Welcome to Farm Street College
In the US edition of Daughter of Genoa, my Jesuit character Father Vittorio explains that he speaks English because he spent part of his formation at Farm Street College. The hitch? There is no Farm Street College.
Of course, if you know about the Jesuits and their history, you already know that perfectly well. And you’re probably wondering why I would take the very odd step of inventing a whole new institution by combining two perfectly good, existing ones: Farm Street Church (which is in London), and the now-defunct Heythrop College (which was based there for a period in the twentieth century).
So where on earth did Farm Street College come from? It was 100% my creation, but not in the way you might think. Here’s how it went.
Anatomy of a blooper
When I first wrote that scene, I knew I wanted to work out a path for Father Vittorio that would place him in London at some point in his youth. Jesuits do often go to different provinces for the different stages of their formation, although an Italian Jesuit being sent to the UK in that period does require some justification. (Father Vittorio’s backstory is something I hope to write about in the future: I’d love to give him a whole book of his own.)
Many Jesuits spend their regency, which is the third stage of their formation, working at a school or university. So I decided that Father Vittorio could justifiably be sent to Heythrop College, which I knew as an outstanding academic institution – with, incidentally, a brilliant and expansive theology library.
If you know the Jesuits, you’ve probably already spotted my first mistake. Heythrop didn’t move into its London campus until 1970. In the 1920s, when my Father Vittorio was a young Jesuit, it was still a scholastic training college, and it was located in Heythrop villlage in Oxfordshire. That’s where the name comes from.
Fortunately, I also spotted this, but at a late stage. By that point, I’d read and reread the chapter so many times, and obsessed about so many other details, that I almost looked right past it. But I did see it – in fact, it woke me up at 3 in the morning, emerging from my subconscious as these things sometimes do – and I told my wonderful editor, who asked the production department if they would correct the issue before it went to print.
Thankfully, they agreed. I was so relieved! I knew it was time-sensitive, so I dashed off a quick email with the relevant page numbers, asking them to replace “Heythrop” with “Farm Street” throughout. And that’s how Farm Street College was born.
That’s right: I had a chance to fix my actual error, and I blew it. I did manage to correct course in my UK edition, which had a different production schedule. But in my US one, Father Vittorio will forever be associated with a non-existent institution.
Mistakes happen, but …
Historical novelists are often working in the gaps in the record, coming up with plausible details and authentic scenarios that fit with the stories we invent. Combined with the fact that few (if any) of us are experts in every aspect of a given place and time, this means that bloopers can crop up even in the best-researched book. That’s why the wonderful Sharon Kay Penman kept a running list of errata on her website.
Was accidentally inventing a new Jesuit college the biggest mistake I could have made? Definitely not. Have I made other bloopers in Daughter of Genoa, ones I didn’t even know how to spot? That’s a certainty.
But I know about this one, and it matters to me. I’ve spent many years studying the Jesuits. I’ve interviewed them, socialised with them, written about them in a host of ways. In Father Vittorio, I set out to create a Jesuit character who would be really authentic – a believable member of the preconciliar Society of Jesus who is profoundly shaped by its culture, even as he rebels, quietly, against its most difficult and stifling aspects.
So this is a painful one. I wouldn’t be a novelist, though, if I didn’t feel compelled to get some kind of value out of embarrassing or uncomfortable experiences. Here are my three steps for making your historical novel as blooper-free as it can be. (Spoiler alert: that’s never 100%.)
Step 1: Do your preliminaries
It might seem obvious, but it bears saying. When you decide on the story you want to write, your first step is to get a thorough grasp on your chosen period, people and events. And don’t just read: talk and listen, too! The world is full of misinformation and flawed sources but, happily, it’s also full of experts who love to be consulted – especially when fiction often gets it wrong. A ten-minute chat with the right person can help you avoid a whole host of time-wasting, potentially serious false leads.
Think about every aspect of your characters’ experience. When writing Daughter of Genoa, I took advice from experts across the Jewish, Jesuit and Waldensian communities. I also talked to a tour guide, two librarians, two historical medicine experts, a naval historian, a police procedure advisor, and any number of friends and contacts who had lived experience of specific things I wanted to tackle. A number of them read the entire manuscript, or pieces of it. And I spent as much time in Genoa as I could afford: living nearby, as I did at the time, was a huge privilege in that regard.
Step 2: Keep researching as you write
When I was a postgraduate student in history, this was probably the best piece of advice my supervisor gave me. As your work evolves, it will throw up new questions you need to answer. And those answers, in turn, will shape and direct your writing.
Some writers do prefer to get the story down first and do the research afterwards. Some like to spend a long time in the archives or the library before they even start on their first draft. But I find that the most effective approach is to treat research and writing as two intertwined aspects of the same process. Not only does it save time and keep me out of research rabbit-holes (well, mostly), it also makes it much easier to integrate historical facts and details into the fabric of the story.
Step 3: Let go
You may not want to take this advice from an author who just wrote an entire blog post about discovering a three-word error. But here’s the thing. If you’ve done all the research your timeline and resources allow, and you’ve consulted with experts, and you’ve double, triple and quadruple-checked all the key details … then you’ve done the best job you can, and probably a better one than many.
This doesn’t mean that errors won’t still crop up, or that others won’t spot them when they do. They may even judge you or your work. Any historical error has the potential to matter to someone, even if it’s relatively minor. That’s why it’s always worth asking if a correction can be made, even if it’s late in the production process. (Just take a breath before you send that email. Believe me, it helps.)
If you spot a bothersome mistake in someone else’s book, whether it’s an ARC or post-publication, you can alert the publisher. Depending on how serious it is, they may be willing and able to amend it. If they don’t, again, you’ve done your best. As Father Vittorio might say, angels can do no more.
But don’t judge the author too harshly, especially if the error is low-stakes or very niche. Sometimes it’s precisely that up-close, in-depth focus that can lead to overlooking a detail, or bungling a fix. I learned that the hard way!
Daughter of Genoa is out in the US on December 9, 2025. Sorry about the blooper.