Maria Vetrano is principal of Vetrano Communications, a technology-focused PR and marketing firm that she founded in 2004. She’s also the co-founder with her wife of Against the Tide, a fundraising event to fight breast cancer, and a lounge singer who has performed in Cambridge, Boston and Provincetown. Now she’s also the author of “Queen Bess: A Tudor Comes to Save America,” in which historical fiction meets time travel meets political satire. Inspired by America’s current political moment, “Queen Bess” follows self-made millionaire Dakota Wynfred trying to prevent the reelection of a “vile” U.S. president by traveling back in time to convince Queen Elizabeth I to run against him. Set partially in Cambridge, it’s the first in a trilogy that will follow Elizabeth through her election campaign and beyond. “Queen Bess” comes out Tuesday and Vetrano, a longtime Cambridge resident, will speak at Porter Square Books that evening. The event will take place at Porter Square Books’ new location, 1815 Massachusetts Ave.
The setup of “Queen Bess” is clearly inspired by our current political situation, but what specifically inspired you to write this book?
Around 2018, I was still feeling pretty gutted that Hillary Clinton had lost the election, and I started to have a little political fantasy in my mind that I thought could potentially be a television miniseries. I felt very frustrated that the most competent person to ever run for president – a former first lady, senator and secretary of state – didn’t win, and I thought, what kind of woman could actually win the presidency in America? I started to have this idea that we had to go back 400 years to find a woman who could win, because she would have no past to target, no emails, no history. I think our presidential election process is really ridiculous, between the millions of dollars spent and the way it so bitterly divides the country, and I thought there’s got to be a better way. In my fantasy brain, the answer to that was that a self-made billionaire would activate her secret time travel lab to bring Queen Elizabeth I to the present, and “Queen Bess” was born.
Why Elizabeth I?
Part of it is that she was just such an incredible leader, but of course there are many other incredible and capable women from history I could have picked. It goes back to when I was a girl; I must have been about 7 years old, and “Masterpiece Theater” had a fabulous miniseries called “Elizabeth R” that I loved. There were very few images of strong women and very few women we could look up to, and seeing that show was so important to me. So I’ve always been a fan of Elizabeth, and I’m a bit of a Tudor nerd. In thinking about Clinton losing the 2016 election, I wanted someone who could actually win, someone who had tremendous political savvy and resilience, which Elizabeth did. She survived multiple assassination attempts, she spoke seven languages, she was an expert at archery and horseback riding, she played two instruments and danced, and she was extremely charming. She was under threat for much of her life, including being imprisoned in the Tower of London by her own sister when she was 21, and she very easily could’ve been killed. So to me, she’s this character who’s incredibly capable and also incredibly able to prevail. On top of that, even though she was so well-educated, she was also relatable to the common people, and she made a point of that. Every summer she would travel to some estate for a month or two, and she would meet with the people who lived there. She would go into people’s homes, have something to eat or drink, touch them; she was able to live in both worlds. It was extremely important to her to be loved, because she felt like she sacrificed the life of a traditional woman: she instead was married to her country and a mother to her people. She’s got to learn some modern sensibilities, as you’ll see in the book, but ultimately I think she would be a great leader.
Since you wrote the book, Biden has withdrawn and Harris has entered the race as the Democratic nominee, meaning it is in fact possible we could have a female president in the next few months. What was your reaction to that shift in the context of “Queen Bess”?
I was thrilled. I watched the first presidential debate with some friends, and it was very depressing. I thought we were absolutely done for. So when President Biden withdrew his candidacy and endorsed Kamala Harris, I was thrilled out of my mind, and Elizabeth is very supportive too. I feel much more optimistic than I did, but the stakes are still very, very, very high, and it’s still so unsettling. And no matter what happens, I still think our presidential election system is archaic and absurd. I look at other countries, where they don’t go through this, and that just seems so much healthier. You live with what you have, and this is what we’ve got, but it does seriously upset me.
You’ve pointed out the seriousness of this election, and I’m interested in how you’ve incorporated humor into that seriousness in the book. How did you balance themes and tones?
It’s changed a lot between the first draft and the final book, thanks to my book coach and my agent, as well as my readers, who really helped a lot. My original idea for the miniseries was quite dark – it was about our states seceding and breaking apart to become different countries – and even though it sometimes does feel like we’re living in different countries, I wanted to give people relief the way having this fun political fantasy brings me relief. I do think everything is serious, but when things get tough, I like to think about how Elizabeth would handle the challenging issues we’re facing today. And in the book, Elizabeth ends up running as an independent, so she has to learn to work with both parties. I wanted to find that middle ground too, where I could capture the seriousness of the situation but also let the humor be a relief.
Where do you plan to take “Queen Bess”?
In book two, Elizabeth is going to be on the road campaigning. She’s going to do things that no other candidate will do, and it will all be captured by social media. She’s got these brilliant people behind her who are able to think more creatively because they’re not constrained by either being Republican or Democrat. And even if Trump is elected, I’m not going to make it as dark as my original miniseries idea was, because I think there’s only so much we can take. Yesterday I was watching this video of that pygmy hippo that’s everywhere named Moo Deng; I watched it twice in a row and I just thought to myself, yes, sometimes we all just need a little relief.
Maria Vetrano reads from “Queen Bess” at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Porter Square Books, 1815 Massachusetts Ave., Porter Square, Cambridge. Free. Information is here.
The feature image for this post, though not the image above, has portions of a background generated in a digital photo retouching process. The background of the photo to the left and right, and a portion of the subject’s left shoulder, is not real.
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