Historical Happy Hour

The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman

• Jane Healey • Season 1 • Episode 80

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In this episode of Historical Happy Hour, bestselling author Jane Healey interviews Ellen Marie Wiseman about her powerful new novel, The Lies They Told. Set in 1930s Virginia, the book follows an immigrant mother navigating the harsh realities of Ellis Island, only to uncover the devastating impact of the American eugenics movement on rural families. Wiseman shares her deep research into this overlooked chapter of U.S. history, drawing connections between past and present, while reflecting on her writing process, character development, and personal influences.

Jane:

Welcome to Historical Happy Hour at the podcast that explores new and exciting historical fiction. I'm your host Jane Healy, and in today's episode, we welcome New York Times bestselling author Ellen Marie Wiseman to discuss her latest. Novel The Lies They Told. Beautiful Cover too. Um, which has been called a riveting, an important historical novel, which I totally agree. It releases a week from today, July 29th, um, and is available for pre-order now. Welcome, Ellen, so happy to have you.

Ellen:

I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Jane:

Thank you. Um, I'm gonna do a quick intro bio about you and, um, I'm sure you have a lot of fans on here already, and then I will jump into questions. Okay. So, Ellen Marie Wiseman is a New York Times and USA today bestselling author, known for writing novels based on real historical injustices, including the Orphan collector, what she left behind, the life she was given, and the Lost Girls of Willowbrook, which was an indie next selection and the Barnes and Noble. Our monthly pick. Her novels have been published worldwide, translated into 20 languages, and sold more than 1 million copies in the United States alone. She lives with her family on the shores of Lake Ontario and can be found@ellenmariewiseman.com. Again, welcome. Thanks for doing this tonight. Thank you. I appreciate it. Um, so this novel, I was just saying is a gut punch. And it's one of these novels that I didn't really, I mean, I, I knew about the history, but not the level that I learned about in the story. Uh, it illuminates a dark period of American history in the early. Decades of the 19 hundreds not only highlights the brutal treatment of immigrants to America, but the shocking history of the American eugenics movement here. So talk about the premise of the novel and how you came to write it.

Ellen:

Okay. The novel is set in 1930s Virginia, and it follows a young immigrant mother who comes to America looking for a better life for herself and her daughter. Um, but the minute she steps on Ellis Island, she's. Like seeing families being separated and she's faced with a threat of being deported, of being labeled feed feeble-minded, of being labeled medically unfit or defective, um, which can lead to, like I said, to de deportation or imprisonment. And so she finally makes it through that. And then she, when she gets to her destination in the Blue Ridge Mountains, she thinks that she's finally safe, but then she soon realizes that the children. Who are gonna be under her care have been taught to hide from the sheriff. And she realizes that they are basically, even though they're US citizens are basically faced with the same threats that she faced on Ellis Island, which is being labeled, defective, feeble-minded, illiterate, ignorant, et cetera. And the reason that happened on to the Blue Ridge Mountain people in the. Period where she was or the area where she was, is because the government wanted to make these people look bad so that they could take their land to form the Shenandoah National Park. But I used that as an example because it was a good example of a family being separated because of eugenics. But it's also important to remember that those kinds of raids happened all over the United States during the eugenics movement. So I first learned about eugenics when I was writing my debut. Debut novel. It was a World War II novel called The Plum Tree. Um, that's when I learned that the United States was the leader in the eugenics movement and they were like the first country to implement for sterilizations. And that, the Nazis took a lot of their theories and beliefs and procedures from American eugenics. You know, when we think of creating the master race, we all, all automatically think of the Nazis and the Holocaust. But in fact, that ideology started in the United States decades before the Nazis came into power.

Jane:

Yeah, that you have some incredible quotes epigraphs at the beginning of the novel. And I will just read one of them that blew my mind. This book is my Bible. That's a quote from a of Hitler in a fan letter to Madison Grant, American Supremacist, eugenics, Eugen. I knew I was gonna not pronounce this right. Eugenicist an author of. Pass the passing of the great race. So, you know, you sent me some excellent questions and points and I really appreciate that. So ex eugenics is basically pseudoscience, right? It's a racist pseudoscience, like you said, commonly associated, associated with the Nazis. But you said for three decades of the 20th century, eugenics was a household word and many Americans including. Powerful proponents like Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, and Margaret Sanger were enthrall of its promise to uplifting the human race. Talk about your research for this like, and that, I mean, it's, it's, it's still like, gives me chills that this was so prevalent in widespread in America even before, before Hitler.

Ellen:

It really was. I mean, it, it wasn't uncommon back then to like, see posters from the American Eugenicist Society, talking about how many people were born every 15 seconds that were gonna be a burden to society. And also as far as. My mind just went blank because I have too much information in it. I know. And it's almost launch week. You got a lot going on. I know. It's crazy. Okay. Can you repeat the last part of that question? I'm sorry.

Jane:

Yeah, yeah. So talk I'm really curious about like your deep dive into the research and the subject of American eugenics. Yeah, yeah. Genics.

Ellen:

Yeah. It was, it was really, really shocking. Like I said, you know, to find out that, as a matter of fact, you under the Nazis. Turned to California because their, their sterilization program was so great that they like turned to them for ideas. And, you know, it was far from a fringe movement because a lot of famous corporations and things like the Carnegie Institute and the Rockefeller Center financially were backing this. And at eu, Genesis believe that. One of the ways that they should get rid of inferior populations was by incorporating gas chambers into every city. Um, but they realized that the American public probably wasn't ready to implement that. So instead, like doctors, some doc, some doctors, not all doctors and institutions would find different ways of, getting rid of these inferior popula populations. Like in one institution in Nebraska, I think it was doctors infected patients with tuberculosis thinking that anybody that was genetically fit would survive. And you know, of course, 40% of the people died from it. And then they just would be like. Lethal neglect, they just wouldn't take care of'em. So that would, they would die. And during the height of the movement, there was a lot of popular movies and books about eugenics. And there was one that became really popular. It was called The Black Stork. And it was about a doctor that who was. Considered heroic because he let, he talked the parents into letting their disabled child die.

Jane:

Ugh.

Ellen:

Just disgusting. So it it's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah,

Jane:

it is crazy. And it wasn't that, that's why my mind goes

Ellen:

blank, because there's just so much I could say, right?

Jane:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. You have some amazing author notes at the end I should also mention, and. Um, one, one thing, and this was another little known fact that I kind of, I remember hearing about one of the, the Kennedy sister who was institutionalized and, and ster and sterilized. Um, so I wanna talk about that. Y your novel focus is. Not on just how eugenics was used to control and criminalize immigrants, but also the way people in power leaned into eugenics as a means to pathologize class and steal what little the rural poor in Virginia had. Right. Most notably their hope for future generations in the form of sterilization of women and young girls. Mm-hmm. And boys. And uh, and boys. And that was so disgusting. And, um. Talk about this strategy and I, again, this isn't one of these things that I feel like has been kind of swept under the rug in American history. Oh. Anita Morrison is raising her hand. I'm not, I will take questions for Ellen at the end in the q and a or the chat, but I, I can't focus on, on, on raised hands when I'm interviewing. Sorry, Anita.

Ellen:

Okay. Um. I'm sorry. Go ahead and say that ag one more time. I will say

Jane:

this again. Yes.'cause I, I interrupted you just like my husband told me not to. So, um, talk about the, the aspect of eugenics movement and why sterilization was part of their strategy and it was so devastating and effective.

Ellen:

Yeah. They were allowed to take children. Even elementary school aged children from the homes of people that they thought were unfit and institutionalize them and sterilize them while telling them they were having, you know, their appendix out or something. And some of these kids never made it home. Some of them were actually redistributed. To be raised in the home of a more appropriate elite family. And a lot of times women and children that were sterilized. And men too didn't know that's, they didn't realize until years and years later that they were sterilized and they kept wondering why. Couldn't have children. So yeah, it was, it was horrific. And even now, 31 states inclusively, including Washington, DC have laws in effect that allow sterilization of incarcerated people and immigrants and one other that I can't think of right now. Yeah. So

Jane:

it's crazy. It is. And that was a shocking fact too. The fact that's still on the books is horrifying. Yeah. I wanna, so this is your first novel set in the American South. And you know, like you said, eugenics was a popular movement movement across the United States. Yeah. Why did you focus on Virginia? Why did you decide to set the story in the mountains of Virginia?

Ellen:

Well, I knew that I wanted to I wanted to place the main character, Lena, with a family that was gonna go through it. She had already gone through so much on Ellis Island, and so I wanted her. To, it's such a hard, large topic that to pick out the things that would directly affect her was difficult. And so I wanted to make sure that she was with a family that was gonna be affected by this. And I ran across, and I don't even remember how, because I started writing this book, you know, almost three years ago. I ran across the Blue Ridge Mountain people. There was 500 families or something that were. Evicted from their land so that for the form of forming of Shenandoah National Park. And so that was a really clear example of how eugenics was mo used against US citizens. And it, like I said, it happened in other families, but that was just a really clear example. And so that's how I ended up choosing that.

Jane:

Did you, um, did you visit that area of the country for your research? I didn't, but I want to. I know it looks beautiful. It sounded beautiful. You created such a beautiful setting. Like such a sense of place that I was like, oh, I've never been there. So,

Ellen:

yeah. Yeah. I wanted to convey, you know, that it was a beautiful place and the people that lived there loved it and that Lena fell in love with it and things so that people would really feel the. Heartache when it was taken from them.

Jane:

Yeah, I'm absolutely when I was researching, uh, my novel Goodnight from Paris, I had, I did some research on the pro-Nazi movement in America in the 1930s. And I was chilled by how some of the rhetoric in thirties in America matches some of the rhetoric today. And you brought that up as well, Inc. Including Inc. You included some of the propaganda and rhetoric at the beginning of the novel. What do you want readers to understand about the parallels in American history?

Ellen:

Yeah, learning about eugenics in the past is, is important, but it's also. Important to realize that these old ideologies are coming up in new forms. You know, during the first part of the United States when it was forming, immigrants were encouraged to come and help settle the land and, and build the economy. And then during I think the first half or the later half of the 19th century people started to fear immigrants. And that's when. Eugenics got involved and started making these strange IQ tests on Ellis Island and, and measuring heads and noses and asking stupid questions. And you know, today we're, many Americans are falsely led to believe that all immigrants are criminals or cats and dogs or whatever. So these old fears are being exploited and, immigrants are being rounded up. Under the pretense of keeping the country safe, when in fact, you know, these ice detention centers are run by for, for-profit companies. They're getting billions of dollars from the government, so, mm-hmm. It's just the, when I started writing this, I had no idea how alarmingly, um, volt it would be now.

Jane:

Yeah. And I, I'm, I feel like the timing is, is really, really good though, right? Like I feel you never, you can't time books right? As you know.'cause you start working on them sometimes for years and, but I'm like, oh, this is, this couldn't be better. I, I think that, um, lesser known stories in history like this are so important. I'm sorry I can never hold it up. Right. But, um. But yeah, I, I'm, I think the timing is, is, is great for and I, I, I think that people are gonna just be blown away, um, by the story. And I wanna mention too,'cause we're, it's a dark, it's a dark topic and there are some, but it, it has some really uplifting and moments as well and hopeful moments. Yeah. So, yeah,

Ellen:

I, I, I like to always try to end things on a semi happy. Ending because there's a lot of heavy stuff in my books.

Jane:

Yes. And and you do. And like I was bawling, like I don't cry that often from books. I read a lot of books. This one at the end I was like, oh my God. Yeah, it's a gut punch, but in the best way. And it is, it is interesting. I wanna mention that to people. Um, good. You're a first generation American. Your mother was a German immigrant to America, and I read an article about, you said about how visiting Germany had a profound impact on you. And I love the main character is, is an immigrant from Germany. How did your mother's experience influence this story?

Ellen:

Oh I think that, you know, it's funny because my first book is loosely based on my mother's experiences growing up in Germany during World War ii. Um, because I wanted to tell what it was like for the average German family during the war. But you know, her, she left. Germany at 20 years old, all by herself. She had met a US soldier and he wrote to her and said, come over and marry me. And she did. And, um, you know, that that bravery and that, courage to just leave everything behind and take a chance that you're going to have a better life is a soul. Profound to me. And so I think, you know, the fact that Lena, the main character in the Lies they Told is that's all she wants. She just wants a better life for her family and her daughter. And the fact that it doesn't turn out that way for a while mm-hmm. Um, is profound. You know, it ha seems to happen a lot.

Jane:

Yeah, it's, it's very profound. And another thing I was thinking when I was reading the first part of, of Lena's story is that I feel like the whole Ellis Island has given kind of, there's the mythology about it, like in certain, in commercials, and then you see like family coming over and the boat and the Statue of Liberty. And everyone's clean and happy and well fed, and that was not the case. Back in the day and Right. And I

Ellen:

think it might've been at first yeah. When we were welcoming immigrants and then it changed.

Jane:

Yeah. Yeah. And you yeah. You, you really show, like it's a stark reminder of how the conditions were at that time. So you've been writing for a while. What's your character development process like? How did you come up with. Lena and Silas and, and all the cast of characters'cause they were really well drawn. Even the, um, the dialects. That must have been kind of tricky and I, I loved that. So talk about character development.

Ellen:

Yeah. That, the dialect was really tricky for me. I had to ask some of my readers, you know, are you from that area? Because I need some sayings. And of course I researched it a lot. But yeah. I mean all of my books feature up. Young woman who is caught up in these extraordinary historical happenings. And so, you know, I automatically knew I had to have a young woman. I really I just, I don't even know how I do it, I do. It's like I wanted, I wanted you know, at first I thought, oh, her and Silas were gonna fall in love. And then I was like, nah, that's. That's too easy. Well, not easy, but you know what I mean.

Jane:

I know what you mean.

Ellen:

And I wanted the children, especially Bonnie and Jack Henry, I wanted her to really fall in love with them. And so I wanted to make them real people and, and especially, um, Bonnie, I, I really, I really like her. So I just try to, make them strong and make them also have faults. Things like that.

Jane:

Yeah. Well, you do a wonderful job at it. No, thank you. So I have more writing questions for you that I ask everyone that comes on. What is your writing process like? Are you a plotter? Are you a pants? Do you, are you somewhere in between? I'm

Ellen:

usually a platter. But of course I don't stick to that. Outline.

Jane:

Mm-hmm. Um,

Ellen:

I, I really like to know the ending before I start.'cause if I don't, then it, it's really hard. So I usually do, do an outline and, uh, try to stick to that. It just gives me a, a little bit of a map. Otherwise, you know, I, I don't, if I'm on a deadline, which I always am, I don't have like six months to go in the wrong direction. Mm-hmm. You know, so I try to. Be a plotter.

Jane:

Um, what parts part of the writing process do you love and what part do you find the most challenging?

Ellen:

Oh, lordy. Um, first drafts are hard. Second drafts are harder. Um, I think that that, my favorite part is when. I like pick up a book after it came out.'cause I haven't really looked at the manuscript in almost two years and I read it and I go, oh, that's not too bad. You know what I mean? Or else. Or else when I read a draft that I wrote and it makes me cry. Then I think, oh, well this is good. But yeah the whole drafting and the whole editing, I, and I really like the part, I love to write for first sentences. That's my favorite. I. The part where you're like, just going over it one more time before you push send. Yeah. That is a good

Jane:

feeling. I agree. I like that part too. Yeah. I, I don't know, I, I'm always shocked when people say they enjoy writing the first draft.'cause I find that that's just every time blood from a stone every Right.

Ellen:

You're never gonna figure it out. Yeah. And it's like, I'm never this is a huge puzzle and I'm never gonna figure it out. But then somehow you do.

Jane:

Yeah, exactly. When you're on deadline for a book, what is your writing routine like?

Ellen:

Oh, I wish I had a routine. Um, well, let's see. I babysit the twins and the five-year-old once or twice a week. Um, and I have two aging parents and soccer games and baseball games and all sorts of things. So on the days that I do have free to myself I have to have everything. Like my emails answered, my dishes done everything so that when I start, I don't have to stop. And.

Jane:

Mm-hmm.

Ellen:

Start again or stop and make dinner. I try to make dinner ahead of time or whatever, because once I start, I don't wanna stop, mm-hmm. I wanna get it done. So I kind of have a routine, but not really. It's hard to stick to, let's put it that way.

Jane:

I totally understand. What advice do you have for aspiring authors about writing and about getting published?

Ellen:

I went to a tiny high school with 400 students K through 12. And, uh, I didn't ev I never, they never offered a writing course or creative writing course, and I never went to college or anything. I just read a lot. I read a lot. And, um, eventually I was like, you know, sometimes I'd read a book that would be like, eh, I could write better than that. So I read a lot of books on the craft of writing and I just practiced and practiced and practiced and, I somehow figured it, but I think, you know, practicing is, is really, really important. But also, as far as getting published, one of the websites that really helped me learn about the publishing indu industry, which I think is really important because a lot of people don't understand how it works, is agent query.com. Mm-hmm. It, it's got a lot of information on there that people that wanna get published need to know.

Jane:

Yeah, that's an excellent website. That's an excellent resource. Yeah, yeah.'cause that's a whole other, the whole other thing you can learn the craft, but then the whole, the business side of this industry is. Is a whole beast into itself.

Ellen:

It sure is. Yeah.

Jane:

So I, you know, I get a lot of books from a lot of publishers. I open this one, I'm like, oh, that's a gorgeous cover. Like, it's so beautiful. Do you have the say in, in your cover designs?'cause I love this one. I wish it, it's like the flowers and the house. Yeah. I loved it.

Ellen:

They always ask me for ideas, but sometimes I think they're just being nice, you know? So I usually give them them my ideas and then, um, a couple times they have run some by me, but normally it's like, here's your cover. Well, they do. Beautiful.

Jane:

Yeah. Thankfully

Ellen:

I love them all.

Jane:

Oh, good. Yeah. I have a couple more questions, and then if people have questions in the chat, you can put'em in the chat or the q and a if you have questions for Ellen. Was it always called The Lies They Told? Was that always the title?

Ellen:

I'm trying to think what I called it first. I don't remember what I called it first, but I, what I did was I, I gave a list of title ideas to my editor and he picked one. Sometimes he goes right with what I'm calling it, like on the manuscript I send him. But we weren't, I don't remember. Like I said, I don't remember what it was called, but yeah, so it was one of my ideas.

Jane:

Oh good. That's good.

Ellen:

Yeah.

Jane:

Cover the titles and covers are really tricky, I think.

Ellen:

Yeah.

Jane:

Are you ready to talk about what you're working on next?

Ellen:

Yeah. I'm working on the trouble, well, it's, it's loosely based on Elon, which is one of the first troubled teen schools in the United States. And that kind of stemmed from Synanon. There's a lot of abuse, unbelievable what those schools are like. Mm-hmm. Um, and unfortunately there's still like five or 10,000 of them in the United States. So because I write historical fiction, it has to be. One of the first schools. So that's what I'm working on, is a troubled teen school.

Jane:

Oh, that is fascinating. And I think also a really important story. I'm not really on TikTok, but I like, kind of like peruse on TikTok and there are. Girls on there who were sent to these schools who are survivors of these schools who talk about their experiences and connect with people who have been. It's just it's horrible. Yeah. Yeah. In these places.

Ellen:

And there's, there's no regulation in those places. No.

Jane:

Yeah.

Ellen:

They're getting away with a lot.

Jane:

Yeah. So, no, that's another important story. How do you prefer readers to best keep in touch with you?

Ellen:

Usually Facebook is, is my thing. Mm-hmm. You know, I'm on Instagram a little bit, but mostly Facebook or leaving reviews is always really good too. Yes,

Jane:

for sure. Reviews and pre-orders. I always say pre-orders are very important for authors, so Yes, I remember that too. One question from Christine Mott. Hello Christine. If you could personally interview someone from that time period that you just wrote about, who would you like to interview?

Ellen:

Oh boy. Probably one of the, like the main doctors that were, that came up with this idea of, you know, they believed that, the same principles that affected corn and cattle affected humans and stuff. So I think. Charles Davenport, I think is his name. Like I said, I have too many facts in my head. Mm-hmm. So there's a couple of the two men that really started this that I'd like to talk to them and say, what the heck were you thinking?

Jane:

Yeah. Like, how, how, yeah. Um, Joanne Peterson asked, have you seen the film origin, which was based on the book cast one? One of the things it tells is how Hitler used the way the US treated African slaves and the Jim Crow laws as a pattern of how to dehumanize Jews. I have not. Seen the film. Have you seen that film?

Ellen:

They have not, but I'll check it out.

Jane:

Yeah, me too. I wanted to mention too Val Davis said I had two great aunts that were considered mentally ill, and they were sterilized in the t in the twenties or thirties. The procedure was done in a mental hospital in Maryland, which is awful. Thank you for sharing that though. Yeah, I mean, it's just, it shows how pervasive that those types of things were. Yes. Um, and Debbie McBride said, oddly, I just heard about a doctor who was being who was treating women immigrants being held in detention center that performed illegal surgeries. It makes me wonder, bipartisan bill in congress brought it up, so, yeah.

Ellen:

Yeah. In 2020 I think that the, one of the nurses was like a whistleblower at one of the detention centers saying that this doctor was doing things he shouldn't be doing. And so there was some sterilization going on.

Jane:

Unbelievable. Yeah. And again, I, I mean, unfortunately, good timing, but I really, um, I think that this book is so wonderfully written and important and, um, I, you know, I'm, I'm so happy to interview about it and, uh, and help you promote it and get it out into the world next week. Thank you. This has been lovely.

Ellen:

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. And thank you for everybody to, for coming.

Jane:

Yes. Thank you as always everybody. I am taking August off because my book is coming out August 1st. And so I'm gonna, I'm banking a lot of historical happy hour Episo episodes that I'm gonna release during during August and September. But the next live one will be with Reese Bowen in early September. Um, remember pre-orders, lies they told, and um, you can see. Upcoming episodes, everything will be updated on jane healey.com and um, and have a wonderful night everyone. Thank you so much. Thank you again, Ellen. This was great. Thank you. Take care. Bye.

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