Q&A with Susan Price

The authors novel American Royalty follows protagonist Augie Van Meer's plan to marry into Newport's elite.

Susan Price’s novel, American Royalty, follows a young man’s attempt at reinvention in 1974 Newport, a town in the midst of its own transformation. Protagonist Augie Van Meer’s plan to marry into Newport’s elite takes him on a journey that proves money doesn’t buy happiness. Meanwhile, Augie’s sailing instructor, Erin Reilly, daughter of Irish immigrants, goes on a quest of her own to uncover family secrets.

Price is a journalist, entrepreneur, and novelist who has covered personal finance and change-making women in Forbes, BusinessWeek, Fortune, and many others. She has run a content marketing business for 15 years. A long time New Yorker, she now lives in coastal Connecticut.

What can you tell me about the plot and the characters of American Royalty?

So the plot is set in a single summer, and it starts out with a struggling actor [Augie Van Meer] who lives in New York City and is inspired by the whole manifestation, positive thinking movement that had a big upswing in the 1970s. New York City is in bad shape at the time, and he gets inspired by this [manifestation movement] to go to Newport, which he hears has a lot of wealthy people, and he’s going to find a wealthy wife and live a glamorous life, because he’s manifesting this. He rents a carriage house and spends his summer there and starts meeting various people and various things happen.

It’s told in multiple perspectives, so there’s also the perspective of one of the women that he is dating and wants to marry [Daphne Moorecourt], and she’s somewhat of a Bellevue Avenue heiress.

Then, he starts taking sailing lessons from this woman Erin Reilly, who is the daughter of Irish immigrants from the Fifth Ward section of Newport. The other plot line follows her family and their Irish history. I was very interested to learn of the Irish history in Newport that’s not hidden but was new to me, so I wanted to bring that out as well.

It’s more of a social story, it’s not super heavy, it’s a summer read, but it also throws in themes of feminism because the Irish woman is going to be a lawyer and she’s an activist about feminism at the time. The IRA was big in the news back then as well. It shows the social situation of the time and how Newport itself was transforming.

Was the story always going to be set in Newport or were you thinking of a few different locations?

Yes, it was. In my head it was always a Newport story. It couldn’t happen anywhere else. When I used to go to Newport, I could see the layers of history and I was really fascinated by that.

Did you have any inspirations for the characters — people in your life or popular figures?

When I used to go to Newport I would see people and imagine their stories. I have that tendency, so they weren’t [drawn] from real people. They were composite people in my head. I do come from Irish ancestry but my family experience is very different. It does mention real historical things but I’ve played around with the timelines, so there is some history, but it’s more of a grounding, contextual history. So there were references to real places and real things that were going on, like I mentioned the IRA, Phyllis Shaffley, visiting Rhode Island at that time. Those things are woven in. It’s contextual of the social change at the time.

Did your perception of Newport change after writing the book or was it consistent throughout writing?

Oh, that’s a good question. I would say I always loved Newport, I always thought it was beautiful, but the more I knew about it the more I appreciated its history and its place in American history. You know, everyone knows about the Gilded Age, but there’s so much more there — religious diversity and the early settlers. It’s not a huge city, but there’s a lot of culture for a city its size. The richness, I really appreciated more. I’m completely in love with it now, more than ever.

On a more personal note, how has the experience been of going into the world of fiction-writing as someone with a background in nonfiction?

You know, one of the things I’ve always loved about being a reporter is the people. I’ve always had that curiosity about people, so creating characters has been kind of an outgrowth of that, and very fun. The part that was a little challenging, that I wasn’t really expecting, was — you know, I’ve spent so long being very committed to facts and I had to kind of step back and say, “I can create things. This doesn’t have to be real.”

Once I did that, once I let myself [my imagination] go, it was much more fun and I [now] love it. One of the ways I kind of worked through that was by making characters that were not [like] me. They’re younger than I am and they’re from completely different backgrounds and that kind of freed me up to get over that hump. I’m over it now, but that was the big transition. As I say, my curiosity about people didn’t change and my work ethic about writing has always been there too. Even though it’s a different kind of writing, I know how to sit down and get things done. I was programmed on that one.

Is there anything you’re reading this summer that you could recommend?

I’m actually reading a lot of things set in Rhode Island right now. I’m reading a lot of fun stuff, which I think we all need right now. Dolly All the Time is a summer romance by Annabel Monaghan. That just came out and that’s set in a [fictional] stand in for Newport. Also, Laws of Love and Logic by Debra Curtis. And I’m also going back to reading a lot of Edith Wharton, so I’m very much in my New England vibe right now.

American Royalty is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Walmart, and Bookshop.org.