If you had been alive in the 1920s, what do you think would have been the most exciting part?
Joyce suggests to Piper that her stepmother will never become a blessing to her if she doesn’t open her mind to the idea. Have you ever had a time where you resisted change?
Piper’s mother’s last words were to tell Piper to trust in herself. How does this reminder help push Piper forward?
Piper struggles against the expectations society had for women of the day. When is a time that society’s expectations influenced you or made you feel “less-than”?
Piper will go to the ends of the earth to solve Lydia’s disappearance. What was a time you went above and beyond for a friend?
When Lydia disappears, Piper isn’t interested in new friends, but Emma Crane becomes an unlikely ally. Have you ever met someone you didn’t expect to connect with?
Piper is so not a dog person … until she meets Sidekick. How does Sidekick help Piper to start new after tragedy?
When Walter is angry with Piper for pursuing Lydia with such fervor, Piper likens it to a time when he played baseball with such intensity that he hurt himself. She says, “That’s how I feel about Lydia. I don’t know how to do anything else but leave it all on the field.” What is a time that you’ve left it all on the field and it’s paid off? What about a time when you didn’t try your hardest, and you regretted it?
Piper feels deeply discouraged by the corruption surrounding her. To Mariano, she voices, “At the end of the day, how much can one person really do?” Have you ever felt this way? How would you answer her?
Piper’s father tells her, “Piper, my girl, to love anyone is to risk.” Do you think this is true?
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I had the idea for Piper’s story in August of 2013, but as a writer who had only written contemporary novels, I didn’t have the courage to start until a few months later, when my then-three-year-old son was diagnosed with epilepsy.
Much of the early research for this book took place beside Connor’s bed at Children’s Mercy Hospital as we ran test after test to understand his seizures and get them under control. As I watched Connor get poked and prodded, it suddenly seemed silly for me to be fearful of the research required to write a historical novel.
While my understanding of epilepsy is from my real life, I read book after book after book to wrap my head around life in 1924. I fell head over heels in love with this decade. Bookended by the World War I and the Great Depression and containing what’s been called one of the greatest social experiments of all time—the outlawing of manufacturing, transporting, and selling alcoholic beverages—the 1920s was a unique decade for all.
But it was especially unique for women. Not only had women just won the right to vote, but the media—which had an increasing presence and influence in people’s lives—had a lot to say about what a modern woman should be. And many of those messages contradicted values of the previous generation, creating a difficult dynamic between parents and children.
As I read diaries written by 1920s teenagers, I was struck by how familiar their frustrations sounded. They wanted more freedom, they struggled with body image, they felt their parents were out of touch with modern times, and so on. In fact, a 1924 sociology study (Middletown: A Study In Modern American Culture) documented that teenagers fought with their parents over the use of the car more than over any other matter.
All the characters in The Lost Girl of Astor Street are creations of my imagination, but many have similar stories to those who lived in the decade. While Lydia’s fate is pure fiction, there were far too many who suffered like she did—including Bobby Franks, whose tragic kidnapping happens in the background while Piper searches for Lydia.
The Finnegan brothers and their extended family in Kansas City are, thankfully, fictitious, though I read books and articles about mobsters for inspiration. Many of the stories of their crimes were heartbreaking to read, and it’s easy to minimize them to one-dimensional people. But one anecdote that amused me and reminded me of their complexity was of Dion “Deanie” O’Banion, whose gang controlled Chicago’s North Side in the early 1920s. He loved flower arranging, and at mob funerals he “sometimes supplied not only the posies but the corpse” (American Mafia by Thomas Reppetto).
Some of the resources that aided me include—but are definitely not limited to—Daily Life in the United States 1920s–1940 by David E. Kyvig; Middletown: A Study In Modern American Culture by Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd; The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum; and Flapper by Joshua Zeitz. I’m grateful for these authors and many others for their work to preserve history. While I’m sure I made unintentional mistakes in The Lost Girl of Astor Street, these writers prevented me from making many more!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS