New Books Network Interview: Kathleen Kaufman

I write novels and interview novelists, both for this blog and for the New Books Network, but I also edit novels for various publishers. Sometimes, in a happy coincidence, these various responsibilities overlap, and I read a novel as its editor, only to later have it pitched to me as a podcaster and blogger. Such a novel is Kathleen Kaufman’s wonderfully imaginative portrayal of a con man; his daughter, who has greater psychic abilities than the con man can imagine; and their ancestress, the pregnant wife of a coal miner killed in an accident whose search for compensation leads her down increasingly dark paths, mostly through no fault of her own. Inspired by the life of one of the author’s own ancestors, with a lot of fiction thrown in, The Entirely True Story of the Fantastical Mesmerist Nora Gray will grab you in the first few pages and not let go. Read on—and listen to my interview with Kathleen Kaufman—to find out more.

As usual, the rest of this post comes from New Books in Historical Fiction.

This fascinating novel—dual-time historical with a fantastical overlay, based in part on the life of the author’s great-grandfather, a nineteenth-century charlatan—follows the career of a young Scotswoman named Nairna Liath. When we meet her in 1900, Nairna, sixteen years old, travels the Scottish countryside at the insistence of her father, Tavish, who supports himself and his daughter by hawking her supposed skills as a medium—expressed through his own mangled Gaelic mixed with a series of parlor tricks that Nairna has mastered. But we soon find out that the joke’s on Tavish: Nairna really does have psychic talents, especially in reading Tarot cards. Her ability attracts attention from the Society for Psychical Research, setting Nairna on her path to become the spiritualist Nora Grey.

Her tale is intertwined with (in fact, propelled by) that of Nairna’s grandmother, Lottie Liath, in the 1860s. Lottie has just lost her husband in a coal mining accident, and when she protests the lack of financial support provided by the uncaring mine administration, the manager has her arrested and thrown in jail. From there, the pregnant Lottie ends up in an asylum. And it’s the asylum, where she is subjected to psychic experiments, that brings her into conversation with Nora.

The Entirely True Story of the Fantastical Mesmerist Nora Grey (Kensington Books, 2025) is rich in drama—both tragedy and comedy—as well as rapid switches of identity accompanied by pseudo news reports from various types of sources that illuminate Nora’s and Lottie’s stories in various ways. It’s tremendous fun and heartbreaking at the same time, and it’s best just to suspend disbelief and go with the flow. If you do, I guarantee you will love every minute of this story.