Although the story and characters in this novel are fiction, many of the references to art from Mrs. Fisher’s past come from real life. In fact, Mrs. Fisher was inspired by the real-life jazz singer and pianist extraordinaire, Blossom Dearie, who performed in Greenwich Village well into her late seventies.
Spiritualism is a religion that began in 1848; its practitioners communicate with ghosts through a medium, also known as a psychic. The spiritualist mediums talk to ghosts in a variety of ways, one of them being through automatic writing. This occurs after the medium meditates and spontaneously writes a message without thinking ahead what she would like to say, believing that a spirit is guiding her hand. Many writers say that automatic writing comes from the subconscious, an idea also utilized by early modern art movements such as the Surrealists (who wrote from a dream state) and the Beats (who wrote from a meditative flow state).
After World War II, the cultural focus shifted from Europe to the United States, and New York City became a vibrant place for artists to live. Moving into cold-water flats (apartments that didn’t even have hot water) in run-down neighborhoods of lower Manhattan such as Greenwich Village, artists could share ideas in neighborhood clubs and cafes while surviving on very little money. Clubs like the Village Vanguard and Café Wha? popped up in the neighborhood, too. They showcased stand-up comics like Lenny Bruce, and jazz musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker. Artists took over lofts that allowed for plenty of light to paint, and writers penned their manuscripts in late-night cafes. Miles Davis came out with his album Birth of the Cool, and a group of writers became known as the Beats. It wasn’t long before the term beatnik described the 1950s hipster: someone who lived on strong coffee and jazz, loved modern art and Beat poets, and lived in Greenwich Village.
The Beat poets were an informal group of writers whose core members, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, met while attending Columbia University in 1944. The group of writers expanded to include Neal Cassady and William S. Burroughs, among others, and they held informal meetings in Times Square diners to discuss their ideas. They would later travel across the country and set up shop in San Francisco. Jack Kerouac was the most popular of the writers, typing On the Road (1957) on a continuous scroll of paper so as not to interrupt his flow. Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” (1956) was controversial, giving the Beats notoriety with mainstream society by rejecting materialism and embracing Eastern spirituality. By the late 1950s, the Beats had brought counterculture to the masses and were the forerunners of the hippie movement of the 1960s.
While the Beats were developing their own style of writing, the abstract expressionist group of painters in New York City were inventing an American style of art that would differ from what was happening in Europe. Painters like Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and Willem de Kooning flung, dripped, and glopped paint onto canvas, calling their method action painting. It emphasized the physical process of painting instead of depicting actual subject matter. Peggy Guggenheim, whose uncle Solomon Guggenheim founded the Guggenheim Museum, championed these artists, bringing them into the spotlight and helping to establish New York as the destination for modern art.
When musicians improvise, they invent melodies on the spot without knowing what they will play beforehand. Sometimes it comes together in harmony, while other times it can be discordant. Jazz musicians like Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker developed improv into a new staccato, wild sound called bebop in the mid 1940s, playing in small clubs in Manhattan. By the late 1950s, they had influenced Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane, and long, melodic lines of cool jazz took over. Clubs like the Village Vanguard and the East Village Five Spot Cafe were the places to be, allowing poets, painters, actors, and musicians to cross-pollinate their ideas.