Written Literary Conversations with Nora D’Ecclesis
Featuring Brianna MacMahon
author of
The Great Dempseys
Nora D’Ecclesis: Is your niche audience young adult romance exclusively, or is it also for the adults who wish they had known then what they have learned as adults? Is the retro NYC inspired by your family’s personal experience?
Brianna: In terms of audience, I can see the book having a broad appeal. I generally market it to a young adult/new adult audience, but I have heard from older readers who have enjoyed the book. As the series progresses, the characters age, so we will eventually see them as full-fledged adults. For that reason, I think The Great Dempseys is relevant for readers of all ages.
I decided to set The Great Dempseys in 1970s/1980s NYC for a few reasons. I have always loved NYC, and as a setting, it gives me a lot of interesting things to play with: the diversity of the city, the cultural aspects, the socioeconomic differences. The book is set in Manhattan, and I primarily explore the neighborhoods of the Upper East Side and Greenwich Village. As a shoutout to my mother, who was born and raised in NYC, one of the characters, Florie, lives in Hell’s Kitchen. (That was where my mother grew up.) My mother has told me so many fascinating stories about growing up in NYC during the 1960s/1970s, and I put those little nuggets of information away, knowing that someday, I’d want to write a book set in a similar time period. She has been a great reference for me, and through her, I’ve learned some things about NYC in that time that aren’t easy to find.
Nora: In this novel, there is a theme of ‘found family,’ perhaps with generational trauma as the catalyst. Your sympathetic crafting of how that emerges is very interesting. Tell us more about your concept of found family or chosen family?
Brianna: The protagonists, Bobby and Audrey, come from very different backgrounds. While Audrey was raised in a close-knit, happy, loving family, Bobby was not. As such, Bobby has had to look for love and affection from other people—primarily his family’s staff, his friends, and, later, Audrey and her family.
For me, found family has always been one of my favorite themes in any sort of media, and it was important for me to portray that in the book. I am lucky enough to come from a family more like Audrey’s, and I’m very grateful for that, but I know a lot of people don’t have that same connection with their family. Thus, though the book explores themes of family legacy and dark family secrets, I thought it was equally important to drive home the point that we can create our own family—one that perhaps frees us from the toxicity of our blood relations. That is very much the case for Bobby. Through his relationships with Charles and Loretta in particular, he can get the attention and respect his parents never afforded him, and that helps Bobby gain more self-confidence. It’s heartwarming to see Bobby come into his own and realize that he will never have the relationship with his father that he craves—and he doesn’t think it’s worth fighting for anymore.
Nora: The variety of character names from the novel are so wonderfully creative, how did you craft them? Are they the composites or directly from your fiction writer’s mind? I particularly enjoyed the Bobby, Charles, and Loretta characters.
Brianna: None of the characters’ names are based on people I know in real life. The surname Dempsey was always floating around in my head; I think it has such a fantastic ring to it, and to me, it sounds like old money. And I thought the name Robert Dempsey had such a powerful feeling to it. To make the distinction between Robert and his son as obvious as possible, I decided to use the nickname Bobby; it’s a much more informal, boyish nickname, and it helps Bobby create some distance between him and his father.
For the other characters, I wanted to ensure I had a good diversity of names. I didn’t, for example, want too many characters’ names to start with the same letter, so I did research on popular names of the time period and did my best to make sure everyone was distinguishable from each other. I also love symbolism, so some of the names serve dual purposes!
One of my favorite character names is Sebastian Dagenhart. I have always loved the name Sebastian, and it’s come back into fashion in the last few years, which is interesting. I took a lot of Constitutional Law courses in college, and I remember one of the cases we discussed in-depth was Hammer v. Dagenhart. I thought the surname Dagenhart was so cool, so I tucked that away in my head for safe-keeping, knowing that someday, I’d have a character with that surname. We will see much more of Sebastian in book two, which is exciting!
Because of the time period I’m writing in, the characters have very classic names. I didn’t want anyone to stick out by having a name like MyKenna or Axel, for instance. That just wouldn’t work.
But Audrey has always been one of my favorite female names; it is so beautiful, and it’s not a name that’s been overused. I like that the name has a youthful feeling to it, but will also work for a more mature woman; it’s very timeless in that sense.
With Florie, I decided to give her the surname Washington for a couple of reasons. One, for her entrance, I thought her joke about her “being like the president but better” gave readers good insight into Florie’s personality. She’s an unapologetically loud, confident person, and I admire that about her. Second, the surname grounds Florie as an important person. Americans tend to associate the surname Washington with our first president, so I thought it would be fun to play around with that idea and connect the surname to Florie: a Black woman who is doing everything she can to make her mark on the world.
Charles, I think, is such a classic name, and it radiates elegance and warmth. And both of those qualities really fit Charles. The name has a comforting feeling to it, and Charles is such a calming force in Bobby’s tumultuous life.
And Loretta, like Sebastian, is a more old-fashioned name that has become popular once again. And that sort of speaks to Loretta’s rise to the top of NYC society. She is a force to be reckoned with! Robert, I think, didn’t really know what he was getting into by marrying Loretta; he thought that with her, he’d be able to further isolate Bobby, but to his horror, Loretta ends up forming a deep bond with Bobby. So, in a way, Loretta is Robert’s undoing, and I love that poetic justice.
Nora: Are you a writer in your day job? You appear to be very committed to writing as a profession. Many novelists are working in unrelated professions during the day and try hard to find time to work on the novel.
Brianna: For my full-time job, I work as a developmental editor and ghostwriter. So, yes, in my day-to-day life, I get to work as a writer, which is fantastic! I love my job; it brings me great joy to help other authors see the potential in their book.
I have worked with dozens of authors spanning all sorts of genres: memoirs, fantasy, romance, you name it! It’s such a privilege to be able to do the work I do and also pursue my own writing dreams.
Nora: Do you outline a novel in advance as a theme or chapter before writing?
Brianna: Honestly, my outlining process tends to be a bit all over the place. I make a note of my goals for each character’s arc, and I plot out specific events that need to happen, but other than that, I love to let my characters tell me where they want to go.
I know that may sound strange, but I feel like they can drive the plot forward more than I can at times! Sometimes, when I’m feeling stuck, I try out a scene with a different combination of characters. What would an interaction between Audrey and Loretta look like, for example? What about Bobby and Sophia? Is there an interesting dynamic between these characters that I should explore?
Doing those sorts of exercises helps me get a better sense of my characters’ relationships with each other, and they can sometimes help break me out of writer’s block.
Nora: A theme that on the surface seems to appear in many novels is the difficult task of fulfilling societal expectations. Your book issues a trigger and possibly traumatizing warning on a few of the potential emotional aspects of that theme. How do readers view your version of it, and is the warning well-received?
Brianna: My sister is the one who brought up the idea of including a trigger warning for the book. It was something I’d thought about, but I wasn’t sure if it was entirely necessary. And I think I was sort of worried that it would spoil the book. However, I’m glad I included it. There are traumatic topics I discuss in the book, including abuse, and I would never want to be responsible for re-traumatizing a reader. I also don’t think this trigger warning spoils the book in any way; it simply helps give the readers more context for the book, and they don’t go into thinking it’s just a lighthearted, fun romance.
Additionally, though I was afraid of possible spoilers, the abuse storyline isn’t supposed to be a surprise that comes out of nowhere; I plant seeds throughout the book to make it clear what is going on in that relationship. It’s not supposed to be a “Got’cha!” moment. The timing of it may be surprising, but readers are smart; they pick up on context clues.
There are lots of layers to the book. The trigger warning has been well received. Readers seem to appreciate the heads-up and the resources I list at the back of the book.
Nora: The element of historical fiction in this novel expertly portrays New York City in the late 20th Century. Do you enjoy the research?
Brianna: I love the research phase of writing. I majored in history and political science in college, so I have always loved diving deep into specific eras of history. As I’ve mentioned, my mother has a personal connection to NYC, so I was able to interview her and ask her about growing up in the city. But, in general, I love mining old newspaper articles and learning more about what was going on in NYC at the time. What shows were on Broadway? What exhibitions were at the Met? What was the prevailing mood in the city? These are all fascinating things to explore, and I wanted to make sure the references I was making in the book were period-appropriate and well researched. Of course, I take creative liberty with some things, but I did my best to pay tribute to my favorite city in the world! And I hope I accomplished that!
In many ways, The Great Dempseys serves as a love letter to NYC, and I hope it resonates with readers who live in NYC and beyond.