancroft, 271.
32. JAMC_0000_0296_0436, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
33. JAMC_0000_0193_0293, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
34. JAMC_0000_0003_0020, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
35. JAMC_0000_0192_1001, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
36. JAMC_0000_0198_3117, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
37. J. Chapuis, “French Walking Costume,” Harper’s Bazar, November 16, 1895, vol. 28, no. 46, 929.
38. Courtesy of Tennessee Gist, Designer. This is an interpretation based on the dimensions recorded, equipment mentioned in resources, and equipment portrayed in photographs. Adjustments have also been made to better match the prose in Fair Play. (For instance, the sandbox was, most likely, not underneath the awning. But the author wanted it there, so the designer put it there.)
39. Handy, opp. 42.
40. JAMC_0000_0158_0202, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
41. JAMC_0000_0159_0212, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
42. Bancroft, 552.
43. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection, LC-D4-33401.
44. JAMC_0000_0197_3111, Jane Addams Hull-House Photographic Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago Library, Special Collections.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Interior design by Davina Mock-Maniscalco
Cover design by Faceout Studio
Front cover swing photograph by Steve Gardner/Pixelworks Studio
Background images by Getty and Shutterstock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gist, Deeanne.
Fair play : a novel / Deeanne Gist.
pages cm.
1. World’s Columbian Exposition (1893 : Chicago, Ill.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3607.I55F35 2014
813'.6—dc23
2013040623
ISBN 978-1-4767-3852-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4516-9241-9 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4516-9242-6 (ebook)
Deeanne Gist, Fair Play
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