'Portrait of American Trauma': Novel Inspired by Leo Frank Out Now

When 13-year-old Mary Phagan’s body was discovered in the cellar of an Atlanta factory in 1913, two short pages — dubbed the “murder notes” — were found beside her.

“Play like the night witch did it,” one of the haunting messages read.

Those were the words that inspired author Maggie Nye to write a novel about the aftermath of Phagan’s death — which led to the infamous 1915 lynching of suspect Leo Frank in Marietta — from the perspective of five girls near Phagan’s age.

”I just thought that was such a bizarre, surreal, kind of image,” Nye said. “... But it did make me think about the fact that this would be in the newspapers, this would be reported. How would a child during this time spin their own narrative about what is a traumatic and scary event ... how would they interpret that, how might it get spun out into a story that they can tell themselves?”

Nye workshopped that idea for nearly a decade, publishing a short story in 2017, making the project her thesis when she got her master’s degree from the University of Alabama the same year and publishing her debut novel “The Curators” on June 15.

”The Curators” has five female narrators, all either 13 or 14-years-old. The girls create a golem, a magical creature made of clay that has roots in Jewish folklore, and is said to bring protection.

Nye said while the girls created the golem to continue Frank’s legacy, readers will find the creature is more a reflection of their actions than anything Frank may or may not have done.

”The golem in this novel is unpredictable, and is maybe a protector, is maybe a vessel for ultimate truth, or is maybe mischievous,” Nye said. “... The initial idea was to have (the golem) look like Leo Frank and have him enact Leo Frank so that they could continue to carry on his story after he’d been lynched, and prove his goodness and prove his truth. But he becomes kind of an ambiguous figure in the ways that their actions are also ambiguous and sometimes misguided.”

From there, the girls embark on a mission to understand Frank’s murder, collecting newspaper clippings, viewing Frank’s body and even acquiring a piece of the rope used to lynch him.

In some ways, the girls’ journey mirrored Nye’s research to write the novel.

The author spent years reading through the extensive newspaper coverage of the Phagan case and Frank’s murder, poured over archives in the Marietta History Center and visited the site of Frank’s lynching.

”That’s a story that’s so well known but is still so rich with details that often get missed because there is so much information on it,” said Amy Reed, director of the Marietta History Center. “... It’s still such a very, very important part of our local history that anytime we can get awareness to that story and the injustices done.”

Frank’s murder is the only lynching of a Jewish person in U.S. history.

Nye, who is not Jewish, said she relied heavily on the knowledge of her husband’s grandfather, who has Russian and Jewish heritage, to shape her understanding of the Jewish experience and help her include Russian Yiddish into the story.

”It was a struggle for me, and I continue to wrestle with it ... But I also think that this kind of imagination is an act of empathy in the way that all imagination is, imagining yourself into situations that you don’t have a personal history with,” Nye said.

Nye said her goal with the book is not to solve the murder of Phagan, whose legacy has been heavily politicized, but to honor both Frank and Phagan as victims of their circumstances.

”Someone has to be responsible, but since I don’t know who that is, the main responsible party seems to me, to be aggravated, stirred up white men’s anxiety about a newly industrialized South and changing race and gender relationships, I was able to see (Frank and Phagan) as being manipulated and used,” she said. “... It’s a portrait of American trauma in so many ways.”

The book is receiving good reviews, judging by what’s posted on Amazon, which says the Atlanta Journal-Constitution named it “a must-read Southern book of the summer,” while Kirkus says, “Nye’s narrative poetically and darkly conveys the uncertainties and anxieties experienced by the girls as they mature to womanhood while struggling to understand the horrific circumstances of Phagan’s murder and Frank’s lynching. Part Southern Gothic, part Frankenstein, all thought-provoking.”

”The Curators” is on sale now, wherever you buy books online. Nye will be in Atlanta for a book reading at Bookish Atlanta on August 14.