‘Church of Marvels’ is first novel from creative writing workshop graduate

Leslie Parry has a long-standing love of books that draw the read in and won't let go - detective stories, gothic tales, and the like. She hopes her debut novel, 'Church of Marvels,” captivates readers in a similar way.

'I really wanted to write the kind of book I loved to read ... a book that I wanted to be immersed in,” Parry said in a phone interview.

'Church of Marvels” accomplishes that very thing, transporting readers to the New York City of the Gilded Age to follow the captivating adventures of singular characters who live their lives at the fringes of society (see related review).

Parry, a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, crafted the book from 'a lot of loose threads and different areas in my mind,” many of them first found during her time living in New York. She visited a sideshow on Coney Island; she read Nelly Bly's 'Ten Days in a Mad-House;” and she learned of the men who spent their nights cleaning privies. 'That's where I first hear the term ‘night soiler,'” she said, 'and I couldn't get it out of her mind.”

These ideas and influences were 'humming around in my mind and all braided together in a serendipitous way to become the book.”

That serendipity was supported by significant research, but Parry was careful to ensure the studying didn't overwhelm the story.

'The most important thing to me writing this book,” she said, 'was to not feel beholden to the research.” She sought, instead, 'the emotional truths of the characters.”

Finding those truths underpinned the entire endeavor. 'I tried to figure out who the characters were before I made any big decisions about the plot of the puzzle aspects of the book.”

The result is what Parry calls a kind of 'alternative history” featuring characters who are outsiders in one way or another. The idea of otherness is central to 'Church of Marvels.”

'It's something that everyone relates to whether they identify as an outsider or not,” Parry said. Her characters, like everyone, seek love and acceptance, but are hard put to find these consolations. 'The things that we will do for that can be harrowing.”

The author feels a deep connection to the people who come to life on the pages of the novel. 'I relate to each one in a different way,” she said. 'All of them, as different as they are, come from some aspect of me.”

Parry attended the Writers' Workshop from 2003 to 2005. 'It was a tremendous experience for me. It's something I will always be grateful for. ... It made me take writing seriously. It made me more disciplined. But it also opened me up to so many new ways of thinking about storytelling, about genre, about the role of the writer.”

She didn't leave the Workshop with a book rolling off the presses. Instead, the program served as an 'incubator space” for her. Frank Conroy, the late director of the Workshop, offered Parry an essential bit of wisdom.

'He told me, ‘It's not a race,'” Parry remembered. 'It was so good for me to hear that.”