BOOK CLUB KIT
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 7. 1.
do you think the two grow so close? In what What did you think about Belle at the begin-
ways is Isidor good for Belle? Are there ways
ning of the novel? Did you feel differently
in which he’s a negative influence?
about her at the end? Do you like Belle? Why or why not?
2. 3.
8.
is certainly a woman ahead of her time. Do you think this is a feminist novel? Why or why
Belle? How does Isabel “become” Belle?
not? As a twenty-first-century reader, how did you feel about Belle’s character? Did any of
What does fame mean to Belle? Why do you
her actions surprise you? Do you think her nineteenth-century audiences would have un-
ings about performing change over the course
derstood her differently? If so, in what ways?
of the novel? Belle shares the stage with Flo as the two be-
9.
character shaped by the Victorian society she
performing means for each sister? Does it
lives in?
mean something different to Flo than it does to Belle? How are the two sisters different?
10.
Do you think William ever doubts Belle’s
What is Belle’s relationship with her mother
loyalty? Do you think the two make a good
like? Is it a different experience for Flo? How
couple? Why or why not?
does Belle feel about being a mother herself? why not?
6.
Were you surprised by Belle’s relationship with Weston? How is Belle different at the end of their affair?
Discuss William and Belle’s relationship. Why do you think Belle falls in love with William?
Discuss the novel’s portrayal of motherhood.
Do you think she’s a good mother? Why or
Do you think there’s a modern-day equivalent of Belle Bilton? If so, who? How is Belle’s
come the Sisters Bilton. What do you think
5.
As an independently wealthy performer, Belle
Why do you think the novel is called Becoming
think she wants to become a star? Do her feel-
4.
Discuss Belle’s friendship with Isidor. Why
11.
Were you surprised by the verdict in the court case? How did you think the novel would end?
© ÊNA O’CONNOR
NUALA O’CONNOR
A conversation with
HOW DID YOU FIRST LEARN ABOUT BELLE BILTON? I moved to Ballinasloe, a market town in County Galway, Ireland, in 2005, and in researching the history of the area, I came across the story of Belle Bilton, who had lived there. Garbally Court, William’s family home, is one of the surviving houses of the landed gentry in Ireland—many of the big houses were burnt down during the Irish Civil War in 1922–23. Belle and William were the last earl and countess to occupy the seventeenth-century house, which is now a Catholic boys’ school. The house’s courtyard of stables are converted to classrooms, and I happily drive the tree-lined avenue to Garbally most days to drop my son to school and admire Belle’s former home.
When I first heard of Belle, I became fascinated with the
to Weston in gaol is a fabrication, as is the birthing scene
notion of a beautiful young dancer/actress swapping the
where Wertheimer delivers the baby. Belle’s fraught rela-
delights of London for life in rural Ireland and, by all ac-
tionship with her mother is speculation, too. Also Belle’s
counts, thriving. Initially, as I did with my novel about
eventual ambivalence about baby Isidor and her subsequent
Emily Dickinson, Miss Emily, I wrote a poem about Belle—
abandoning of him. The timeline of her name change is
a fairly poor villanelle. I became a founding member of an
also my invention.
artists’ collective in Ballinasloe—Group 8—and we did a joint project on Garbally and its land. I wrote a flash fiction in Belle’s voice and exhibited it at our annual exhibition as a photo montage of a picture of Belle with some of the
WHAT KIND OF RESEARCH DID YOU DO TO WRITE BECOMING BELLE ?
text. But Belle Bilton demanded a bigger canvas. As she is
The British Newspaper Archive was an invaluable resource,
buried in the grounds of Saint John’s Church, which I can
and I spent hours trawling through articles about Belle and
see from my house, on my daily walk I passed her grave and
the Clancartys. I read social histories of Galway and of the
greeted her. I wondered what series of events had brought
Irish gentry and many, many books about Victorian Eng-
her to Ballinasloe and that became the story I was inter-
land and London.
ested in telling.
I went to England twice, going to Aldershot to see where Belle lived as a child and to Heathfield, where Sara, the
HOW MUCH OF THE NOVEL IS TRUE
foster mother of my imagination, lived. I also went to the
HISTORY AND HOW MUCH IS YOUR
National Archives at Kew in London to see the divorce pe-
OWN INVENTION?
tition (signed by William) and the couple’s marriage certifi-
Most of the known facts about Belle pertain to the court case, and so I had to make decisions about the whys and wherefores of her choices around her relationships. Some of the decisions she made seem bold and brave, particularly
cate. I visited the National Portrait Gallery’s archives, where they allowed me to view photos of Belle that I had not seen before. I also ate at the Café Royal, one of Belle’s favorite haunts, and went to Conduit Street, where Belle once lived.
for the Victorian era, so I had to give her a personality to match her endeavors. Most of the players are based on real people, though I invented the foster mother, Sara, for fictional purposes, and the midwife who attends Belle after the birth of baby Isidor. William’s actions, down to being accompanied on his trip by the wonderfully named Godley Robinson, are true. He was a man of contradictions, it seems. There is no hard evidence to suggest that Isidor Wertheimer was gay, but it suited my purposes. In reality, Belle was walking a very thin line, but she was, as the judge said, a bohemian, and she acted accordingly. My fictionalizing also includes Belle’s fondness for gin, as instigated by Weston, and her love of sweet things. Her visit
OF COURSE, WHEN I LOOKED INTO IT, THERE WAS SO MUCH MORE TO BELLE’S LIFE THAN WHAT ONE COULD SEE ON THE SURFACE.
As I researched Belle, I gathered ephemera: Ogden’s Guinea
HOW DID YOU DECIDE WHAT PARTS
Gold and Wills’s cigarette cards featuring Belle; a cabinet
OF BELLE’S LIFE YOU WANTED
card with the caption “Lady Dunlo” by society portrait
TO INCLUDE IN THE NOVEL? WERE
photographer Alexander Bassano; a page from The Harms-
THERE ANY TRUE-LIFE STORIES
worth Magazine, which has a picture of Belle by Bassano; a
THAT DIDN’T MAKE THE CUT?
carte de visite depicting a risqué, corseted Belle by W. & D. Downey (Belle tried to suppress at least one of these more
I wanted to show her progression from artillery man’s
provocative images by breaking the negative); and a ciga-
daughter to countess and all the obstacles she managed to
rette card for Player’s showing Garbally Court.
surmount to get where she wanted to be.
I also bought a Victorian mother-of-pearl and abalone card
Yes, I did cut certain things: Belle actually went to Paris
case (of the type Belle uses in the novel) and a mermaid
with Wertheimer, and she owned a large dog, not a canary;
vesta case, which I made William’s. My most exciting pur-
but as a writer, you have to make choices about what to in-
chase is a Victorian gold fob that has the Trench motto as
clude and what to leave out so that your story is best served.
the seal—it certainly belonged to a member of the family, and it’s not too much of a stretch to think that it may have
BELLE IS SUCH A SPIRITED AND
been William’s.
INDEPENDENT WOMAN! WHAT
I have collected pictures of these objects, as well images of
INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE A NOVEL
Belle, period food, and fashion, on a Pinterest board about
ABOUT HER LIFE?
Belle: pinterest.com/nualanic/belle-bilton.
I became fascinated with the notion of this beautiful English dancer/actress swapping heady London for sleepy rural Ireland. Of course, when I looked into it, there was so much more to Belle’s life than what one could see on the surface. The more I discovered, the more I realized her life was unusual for her era and that she survived many blows.
WHAT DO YOU THINK TODAY’S READERS CAN LEARN FROM BELLE? WOULD YOU CONSIDER HER AN EARLY FEMINIST? Yes, she is definitely a proto-feminist. She wanted to progress, to throw off her early life and become “someone”; she wanted to be seen and heard. She worked hard for financial independence. She clearly loved William and enjoyed a good marriage with him. Belle managed all that despite quite a few missteps. I love her guts and determination. We all need to have a bit of that. She’s so relevant today when women are still shouting to be heard but, it seems, some ONE OF THE PROVOCATIVE IMAGES BELLE TRIED TO SUPPRESS.
small progress is being made in what is still a man’s world.
BELLE AND HER SISTER FLO ARE
acceptable way; she had to find ways to deal with that and,
WONDERFULLY CLOSE. DO YOU
it appears, she did. She couldn’t look after a child with the
HAVE A SISTER? WHAT WAS IT LIKE
hours she kept as an actress.
TO WRITE THE DEPICTION OF THEIR
I didn’t want, ever, to judge Belle. I’m a loving mother
RELATIONSHIP?
who has crazy days. My first child was not born into ideal
I have four sisters, though my closest sister, Nessa, died of cancer some years ago. We had a relationship like Belle and Flo’s: frank, open, and supportive. The communication between sisters is different—there’s so much shared history, language, and familial influence that the bond is tight and honesty is 100 percent allowed. I loved writing the scenes
circumstances. I have great sympathy for Belle—she defied societal norms but had to pay for that in various ways. She went on to be a devoted mother to five more children; she endured tragedy when one of her twins died. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to walk away from baby Isidor but it seems that society decreed that it must be that way.
with Belle and Flo—sisterly banter is a joy to write. IN THE NOVEL, WILLIAM’S FATHER HELPS HIM SUE BELLE FOR
MOTHERS ARE AS COMPLICATED AS THE NEXT PERSON . . . WE ARE NOT ALL PARAGONS OF ENDLESS, DEVOTED LOVE.
DIVORCE. WAS THIS COMMON AT THE TIME? HOW MUCH OF THE COURT CASE IS REAL? The court case plays out as it happened, apart from the scene where William challenges his father in court—that’s invention. I read a lot of newspaper reports of the case— many conflicting—and pieced it back together using various accounts. I doubt it was a common occurrence for a father to sue on an absent son’s behalf. The earl was thinking of his family’s reputation and he wanted to protect it, even if it meant lying in court.
IN THE NOVEL, BELLE’S ROLE AS A MOTHER IS COMPLICATED. WHY
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE
DO YOU THINK BELLE DECIDED TO
REAL-LIFE WILLIAM? DO YOU HAVE
HAVE ISIDOR RAISED ELSEWHERE?
A FAVORITE MAN IN BELLE’S LIFE?
DO YOU THINK BELLE CONSIDERS HERSELF A GOOD MOTHER? HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HER CHOICE?
He was young, rich, idle, and irresponsible, as were many of his class. I was shocked when I first realized what he had done to Belle—it seemed so callous—but I think he was
Mothers are as complicated as the next person, and I
put under enormous pressure by his father, and he was very
wanted to show that. We are not all paragons of endless,
conflicted. I like William, for his good and his bad; we’re all
devoted love. Sometimes we feel ambivalent and trapped.
a conglomeration of things, we all take wrong turns—his
Belle did not fall into motherhood in a positive or socially
mistakes were made public, that’s all.
I am very fond of Isidor Wertheimer. As I have written him,
Greville. Power died at just two years of age in 1894, and
he’s the best friend we all want: supportive at all the right
Belle herself died at thirty-nine of cancer and is buried
moments and honest when honesty is what is required.
in Ballinasloe. Her father-in-law had refused to be buried
He’s also a snappy dresser and he loves antiques, things I’m
in the family crypt at Saint John’s, Ballinasloe, fearing he
passionate about.
would be in there beside Belle, “the peasant countess.” Interestingly, Beryl’s second name was Franziska, which was
IN THE NOVEL, BELLE IS VERY
Isidor Wertheimer’s mother’s name. So Belle was still pay-
CLOSE TO HER CANARY, PRITCHARD.
ing tribute to her friend even after he died.
WAS THERE A REAL PRITCHARD? ARE THERE ANY CHERISHED ANIMALS IN YOUR OWN LIFE?
Belle’s eldest son, Isidor Weston, ended up in the Canadian army and died in America in 1968. It seems his father, Alden Carter Weston, changed his name to Douglas Hale,
Belle actually had a large dog, a Saint Bernard, it’s reported.
then later to Douglas Alden. He was prosecuted and im-
When I gave Belle a canary, I bought one of my own (also
prisoned for fraud at least twice more in the early 1900s.
called Pritchard, though when she laid an egg, it seemed I’d been sold the wrong gender!). I felt I had to learn about canaries if I was going to write one into my story. Belle names Pritchard after a murdering doctor of that name who was hanged in the 1860s. Sadly, my own little Pritchard died
In 1906 a breeder in the United States named a horse Belle Bilton, one of those odd, amusing things that happens when people gain notoriety. (I like the fact that a grandmother of the mare Belle Bilton was called Slander.)
earlier this year. But her companion, Hermione, lives on; she, of course, has turned out to be a boy. . . . We also have two beloved cats: a crabby white Angora called Pangur Bán and a lovable one-eyed black-and-white cat called Nora Barnacle.
WHILE THE NOVEL ENDS AFTER THE COURT CASE, THE REAL BELLE BILTON OF COURSE LIVED ON. CAN YOU TELL US A BIT MORE ABOUT HER LIFE AFTER THE CURTAIN DROPS IN BECOMING BELLE ? WHAT HAPPENED TO HER? Belle lived at Garbally Court with William, as the fifth Countess Clancarty. It’s said locally that she was a great favorite with the ordinary people of the town: she threw picnics on the lawn at Garbally for the local children. She had five children with William: twins first, Richard and Power; then a girl called Beryl; and two further sons, Roderic and
WILLS’S CIGARETTE CARDS, FEATURING BELLE.