Your Invite to the Met Gala Has Arrived Thanks to Fiona Davis and “The Stolen Queen”

Fiona Davis has taken us behind the scenes of The Frick, the Dakota, the New York Public Library, the Barbizon Hotel, Grand Central Terminal, Radio City Music Hall, and the Chelsea Hotel. Now, the queen of New York City historical fiction has set her sights on the mother of all Manhattan icons: the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Founded in 1870, the Met presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world.

For her eighth book, the best-selling author transports us back to 1978 and introduces us to the Met’s 60-ish Egyptologist/curator, Charlotte, and 19-year-old Annie, the assistant to Diana Vreeland, the Vogue editor-in-chief cum special consultant to the museum’s Costume Institute, which hosts the famed Met Gala. [Anna Wintour, the current Vogue editor didn’t take over until 1995.]

Together, the two women embark on a journey to track down a valuable Egyptian artifact that goes missing during the fashion party of the year.

The unlikely duo’s search brings them as far as The Land of the Pharaohs, where Annie—who is among the suspects of the theft—hopes to clear her name and where Charlotte—who was last in Egypt in 1936 as an archeology student—must confront an unbearable tragedy from her youth.

As always, Davis’ storytelling alternates between past and present, and between the individual journeys of her two main characters. She even intertwines an interesting tale about a rare and unsung female pharaoh.

Davis took time from her multi-city book tour to chat with Straus News and answer questions about why she chose to tackle the Met for this novel, traveling to northeastern Africa for research, and how Kim Kardashian inspired “The Stolen Queen.”

With each novel, you get a little more ambitious with the New York icons you feature. How have you chosen the various buildings each novel revolves around, and have you been working your way up to the big gun, aka the Met?

I’ve definitely been working up to the Met, which is an intimidating building with so many departments, jobs, as well as a storied history. As I begin to research the buildings behind each book, I’m drawn to anything that surprises me–like the fact that there was an apartment in the Fifth Avenue Library or that Grand Central Terminal had an art school inside it–because I know it will probably also surprise the reader. Once I find the surprise, I know my way into the story.

Speaking of surprises, the press material says that you were inspired to write “The Stolen Queen” by Kim Kardashian. Can you expound on that?

I was drawn to the idea by an article in the New York Times about the 2018 Met Gala, where Kim Kardashian posed in a gold dress next to a gold sarcophagus [aka an Egyptian coffin]. The photo went viral, to the extent that the Jordanian smuggler who’d stolen the sarcophagus complained to an undercover confidant that he’d never gotten paid. The Manhattan DA’s office got involved and discovered the export license had been falsified, and the sarcophagus was eventually returned to Egypt. I was struck by the confluence of ancient art and pop culture embodied in this one building and figured that would be a fun angle to explore.

You do extensive research for all your books, but is this the first time you have left the country to do so and what was your impression of Egypt?

Yes, this is the first time I left the country for research purposes and my first time in Egypt. I spent ten days there visiting Cairo, exploring the Valley of the Kings, sailing up the Nile–it was incredible. I found it to be a magical place, and the sense of history is so far beyond anything we have here in the States.

How did you get information to incorporate into your historical fiction novel?

FD: To learn about the Met Gala in 1978, I headed to the Met’s own Watson Library, where I could see photos of the exhibit, press releases, and reviews, all of which helped me recreate that evening. The Egyptian archaeology sections were very much influenced by the nonfiction book Empress of the Nile, by Lynne Olson, which is about a woman archaeologist who made some incredible finds during her lifetime.

How did you come across the story of the female pharaoh, and why did you choose to put it in the book?

Hathorkare is based on a real female pharaoh named Hatshepsut, who had a very successful reign for twenty years. After her death, many of her statues were destroyed, and her legacy was almost lost to history until a team of archaeologists from the Met found a quarry full of broken statues in the 1920s and realized her importance. Her mummy was recently discovered, which I recreate in the novel, and is also a fascinating story. I knew I wanted the character of Charlotte to be obsessed with this female pharaoh as much as I was because she was a successful woman leader whose contributions were lost to history until very recently, a theme I often explore in my novels.

Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of three novels, most recently “The Last Single Woman in New York City.”