An Interview with Fiona Davis By: Yara Zgheib Actress, author, storyteller. Maker of her own destiny.
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ew Yorkers never sleep, but morning is always a good excuse for coffee. Nestled by the window, Fiona Davis cups hers and skims the New York Times leisurely. The tree just outside her window is positively overrun with birds; it was they, not the traffic, that woke her up this morning. She looks out at the city she loves, the actress turned storyteller. A chat. Fiona, your own story itself is novel worthy: Tell us about the young Canadian girl who took a bus to fame and New York City. My parents are British, and we moved all over the United States while I was young. The journeys were pretty jarring for me. I got involved with the drama club because it was where I felt I fit in best. After college I decided to head to acting school in New York City. Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking! It was a blast. I joined a wonderful theater company. We did Shakespeare, Wilder, Genet – so many classics. We hung lights, made costumes, and raised money to produce three shows a year. One even moved to Broadway and was nominated for a Tony award. But as I hit my late twenties, I started getting itchy for something more, so I applied to Columbia Journalism School and it changed my life. I fell in love with writing, leapfrogging from editor to freelance journalist before finally finding myself in historical fiction. How did that encounter happen? On a hunt for a new apartment. At the Barbizon 63 Condo, a sumptuous historic landmark that used to be the Barbizon Hotel for Women. I learned that some of the old residents were still living there, grandfathered into rent-controlled apartments on the fourth floor. None would agree to an interview,
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but I could just imagine the stories they would have of their experiences in this building and city. So I decided to write a novel instead, about the people while recreating the real-life framework with fictional characters. It was an absolute joy, and I haven’t looked back since. I found my love crafting characters and a story, and using this city’s landmarks as my inspiration. Your stories do whisk us off on adventures across time and gilded, artful settings. Tell us about the heroines who go on them. I like stories in which women carve out their own way, actively pursuing their own destiny. All of my characters are fighting to find a certain truth and discover their own voice in the process. For instance, in The Dollhouse, both my heroines have unconventional goals: Darby, in 1952, is determined to do well in secretarial school and never marry, while Rose, in 2017, deals with loss by becoming obsessed with solving a mystery. In The Address, my heroines, a hundred years apart, are fighting for opportunity and success but are stymied by the rules of society and their own demons. And in my latest novel, The Masterpiece (to be released in August), the story is set in Grand Central Terminal: one woman fights for recognition as an artist during the Jazz Age, while decades later, a down-on-herluck socialite takes a job in the information booth. Do you relate to your characters? Are there snippets of you in them? You bet. I made Rose, in The Dollhouse, a journalist, because I could have her be nosy and get into lots of trouble. Sara, in The Address, comes to New York from London to be a housekeeper, and like her, I’ve often felt that I don’t quite belong in America.
