Nineteenteen Welcomes Y.S. Lee

Regular Nineteenteen readers will no doubt be pleased to see that this week we're happily welcoming Y.S. Lee, author of Young Bluestockings Book Club selection The Agency: A Spy in the House, to blog with us. Today we have an interview... enjoy!!

Nineteenteen: Why this series? What was the moment when you knew you had to write about Mary Quinn and The Agency?

Y.S. Lee: The character of Mary Quinn came first. I wanted to write about a Victorian girl from a marginal background, but the ordinary trajectory of such a life would be short and dreary: hunger, drudgery, probably an early death. Creating the Agency, a top-secret women’s detective bureau, made it possible to write about Mary’s life in a hopeful way that played with historical realism, while also respecting it.

Nineteenteen: Your background is a scholarly one...what made you decide to write YA books?

Y.S. Lee: I turned to fiction because I wanted a chance to write about things I couldn’t, as a literary critic. I was curious about real life: what people ate, how they bathed, how they travelled about. Writing novels was a delicious way to incorporate all my frivolous research. And the YA part is entirely my agent, Rowan Lawton’s, inspiration: the first version of A Spy in the House was for adults, but Rowan pointed out to me that it was really a coming-of-age story and suggested that I rewrite it for young adults.

Nineteenteen: Being that we're history geeks here at Nineteenteen, we have to talk about research. What was your best research moment--the one that made you smile and rub your hands together (metaphorically, of course), or the one that sent shivers up your spine? What is the most interesting thing you learned as you wrote The Agency books?

Y.S. Lee: Oh, no - I have to pick just one? Really, the thing I adore about writing historical fiction is that I’m learning all the time. I research as I go, and new discoveries often send me back to re-work the manuscript. One of the most fascinating things I learned about, which became a strong element in the series, was the presence of Asian sailors (called Lascars) in port cities in England – Liverpool, Bristol, and London. People often think of historical England as lily-white, but this was absolutely not the case.

Nineteenteen: In addition to being YA historical fiction, the Agency stories are also mysteries. Are you a mystery reader? Which did you enjoy more, the mystery crafting or the historical aspects when writing these books?

Y.S. Lee: I love old-school mysteries: Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh. Having said that, while mystery is fun, a great way of shaping an adventure, and extremely satisfying to work out, my heart is with the historical details. I will sometimes write an entire scene around a particular historical tidbit, just so I get to include it.

Nineteenteen: Mary Quinn is one intrepid young woman...do you think you could embark on a career as a spy, as she does?

Y.S. Lee: Absolutely not! I’ve never been in a fistfight in my life, and I’m strictly an armchair spy. It’s a joy to write a character who’s so very unlike me, though.

Nineteenteen: Racism is an important theme in Mary Quinn's story. How did you approach writing about it from a nineteenth century perspective while making it accessible to today's readers?

Y.S. Lee: You know, I didn’t set out to write about racism as a theme. It grew, organically and logically, from what I knew about the lives of people of colour in Victorian England. If you read Victorian literature and documents carefully, there’s lots of evidence of the challenges they faced, the way they were treated, the assumptions made about them. I found one missionary society’s report about mixed-race families in Liverpool, in which the missionaries were surprised to find that black and Asian men often made good and affectionate fathers! Imagine!

Nineteenteen: What were your favorite books as a teen reader? Are there any more recent YA books that you wish you could have read then?

Y.S. Lee: Oh dear – I read so much dreck in my early years. I wish, most of all, that I could have a do-over for my childhood and teenaged reading, and it would definitely include more recent YA titles. I’m a huge fan of Kelley Armstrong, Erin Bow, Stephanie Burgis, and Zoë Marriott, among others.

Nineteenteen: What's next for you? Are there more Mary Quinn books in your (and our) future, or are you moving on to other writing pastures?

Y.S. Lee: I’m writing the 4th and last Mary Quinn novel right now. My next project will be completely different – it’s set in Southeast Asia during the Second World War – but I’m not ruling out more Agency novels with a different sleuth.

Nineteenteen: Where can our readers learn more about you and your books?

Y.S. Lee: I blog every Wednesday at http://www.yslee.com/, and you’ll find excerpts and extras from the three published Agency novels there, too. Please stop by and say hello!

Nineteenteen: We're sure readers will! Come back on Friday for the second part of our week with Y.S. Lee!

More on The Agency: A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee

Great insights, my dears! I do hope some more of you join in. May I freshen your tea? Plump the pillow behind you?

I too enjoyed this book, particularly the chemistry between Mary and James. I was sad to hear he was heading off to India at the end, but it seems maybe something will change his mind. Hm.

And I look forward to reading the subsequent books to see how Mary resolves her conflicts with her heritage. I didn’t know a lot about Chinese immigrants in the nineteenth century, so I did a little poking around (ah, research, thy sultry call never faileth!). While Chinese people had visited England since the 1600s, the first significant number of immigrants settled in the early nineteenth century, particularly in London’s Limehouse Reach along the Thames. They were largely sailors, and many worked for the East India Company. One of their number, who went by the Anglicized name of John Anthony, took on the role of ambassador between the immigrants and the Company and amassed a fortune in the process. He was the first Chinese man to be naturalized as a British citizen, supposedly through an Act of Parliament. Another Chinese man was graduated from Edinburgh University with an MD in 1855. The first Chinese minister to Britain arrived in 1877.

So if the Chinese were wealthy and educated, why did Mary cringe at admitting her background? Perhaps these chilling words from The Nineteenth Century: A Monthly Review, Volume 4: July through December, 1878, edited by Sir James Knowles, will show the depth of the prejudice against the Chinese:

“The Chinese are, by common ascent of all Western nations, pronounced to be an eccentric and impractical race. . . . Summarize the charges brought against Chinese immigrants by those most nearly interested, namely, British Colonists and United States citizens and these may be stated as follows: --they are pronounced to be the scum of the population of the worst districts of China; they migrate without their families, and the few women they import are shipped under a system of slavery for the vilest purposes; they introduce their own bizarre habits and ideas, and studiously eschew all sociability with colonists of other races; they outrage public opinion by hideous immoralities; they ignore or defy judicial and municipal institutions; they form secret and treasonable associations amongst themselves; they manage to afford, by their low and miserable style of living, to undersell and under work white men as mechanics, labourers, and servants; they fail to take root in the soil, making it their aim always to carry home their gains to the old country.”

What ugly rhetoric! The article does attempt to rebuke these attitudes or suggest ways to counter them. Note that the same volume has an article on why the women’s movement might bring about the downfall of society.

Either way, you go, Mary!

Another question for you to ponder: Why do you think the leaders of the Agency chose Mary? What skills would you need to be a good spy in the nineteenth century? Do you think you would make a good addition to the Agency?

Young Bluestockings Book Club reads The Agency: A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee

Welcome to the first Young Bluestockings Book Club meeting of 2012! Dedicated to all things high-minded (usually), improving (frequently), and fun (always, we hope!), the Young Bluestockings Book Club meets to discuss books of interest to readers of NineteenTeen: books related to 19th century teens and their life. Please make yourselves comfortable—yes, I know, that horsehair-upholstered sofa is terribly slippery—refresh your teacup, and let’s get started!

First, a note—there will be spoilers in this post, so if you haven’t read the book yet and don’t want any surprises ruined…YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! :)

Ahem…now, here we go!

First, a brief re-cap of this meeting's book, The Agency: A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee: 12-year-old street orphan Mary Quinn is rescued from imminent execution by a mysterious woman who offers not only life, but a place at Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls, a charitable institution that will give her the education to lead a useful life. Fast-forward five years, and Mary is now a junior teacher at the Academy, and has gone from being suspicious of the school to dedicated. So when two of her fellow teachers reveal the secret at the school’s heart—that it is a front and training ground for an ultra-secret, all-female intelligence service called The Agency—she jumps at the chance to join.

Mary’s first assignment is as a paid companion to the daughter of a wealthy east Asia merchant, Henry Thorold, who is suspected of dealing in stolen priceless Indian artifacts and tax evasion. The assignment is not always easy for a girl of Mary’s peppery temperament: her charge, Angelica, is a spoiled beauty who does her best to make Mary’s life a misery, and under the placid surface of the household, intrigue bubbles and swirls. Mary’s own feelings are complicated by a certain James Easton, whose brother George is one of Angelica’s suitors and who has his own reasons for wanting to know more about Mr. Thorold’s activities. And Mary has a secret of her own that not even her employers at the Agency know about—a secret she fears will alienate her from them and from the world, and which has a curious—and tragic—connection to the case she’s investigating.

Rather than listening to us spout, we want to hear from you: what did you think about the book? Here are a few questions to get you going:

• Although the central premise of an all-women spy ring in 1850s England is, of course, extraordinarily unlikely, were you able to suspend disbelief enough to go along with the story?



• Everyone seems to have a secret in the Thorold household...which secret did you find most intriguing and unexpected?



• Mary has already stated that she has no interest in marriage...but then she finds herself drawn to James Easton. Do you think she'll change her mind about marriage, or do you think that her relationship with James will take a different tack? What do you think of young Mr. Easton?



• Mary is intent on concealing her multi-ethnic birth, even from her trusted colleagues at the Agency. Do you think she'd over-reacting? D0 you suspect (as I do) that it will eventually turn into a source of strength for her?

All right, Young Bluestockings...discuss! And please don't limit yourself to these suggested talking points--bring up whatever you'd like!

P.S. As a history geekish side-note, the problem of the horrible stench from the Thames was an ongoing problem in the middle years of the century—in fact, at one point, in the summer of 1858 (as detailed in the book) the odor was so bad that it nearly forced Parliament (which sits right on the river) to close and earned the title of “The Great Stink.” The problem was the explosive growth of the city of London: the huge influx of people meant a huge influx of garbage and human waste, and the old disposal method—letting it all drain into the river and get swept out to sea on the tides—was no longer sufficient. Don’t forget, too, that the germ theory of disease had not yet been postulated, and Londoners were sure that the stench from the river caused the cholera outbreaks that had become commonplace. Over the next several years, the London sewer system was overhauled and improved, removing the stink and halting the cholera outbreaks by decontaminating the local water supply.