The novel is set during the trial of Leo Frank, the Jewish superintendent of a pencil factory in Atlanta who was convicted many people believe wrongly so of the 1913 murder of 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan. Antisemitic sentiment roiled the city, and a mob of men busted Frank out of jail and lynched him in Marietta.

At the heart of Nyes story, which blends historical accuracy and fantasy, is the Felicitous Five, a group of teenage girls whose friendship is bound by their infatuation with Frank, while they also secretly identify with Mary Phagan, their contemporary. Devastated when Frank is killed, they create a golem in his image that starts to run amok.

What inspired Nye to write The Curators was a minor detail in the case thats come to be called the murder notes.

The murder notes were a set of two handwritten notes that were found beside Mary Phagans body in the pencil factory, Nye said, speaking from her mothers home in Maryland. They were written in a kind of decipherable pidgin as though her dead body had described the assault ... like in her dying moments she wrote down an account of everything. And in them theres this line, Play like the night witch did it.

The detective and the press and history has interpreted that as the night watchman because it was, in fact, the night watchman Newt Lee who found her body, she continued. But its written night witch, two words. And I was like, that is such a surreal detail to be embedded in such a tragic and morbid set of circumstances. And I began thinking about child narrators and how children might interpret such a detail and might spin that out into a fantasy, and thats how I got to the collective narrators that are in charge of my novel.

For historical accuracy and local color Nye relied heavily upon archives of the Atlanta Constitution after she saw the newspaper cited in Steve Oneys definitive account of the case, And the Dead Shall Rise, published in 2004.

The newspaper proved indispensable to her in learning how people lived and how the media shaped what they were thinking and how people talked and what people were interested in and what was popular.

As far as historical newspapers go, Nye said the Atlanta Constitution was fairly balanced in its coverage of the case. But, of course, there was interest in the sort of salacious and morbid details of the case. Thats what sells extras, right? I think it reflects the historical attitude of the men in power, largely.

She admits she doesnt paint a flattering picture of journalists in her novel. I was really interested in how newspapers and journalism shape public perception and can kind of rally and incite anger, bitterness and violence.

Ouch. That was then, perhaps. This is now. Ill go to my grave believing newspapers are a force for good.

Nye has two author events coming up this summer. Shell participate in the Lost in the Letters Festival July 27 (www.lostintheletters.org) and shell give a reading on Aug. 14 at Bookish Atlanta (bookishatl.com).

Suzanne Van Atten is a book critic and contributing editor to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She can be reached at Suzanne.VanAtten@ajc.com.

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Leo Frank case inspires novel that blends history and magical realism - The Atlanta Journal Constitution