Heather’s Bookshelf: Author Interview with Janice Graham

Book Title:  Red Lily

Released:  05/21/25

Genre:  Historical Suspense

Interview by Heather L. Barksdale

What inspired you to write “Red Lily”?

Graham: My fascination with Cold War history and espionage dates back to my early years in Paris when I worked for an American businessman who negotiated Western financing for major projects to be built in the USSR (like the first "luxury" hotel for the Moscow Olympics). Years after his death, it came to light that he had been spying for the KGB. One of the characters in Red Lily was modeled after him.

The plot was inspired in part by the true story of Vasily Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist who, over a period of 12 years, systematically hand copied masses of KGB archival material and concealed the scraps of paper in his shoes to get past the nightly security checks. Working from his dacha outside of Moscow, he transcribed the notes and hid them in milk containers, which he then buried in the garden or under the floorboards of his house.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Mitrokhin approached MI6 who, unlike the CIA, recognized the value of such intelligence. The British immediately spirited Mitrokhin and his wife to the UK and dispatched agents to dig up the documents, which filled six trunks.

The family story was inspired by an aunt of mine. She wasn’t anything like Lily–she could be pretty awful at times–but she was also adventurous and fiercely independent, which was unusual for her time. I admired her. I always thought she was unfairly demonized by our family. I wanted to use her story to explore the themes of discovery and reconciliation, to portray how families—like regimes—demonize outliers and what it takes to bring them together again.

How did you come up with the names of your main characters? 

Graham:  I don't start with names - naming a character too soon restricts my imagination, but my books are always character driven, so I start with a short descriptive moniker. In this case: the Aunt, the Gulag lover, Our Man (a nod to Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana), the Priest with the Runaway Wife, Polio Man (who later became Pym). For the narrator, Carl Box, I chose a name that rhymes with Carl Marx. At the same time, Box implies something utterly ordinary, non-descriptive and unexceptional that can conceal any manner of surprises. Of course, there are other reasons for why he was given this name, but that would be a spoiler.

Is there anything that you want readers to know about you, your writing process or your book?

Graham: My creative process is slow, it's terribly unstructured, and yet, over the years, I've found what works. My first novel, Firebird, netted a three-book contract obligating me to write two more novels "just like Firebird" (the very words of the Putnam CEO). But the beauty of that novel was its originality; it was one-of-a-kind. Needless to say, the following two novels were a struggle for me. After that, it was the story that chose me, not the other way around. The idea for The Tailor's Daughter came to me in a dream. Writing Charlotte Brontës story (Romancing Miss Brontë) had been a passion of mine since grad school. Red Lily grew out of a love of Paris, espionage, and the need to laugh. I learned not to force it. Every writer is unique. We have to listen to ourselves and learn to respect our own creative path. 

If "Red Lily” were adapted into a movie, who would you like to see cast to play your lead characters?

Graham: I imagined Carl as a sort of Matt Damon/Good Will Hunting character--nice-looking in an unassuming, unremarkable way. Matt's in his 50s now, so maybe Daniel Radclifffe, Taron Egerton, Tom Holland. I'd love to see Jamie Lee Curtis playing Lily, or Sharon Stone, Hellen Mirren, Annette Bening, Emma Thompson.

When you encounter writer’s block, what do you do to break yourself out of it?

Graham: I try to eliminate distractions. The internet is a big one. Once I went so far as to disconnect the internet in my own home during my writing hours. Or I go to a café where there's no internet connection (or a poor one.) If I'm blocked when I'm well into a novel, it's often because I'm taking the story down the wrong path, so I back up, and look for other choices. 

Are there any tips that you would like to share with other aspiring authors?

Graham: Study authors whose works you admire. For guidance and inspiration, turn to some of the classics on writing (like Dorothea Brande's Becoming A Writer.) Writing is about the process, not the product. You write for the love of writing, the time-warping experience of the creative flow. You write first for yourself, and then for others. Writing is never a linear process. At the beginning it's a beautiful chaos. Only with time does the shape of the thing begin to emerge from the shadows and come into the light, and then we finally see what was there all along. The story.

What is your favorite book, genre, and/or author?

Graham: John Fowles nurtured my passion for writing. I've read all his works and some of them,The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Magus, multiple times. Graham Greene for his profound humanism, his masterful description of characters and his high romantic tales. I always re-read one of his novels before I start one of my own. John Lecarré's early works. Mitch Herron, The Spy and the Traitor by Ben MacIntyre, Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy for his stunning visual sense (he was an illustrator as well as an author). Anaïs Nin's diaries, Henry Miller, Edith Wharton, the Brontês, and last but not least, The Master And Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. Most of these writers I mention lived and wrote in an age when writers were remote, inaccessible. They carried an aura of glamour and solitude, and risk-taking, even disrepute. Those were the writers who bewitched my imagination. 

What are you working on next?

Graham: A sequel to Red Lily. Among other things.

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