The glamorous Gabor sisters and their survival stories: Run, Darling, by Karen Essex

Through their novels, authors can unearth obscure figures from the past and draw the public eye toward their interesting lives. They can also reveal the little-known backstories of the wildly famous and wildly rich.

In Run, Darling, Karen Essex illustrates the complicated family and romantic histories of the Gabors and the astonishing trials they endured before arriving in America and becoming fixtures of mid-20th-century gossip columns. They could be called the original Kardashians, but this obscures the core of strength behind the glamorous front.

Pub. by Kleopatra Books (2025)

Having grown up in the 1970s and 1980s, I remember this about the Gabor sisters:

* Eva and Zsa Zsa – unforgettable names – had charming Hungarian accents, wore their blonde hair in fabulous updos, draped themselves in jewels, and dropped “dah-link” into most conversations

* Their multiple marriages were notorious, even for Hollywood

* They were regulars on TV talk shows and periodic guests of Captain Stubing on his luxurious Love Boat voyages

What I didn’t know before reading this novel:

* There were three sisters! The oldest, Magda, known as the responsible one, married a minor Polish count – the first of multiple husbands. Within the story, they call themselves the “unholy trinity."

* Their mother, Jolie, a jeweler and classic “momager,” had as colorful a personality and almost as chaotic a love life as her daughters did. What a character – it’s impossible not to admire her chutzpah, but she can’t have been easy to live with.

* They belonged to a Jewish family that converted to Catholicism, which didn’t stop the Nazis from targeting them. Despite increasing evidence to the contrary, like Hungary’s passage of anti-Jewish legislation, Jolie continues to believe the family’s wealth and prominence will protect them.

* They arrived in the United States separately in the late 1930s and ‘40s. Their journeys to get there – and desperate attempts to rescue family members in Europe (some eager to escape, others refusing to leave) – make for a nail-biting plotline.

Essex relates their individual, intertwined adventures in this enticingly dishy and sympathetic account, allowing their personalities to shine. Eva, the first to emigrate, lands in Los Angeles eager to star in films though runs up against overbearing sexism and struggles to become successful. Zsa Zsa marries an older Turkish diplomat for security and to evade maternal pressure to become a celebrity in Vienna; her status as a high-profile political wife puts her into dangerous company. In England, Magda undertakes heroic actions and falls in love with intriguing men while hoping her parents in Budapest will see sense and get out.

The Gabor women’s stories positively drip with drama, scandalous antics, and guest appearances from Hollywood luminaries and other famous names. They make impulsive decisions with the best intentions (“Perhaps jumping without a net is just what Gabor women do,” Zsa Zsa muses), which is sometimes necessary to survive. Some of the male characters breeze by on the page without leaving a deep impression, but there are, admittedly, quite a lot of them … and as we know from history, there’ll be more where they came from. The text could use a closer proofread, too, to catch typos and name inconsistencies.

But who can resist a group of almost larger-than-life sisters who keep “emergency diamonds from Mama” they can use in a pinch to save their lives when needed? This novel about a trio of determined, one-of-a-kind women certainly instilled in me a newfound respect for how they survived, using their own talents to do so.

A conversation with Terri Lewis about her new historical novella, When They Came Home

Based on her grandparents, Edith and Milton Fieth, Terri Lewis’s When They Came Home is a moving portrait of a Midwestern couple's marriage in the aftermath of WWI. The story spans decades in its evocation of their lives in the first half of the 20th century. It intertwines multiple tales of survival and endurance: the psychological wounds that Milton suffers while fighting in France during WWI and their long-lasting aftereffects; Edith’s strength as she heroically raises their daughters essentially alone amid diminishing finances; and their steadfast devotion to one another over the course of many trying years. Winner of the 2025 Novella Prize from Miami University Press, the story is rich in character and atmospheric detail. My thanks to Terri for responding to my questions for this piece.

Pub. by Miami University Press, May 2026

What new facets did you uncover about your main characters, Edith and Milton, as you began writing about them and transforming their lives into fiction?

I knew Edith and Milton simply as grandparents. She baked cookies, gave hugs freely, kept a drawer full of comic books for our visits, and told stories of her childhood on a farm. My quiet grandfather had a sweet tooth, drank a lot of coffee, and took me downtown in Denver to see the Christmas lights, or “downtown” to the post office and the drugstore for a soda in tiny Enterprise, Kansas, where they lived.

My perceptions of them changed when Mother gave me a candy box stuffed with documents, letters, black-and-white photos, and a single postcard attesting to their early lives. Lives completely unknown to me. My timid grandfather a WWI soldier in the French trenches? My quiet grandmother suing the government? Both strangers. I wrote and read and pondered until I could reconcile the split images, creating Milton and Edith on the page, new, but bolstered by the Milton and Edith I knew.

Were there any family records or mementos that you drew on to shape the story?

The documents in the candy box were germane in giving structure to the story. I had dates, locations, dollar amounts, plus two handwritten clarifications of events, one from Edith and one from Milton. For day-to-day information, I interviewed my mother and aunt and heard stories about the chicken farm and the remote country store. My interest and questions seemed to drive objects from cubby holes and drawers. It was amazing to hold them, to think about what they meant to my grandparents and then to write them into the novel.

Sample objects that appear: A silk souvenir handkerchief brought back from France by Milton for a sweetheart (not Edith). A whole chapter was built around a reed-rimmed tray with a note on the back: Milton made it while in hospital. Another chapter’s underlying emotion emerged from a sorrowful birthday photo. The most astonishing object was “the fork the stopped the bullet.”

When Mother told me about it, I laughed. Unbelievable! Then I was handed a leather sheath with a bullet hole and inside, the mangled fork marked MF for Milton Fieth. Tactile, amazing, but still unbelievable. I mentioned it briefly, not wanting readers to question the story.

Pictures of these artifacts and others are available on my website, terrilewis1.com.

Many of the characters’ dynamics are colored by secrets and silences, which is very reflective of the era: the painful parts of their lives that people feel they shouldn’t share. Milton is discouraged from talking about his wartime trauma, especially with his wife. And Edith conceals her own feelings to protect her children and to hide her shame at her family’s circumstances. Did this reticence affect your research or writing in any way?

I hadn’t considered that, but now I would agree for several reasons.

First, the story had been kept a secret, with good intentions: the grandchildren might be frightened of Milton if they knew his past. Silence became a way for the adults to achieve an untraumatized family. Once the grandkids were grown, the secret could do little harm.

Second, the ghosts of Milton’s dead friends appeared as a way to express his feelings, his horror, which he had been trained to push down.

Third, the documents themselves were reticent, official and bureaucratic, hiding dire events under formal language: A pension denied. AWOL declared. The effect on Milton and Edith’s lives completely ignored.

And finally, I believe that reticence became the voice of the novel, circumspect and quiet, even in devastation. Grounded in what I, as a child, felt in my grandmother. And how I thought the family would like the story told. Simply, with love.

I felt immersed in Midwestern small-town and farm life while reading. There’s so much detail that feels nostalgic yet also timeless (corn pudding, meatloaf, peach pie… all common dishes at a Midwestern country table even now). Did you have the chance to travel back to the area during the research or writing process?

Yes, I was lucky. My job at the EPA in Washington, DC sent me to two weeks training in Kansas City, meaning a free weekend.

On Saturday I drove to the Kansas Historical Society in Topeka, registered as a researcher, and spent the afternoon reading and looking through pictures, making snapshots of those that were germane, soaking up an earlier way of life. It was there I first saw the steam thresher belching smoke that came to play an important part in the story.

Milton and Edith

On Sunday I drove to Enterprise to a service in my grandmother’s beloved church. The minister asked if there were any guests and I introduced myself and mentioned Edith. Afterward, several people came to me with memories, including one older gentleman who had mowed her lawn.

Into this research, I folded my visits when I was a kid. Sitting on front porches while adults drank iced tea. Names of my grandmother’s friends, names which had appeared on pictures and documents at the Historical Society. The pickled peaches (which morphed somehow into watermelon), the little record player, the house with its cackling sink, tornadoes, and the old-fashioned washer on the back porch.

I wanted to write close to the story, to be inside what the characters saw and felt. Research and imagination were helpful, but my personal knowledge was invaluable.

When They Came Home spans decades yet feels just the right length for its content. What drew you to the novella format, and aside from the time involved (if that was the case), how did the process differ from writing a full-length novel?

This made me laugh. I had planned to write a dual time-line novel of the grandparents’ story and a grown granddaughter looking back. My aim was to show the heroism of those who live through trauma and who avoid transmitting it to the next generation. The granddaughter wasn’t to be me, so I sent her to California, gave her many siblings, added a death, a will, and struggled. The modern story never came to life; I think I was too close.

Then I saw the post about the Miami University Press Novella Award, and decided to submit the grandparents’ section. I pulled it free, worked right up to the deadline, wrote a hail-Mary ending, and sent it off. No chance to win. Then months later, acceptance! With a caveat: fix the ending. I was overjoyed. Not often do you get a chance to make things right!

That's great how things worked out!

Both of your published books have been historical fiction, though set centuries apart. Do you have an affinity for this genre, or was it more that the genre fit the tales you wanted to tell?

I’ve always been a lover of history, not the wars or kings or popes, but the lives of ordinary people. Medieval history particularly pulled me in after a wonderful college class, but I read widely. In both books it was a matter of a subject popping out, something I couldn’t let go (a normal writer’s experience I think). Also, I’m a fan of resurrecting women’s voices. Isabelle, the main character in my debut novel and King John’s second wife, was a queen of England and I’d never heard mentioned in any history class. Or consider, when a soldier breaks down, focus tends to be on him (or her); the heroism of wives like Edith is largely ignored.

Oddly, I seem to be moving forward in time in my novels: 1200 to 1918 to 1972 for my third book, Bodies in Arabesque, coming in March 2027. And it seems I’m staying the course; my fourth book will be almost contemporary.

I was fascinated to read about your previous career as a ballet dancer – both forms of expressive art, but a very different type of performance and audience. How did you transition from one focus to another?

I always intended to both write and dance. Since the body can only dance for a few years, I put off the writing until I retired. But then I discovered despite producing reams of letters, poetry, and some stories while I was dancing—exhaustion from rehearsals and performance make sitting a favorite activity—I had no idea of how to write for publication. To support myself, I took a career swerve into IT and began studying. Workshops, crit groups, conferences.

I had two advantages from my dancing career. I could block out peripheral movement and sound and work anywhere, and I knew how to take and use correction. What I didn’t now was how to make a plot. I wrote my first novel in bed at night. When I finished, astonishment that I’d done it and fear I couldn’t replicate the feat, led me to try another. Then I lucked into a workshop at Bethesda Writers Center where Barbara Esstman wrote on my submission that I had the skill to write a publishable novel, but “something had to happen.” That sentence saw me through a long slog. There’s a saying: it takes ten years to master any art form; as a former dancer and now a writer, I can attest to that.

~

Author bio:

Terri Lewis’s new novel is When They Came Home, a lyrical telling of hardship and love and winner of the Miami University Press Novella Award. Her debut was Behold the Bird in Flight, a Novel of an Abducted Queen, was named a favorite of 2025 by the Washington Independent Review of Books. She lives in Denver.

Socials:

Website: https://terrilewis1.com | Contains images of artifacts that inspired the book
Author Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerriLewisAuthor
Personal Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/terri.lewis1
Substack: terrilewis1.substack.com “Words that Dance”
Instagram: @terri.lewis1 | www.instagram.com/terri.lewis1

A historical fiction bestseller that lives up to the buzz: Tayari Jones's Kin

“The road Vernice is walking is paved different from yours,” Annie’s grandmother tells her towards the beginning of Jones’s remarkable novel. “It ain’t fair, but that’s the way life takes us.”

Annie and Vernice (Niecy) grow up as “cradle friends” in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, their bond closer than sisters. Both lost their mothers young, Niecy to murder and Annie to abandonment, and the relatives who take in the girls can’t make up for the emotional loss. Niecy’s Aunt Irene raises her as a young lady, saving coins to send her to Spelman College in Atlanta.

Annie’s path to escaping Honeysuckle is more sudden and chaotic, but escape she does, in an old Packard with her intended boyfriend and two others, heading to Memphis where she’s heard her mama lives. Her path to the big city and in life is far from smooth, but neither is Niecy’s, who navigates the challenges of color and class, and her nascent sexuality, with the friendship of other female students.

Niecy and Annie switch off narrating, their distinct voices full of personality and casual wit, but progressively diverging in tone and vocabulary as their lives stretch further apart. The historical atmosphere is first-rate, with unobtrusive details on growing up Black and female in the 1950s Jim Crow South and all that entails: segregated movie theaters, rooming houses “vouched for by the Green Book,” and the compromises that social elevation demands.

There are so many extraordinary characters that it feels like the novel could shift focus to any one of them and tell an equally fascinating story. Jones’s ability to unfold a tale is just marvelous—there’s always something going on, but the plot never feels unrealistic. A fierce, occasionally wrenching novel about the meaning of family: those rare beings who see you as you truly are.

Tayari Jones’s Kin was published by Knopf in February. In the UK, the publisher is Oneworld, and it appeared from Viking in Canada. I reviewed it initially for the Historical Novel Society. It’s been a New York Times bestseller and an Oprah’s Book Club pick and has had rave reviews in numerous publications. One can’t say this novel is flying under the radar. The attention and acclaim are well-deserved. It’s already appeared on one “best books of the year so far” list, and will undoubtedly land on others in the coming months.

The first few times I heard about this book, I didn’t realize it was a historical novel. The publisher’s blurb doesn’t list the era, although it didn’t quite sound contemporary either. I think it was a NetGalley widget sent to me that clued me in to the timeframe. In a Q&A on her publisher’s website with Tia Guerrier, Jones explains how she came to write it:

I have to give you a little backstory. This was not the novel I was contracted to write. I was supposed to write a novel about gentrification in modern Atlanta. I tried, but it just wasn’t happening. My students would say, “The book was not booking.”

So I went old school. Pencil and paper. And I met Annie and Vernice, and I saw they were living in the ’50s. And I thought, no, I don’t contain a historical novel. That’s not what I do. But I had to follow it. It became clear to me that this is what I was being called to write.

Who else has read it? I enjoyed it so much I may read it again sometime down the road.