Q & A with Nell Gavin

Welcome to On the Tudor Trail Nell! Could you share with us the inspiration behind your book Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn?

The inspiration was twofold. First, I lived less than 15 minutes away from a very large Renaissance festival, and went there every spring. It was where I met my husband, and where both of my kids had their first jobs. My sons had grown up there – I would take them there as little boys to run in the fields when the festival was closed because it was so beautiful there. You can’t do that now, but years ago it was their playground.

Renaissance festivals always have a royal court, and this one was the court of Henry VIII in that magical time when he and Anne Boleyn were still in love, and Elizabeth I hadn’t been born yet. Anne Boleyn was replaced once – the current version is a gorgeous brunette who actually works as a firefighter. She’s outlasted eight Henry VIIIs, I believe (I’m not sure) and held her reign for…I don’t even know. She still looks quite young, but it may be close to 20 years since she first took the “throne.” The current Henry VIII is perfect – a tall, husky redhead with a wicked sense of humor and a Star Trek costume he occasionally pulls out for his own amusement. The two of them together are hilarious, bantering back and forth. They’re great fun.

So I’m watching them one day, and I’m thinking: “If they reincarnated and ran into each other now, she’d skin him alive.” That was probably the seed behind “Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn.”

While that thought was percolating, I happened to be working for a company that had an atmosphere so toxic that a fully-staffed EEOC branch dealt SOLELY with that company. I felt it was prudent to not associate with anyone – yet I still learned of at least 10 people in my immediate work circle who were subject to unbelievable abuse there. I was witnessing and experiencing things that made me frightened and furious.

Let me explain that I tried to quit that job numerous times. Every job I applied for gave me an offer, and every single offer was withdrawn for bizarre reasons before I could begin work. They couldn’t get funding to open the branch I was to have led. The job description changed, and I was no longer qualified. One thing after another meant a job offer followed by a withdrawal. I finally decided that I had to hunker down and take it – that I was being forced to hunker down and take it – and I settled in. The Universe had spoken. But I had thoughts, and it was mainly about the karma of the people who were treating employees in this manner.

I had plenty to say, both to and about the people behind the abuses. My anger began percolating with my Anne Boleyn idea, and my thoughts became a running commentary on corporate politics, melded with Anne Boleyn and reincarnation.

I began to write, compulsively. Threads was a catharsis – a way for me to dump. Each time I mentioned rape in the book, I was really describing the helplessness of the employees I saw who were demeaned and forced out of the company for no reason other than the fact that they didn’t fit snugly into someone’s (still firmly in high school) clique. The book was an analogy for what I was witnessing and experiencing, and was an analogy for my anger. But really, I had to move past the anger, right? So the book helped me work my way through it. The theme of Threads is “forgiving the unforgivable.” Writing it helped me a great deal.

Why do you think that almost 500 years after Anne Boleyn’s death she still provokes such strong feelings and emotions? Why does she capture our imagination?

Anne Boleyn is an enigma. She’s so difficult to pinpoint that people project whatever they like on her. She turned a king down – who does that? She was amazingly modern, for a Renaissance woman. She had her own ideas and her own thoughts. She was literate when most royal women (including Jane Seymour) couldn’t even read and write. She read banned books, and handed them off to Henry VIII. She thought things that probably would have had her executed as a heretic. She spent a fortune on the poor. She had a mind of her own. People love her or hate her, but she – and the history we’re left with (not an entirely honest one) – is titillating.

Apart from Anne Boleyn, are you interested in any other Tudor personalities?

When I was 10 years old, I read a book about Mary Queen of Scots. It shook me to my core – I have no idea why – but I became fascinated with executed monarchs. My favorites were Mary Queen of Scots (of course) and the Romanovs, the Russian royal family who was executed in 1917. I just bled for that family, when I was 15 and first read “Nicholas and Alexandra.”

One of the side effects of my passion for Mary Queen of Scots was that I had an enduring dislike for Elizabeth I, who had had her executed. I posted this once on a Tudors forum. Someone read my post and recommended a book to get over that. I bought the book, and realized I LOVED Elizabeth. I had wasted so much time blaming her for Mary’s execution, when she was really a delightful person.

Do you believe in reincarnation?

I was raised to not believe in reincarnation, as are most folks in the Western hemisphere. But I kept thinking – no one could stop me – and I kept hitting roadblocks for not believing.

For one, I had very vivid memories of a lifetime in New England in the early 1800s. What explained that? Why did I believe there were mountains beyond the trees from our second-story window, when I was small? I lived in Chicago, which was totally flat, but I “knew” there were mountains in the distance, just past the trees. Why did I have strange dreams, when we went on a vacation to the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts? I had dreams of me and two sisters – one of these was “Cathy,” my imaginary sister when I was small. There she was in my dreams, only she was real, and we lived here in the Berkshires. I saw that same mountain range I had always expected to see from our second-story window. It was a very odd trip for me. I didn’t quite know how to deal with it – I was “home.”

But of course, that’s nothing. That’s just imagination.

As I got older, I forgot about Massachusetts for the most part, but I kept thinking. One of the sticking points was Physics: If energy can’t be destroyed, where do we go? Physics pretty much killed the theory that there is no life after death.

One of the things you can be sure of is that you can replicate any Physics experiment, and get the same outcome each time you perform it. So how come we could only be born once? How come the process of entering a human body was a once-off, and could never be replicated? It didn’t make sense to me. Our existence was still subject to the laws of Physics, and Physics doesn’t work that way.

I wrote all my thoughts in an essay, which I posted almost 10 years ago at http://www.nellgavin.net/reincarnation.htm. It doesn’t prove anything, of course. The point is: Think. And please don’t decide you believe anything until you DO think!

Anne Boleyn’s ghost has been seen and sensed in several locations around England. Do you believe in ghosts and have you ever had any unusual experiences?

I’m sure that there are people who are more sensitive than others. I also believe we survive beyond our deaths. For this reason, I believe that some people really sense the deceased because I believe the deceased are really out there.

I also know that radio waves, and television waves and so forth, are invisible and omnipresent. They pick up signals and replay them. I wonder sometimes if the ghosts people see are impressions that were imprinted on the atmosphere for whatever reason. Heightened emotion? Solar flares? Are they simply cosmic movie clips that replay themselves whenever the atmospheric conditions are correct? More Physics. We just don’t know. But why not find out? There could be a very mundane explanation, and no reason at all for us to be spooked.

I have heard that someone witnessed the procession to Anne Boleyn’s execution. Maybe it was imagination. Maybe it was real, and recorded as waves on the atmosphere in ways we can’t understand right now. Who knows? Reality is strange. The trick is: Test it. Prove it true or false. Believing one thing or the other without proving is less than useless; it’s harmful.

Have you ever visited places associated with Anne and the Tudors? If so, do you have a favourite location?

Hever Castle, Anne Boleyn’s childhood home, was a total and complete delight! I went to England with my best friend, Dona Carter. I had held off describing any of the scenes in England until I could actually see them. The two of us spent an entire day at Hever Castle. It was an amazing, wonderful day! So much to see! It was such a happy place!

We also went to Hampton Court Palace, and didn’t like it there. We left before the tour was over because we both just wanted to get away from there. No telling why – it was too big. It was too cold and too impersonal. I put those impressions into Threads.

There have been countless books, both fiction and non-fiction, written about the Tudors. What are your favourites?

I love Eric Ives. My second favorite is Alison Weir. The problem with Anne Boleyn, and biographers of Anne Boleyn, is that virtually all of her history is speculation. Henry VIII made it a criminal offense to speak well of her, after her death. Therefore, her enemies got to write her history, and no one stepped up to challenge them. The Anne Boleyn we all know was manufactured by the persons least apt to be sympathetic toward her.

In the Foreword for Threads, I mention how frustrating it was to research Anne Boleyn’s life. Each time I picked up a book, it contradicted something someone else had written. I went back and changed the details in Threads a hundred times until I finally stopped picking up biographies. I learned that true Tudor experts didn’t know much – that anyone who declared Absolute Truth about Anne Boleyn and the Tudors was not really very knowledgeable. Everyone has an opinion, but the truth is anyone’s guess.

So I used statements from each of the books I mention in my bibliography, and cherry-picked them for purposes of plot. But I didn’t bend any facts I didn’t mention at the end of the book. The problem is: Everyone’s “facts” are different.

Are you presently working on any books?

I just released my second book, “Hang On,” at the end of July. It won the silver medal with the Living Now Book Awards. This time I move forward in time, and cover rock and roll in the 1970s! I also explore mental illness.

If you could ask Anne Boleyn any question, what would it be?

Did you really love Henry VIII?

I have a feeling she really did. She never acted like a queen who was trying to preserve her position. She acted like a wife whose husband was a cheat!

Visit Nell Gavin’s official website here.