Gripping from cover to cover
Pasadena woman’s newest book is a sequel about escaping from the past
The latest book by Pasadena author Nellie Strowbridge is an exciting sequel to her best- selling novel Catherine Snow.
The Hanged Woman’s Daughter is now available on bookshelves across the province.
Strowbridge hosted a virtual launch of the book on March 24.
It tells the story of Bridget Snow, the oldest daughter of Catherine Snow, a Salmon Cove woman who was hanged for her alleged involvement in the murder of her husband, John.
The first book, based on true events that took place in the 1830s, questions the conventional, unquestioning narrative of Catherine’s guilt. The sequel picks up after Catherine’s death.
It’s a story about a 17-year- old woman coming to terms with a troubled past and working towards a better future.
While Catherine Snow was a work of “creative non-fiction,” in Strowbridge’s terms, the author had more liberty with The Hanged Woman’s Daughter. Nevertheless, she tried to adhere as closely as possible to what was known about Bridget’s story.
The author believes fiction, too, can be a vehicle for truth.
Strowbridge spoke with The West Coast Wire to discuss what inspired her to write this new book.
Q. What drew you to Catherine Snow’s story?
Strowbridge: I grew up living across from Salmon Cove. I used to hear about this bad woman who killed her husband.
I saw Catherine Snow as a poor Irish woman who married a well-off English man, John Snow. She was Catholic and he was Protestant. It was a combination of religion and bigotry and money involved, and I would say at the apex of this was power. The magistrate had power, the churches had power, Catherine had no power. She really had no one to speak for her. And, of course, she was always called a bad woman. This was another thing: they say she fled from her home so she shouldn’t be apprehended and that wasn’t true. She actually went across to Cupids to try to get out to Brigus to get papers to save the house for her family, her children.
I think she was convicted as much for gossip of adultery. When people felt that this woman has had any adulterous relationships, that really goes against them in the minds of a juror. It was without evidence.
Q. Why did you want to write about her daughter, Bridget?
Strowbridge: I feel what other people are going through and I couldn’t imagine being a 17-year-old daughter of a hanged woman and having to deal with gossip and just feeling like an outsider in your community, and wondering what to do with yourself. Everything is taken from you: the siblings that you adored and your home that is the only place you know.
So, she gets in a boat – her father’s small boat – and takes in the nighttime, with the moon across the waters. And where she goes is the story.
Q. What are some of the ideas you wanted to explore?
Strowbridge: I wanted to write the book and I wanted people not to see as a downer, I wanted them to see something positive could come out of something very bad, if you just hold on and have faith and you believe. You go through bad (times), but they don’t always last, and you can find hope and so you should keep faith. She didn’t know what she’d find when she went out on the ocean, where she’d end up.
Q. Compared to the first book, is this book more fictionalized?
Strowbridge: Oh yes, this one is more fictionalized. I do know some things about some of the children, which people are very curious about.
Q. Will you consider continuing this series or will this be the only sequel?
Strowbridge: I didn’t plan on doing it but you never know, because sometimes things just pop up. Since I was writing it, I was thinking there are certain characters in it that could go places, which I don’t plan on doing but you never know. When I wrote Catherine Snow, I didn’t plan on writing this book. I never had an inkling about writing it, but I only write things I’m inspired by. I don’t just write. I don’t just look at a screen and decide I’m going to write a book – there’s got to be something there that draws me to it and know that when I come out of that story, somebody is going to think about something in a different way than they thought about it before. I want to trigger other people’s emotions and their thoughts, make them think a different way, which I guess is why I wrote Catherine Snow. I wanted people to explore a story.