A WORD FROM THE AUTHORLetter to Reader by J. Aaron Sanders, author of Speakers of the DeadAmerica wa

A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR
Letter to Reader by J. Aaron Sanders, author of Speakers of the Dead

America was on the verge of war, again. A tidal wave of immigrants unleashed a discriminatory backlash. Political corruption was rampant, and the disenfranchised protested with bricks and firebombs. New York was the center of the world.

In 1858, lower Manhattan looked much as it does today, only with horses. 700,000 citizens crowded its tenements and walked its filthy streets. There were 260 churches, 3,000 saloons, and 100 schools. Cholera claimed 2,000 lives, typhoid 2,800, and the infant mortality rate was 250 in 1,000.

America had 32 states, 300 congressmen, 500 firemen, 4,700 policemen, and one woman doctor: Elizabeth Blackwell.

 This is her story …

This is the premise for a TV show called The Infirmary I pitched with Robert Palm in 2012. Though the script and the premise are damn good, the show was not picked up, killed in one part by Copper (BBC) and in another by The Knick (Showtime). Still, working with Robert Palm was a pivotal moment in the evolution of Speakers of the Dead.

I happened upon Elizabeth Blackwell when reading about medicine in the 19^th century. I was amazed that more had not been written about her, since she was the first woman doctor in the United States. Her admission to Geneva Medical College was a fluke: the headmaster thought her application was a joke and so he opened the question of her admission to the other students. They voted to accept her and were flabbergasted when she showed up. She earned her degree, despite many obstacles, and I knew she had to be a character in my novel.

After graduating from Geneva in 1849, Blackwell moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a surgeon. There, while treating an infant with ophthalmia neonatorum, she lost her sight in one eye when some of the contaminated solution squirted in her eye. Blackwell returned to New York City, where she opened her own clinic. Her sister, Emily, along with Marie Zakrzewska, both MDs, joined her in 1857 to help run her newly established New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children.

When I pitched my idea for a TV show about Elizabeth Blackwell, Robert had no real incentive to help me. But he did it anyway. Later, he would tell me that some Hollywood old-timer helped him and basically told him to do the same.

Robert Palm is a reporter turned screenwriter. He got his start on Miami Vice, and his first produced script—Sonny Crockett’s wedding—was viewed by 34 million people.

Later, he would work with Dick Wolf on Law & Order, and later still, he was the show runner for Law & Order SVU, among many other writing and producing credits.

Robert came to Columbus, Georgia in March 2012 where we created a beat sheet for The Infirmary pilot episode. In retrospect, I’m not sure how much I “created.” Instead, I watched Robert map out the beats with such a finely tuned sense of story I felt like I had been allowed to go behind the curtain to watch a master at work. That is not overstated. I spent the entire three days trying to keep up. But I was learning too: how to create more efficient and varied story beats, how to twist stories, add conflict, and how to eliminate dramatic redundancies. When we separated on Tuesday, we had mapped out the entire pilot episode. Now all we had to do was write the damn thing.

We divided up the pilot into acts: Robert would take acts 1 & 3; I would take acts 2 & 4. I wrote and rewrote and rewrote Act 2, and when it was time to share the pages, I was terrified. Again, Robert encouraged me with this baseball analogy:

In TV land, one always expects the rookie to whiff, hopefully not looking, while secretly hoping he or she hits it out of the park. And knowing that a clean single is more than okay, while a sharply-lined double is gravy. I’d say you crushed one deep into the corner, and while I’d like to wave you on, I’m going to hold you at third, knowing you’ll go in face first.

I was elated. Of course Robert had to clean up Act 2, but he found a way to do it that also encouraged me. I could go on about how he helped me through the process, but I think I’ve made my point. Robert mentored me in such a way that I learned how to write a good story. He would continue to mentor me through the pitch stage in Hollywood, and later in the writing of Speakers of the Dead. I will never be able to thank him for what he did for me.

In our script, Robert came up with the idea to call Marie Zakrzewska “Zacky.” I kept this nickname in Speakers of the Dead to pay homage to Robert Palm. I also like the significance of Elizabeth’s and Zacky’s relationship: a mentorship. Blackwell dedicated her life to helping women in medicine: both as caregivers and patients. She did this because she believed in what she was doing, and she wanted to help. Zacky (and her sister, Emily) benefited from this mentorship. Just as I did.