Northern Michigan University alumna Maryka Biaggio recently published her new book, “Gun Girl and the Tall Guy,” a historical novel about the 1924 crime spree of Celia and Ed Cooney in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The book explores themes of love, struggle and survival as it chronicles the couple's rise from a crime spree to a manhunt by the police, who are determined to capture them after their ineptitude is exposed in the papers.
“I'm really interested in how people will respond to Celia and Ed's story, if they sympathize with them, or if they sympathize with the detective who's trying to track them down,” Biaggio said.
A Marquette native, Biaggio graduated from NMU in 1973 with degrees in psychology and English. She then went on to attend Utah State University, where she graduated with a doctorate in combined professional-scientific psychology with a clinical emphasis.
Following her education, Biaggo worked as a practicing clinical psychologist and a professor of psychology at the University of Idaho, Indiana State University, and Pacific University just outside of Portland, Ore., where she resides today.
After several years teaching and working in the realm of psychology, Biaggio decided to pivot from her career to become a writer.
“I always wanted to write a novel, but I never could figure out what I would write about, so I kind of puzzled over this for quite a long time,” Biaggio explained. “Around the year 2000, I did some genealogy research and discovered that my grandfather from Switzerland lived in New York City for eight years, and nobody in my family knew that he was there or what he did. So I thought, well, I'm going to make up a story about him. And that was how I got into historical fiction.”
Biaggio loves the challenge of starting with actual historical figures and dramatizing their lives. She uses her background in psychology to figure out what motivated them to behave as they did, study how cultural and historical context influenced them and recreate their emotional world through dialogue and action. She prides herself on carefully researching the time period, place and people to provide readers with an immersive experience.
“I really like tracking down stories of people whose lives have perhaps been forgotten by history, and bringing them back to life,” Biaggio said.
Her first two books, “Parlor Games” and “Eden Waits,” detail historical people and events that take place in Michigan, reflecting her connection to her home state. “Parlor Games” follows the story of the successful con woman from Menominee, May Dugas, and how she used her feminine charm to extract not only sidelong glances, but large sums of money from the men she encountered.
“Eden Waits” details the story of how an older couple, who just so happen to be Biaggio's fourth great-grandparents, experimented with creating a utopian community in the 1890s in Mantistique, Mich. The novel was selected as an Editors' Choice in the February 2020 issue of “Historical Novels Review.”
Her fictional works have won several accolades, including the Willamette Writers Award, Oregon Writers Colony Award, Historical Novel Society Review Editors' Choice, La Belle Lettre Award, an Upper Peninsula of Michigan Notable Books Award, and a Regional Arts & Council grant.
To learn more about Biaggio and her books, visit marykabiaggio.com.
