Elizabeth Letts

Hollywood, 1938: As soon as she learns that M-G-M is adapting her late husband’s masterpiece for the screen, seventy-seven-year-old Maud Gage Baum sets about trying to finagle her way onto the set. Nineteen years after Frank’s passing, Maud is the only person who can help the producers stay true to the spirit of the book—because she’s the only one left who knows its secrets. But the moment she hears Judy Garland rehearsing the first notes of “Over the Rainbow,” Maud recognizes the yearning that defined her own life story, from her youth as a suffragette’s daughter to her coming of age as one of the first women in the Ivy League, from her blossoming romance with Frank to the hardscrabble prairie years that inspired The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Judy reminds Maud of a young girl she cared for and tried to help in South Dakota, a dreamer who never got her happy ending. Now, with the young actress under pressure from the studio as well as her ambitious stage mother, Maud resolves to protect her—the way she tried so hard to protect the real Dorothy. The author of two New York Times bestselling nonfiction books, The Eighty-Dollar Champion and The Perfect Horse, Elizabeth Letts is a master at discovering and researching a rich historical story and transforming it into a page-turner. FINDING DOROTHY is the result of Letts’s journey into the amazing lives of Frank and Maud Baum. Written as fiction but based closely on the truth, Elizabeth Letts’s new book tells a story of love, loss, inspiration, and perseverance, set in America’s heartland. On audio the book is narrated by the author and Ann Marie Lee.

1. Jonathan Lowe) The book CIRCE by won an award this year as Best Fantasy, and on audio was chosen as a Best Audiobook of the Year, read by Perdita Weeks. What gave you the idea to mingle fiction and non-fiction to create a novel about The Wizard of Oz?

Elizabeth Letts) I was first drawn to the story behind The Wonderful Wizard of Oz when I was reading the book aloud to my son and I wondered about the author, L. Frank Baum and why his characters were so much better known than the man himself.  With a quick bit of research, I discovered that Frank’s mother-in-law was a prominent advocate for the rights of women—which made me see Baum’s strong female characters in a whole new light. But I didn’t realize I had a story to tell until I discovered that his widow, Maud, was still alive during the filming of the Hollywood movie. I found a picture of Maud on the set with Judy Garland and I wanted to know what happened when they met—as a non-fiction writer, I believe in grounding my work in historical fact, but to get to the emotional heart of a story, fiction has the edge. In writing this book, I took my inspiration from Frank Baum himself. He believed that only a thin veil separated us from other worlds. In Finding Dorothy, I tried to push aside that veil and live in the world that Frank and Maud inhabited—to unveil them as they actually were, before The Wonderful Wizard of Oz whirled them into the spotlight. Circe is a fabulous book by the way! I think it much deserved its honors.

2. JL) Why tell it in the author’s wife’s point of view—because she had a hard life and overcame adversity?

EL) Frank and Maud did not have any daughters, so the first mystery for me was how did a man with no daughters create one of the most beloved little girls in all of literature—Dorothy? As one of America’s most beloved tales, the inspirations for Baum’s story have been well-researched, but no one knew if there was a real little girl who inspired the character of Dorothy. Some have speculated that she was named for a niece who died in infancy, but I did not think that rang true since Baum first wrote about a character named Dorothy before that niece was born. As I read more about Baum’s wife and their life together, the more convinced I became that their marriage and life together inspired Baum’s book—as for who inspired Dorothy—well, you’ll need to read the book!

3. JL) Any great anecdote to share from the non-fiction side to the story, or the movie itself?

EL) If you read the book, you’ll read a scene set in the witch’s castle where Dorothy sings a reprise of “Over the Rainbow.” That scene was cut from the final movie, and no film has ever been found, but there is an audio recording and it is simply heartbreaking to listen to. 

4. JL) What writers have influenced your own fiction?

EL) I have always been a voracious reader since I was a little kid. In addition to reading the Oz series as a child, many children’s books made a big impression on me—and I had a special fondness for books where ordinary children had extraordinary adventures—the Oz books of course, but also Edward Eager and Roald Dahl. I adored historical fiction and used to read the big sprawling books—Irving Stone, James Michener. Some go to authors for historical fiction—Paula McClain, Melanie Benjamin, and Tasha Alexander.  My favorite book of the past year was Pachinko by Min Jee Lee. And I never miss a book by Anne Tyler.

JL) Are we not in Kansas anymore, culturally speaking?

EL) I still have an old black and white photograph of a farmhouse in Parsons, Kansas that my grandmother’s family moved to after my great-great-great grandfather fought in the Civil War. I was born in Houston and moved to Los Angeles when I was five, but my family still has deep Midwestern roots.  I absolutely love the Great Plains. In my opinion, we’ll always be in Kansas, metaphorically speaking, because of the many ways that the center of our country has fueled our imaginations and affected how we think of our identity as a nation. The Smithsonian called The Wonderful Wizard of Oz “America’s first homegrown fairy tale” and Baum knew what he was doing. Kansas and Oz are the two sides of our national psyche, and they have always coexisted side by side.

JL) You also love horses. Do you still own one, and which horses do you love most from history?

EL) I do love horses, and I don’t currently own one but I still ride all the time, and I confess I’m looking for a new horse right now. My favorite horse from history? No question—it’s Snowman, The Eighty-Dollar Champion!

James Fallows

JAMES FALLOWS is a writer and journalist for The Atlantic. He was Jimmy Carter’s chief speechwriter, and won the National Book Award in 1983 for National Defense. He has since written about China, business, technology, and the military in both books and articles. A Rhodes scholar at Oxford in economics, he also went to Harvard, where he was editor of the Harvard Crimson. He later worked as an editor at The Washington Monthly, Texas Monthly, and U.S. News & World Report. In addition to holding a number of honorary degrees, he is also a licensed pilot, and once, long ago, worked as a mail carrier for the USPS. Given this experience, it is perhaps befitting that his last book was written with his wife Deborah, and is titled OUR TOWNS: A 100,000 Mile Journey into the Heart of America. 

Jonathan Lowe) Describe your book tour. Whom did you meet?

James Fallows) Over the past four months, my wife, Deb, and I have spent most of our time on the road across the United States, talking with readers -- and a wide range of other citizens. We've met business people, teachers and librarians, mayors and other political leaders, immigrants and refugees, artists, nurses and doctors, police officers and judges, architects and construction staffers, farmers and shop owners, reporters and local news staffers, entrepreneurs, brewers and distillers, truckers and delivery drivers, and the others who make up a modern community. 

JL) Impressions of America between the coasts?

JF) The more we've continued to travel, the more humbled and impressed we've become by the breadth and intensity of the renewal efforts already underway in communities large and small. Every American is aware of the problems and failures of the current United States, from bitter division at the level of national politics to economic dislocation and stagnation, and drug-addiction scourges. But not enough people are vividly enough aware of how much innovative energy is being applied toward solutions. 

JL) How do you think this will all turn out?

JF) We can't be sure -- no one can -- of how the balance between national-level bitterness and local-level practicality will turn out. But the more we've seen, the more convinced Deb and I have become about the importance of sharing these stories and letting today's Americans know about the solutions their fellow citizens are discovering.  

JL) You and your wife recorded the audio version of this book, reading the alternating passages each of you wrote. What did you learn from the experience?

JF) We benefitted from the guidance of a skillful producer / director of the recording, Gordon Rachman. Deb says about the experience, “Gordon was a great coach. He turned a famously arduous process – (think of going to the dentist!) -- into one that was as pleasant and rewarding as could be (think of taking the happy gas!)”
  I agree with Deb, and found the recording process both more demanding than I expected – every word and syllable had to be spoken clearly, in contrast to the tolerance for half-slurred words we get in normal life – but also more satisfying. Deb and I were trying to tell the story of what we had seen city-by-city as we went across the country, and telling those stories, aloud, finally seemed like the right and natural way to deliver the message. (Though I couldn’t help copy-editing myself as we went along, or thinking, “Gee, there could have been a clearer way to make that point!”)

I am a huge fan and customer of recorded books, and so I was all the more gratified to be able to participate in this part of the writing-and-publishing process.

From the Publisher: “For five years James and Deborah Fallows traveled across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, they met hundreds of civic leaders, workers, immigrants, educators, environmentalists, artists, public servants, librarians, business people, city planners, students, and entrepreneurs to take the pulse and understand the prospects of places that usually draw notice only after a disaster or during a political campaign.  The America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems—from economic dislocation to the opioid scourge—but it is also crafting solutions, with a practical-minded determination at dramatic odds with the bitter paralysis of national politics. At times of dysfunction on a national level, reform possibilities have often arisen from the local level. They describe America in the middle of one of these creative waves. Their view of the country is as complex and contradictory as America itself, but it also reflects the energy, the generosity and compassion, the dreams, and the determination of many who are in the midst of making things better. Our Towns is the story of their journey—and an account of a country busy remaking itself.”