Please welcome C. M. Mayo, author of The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. C.M. will be chatting on LibraryThing until June 28th.

How did you find out about this little prince?

What other small snippets of history had you considered novel worthy at one point or another? And have you adapted them to fiction why or why not?

What kind of research do you find more interesting - digging thru old documents for info, or hands on "field trips" to the area you're writing about?

What was your greatest "aha" moment when researching THE LAST PRINCE?

Hola, delighted to open up the chat here at Library Thing. I'll answer your questions as best I can throughout the next few days. I invite you to have a look at the 1865 carte-de-visite, or photographic portrait of the prince, Agustin de Iturbide y Green, when he was about 2 /1/2 years old:

http://www.cmmayo.com/last-prince-photos...

There is also a webpage with a readers guide, excerpts, and much more:

http://www.cmmayo.com

Hola Jorge, Delighted to see you here on Library Thing! I found out about the prince when I happened to see his portrait in a friend's house. I asked who that was and she said, "the prince of Mexico". I said, um, what? As I had been living in Mexico for a couple of years at that point, I was astonished that I had not heard of him. Well, even many well-educated Mexicans have not heard of him, so there you have it. It's story that hasn't been told in full for various reasons--- it's very complicated (both politically and socially) to explain, obscure in many ways, and politically embarrassing for those who were close to Maximilian and, for the Juaristas, beside the point! Well, a while later, in Maximilian and Juarez by Jasper Ridley, I came upon a chapter about the American mother, who got up quite a scandal in her attempts to get Mexico's Emperor Maximilian to return him to her. I thought, wow, that is story that needs to be a novel. But it turns out that Jasper Ridley only had the barest bones of the story, and with some serious flaws. It took me some seven years of archival research (from Washington DC to Houston to Mexico to Vienna) to sort it all out.

As an American married to a Mexican, I found this story of an American in this long-ago Imperial Mexico intriguing. And I knew I had both the research and the language skills to sort it out. So I suppose I was just meant to do it. It's always felt that way.

Mensagem editada pelo seu autor, Jun 16, 2009, 1:16am.

Hola sagustocox--- You ask, what other small snippets of history had I considered novel worthy? None really. And let me add I do not consider the story of the prince in any way small, though I can certainly understand why it might appear that way, especially as it has been forgotten for so many years (and few English language readers know much about Mexico in the first place!). The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is not about the prince as a person (though he does make appearances throughout) , but the prince as the living symbol of the future of the empire--- and as such, the story goes deep into the very question of what it means to be Mexican. Mexico's Second Empire itself-- as established by the French Imperial Army, backed by the Catholic Church, and embraced by a group of Mexican conservatives, was an assertion that Mexicans should be subjects--- subjects of a crown. The Juarista response, ultimately victorious, was that, no, Mexicans are citizens.

Subjects obey. Citizens participate. Big difference.

So the novel is the story, as told through the prism of the prince's story, of the distintegration of this idea of a Mexican Empire--- of Mexicans as subjects.

Mensagem editada pelo seu autor, Jun 16, 2009, 12:56am.

Hi TooFondOfBooks-- what kind of research is more interesting? It depends. I've had a lot of fun and come across some jaw-droppers doing both archival work and "field trips." My greatest ah-ha moment? Hard to say which was the greatest, but I'll mention one: in the Library of Congress, under "Kaiser Maximilian von Mexiko" I found a 1929 photostatic copy of almost all of the Emperor Maximiian's archive in Vienna. (Except for the folder with the Iturbide family correspondence! I did see that in Vienna, it's quite something, embarrassing to all concerned.) Well, in the archive, I found a letter to Maximilian (dated just before he came to Mexico) from Don Pedro Montezuma XV, "sole legimitate descendant of the Aztec Emperor," which warned,

"French cannon have cowed some into submission; once tranquility reigns, however, there will rise up all of a sudden a terrible counter-revolution... Your Highness has been too precipitous in accepting the Mexican throne..."

One of the other big surprises was to see a copy of the 1866 (second edition) of Maximilian's rules of etiquette for his Imperial Court, which included the chapter on the Iturbide princes. Their status was defined with laser-like precision. Many people have misunderstood the arrangement that Maximilian made with the Iturbide family. But Maximilian did not adopt the little Agustin de Iturbide y Green as his son; rather, he took custody of him (and exiled the parents to Paris) purportedly to educate him, having granted him (and all the children and another grandson of Mexico's Emperor Iturbide) the status of "Highness." As Maximilian did not have his own children, the little prince was then viewed as the heir apparent, but not as a son, more a kind of "cousin." And in the meantime, Maximilian was trying to convince his family in Vienna to send over a Habsburg newphew to serve as heir apparent.

If you find this confusing, don't worry, so did many of the characters in the novel--- including the Mexican foreign minister!

Mensagem editada pelo seu autor, Jun 16, 2009, 12:52am.

I did a review of your book and posted it in several places including this site, Midwest Book Review, several on line sites and also some newspapers.

What I want to congratulate you about is the fact that the research you did made the book not only believable, but entertaining and educational.

Your effort in this book did not go unnoticed and you should feel very proud to have achieved a lasting epic which shall definitely live a long time after we are all gone.

Clark Isaacs

Dear Clark (clarkisaacs): Thank you so much for your kind words and for your support for the book. You know, authors live for comments such as yours!! I hope you are right, that the epic will live on for a long time. I think it is a very human story, or at least I have tried to show the humanity (both beautiful and flawed) in every character, each in their own complicated situation. I also hope it serves as a kind of path for many Englsh speaking readers who might not otherwise read about Mexico, to journey south of the border, both literarily and literally.

Unbridled Books is a great small publisher, and I wonder if you had consciously decided to go with a smaller publisher?

Has your editorial or publishing experience with Unbridled Books been favorable?

Hi sagustocox,

Unbridled Books was my number one choice--- I never sent the book anywhere else. I like their list which includes works by Nancy Zafris and Frederick Reuss among so many other outstanding novelists. Though not yet well-known among writers, in the book business Unbridled Books has a great reputation with book reviewers and independent bookstores. I'm just finishing up a book tour that Unbridled Books arranged--- so many great independents, Vroman's in Pasadena, Mrs Dalloway's in Berkeley, Book People in Austin, The Twig in San Antonio, Blue Willow in Houston, Bookworks in Del Mar and Book Works in Albuquerque. These are bookstores that have owners and staff who really know and care deeply about books--- and take good care of their customers, including book groups. I'm also impressed with how Unbridled Books has kept on top of new developments in social media--- making use of sites such this one, LibraryThing--- as well as sending advance review copies to book bloggers. Book bloggers have become a very important for getting the word out about new books, and I think many other publishers, including some of the larger ones, do not yet fully appreciate this development.

It's so cool that all this started with a painting! Almost every time I visit an art gallery or museum, I come away with questions but have never taken the time to do more than basic research. I'm so glad you didn't stop there!

You probably get asked this question all the time, but why did you choose to write a novel? I noticed your other books are non-fiction. My MA is in History, and I can't help but wonder if you at all struggled about when to remain true to the story and when to let your imagination step in? Or did it come naturally (and by naturally, I do not mean easily!)?

Hi fadetheory, Thanks for your questions. Why a novel instead of nonfiction? Because I don't think any of the story makes much sense unless we can understand it from the point of view of the various individuals in that time, in that place. It's really about emotions, fears, longings. To make that vivid and understandable, I needed to use the tools available to a novelist.

In the epilogue / acknowledgements I detail the sources and the purely fictional parts. But even the purely fictional parts are based on extensive research--- I mean, I've done my absolute best effort to be able to say, reader, you can trust this. Maybe not the super-specific details (did he scratch his ear when he said that? or take a sip of coffee as she looked out the window at that moment?) but overall, yes.