The research started at the Coronado Public Library.
Among the books, Laura McNeal checked out a biography about Elizabeth Barrett. An old college friend had sent her a recorded lecture on Facebook about the origin of poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning’s love story. And from there, McNeal started her work.
“I was interested in their story because it was true. It really happened. I wanted to understand how it could’ve happened, why it happened and who they were,” McNeal said. “Robert Browning was a great artist and a great person and so was Elizabeth. I wanted to write about that.”
McNeal dove deep into the web and came across more research and letters that helped tell Barrett and Browning’s story. She said there are approximately 10,000 letters alone that are relevant to their lives, in addition to the body of work left behind by both poets.
She had to balance the facts and her creative inspiration.
McNeal said her hope for the upcoming Coronado Library event is to share more about these two poets and the impact they left on each other and the literary world.
“These two people lived up to a very high ideal of community, friendship, love, family and their art,” McNeal said. “I think we can make those kinds of stories exciting and interesting too. I think that’s why people read Jane Austen over and over again. I hope people take away from this that art can make us feel better and be better people.”
“These two people lived up to a very high ideal of community, friendship, love, family and their art. I think we can make those kinds of stories exciting and interesting too.”
She said figuring out who would be in scenes, where they would be and how the moments would lead to the climax were all a part of the writing process.
“I revised a lot as I looked for the right way for all those things to happen,” McNeal said. “Probably the biggest moment was when I introduced a character who didn’t exist. She’s inspired by people in the 19th century that I read, but I made her up so she could go anywhere I needed her to go and do anything I needed her to do.”
Unlike the straight-facts documents like letters and biographies that carried her research, with this novel she wanted to add back in the humanity and love that was integral to their story.
“Feelings, thoughts and dialogue have to be revelatory in a novel in a way that doesn’t have to be like a biography,” McNeal explained.
The resulting novel, “The Swan’s Nest” balances historical fiction with truth to tell the unlikely love affair between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett — a love story that shocked Barrett’s conservative, close-knit family and the literary world. It was published in March.
McNeal’s desire to know stories and explore history is a part of McNeal in a way that inspires but also extends beyond book research.
“I’m really curious about how people in the past interacted and created the things that we have now,” McNeal said. “The art that we have, the literature we have, the buildings, and the ideas. I really like the past better than the present. I love antiques and old buildings. I feel more at home in those kinds of places. And an airforce town is not like that. It’s very transitory. It’s very practical and it’s very much so in the present. I think I was longing for that sense of [a] very rooted and continuous place.”
McNeal grew up hopping from town to town with her family. Her dad was an Air Force pilot and her mom was a home economics teacher. Both instilled in McNeal her love of literature.
“We went to the library in every town we lived in. I carried the books with me. [They were] kinda my constant,” McNeal said.
Her mom’s home-ec philosophy of making things from scratch left an impact on McNeal.
“She taught me to sew, to cook, to preserve things. I think those skills helped me in my writing,” McNeal said.
“The Swan’s Nest” is not her first novel. She’s written 10 books throughout the course of writing journey. She’s co-written four books with her husband, Tom McNeal. And, as Coronado local since 2005, she’s found community in another military town among people who love books.
The upcoming book event for “The Swan’s Nest” will happen in the Winn Room at the library on Tuesday, April 23 at 7 p.m. Copies of the book will be available for sale by Bay Books Coronado and McNeal will also sign books after the event.
