1--What is the title of your latest release?
THE FRIDAY NIGHT CLUB
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
The Friday Night Club is an illuminating historical novel that explores destiny, passion, and the threads that connect the visionary Swedish artist, Hilma af Klint and four creative women as they challenge the artistic and societal traditions of their time.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
As The Friday Night Club is a historical novel, the book had to take place in Stockholm, Sweden where the five women women’s lives unfolded. There is also a modern-day storyline that takes place in New York and that was also necessary as it parallels the exhibition of Hilma af Klint’s paintings that were exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in 2019.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Yes.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Artist, Visionary and Mystic.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
That the path to being an artist has always been difficult, but for a female artist, the challenges are even greater.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I always edit as I draft.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Ice-cream!
9--Describe your writing space/office!
My office is in the far corner of our house.
10--Who is an author you admire?
Alice Hoffman
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
I think the memoir “When Breath Becomes Air” changed my perspective and made me realize that I have to focus living more in the present.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
N/A
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
Historical Fiction
14--What’s your favorite movie?
The English Patient
15--What is your favorite season?
Spring
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Having breakfast in bed.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Babel by R.F. Kuang
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Italian
19--What do you do when you have free time?
I read or take a long walk with my dog.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
I have a new novel coming out next that’s called THE TIME KEEPERS, in Fall 2024. It’s another historical novel and I can’t wait to share it with you.
A Novel of Artist Hilma af Klint and Her Creative Circle
While men have long been credited with producing the first abstract paintings, the true creator was actually a woman – Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, who was inspired by her mystic visions. Acclaimed authors Sofia Lundberg, Alyson Richman, and M.J. Rose bring her story to life in this groundbreaking novel.
Early 1900s: The world belongs to men, and the art world in Stockholm, Sweden, is no different, until Hilma af Klint brings together a mysterious group of female painters and writers—Anna, Cornelia, Sigrid, and Mathilda—to form their own emotional and artistic support system. The members of the Friday Night Club find themselves thrust into uncharted territory when Hilma and her best friend, Anna, begin dabbling in the occult, believing that through séances they can channel unseen spirits to help them achieve their potential as artists. “The Five,” as Hilma referred to them, was a group of immensely talented, fascinating women whose lives and work were cast into obscurity...until now.
The Present: Over a century later, an associate curator at the Guggenheim Museum, Eben Elliot, brings the Hilma af Klint show to New York where he uncovers questions about the Five and how the modern day art world is funded, which puts him in a precarious position both emotionally and professionally, as he witnesses how history can be manipulated.
The Friday Night Club is an illuminating historical novel that explores destiny, passion, and the threads that connect five women as they challenge artistic and societal traditions.
Women's Fiction Historical | Historical [Berkley, On Sale: May 16, 2023, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593200490 / eISBN: 9780593200506]
Alyson Richman is the internationally best selling author of The Mask Carver's Son, Swedish Tango, The Last Van Gogh, and The Lost Wife. Her novels are published in over ten languages. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and a former Thomas J. Watson Fellow. She lives in Long Island New York with her husband and two children.
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