She Puts Hints of Truth in Danielle Steel’s Fiction

CHICAGO —  Nancy Eisenbarth waits eagerly to read every one of Danielle Steel’s novels, but she’s more than a fan--her research provides believable backdrops for the steamy melodramas.

The friends’ working relationship began over lunch in San Francisco, when Steel was fretting over factual details in “The Ring.” It was her first hard-cover book, published in 1980, and chronicled three generations of women.

“I offered to look some things up, and we went on from there,” said Eisenbarth. “I had no inkling that she would become as successful as she has, and I had no idea it would be as much fun.”

Many of Steel’s novels--including “Zoya,” “Passages” and “Fine Things”--wind up on the New York Times Best-Seller List. Her books--35 in all--have been published in 27 languages, and more than 85 million copies are in print.

Eisenbarth, a history major in college, receives long plot summaries from Steel for new books. She then spends nearly four months researching details.

“She makes up the story and I provide the background,” Eisenbarth, 41, said in a telephone interview from the west Chicago suburb of Naperville. “I play a small part in making them seem realistic.”

Steel, who lives in San Francisco, said in an interview that her researcher’s role is crucial to the success of her books: “Nancy has been my mainstay for years and years and years. She’s modest in talking about her role, but her part is really very, very important.”

Eisenbarth’s research for 14 Steel novels has taken her not to exotic locales but to libraries. Because Steel is “so glamorous and exciting, everybody thinks my job is glamorous and exciting, but it’s really most of the time in the stacks,” said Eisenbarth, who relies on personal diaries, pictures and social histories.

Steel insists every detail be correct, down to the perfume a historical figure might have worn or the name of a club where he or she might have gone.

Still, Eisenbarth said, there’s always one fact in every book that she has trouble tracking down, and usually finds after the book is published. “I could not find the color of Gen. Rommel’s eyes, so I made them a glittery blue,” she said. “Later I found a (color) picture and his eyes were clearly brown.”