Sally Denton

Hidden history is the realm of investigative reporter, author, and Santa Fean Sally Denton. Known for her nonfiction works, she’s won acclaim for her first four books, including The Money and the Power (Vintage, 2002), about organized crime in Las Vegas, Nevada, which the L.A. Times declared “one of the most important non-fiction books published in the U.S. in a half century.” Her newest is The Pink Lady (Bloomsbury Press, 2009), about Broadway star turned California Democratic Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas. Denton tells Wolf Schneider how she researches her books everywhere, but comes home to Santa Fe to write.

 

 

Q: Tell us how you came to your home in Eldorado, outside Santa Fe.

I was a reporter in Río Arriba County in 1976. That was my first journalism job. Then I moved to Washington, DC. In 1989 I moved back to Santa Fe to write books. I’m a fourth-generation Nevadan, and I always wanted to get back to the West.

Why Santa Fe?

I know all the Western cities—Las Vegas, Reno, Denver, Boise. Santa Fe has everything—culture, literature, music, restaurants, and unbelievable scenery. The light! Santa Fe has every ecosystem within 20 minutes—desert, mountains, plains, alpine.

What’s your research process like?

Deep and long! It usually takes three years to research and write a book. I research. I outline. Then I write a solid 1,000 words a day, whether it takes four hours or 18 hours.

Your specialty is America’s hidden history. What exactly is hidden history?

History is usually written by the winners. I’m writing the losers’ stories! These are stories intentionally neglected by history. These are characters who have been marginalized, either because they were too radical or too progressive or they didn’t come down on the right side of America’s vision of Manifest Destiny. The mythology of the American West is what a great, free, dynamic place it was. In fact, the American West was really only a lot of fun for white men.

How did you get interested in Helen Gahagan Douglas?

She was an iconic figure from my childhood when my father, Ralph Denton, ran for Congress from Nevada in the early 1960s. She was a torchbearer for progressivism.

You quote Douglas as saying, “Anything I really want, anything, I can get. I just have to want it enough.” Do you believe that too?

You know, I think I do. I am a big believer in intention. When you focus your intention on something, you can acquire it. Of course there’s luck, and things happen along the way.

What’s your best-selling book?

Probably The Bluegrass Conspiracy [Doubleday, 1989]. It’s the only one I get royalties from every quarter.

What New Mexico writers do you pal around with?

Michael McGarrity, Virginia Scharff, Sallie Bingham, David Morrell, and Kirk Ellis.

You’re in Washington, DC, as we talk. What’s happening there?

I’m researching my next book, about the plot to thwart FDR in 1933—the assassination attempt and a military coup attempt. My golden retriever and I have had a nice few months here! I’m driving home tomorrow.

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