The moment I uncovered the identity of silent film star Theda Bara’s secret lover, I leapt off my couch and danced around the room. Early in my research process, I had watched a biographical documentary on Bara’s life, The Woman with the Hungry Eyes. The documentarian mentioned that Bara had referred to a time in her life when she was “in that twilight called love” during a brief sojourn in Paris. But she never revealed who her lover was. 

The one reference to this mystery man was a mention of a “famous cinema vamp” in a biography of Isadora Duncan in which Duncan’s friend and biographer Mary Desti claimed the vamp had a love affair with one of Isadora’s relatives (an artist) and that Duncan had incurred the young woman’s wrath by sending away the man she loved. Mary Desti was a notoriously unreliable narrator, yet I believed there had to be a kernel of truth to the story. The writer’s son, film director Preston Sturges, confirmed the presence of a “cinema vamp” in Paris at the time in his own memoirs.

So I researched visual artists in Duncan’s circle and perused Duncan’s autobiography for any references to relatives. I soon realized I had to broaden my own idea of relative and artist. At first I was looking for cousins or distant cousins. However, a relative can be anyone related by blood, and Isadora had two brothers. And an artist can refer to any number of fields, including the performing arts. 

One writer theorized that the unknown lover could have been Isadora’s brother, the dancer Raymond Duncan. He was married but not strict about his vows. However, a little digging showed he was on tour in America at the time. Then I discovered in Duncan’s autobiography that she had brought her other brother, Augustin, and his daughter over to France the same year that Theda Bara was in Paris. By a process of elimination I had found the culprit: the handsome Augustin Duncan.

Of course, I could be wrong but I believe the evidence is strongly in Augustin’s favor. He was separated from a wife who was not well liked by the rest of his family. And he was in Paris at the Champs-Élysées Hotel. Later, after the episode with Bara would have happened, he wound up in Germany where he found a new wife. He was also an actor (or performing artist) so he and Bara would have had something in common.

Discoveries such as this provide one of the great pleasures of writing historical fiction — those eureka moments when we find the answer to a perplexing riddle. They also send a whallop of a dopamine hit to the brain. It must be similar to how a detective feels when she’s solved a crime. 

Sometimes the discoveries are more personal. In researching my current novel, I came across a passport photo of my grandmother thanks to the help of a friend in geneology. I had never even seen a picture of my grandmother before that day. I stared at the screen in awe. This was my grandmother — and also a character in my book. 

I emailed some of my fellow historical fiction authors about their own eureka moments and most had experienced some variation.

Gail Lehrman’s eureka moment inspired her current project. She wrote, “When I was working on my first novel, Across Seward Park, my research led me to Professor Annalise Orlick’s book Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women in Working-Class Politics. There I encountered ladies of the New York Women’s Trade Union League who were on the front lines of the struggle against sweat shops and the exploitation of working people. Cutting across class and cultural barriers, these women led bold, unorthodox live of political commitment and social service. When I finished Professor Orlick’s book I thought someone should write a novel about these women. And so, I am.”

Micah Thorpe, author of Aegolius Creek, said his eureka moments often come from maps. “One of the hardest things to do in researching a story is to define, or fictionalize a place, particularly in a historical context.  I routinely look at maps and map overlays and old photographs to try and get a sense of where something is, or was.  Landscapes change, particularly over time.  Often I’ll use fictionalized places that are based on real ones - which means getting just close enough to make it seem real without it being so.  Finding little bits of specific information, the architectural design of a building, the placement of a tree or the arch of a road makes perfect fictional realism,” he wrote.

Nonfiction writers, of course, build their books on research. Kerry Caithers, who is currently working on a book about crime scenes told me: “One piece of information which completely altered my view of crime scenes was the popularity of crime scenes. People travelled for miles, on foot, by horse/carriage, and later by public transport and cars just to view the scene of a murder. Not a few people, crowds of up to one hundred. My view was changed because suddenly, the crime scene was not a private police undertaking, but a social event and one the public and press could participate in.”

I remember as a university student thinking research was tedious. Now, I recognize the gift we receive as the past reveals itself and we capture a glimpse of the world in whose shadow we currently live. Each new book is an invitation to peel away layers of misconception and tease out slivers of truth. As readers we find immense satisfaction in a mystery solved; as writers we get that same the thrill ten-fold when we dive into the waters unknown and come back up with untold treasures.