Novel set in Paris, plus we chat with author Michelle Moran

29th July 2016

Mata Hari by Michelle Moran, novel set in Paris.

This is the story of Margaretha Zelle who morphed into the alluring and beautiful Mata Hari, spy, lover, dancer – true events are rolled into a fictional account of this unique woman’s life.

Most of us have a hazy – possibly crazy – notion of this glamorous woman, her name is famous, but to truly pin her down would be a hard task. The book portrays a woman blighted by early traumatic experiences – abandonment by her father, then by her first lover and ultimately by the man she believed to be her one true love.

At an early age she was single-minded enough to find a husband who would take her to Java, one presumes, so that she could see what became of her first love; but after the loss of one child, the marriage soon turned sour – with domestic violence an integral feature – and she left, to pursue a life of dance, glitz and glamour. An army of military lovers in Paris awaits and between performing risqué dances in the Salons and theatres of Paris, Madrid and Berlin, she enjoys the good life and revels in the gifts that rain down on her. She is the material girl of her era. Her performances in Salome, Cleopatra, plus Tristan and Isolde all hold her audiences in thrall. The first half of the book charts the serried ranks of men who end up being seduced and there are many encounters to plough through. The second half sees her negotiating her way through war-riddled Europe to her untimely demise, desperately finding a way to get her daughter Nom back from the clutches of her erstwhile husband Rudolph Macleod. She is “a woman who routinely couples ill-advised liaisons with requests for compensation“… so very true.

It is her penchant for men in uniform that ultimately brings her down. Naive. Disingenuous. A fantasist. Haughty. Manipulator of men. Vindictive (“I take when someone has taken from me“). Yet at times kind. Underneath of course there seems to have been a conflicted woman, emotionally damaged through multiple losses, who saw the world in terms of how it could serve her rather than what she could back in. A narcissist at heart but still a child too, searching, yearning perhaps for a father figure, and delighted by glittering gemstones as her reward for just being her. This woman was truly “an orchid among buttercups” but a damaged flower who struggled to really see her place in the world.

Mata Hari is a woman whose very essence is nebulous, and to attempt to tie down a credible portrait of this capricious character, dovetailing vulnerability with cupidity… that is no mean feat.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

Over to Michelle who has kindly agreed to answer our questions:

TF: Mata Hari is a character of smoke and mirrors. To get hold of the real person seems an impossible task. How much did you rely on fact and how much did you interweave fiction to make this perhaps an even more compelling story?

MM: I went to memoirs and biographies to try to find the real Mata Hari, whose name was actually Margaretha Zelle. And it was through newspapers and information in the press that the fictitious Mata Hari emerged. I tried to present both sides to the reader along with reasons why Mata Hari would so consistently invent new lives for herself. Both the imaginary Mata Hari and the real Margaretha Zelle were fascinating to me.

TF: Mata Hari’s father deserts her as a child, she is abandoned by her first real love, she endures an abusive marriage…. all these factors may have contributed to the development of what seems to be a narcissistic personality disorder – how did you personally relate to this woman with such a capricious personality?

MM: Honestly, I couldn’t. But I’ve known quite a few narcissists in my life and many are very charming. You’d never ever want to date or marry one though.

TF:  She beds many men, yet has quite childlike qualities searching almost for a father-figure in her partners. Her innocence and self pre-occupation seemed to lead to her ultimate downfall. I was very sad as the last few chapters unfolded. What was it like writing those for you?

MM: Incredibly challenging. Sometimes, I’d just want to take her by the shoulders and give her a hard shake. But that was what attracted me to her character in the first place. I wasn’t incredibly interested in her dancing or her extravagant lifestyle, but her emotional arc was fascinating to me. What was it like to go from such a privileged and carefree upbringing to total poverty, then back again to tremendous wealth? How did she handle it? Was this why she couldn’t seem to make any relationship stick? What would make an eighteen year-old woman answer an ad for marriage in a newspaper and then give herself to a man twenty years her senior? Desperation, obviously, but what else? I try to cover all of that. It’s a short book. Less than 300 pages, but I didn’t feel I needed much more than that to tell her real story, the story of Margaretha Zelle.

TF: Do you tend to plan your books in advance or do you let the plot develop as you write?

MM: I plot each chapter out in advance. Since I write historical fiction and it’s based on someone’s life, however, in many ways the outline is already there for me.

TF: The cover is once again a triumph. How much input do you tend to have in the cover design for your books?

MM: I love this cover! Simon & Schuster did such a fabulous job. Authors don’t often get much say about their covers. Simon & Schuster has always come through for me though!

TF: What is next for you both in terms of travel and writing?

MM: I haven’t formally announced my next book, so I can’t really talk about it except it say that I’m completely in love with the subject matter! I’ll be traveling to Canada next, and after that, probably Europe.

Thank you to Michelle for taking the time to answer our questions. Check out her website, her Facebook Page and her pins on Pinterest

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