Quick facts

  • Book: Dear Missing Friend
  • Author: Susan McGuirk
  • Publisher: Sea Crow Press
  • Format: Epistolary historical fiction (novel told through letters)
  • Setting/Era: Irish immigration to America, 1841 onward, through the California Gold Rush and Civil War
  • Debut novel: Yes

Author Interview

by Diane Slocum

Catherine McGuirk and her brothers leave the poverty of Ireland in 1841 to find a better life in America. The voyage is miserable but the one bright spot for Catherine is making friends with Patrick Lynch. They go their separate ways, but remain “penfriends,” supporting each other through correspondence. Catherine’s letters also flow to loved ones in Ireland and new friends as she makes them in America. The family struggles through their early years making a living and finding acceptance because of being Irish. Catherine dreams of fulfilling her life-long goal of becoming a teacher. As years to by, their lives are upended by major events including the California gold rush and the Civil War.

How did a family history project turn into a novel?

AUTHORLINK: Of course, it did strike me from the start that your character’s last name was the same as yours. How did you start to turn family history into a novel?

MCGUIRK: Like so many of us, I found myself researching family history a few years back. It was strictly for fun, and I did not have a grand plan of how it would all play out. It wasn’t until I came upon an advertisement looking for a long lost relative that things began to change. When I came upon the advertisement searching for my second great aunt, Catherine McGuirk, placed by her husband, I was intrigued. It was in the “Missing Friends” column, which was syndicated to newspapers all over the country in the 1800s. It was where Irish immigrants would try to locate their lost loved ones in the new world. I wondered how a husband could lose a wife, and why he did not identify himself as such. From there a story was born.

Why write the entire novel in letters?

AUTHORLINK: How did you decide to write your novel entirely in letters between the characters?

MCGUIRK: Letters as a vehicle occurred to me for multiple reasons. Because the characters were real people whose lives I followed, the plot was already set. Having only to be concerned with the characters’ motivations and feelings, it sometimes seemed like I was almost listening to them speak and letters reflected that. My background was in film programming – reading scripts and writing in-house reviews, so dramatic writing was familiar. Once I had a story to tell, letter writing just seemed natural.

What research went into the book, and how long did it take?

AUTHORLINK: Your notes show extensive research on an array of records and sources for details on various aspects of your ancestral character’s lives. It’s different from many historical novels where the main characters are fictional, but they encounter actual people from history and interact in historical events. Describe your research. What were some of the more hidden resources and how did you find them? Where did you find assistance? How much time did it take?

MCGUIRK: It took the better part of a decade to do all the research in fits and starts for the book. Along the way I read 50 books on related topics including: Irish history, the history of Native Americans in Eastern Long Island, the history of African American and Portuguese whalers, the history of Sag Harbor, of the whaling industry, of the Gold Rush, of the local maritime Underground Railroad, and of New York City. I visited many libraries in Long Island and Manhattan as well as extensive online research including federal and state census records, ship manifests, whaling logs, maps, deeds, newspaper clippings, graves, death and birth records and war service. I also traveled to Ireland to explore my family’s ancestral home. A local historian showed me our family’s former farm and the school Cath most likely attended.

Do the characters really cross paths with Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Cornelius Vanderbilt?

AUTHORLINK: Tell us about linking Catherine and her compatriots with well-known historical individuals such as Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Cornelius Vanderbilt. Did your research show that their paths could have crossed?

MCGUIRK: There is circumstantial evidence that Melville was in Sag Harbor, like in a letter his brother wrote giving Melville the mileage from New York to the village to board a ship. It is also passed down in the oral history of Sag Harbor that he walked the wharf, as it is referred to several times in Moby Dick. In my research, I found that sailors from the whaling ports of Massachusetts and New York sometimes went back and forth to pick up and drop off crew members. Many knew each other and some were even related, so sailing between ports was not considered far by ship. It isn’t hard to imagine that when Melville was whaling around 1844, he may have stepped off a ship and walked into a tavern on the wharf in Sag Harbor where Cath worked. As for Whitman, he is documented as being in the tiny village of Greenport in the Whitman Archive at the same time as Cath. He visited his sister and her family who lived there on multiple occasions. Patrick Lynch’s repeated documented trips to Central America during the Gold Rush point to employment, which Cornelius Vanderbilt was providing there at the time. One way the two young men might have met was at a hotel bar, as they served as gathering places for men in finance in downtown New York in the mid 1800s. A meeting at The Merchants Hotel seemed plausible since Patrick worked there prior to being employed by Vanderbilt.

How did McGuirk research the Native American characters and beliefs, including Jane Perdue?

AUTHORLINK: How did you find Native Americans and other experts to assist you with Jane Purdue’s character and beliefs?

MCGUIRK: Perhaps the foremost expert on the subject of Native Americans on Long Island was the late John A. Strong, Professor at Long Island University. Among his many books on the subject, The Algonquian Peoples of Long Island From Earliest Times to 1700 and The Montaukett Indians of Eastern Long Island taught me so much. I also found the Indians of Canada Cultural Dynamics by John Price useful because it was about Algonquin culture and beliefs, of which the Montauketts were a part. A dissertation deeply informed my understanding of the tribe, Disrupting the Narrative: Labor and Survivance for the Montauketts of Eastern Long Island. 2015. CUNY Graduate Center, PhD dissertation. Allison Manfra McGovern. I learned a great deal about Jane Perdue, specifically, from this dissertation. I also asked a member of an Algonquin tribe, Sarah Clark, as well as Sandi Brewster-Walker, the Executive Director of the Montaukett Indian Nation, to advise me on the manuscript.

What drew McGuirk to stories about cultural interaction, and what’s the significance of Jane Perdue’s character?

AUTHORLINK: It’s interesting to me that sometimes my interviews seem to cluster on certain themes. In May, Ian McGuire’s White River Crossing dealt heavily with Native American characters and in July, Linda Stasi’s The Descendant featured her own Sicilian immigrant ancestors with emphasis on the women. What do you hope we gain by reading stories about interactions of cultures? What was your intent for your story?

MCGUIRK: Since we’re on the subject, Jane Perdue is a perfect example of this cultural interaction. It was my good luck that she happened to live next door to my ancestor and became a character in the book. She was of mixed heritage, descended from a free Black whaling family and as a member of the Montaukett tribe, which she identified with. For a poor woman of color to save her money in the Sag Harbor Savings Bank for decades and purchase her own house almost 150 years ago, which she owned free and clear, is astonishing. To this day, it still sits proudly on Liberty Street in Sag Harbor, a telling and fitting address. Another reaction I have seen is that others have become inspired to tell their own stories based on family. So far, I have heard from three separate people who want to discuss doing something similar to my book. I am more than happy to help and serve as a sounding board.

What is The Storied Sisters Society?

AUTHORLINK: Tell us about your “The Storied Sisters Society.”

MCGUIRK: The Storied Sisters Society is my free newsletter on Substack that comes out on Wednesdays. I feature heroines of contemporary historical fiction using a tongue-in-cheek laundry list like “The Moxie Meter,” “From Leading Lady to Heroine Moment,” and “Her Superpower Is.” I end each profile with the Storied Sisters Society Code: “We honor the women of the past who endured so the women of the present can prevail.”

What is Susan McGuirk working on next?

AUTHORLINK: What are you working on next?

MCGUIRK: More research, of course!

About the Author

Susan McGuirk worked at Anthology Film Archives, a historical film museum, where she received its Film Preservation Award and serves on the Board of Advisors. At HBO, she composed hundreds of in-house film reviews. She received the City College of New York President’s Award for running a media mentoring program. She lives with her husband in New York City. Dear Missing Friend is her debut novel.