Wild Things Read Online Free PDF

that the bold risk she took in backing Colon financially led to the European invasion of this continent. Colon's expedition was audacious and inspired, and Isabella's decision to back it changed the world forever. She financed an adventure of unprecedented magnitude. It also unleashed one of the most vicious and prolonged periods of genocide in the history of the world. I couldn't tell the story without that perspective."
    "Did she really see it as anything more than a business gamble?"
    "It's difficult to know for sure. Yes, she gave Colon money. Sooner or later someone would have. But in the end, hundreds of thousands of North and South American natives died in the following two hundred years because Isabella was hoping to make a profit. So I wanted my narrator to know that bitter fact, and yet be drawn to admire her namesake ancestress for her vision, and her daring, and her Wits."
    "And in so doing," Liz added, "you told the story of a modern woman involved in an adventure of her own."
    "That's why it's called fictionalized history," I said with a laugh. "The modern Isabella didn't really exist. But I needed her to explain the bittersweet context."
    Liz smiled encouragingly. "That was another aspect of the book that kept me reading. The story of two Isabellas: the queen hoping to strike it big with trade to India by sea, and the biochemist working on a cure for the smallpox her ancestress was responsible for bringing to this continent."
    I leaned a little closer to the microphone. "Smallpox was more deadly than swords and guns in the end."
    "Tell me more about Eleanor of Aquitaine," Liz said. "I find her so fascinating as a character. It's hard not to see Katharine Hepburn whenever I think of her."
    I smiled. "I know what you mean. Katharine Hepburn played her so well in The Lion in Winter. That portrayal of Eleanor makes wonderful theater. If anything, I'm struggling with too much material and a personality so vivid it's hard to capture her on the page. Existing biographies are usually of the Eleanor-and-the-kings-in-her-life Variety — more about the kings' reactions to her than her own actions. I'm hoping to do better than that since she deserves it."
    "Which is where we began. You can't tell the story of her life without all the kings she influenced in it."
    "Certainly not," I said- "But I can make Eleanor the center of my biographic universe and show how her wit and intellect influenced all she touched, not just her beauty and the passion men had for her. The Lion in Winter portrays Henry's feelings for her as either hate or love. She had to have been more than a bed companion to him or a hated enemy. She did more than simply madden him — and everyone else around her — into irrationality."
    "I begin to see what you mean," Liz said. "I can't think of any portrayal of her that doesn't center on how she drove other people mad with lust or hate, as if to say that as a woman she worked only by arousing strong emotions in men, but that can hardly be the case."
    "And showing that is what I'm hoping to accomplish in the book."
    Liz glanced at her watch. "Why don't you leave us with a brief synopsis of her life so when your book is on the stands we'll know why we want to read it."
    I took a deep breath. "What fascinates me about her is what she had from birth and what she did with it. She was heiress to one of the richest agricultural centers in Europe, almost a quarter the size of modern-day France. It was hers and hers alone. Her father was mostly absent and left her active mind to its own devices. At fourteen she could speak langue d'oc, which was the language of the Aquitaine, court French and classic Italian, as well as read and write in Latin. When I was fourteen, I was listening to 'Frampton Comes Alive'."
    Liz chuckled. "I was busy learning all the words to 'Alice's Restaurant'."
    I shared her laughter. "We were still children, but Eleanor was already considered an adult by her fourteenth birthday. She was the