Associate Edita,; Fiction: Richard Lee, Marine Cottage, The Strand, Starcross, Devon, EX6 8NY. UK (richard@historicalnovelsociety.org)
THE HISTORICAL NOVELS REVIEW
CO-ORDINATING EDITOR (UK)
Sarah Bower, Tanglewood , Old Forge Close, Long Green, Wortham, Diss, Norfolk IP22 I PU, UK.(sarahbower@clara.co.uk)
CO-ORDINATI G EDITOR (USA)
Sarah John so n , 6868 Knollcrest, Charleston, IL, 61920, USA. (cfsln@eiu.edu): Random House , Penguin , Five Star, Tyndale, Bethany House, Dorchester, MacAdam/Cage, university presses, and any North American presses not mentioned below. REVIEWS EDITORS (UK)
Sarah Cuthbertson, 7 Ticehurst Close, Worth, Crawley, W Sussex, RHI0 7GN.(sarah76cuthbert @ao l.com): Arcadia, Canongate, Robert Hale , Hodder Headline (includes Hodder & Stoughton, Sceptre, NEL , Coronet), John Murray Val Whitmarsh , 27 Landcroft Road , East Dulwich, London SE22 9LG (vwhitmarsh@fsmail.net): Allison&Busby , Little , Brown & Co , (includes Abacus, Virago , Warner) , Random House UK (includes Arrow, Cape, Century, Chatto&Windus , Harvill, Heinemann , Hutchinson , Pimlico , Secker & Warburg, Vintage), Simon & Schuster (includes Scribner) Ann Oughton, 11 Ramsay Garden, Edinburgh, EHi 2NA.(annoughton@tiscali.co.uk): Penguin (includes Hamish Hamilton, Viking, Michael Joseph, Allen Lane), Bloomsbury, Faber & Faber, Constable & Robinson, Transworld (includes Bantam Press, Black Swan , Doubleday, Corgi), Macmillan (includes Pan, Picador, Sidgwick & Jackson).
Sally Zigmond , 18 Warwick Crescent, Harrogate , North Yorkshire, HG2 8JA.(szigmond@fsmail.net): HarperCollins UK (includes Flamingo, Voyager, Fourth Estate), Orion Group (includes Gollancz , Phoenix, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Cassell), Piatkus, Severn House, Solidus, Summersdale, The Women 's Press, House of Lochar Mary Moffat (Children's Historicals - all UK publishers) , Sherbrooke , 32, Moffat Road, Dumfries, Scotland, DG I I NY (s he rbrooke @marysmoffat.ndo.co. uk)
REVIEWS EDITORS (U SA)
Ellen Keith , Milton S Eisenhower Library, John Hopkins Univ., 3400 N Charles St , Baltimore, MD 21218-2683 (ekeith@jhu.edu) HarperCollin s (inc William Morrow, Avon, Regan , Ecco), Houghton Mifflin (including Mariner) , Farrar Straus & Giroux , Kensington, Carroll & Graf, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. Trudi Jacobson, University Library, University at Albany , 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany , NY, 12222 , USA (tjacobson@uamail.albany.edu) Simon & Schuster, Warner , Little Brown , Arcade, WW Norton , Hyperion , Harcourt , Toby , Akadine, New Directions Ily sa Ma g nus , 5430 etherland Ave #C41, Bronx, NY, 10471, USA: (goodlaw2@optonline.net) St Martin 's Press , Minotaur Books , Picador USA , Tor/Forge, Grove/Atlantic , Poisoned Pen Press, Soho Press
THE HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY O THE INTERNET
WEBSITE: www.historicalnovelsociety.org. WEB SUPPORT: Sarah Johnson (cfsln@eiu.edu) EMAIL NEWSLETTER: Read news and reviews. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HNSNewsletter DISCUSSION GROUP: Join in the discussion. http://groups yahoo.com/group/HistoricalNovelSociety
MEMBERSHIP DETAILS
Membership of the Historical Novel Society is by calendar year (January to December) and entitles members to all the year's publications: two issues of Solander, and four issues of The Historical Novels Review. Back issues of society magazines are also available. Write for current rates to : Marilyn Sherlock, 38, The Fairway, ewton Ferrers , Devon , PL8 I DP, UK (ray.sherlock@macunlimited.net) or Debra Tash, 5239 North Commerce Ave., Moorpark CA 93021 , USA , timarete@earthlink.net or Teresa Eckford, 49 Windcrest Court, Kanata, ON, Canada K2T 1B5 (eckford@sympatico.ca), or Patrika Salmon , Box 185 , Turangi , New Zealand.(pdrlindsaysalmon@xtra.co.nz)
CONFERENCES
The society organises annual conferences in the UK and biennial conferences in the US. Contact (UK): Richard Lee (richard@historicalnovelsociety.org) Contact (USA): Sarah Johnson (cfsln@eiu.edu)
COPYRIGHT remains in all cases with the authors of the articles. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, without the written p ermission of the authors concerned.
EDITORIAL POLICY Reviews, articles, and Lelle rs may be edited for reasons of space, clarity, and grammatical correctness. We will endea vo ur to reflect the authors' intent as closely as possible, and will contact the authors for approval of any major change.
The Historical Novel Society was formed in 1997 to help promote historical fiction. All staff and contributors are volunteers and work unpaid. We are an open society- if you want to get involved, just get in touch.
Solander 17
Cover Story
Marketing Historical Fiction Creatively
KIM MURPHY shares the chal lenges and rewards of a creative marketing approac h
Special Feature
A special tribute to \Vilbur Smith
Slaves, Savages and the Rogues Gallery
MATTHEW ROCKALL provides an in-depth loo k at Wilbur Smith's hugely successfu l career
The Greatest Novelist of Our Time?
RICHARD LEE interviews Wilb ur Smith
Africa n Dreaming
SCOTT KEMP looks at how African history is reflected in the novels of Wilbur Smith
Industry
Reflections on the Salt Lake City Conference
TAMARA MAZZEI and GEORGINE OLSON report on the first North American HNS conference
In
Every Issue
Practicing History
CANDACE ROBB introduces h er new column on connecting with th e history we write about
Red Pencil
CINDY VALLAR analyzes the work behind polished final manuscripts. In this issue, 1 [ark 1[cAl li ster's There is a Wideness
Kate Allan Asks
Why Historical Fiction?
KATE ALLAN notes in the UK the growing saga market and the lack of historical romances,
Time Travel: \Vhat's the Fascination?
KARIN KYDLAND explores the enduring fascination of time-travel novels and argues that historical fiction sho uld be good history
Why Do \Ve Have to Learn this Stuff?
JACQUIE BIRD argues that historical fiction can be a powerful tool in adolescent
Of Kilts and Standing Stones
CLAIRE MORRIS talks to Diana Gabaldon about how novels and characters evo lve
Pioneering Efforts in Christian Historicals
SARAH JOHNSON profiles Bethany House
Creative Juices
SARAH BOWER talks to Peter Elbling, author of The Food Taster
Fiction
ERIKA DREIFUS : For Services Rendered
Practicing History
C-\ND"-\CE ROBB introduces her 11e11J column 011 connecting 1vith the history 1/Je 1vrite about.
I remember the moment in ballet class when I realized that our teacher took the steps we practiced at the barre and combined them into the beautiful steps we danced in the middle of the room. I understood why we practiced; I saw how the small, precise movements built the arabesque, the pirouette. Practice became a bridge to creation. This column is about the practice of history, or how I (and others) choreograph historical detail into the dance-like interplay between characters, settings, plots, and subplots.
Let me begin with a quote from a friend, the historian Compton Reeves: "I think there are some among us who have empathy for those who lived in the past, and want to know more about them. History is the most humanistic of all disciplines, in that it includes all that folk in the past have done in all areas of endeavor. Doing history is an art, not a science, and it appeals to our creative instincts. Doing history also expands our specious present into whatever age and area of human history catches our fancy. To do history, then, makes us more human, for only humans among the creatures can have history." Of course we cannot "test" our visions of the past; they are quite honestly our own creations. Once, talking to a group of historians about tl1e week I'd spent researd1ing gloves in the 14 ct, century, a man asked, ''\v'hy go to so much bother?" One of his fellows laughed and said, "But tl1at's ilie whole point!" Indeed, and I now have a general knowledge of gloves available to me
I didn't set out to be a crime writer, but I'm grateful iliat iliings worked out as tl1ey did because investigating a crime in a community requires me to imagine and describe the everyday lives of the suspects and victims. The ongoing series characters are like dance sequences/ themes on which I, the choreographer, build. I've worked with all levels of society, which has inspired me to read widely, sampling the inner as well as the outer lives of medieval people. I've also worked wiili a variety of occupations, crafts and callings, trying my hand at some crafts and handling the materials of others in order to have the freedom to provide detail as needed. I never know from book to book whetl1er I'll be researching tanning or stone carving, the vertical loom or apoiliecary gardens. The interaction of tl1e facets of tl1e plots/ characters with an expanding knowledge of history gives me an opportunity for fresh artistic expression. Now as I work on a book outside tl1e crime genre I am appreciating how tl1e broad yet detailed vision of medieval England in my mind frees me to move in whatever direction the story requires-my regular practice of history has given me abundant material for this new piece.
Dancers practice every day, and so do I, collecting ideas, trying out combinations. Recently I've been absorbed in ilie two volume Women in the Middle Ages: An Enrydopedia (ed. Katlrnrina J\L Wilson and Nadia J\largolis, Greenwood Press, 2004). The brief lives of women not just in the western Europe of my studies but from around the world and tl1e broader surveys (ex. women in Fatimid Egypt, Aztec warrior women) are followed by bibliographies, both primary and secondary. Having spent tl1e past dozen years focused on one century in tl1e British Isles my reading has been quite specialized, so such an encyclopedia is invaluable to me, expanding my understanding of
medieval women, how iliey iliought, how iliey maneuvered around obstacles and limitations imposed on them. It can't help but expand the horizons of my medieval world, inspiring new steps for my choreography: characters, plots, subplots, political/ economic intrigues, keys to the mysteries, local color, cultural clashes and exchanges, and nuances oflanguage.
I'd love to hear from other published historical novelists about your "practice." Write to me at solander@candacerobb.com.
Candace R.obb zj the author of the O1ven Archer and the Margaret Kerr m·me series, set in 14 th century York and late 1Jth ce11t11ry Scot/and and zj at 1vork on a noi·el of Alice Pemrs, the mistress of King Ed1vard III.
Kate Allan asks ... Why Historical Fiction?
KATE ALLAN notes in the UK the gro1vi11g saga market and the lack of historical romances, and argues that hzston"calfiction should be good history.
\.v'hy are we compelled to read and write historical fiction? I've been wondering this and it seems a good starting point for tl1is new column. I posted the question on my blog. . "People, that's what history is all about," replied an individual identifying him/her self only as Scarnmouche. People. and their stories. Yes, indeed. "The past is foreign country," wrote L. P Hartley. "They do tlungs differently there." Yes, but hang on no! It's when we see ourselves and our world reflected in the feelings and actions of people hundreds of years dead iliat we feel a connection with History.
For me tl1e inexorable connection between History and Story started with the story of Albion. Discovered by Brutus, according to O11r Island Story by HE Marshall. Possibly the biggest book I owned, but oh tl1e stories! A combination oflegends and historical trutl1s, told for children. I can still see ilie illustrations in my mind. Boudicea with her flaming red hair, Canute who foolishly tried to stop tl1e waves, and Francis Drake finishing his game of bowls as tl1e Spanish Armada approached our island's shores.
It seems there's still a growing market in tl1e UK for sagas and saga writers. Simon & Schuster UK started a regional saga list in 2003 and a HarperCollins autl1or tells me her editor is looking for new saga writers. News that UK supermarket chain ASDA are sponsoring a national traditional saga writing contest hit the same day as a letter arrived for me highlighting a brand new opportunity for 2oct, century set romance/ family saga writers. DC Thomson, who publish short novel romances sold in newsagents and via subscription, are looking for original fiction for tl1eir Peopl.e's Fn·end Story Coll.e.tion line. 45-SSk. Heartwarming. No drugs or sex. (Ss-\E for full guidelines to People's Fn·end Story Collection, 2 Albert Square, Dundee, DD1 9QJ).
In women's fiction generally, it appears we're moving into a post chick-lit era with potentially darker, deeper and more cross-genre stories. Now if editors are wondering what the next-big-thing should be, and are hoping to fill some of the gap with more historical sagas great. Up to a point.
\Vhat about historical romance? It hasn't had a decent innings in the ur...:. since the 1970s. Surely it's time for a revival? Look how popular the big US historical romance authors are on amazon.co.uk. There's only so many times you can re-read your old Heyer, Holt, Seton and Lofts paperbacks It's Quinn, Quick, Laurens & Chase from ,\mazon, selected branches of Borders and specialist bookshop t--.Iurder One in London. The last time I had to so determinedly chase imports were the days when I had a seven-inch record collection.
Fiction can be a time machine to the past in the way in which academic history often cannot. I sh1died history at university and toyed with becoming an academic historian, but those historians I admired were not the ones writing tomes of original thought but those who wrote history in such a way that it made it into popular bookshops, and could be understandable and absorbing to the general public. Such as James Sharpe's Dick Turpin, the Myth of the English Highwayman, described by the Sunday Telegraph as, "crisp, colourful and possessed of appropriately large quantities of dash." Or Andrew Roberts' Napoleon and Wellington: The Long Duel, described by the Sunday Times as "entertaining" and by Th e Obsen·er, as "thoroughly enjoyable, beautifully written." There are many other examples I could mention but good hi story can be as enjoyable as historical fiction To me what often most helps to make or break an historical novel is its sense of time and place. The challenge for historical fiction is to be good history.
Kate Allan is co-author ojThe Lady Soldier by Jennifer Lindsay, published by Robert Hale in May 2005 Kate's Online Diary is at http:// katealia11.blogspot.com
Red Pencil
CINDY VALLAR ana!Jzes the 11Jork behi11dpolishedfinal ma1111scripts. In this issue, she fomses 011 Mark McAllister's There Is a Wideness.
Contrary to what some people think, writing is tough work. Every book begins with an idea, then the author must research the time, place, society, and historical events in order to turn the idea into a story. Next comes the writing of the book, but this is just the first draft. Authors have to edit, revise, and edit again until their stories become ones publishers find compelling enough to pri.n t and readers want to read. Yet, some writers defme this stage in the writing process as a .necessary evil. So why do it? t--.Iichael Seidman, an editor and the author of The Complete Guide to Editing Your Fiction, explains it best. "T11ere are as many reasons not to edit and revise as there are reasons not to write. But one of the things that separates the professional writer from the amateur and hopeful is the pro's willingness to take the time to read, revise and edit her manuscript before sending it off to an agent or publisher." The more polished the manuscript, the better your chances are of obtaining representation or a publishing contract.
What scenes need to be cut? Which ones require embellishment? Are the characters three-dimensional? These are some of the questions writers must answer during the difficult process of editing and
revising. The intent of Red Penal is to assist writers in the editing stage and to help readers better understand the process authors go through to craft their books. i\ historical .novelist provides samples of his/her novel - the draft and the version that got published. Together, we'll examine what motivated the changes and how the author made them, as well as the particular aspects of the craft of writing that the samples highlight.
\Vhen asked to write this column, one particular author came to mind - t--.Iark t--.IcAllister. I had reviewed his debut novel, There Is a Wideness, for the November 2004 issue of The Histon·calNovels Reiie1JJ. Several months had passed since I read the book, but it continued to haunt my thoughts, in part because I was an educator for twenty years, in part because I had recently moved to Texas where the story takes place. i\Iore importantly, I experienced the characters' shock, grief, sadness, and hope. I felt as if I personally witnessed the explosion tlrnt killed some three hundred students and teachers, just as i\Iark's mother did in 1937.
Genevieve Langham i\IcAllister was born and raised in East Texas. Before she married, she taught music at the elementary school in New London. On the afternoon of 18 March 1937, she walked toward the high school to attend a Parent-Teacher Association meeting. Her companion, also a teacher, had forgotten her cigarettes and returned to fetch tl1em while Genevieve waited on the sidewalk. Doing so probably saved both their lives. At 3:17 P.M. an explosion, caused by a gas leak beneath the building, demolished tl1e high school. Investigators later deteffilined that had those in the school been able to smell tl1e gas, officials would have evacuated the building prior to the explosion. The Texas Legislature then passed a law tl1at required tl1e addition of malodorants tlrnt allow people to smell the gas. \mo.ng the journalists who covered the story was a young reporter who worked for the Dallas bureau of United Press International (UPI). His name? Walter Cronkite. Later in life, he said, "I did nothing in my studies nor in my life to prepare me for as tory of tl1e magnitude of that London tragedy .... "
i\Iark i\Ic.Allister asked his motl1er about the explosion, but she never could tell him of her initial impressions following the blast. \Vhen schools reopened, she continued to teach in ew London where she eventually met and married Mark's father, Bill i\IcAllister in 1941. i\Iark was born tluee years later.
Now retired from a career as an electrical engineer, Mark devotes his days to bicycling, playing bridge, maintaining his house and cars, reading, and occasionally teaching Sunday School. \Vhen I asked him why he wrote tlus particular book, he said, "I came up with the basic story idea in 1981 after visiting the site of the tragedy. Soon afterward we moved to California for a new job, and started a family. The story idea faded, but never went away. After moving back to Te..xas in 1995, I got what I will describe as a nagging feeling tlrnt I should give tl1e
story a try. I knew I had some writing ability, and the presence of great research facilities at the University of Texas added to the nag. Once I started writing, finishing it became a personal challenge. I knew I had to give it my best."
The Depression hit East Texas long before the Stock l\larket crashed, but Luke Robertson supports his ailing mother and younger sister l\ [arty after his father dies in There Is a Wideness. When oil is discovered, Luke takes a job in the oil fields. Before his mother's death, he promises to take care of l\Carty forever. But then the explosion at the high school kills his sister and many of her friends. Devastated, Luke leaves Texas, but ten years later something compels him to re tum to the cemetery where l\larty is buried.111ere he meets Russ, the caretaker. To Russ, the words on the headstones are just names. In anger, Luke tells his long-buried story so Russ will know who each of the children were and how their loss impacted him and the entire town. Russ, however, has his own secrets, one of which ties directly into the deaths of l\[arty and her friends.
\'<!hen l\[ark sat down to write There Is a Wideness in tl1e summer of 1997, all he had was the basic concept of the plot - the explosion his mother witnessed - and the idea of telling one man's loss, leaving, return, and redemption. This is what he wrote:
.fo :,
Mark McAllister
Walter &bertson dreamed of moii'ng west.
Not that a man couldn't make a liti'ng in the little farm to11m of Winona, Mississippi, but Walter had abilities that other men lacked, a11d with those abilities 111ent a certain ambition and a drfre to better himself He kne111 mules and could handle a team as 1ve!l as airy man in the com1!J. Working with tools came nat11raf!y to him, and he couldfix a 111ago11, build a shed, lqy a water line, and fi11e-t1111e a cranlg boiler. Yes, other men could do ma,ry of these things, but Walter had a11other talent: he 1111derstood fi11a11ce. His father had taught him how to balance the books of the fami!J's drqyage business, and Walter came to understand ho111 monry 1vas made, and lost. And with that 1111derstandi11g came a restlessness and a lo11gingfor independence. Walter 111anted to 1vork his 011111 business.
When I first read tl1is rough draft, I had two tl1oughts. Who was Walter Robertson? \'<lhy would tl1is passage cause anyone to read further? The first sentence and tl1e opening scene of a story must h ook the reader. If they don't, the reader has no reason to keep reading. You would assume from tl1e first sentence that the story is about \'<falter, but he's not tl1e protagonist. He's Luke's father and plays only a minor role in tl1e finished version. 111e reason tlus opening scene doesn't work is that it misdirects tl1e reader in regards to time and setting. "l\[oving west" gives the impression of tl1e American frontier, so tl1e reader assumes it takes place far earlier tl1an the 1930s.
l\[ark decided he hadn't given tl1e novel his best shot, so he started over. He outlined tl1e story, drew up a timeline of events, and researched tl1e history of oil in East Texas and the building of the Grand Coulee dam and the Hanford plutonium plant. Eleven months later, he had a 140,000-word novel that opened tlus way:
In hisyouth he was res!less, and the res!less bqy became a restless man. Like other restless men caught up in ro11ti11e lil'es, he sometimes lookedfor signs that he should act 011 the impulses that tempted him. For !Valter &bertson such a sign 1vas the am.ml of the m111 century, in his tJven!Jfourth year.
Want to read tl1e next paragraph of tl1e book? Probablr not. The hook is interesting, but not compelling, and using "restless" four times in two sentences borders on boring tl1e reader -\lso, l\Cark still leads tl1e reader to believe that his story is about Walter ratl1er tlian Luke. Instead of beginning tl1e story witl1 an event or action pertinent to tl1e story that engages tl1e reader and identifies tl1e problem or puzzle to be solved, l\[ark makes tl1e mistake of beginning tl1e book witl1 background material. Backstory is essential to any novel, but it must be seamlessly woven into the entire story rather tl1an dumped on the reader at the beginning. \'<lhile tl1is revi sion is readable, it's not publishable, so he tried again.
The wices aivoke him again, and he wondered: W01 are thry talking so loud? Thry're in the same room!
L11ke had often heard them efter he 111mt to bed, his mother and father, in their bedroom, talking. But in the past they had talked soft!J, and he had not understood what thry 1vere sqying. And it bad nel'er bothered him that he could not understand them. He had found comfort in the soft wices, and he had often fallen asleep 111hi!e the wices co11ti1111ed.
But in the past 111eek there had been a change. No111 the wices 111ere loud, and angry, and he could sometimes understand the words. And 011 this night he heard his mother sqy, "1011 were drunk! 1ou didn'tgiz'e me time! You're drunk 110111!"
For the first time, l\Iark clearly identifies tl1e protagonist. The opening sentence is intriguing. We want to know who's arguing and why. While we don't know when the story takes place, we know Luke is a child in bed at night. His parents' arguments upset him, sometlung witl1 which most of us readily identify. Yet, tl1e scene only goes partway in drawing us into tl1e story. It lacks vividness, power. The hook is supposed to carry you along, but tl1is one seems complete without enticing us to turn tl1e page.
l\Cark writes tl1e story using tl1e most common point of view, tlurdperson omniscient. It allows us to know some calamity is unfolding, but the protagonist lacks this awareness. One problem, tl1ough, is tlrnt in using tl1is voice, tl1e story lacks intimacy. ,-\lso, the author tends to intrude himself into tl1e scene, as l\[ark does when he inserts "he heard" into tl1e last sentence. Since tlus is Luke's point of view, no one else overhears what his motl1er says. Therefore, tl1ere's no need to tell tl1e reader Luke heard the angry words.
In studying how to write fiction, autl10rs often write a scene in different points of view to see which works best. l\Iark opted to rewrite his story using a different voice, tlrnt of first person. Doing so allowed him to create Luke from the inside out and to share his personal observations with the reader. The very nature of first person, though, limits the author. The story unfolds only from the experiences of a particular character. l\Iark decided tlrnt telling tl1e story solely from Luke's perspective wasn't sufficient. He chose Russ,
the caretaker of the cemetery, as the primary voice for There Is a Widmess. When I asked him why he made this decision, he said, "Originally the story was written in third-person omniscient, starting with Luke's boyhood and proceeding to the ending in which Luke retums to the site of the tragedy in late middle age. But the story was too big, too ambitious. Who was telling this huge story? God? It would seem that only God could tell it, but God doesn't write novels. I needed to limit the viewpoint, and it was a great moment for me when I realized that Russ could tell the story - not only Luke's story, as Luke told it to him, but his own story. As I wrote with this new viewpoint, Russ's story grew in importance. My feeling now is that, while Luke Robertson is a believable character, he is not as interesting as Russ. Luke's redemption seems inevitable, in a way, but Russ's salvation must await Luke's. To me the story has a great twist - it is not Russ who saves Luke, but Luke who saves Russ! I certainly didn't foresee all this when I started writing in 1997, and still am somewhat awed as to how it all came together."
It took ~lark another sixteen months before he felt the polished version was good enough to submit to a literary agent. Even then, he still wasn't finished editing.•-\ potential publisher's comments led to additional revisions, and once River Oak contracted the book, ~lark still had more edits to do until he had these opening paragraphs of the final, published version of There Is a Wideness.
1\1.emory leaks out of an old man like fine sandfrom a b11r!ap bag, and I must 1vn"te do11111 Luk e Robertson's story before the details sift a111ay and become lost. Just yesterday I tried to recall tbe name of that jef/0111 at the dam 111ho found Luke's I.edge 011 the ca1ryo11 111aff, and it 111as af11ff ten seconds before "Bob Col.ema11 "popped into "!Y head. Po111er plant engineer. Wom"ed about the rfrer and the salmon. S11re, 110111 I remember. But 111hat about all the other l'Oices and places and emzts from Luke's story? Can I recall them? DetaiLr matter.
I hai·e mixed .feelings about this undertaking. At the cellter of the story zj a tragedy, a school explosion that happened ten years ago i11 193 7. Here in East Texas the memory of that el'Cnt IS ra111 and 11nheal.ed, and some people 1viff say that 1vn"ting about the tragedy IS like tearing at the 111011nd. I 111orry that those people might be right.
B11t I beliet'f! Luke's story needs apermanence, and Jl,'liting it do111n is the 011!J 111ay to achiei·e that. Luke zj not a 1111iter. I am the one to do it, and no111 is the time, 111hzle my health IS stiff good. I'll be sen11(y-one i11 January.
Luke's story I.inks lllith my 011111. I hai'f! lit-ed the past ten years in a fog of.fear and 1mcertai11(y. I hal,'e held a secret, and the fear of someone learning that secret has ca11sed me to lii·e a solitary and careful existence. But 110111 I see a purpose. I hat'C handed my .fears, and "!Y secret, to the 1vi11ds.
His story begins 111here ma1ry stories end, i11 a gral'eyard. I first encountered L11ke at Pl.easant Hill Cemetery, in the heart of the East Texas oil co11ntry, at J/,/ndown three months ago.
This is the quintessential opening hook of a story. Each word used is essential. ~lark shows rather than tells. He clearly establishes place, character, conflict, and purpose. He draws us into the story and compels us to read further, to learn more about the tragedy that forever d1anged Luke, to discover Russ's secret.
According to Persia Woolley (author of Ho111 to Write and Self Hzstorical Fiction), "The best fiction reads effortlessly, as though tl1e story simply tells itself. But often an immense amow1t of time, consideration and just plain brain-racking went into tl1e refining, rewriting, cutting and polishing necessary to achieve those results." Mark agrees. "111e end product is a far cry from my first draft. But the journey has been fun and educational, and the outcome gratifying."
Cindy Vallar is afreelance editor, an associate editorfor S ola11der, and the Editor of Pirates and Prii-ateers (i11w111.tindyi·affar.com/pirates.htm~. A retired libran·a11, she also 1111ites histon"cal noi-els, teaches 111orkshops, and mie111s books. .
Scenes from dte New London School explosion, on which Mark McAllister based his novel
For Services Rendered
Fiction by ERIKA DREIFUS
Later - and often - Dr. Ernst \Veldmann would try to recall when, precisely, he had decided to specialize in the treatment of children.
He had entered university fully expecting to prepare for a career as a physician; his father and grandfather and great-grandfather had all practiced medicine in Berlin. He never questioned - rather, he embraced - the ancestral tide that swept him along a similar stream. Especially since his father's career had ended too soon, as so many others' had ended too soon, at Verdun.
But how cou ld he exp lain the specific decision to treat the ills of the young? His wife, who had sought treatment in Vienna early in their marriage, espoused a theory that the motivation stemmed from his own childhood experiences Of course, !<Iara knew about the death of his younger brother, then aged six, from scarlatina. And she had seen for herself the sadness in his sister, born less than a year after the burial. Almost from infancy Lise had seemed to recognize herself as the "replacement" child who could not quite compensate for the one her parents -and elder brother-had lost. Perhaps that was why sh e had married so young, escaped to her new husband's home, in l\[unich. She rarely wrote or visited . Sometimes, especiall y when he watched his own children playing, Ernst wished she would.
But most days Dr. Ernst Weidmann was far too busy for such reflections. For a long time there was little cause to ponder tl1em anyway. The pace of his practice had, virtually from tl1e start, compelled him to employ an office manager, two nurses, and, each year, an intern selected from tens of applicants In his desk he stored appreciative letters from tl10se interns, and from parents of patients for whom he had cared in particularly acute circumstances.
On the walls he had placed his certificates and diplomas and the awards he had received from the municipal and even state medical societies. The bookshelves held not on l y his old textbooks but also the newer paediatric encyclopaedias to which he had contributed articles on scarlatina - the subject of a postgraduate fellowship, as !<Iara had reminded him. They contained, too, the neat volumes of Deutsche Piidiatrie, for which he had served as editor for six years. Until Jews could no longer occupy such offices.
He possessed a reputation, he knew, for being quiet and kindly, gentle and gentleman ly. The children seemed amenable to his ministrations; tl1e motl1ers appeared to find in him a source of calm and comfort, even on the most alarming occasions.
"You never show how worried you may be," !<Iara said. "That helps "
In most instances Dr. Ernst \Veldmann did not interact with his patients' fatl1ers. Naturally die Frauen brought the children to his office. And when Dr. \Veldmann visited their homes only in extreme circumstances might the men be disturbed.
The situation was no different with the family of young Edda, whose mother was among the most attentive parents, despite her ceremonial obligations - as the Reichsmarschall's wife - and her more routine responsibilities running the family's favored residence at Karinhall. "1l1e Second Lady of the Reich," the Reichschancellor had called her on the occasion of her marriage in 1935, because the Reichschancellor himself was unmarried
Dr. \Veldmann's own Lady worried and fretted, more and more. I<lara Weldmann's distress was hardly new, dating back at least to tl1e election in '33. But for a long time she'd said little in words; Dr. Weidmann could onl y read the dismay in the lin e of her mouth and tl1e white of her knuckles when he could no longer treat insured patients, when tl1e societies that had given him those awards dismissed him from their membership rolls, when two of his favorite professors, men who had arguably appeared most dedicated to the art and science of saving other people's lives, had ended their own.
But once he began treating tl1e Reichsmarschall 's daughter Frau Weidmann spoke. Often.
"I don't understand it," she wou ld say at the dinner table, while their twin daughters spooned soup or applesauce or custard into their mouths. "Surely he knows you're a Jew. And still he has you care for his daughter?" I<lara had never seen tl1e child, a flesh-andblood being like any other; for her, Edda's name must conjure only images of the christening ceremony, chronicled by so many cameramen, pictures of the Bishop bestowing his blessing with tl1e doting Reichschancellor in attendance.
Confronted witl1 I<lara's energy and conviction it seemed almost impossible for Dr. Weidmann to convey his own insights. In any case he wished she wouldn't raise the matter in front of Ruth and Rosa, who were barely old enough for kindergarten.
Perhaps he shou ld not have told !<Iara about this case. Not revealed what had happened the summer day when the Frau Reichsmarschall - whom he'd recognized from the papers, naturallr - had rushed into his consulting-room, a screaming toddler in her anns. A cinder had flown into the baby's eye while mother and child were strolling on tl1e busy Ku'damm; tl1e Frau Reichsmarschall had found a pharmacy at once. \Vas tl1ere a doctor nearby, the anxious Frau Reichsmarschall wanted to know? The sales clerk at tl1e pharmacist's h ad recommended (surely with some hesitation , the doctor imagined) Dr. Weidmann, around the block. And th a t same day, impressed by his office, its journals and diploma s and m ost of all, she'd told him, his very self: tl1e way he'd so smootl1ly managed to pacify tl1e child and treat tl1e eye witlli.n five minute s -and h o w Edda had squirmed and wriggled in her own m o tl1er's arms! - the Frau Reichsmarschall had insisted on having Dr. Ernst \Veldmann serve as her daughter's paediatrician.
"Frau Reichsmarschall," he had said, quietly. Already the intern had stopped coming in, without even a word of farewell. And the office manager and non-Jewish nurse had explained tlrnt they could sustain the risks no longer "I am quite willing to care for your child. But of course you realize that I am a Jew?"
The Frau Reichsmarschall had shrugged, then smiled at her little daughter. "What does tl1at matter to me?"
But it mattered very much to Frau \Veldmann.
"I don't like it." His wife shook her head, and set her soup spoon to rest. TI1e twins, bless them , kept eating, while they exchanged glances from time to time. Occasionally one little girl whispered sometl1ing to her sister. They still shared their own language at times; he had expected that habit to cease, by tl1is age.
" It frightens me," [<Jara continued "That man frightens me."
He frightened many people, the Reichsmarschall. He seemed to accumulate jobs. Running the economy. Running the air force. He was a bulky man, who had been elected President of the Reichstag. He was said to be an inveterate hwlter, which made him quite popular with tl1e English. He opposed vivisection and was reported to keep a number of tamed animals, including a lion cub, as household pets.
This last piece of information Dr. Weidmann himself was able to confirm, when one evening in tl1e early spring of 1939 he was summoned to Karinhall expressly to meet with tl1e Reichsmarschall himself.
"What can he want with you?" Klara wondered, a bit of alarm beneath the bafflement.
The Reichsmarschall wasted no time.
"It would be advisable for you, Doctor," he began, his bulk behind his desk, his uniform still crisp and clean even late in the day.
Dr. Weidmann tried to stay focused But he couldn't help wondering what other meetings the Reichsma.rschall held in tl1is room.
"In fact it would be most recommended," tl1e Reichsma.rschall was saying. "For you - to relocate. With your wife and children, of course."
Ernst Weidmann looked at tl1e father whose two-year-old child his hands had touched, his clinical judgment had diagnosed, his prescriptions had cured. He recalled the siege - for it always felt as such, no matter how many times it was repeated or in which family, including his own - when one stubborn winter fever had stricken the little girl. TI1ese were older parents; it was a second marriage and the Frau Reichsmarschall had been forty-five years of age at Edda's birth. The child would likely be their only one.
He cleared his tluoat. "I am not certain that I understand you."
TI1e other man opened a cigar box. "Please, Doctor."
"No, tl1ank you." Dr. Weidmann suppressed tl1e impulse to inquire wheilier cigars were also offered to tl1e Reichscha.ncellor during his visits. For the one element of the National Socialist program Ernst \Veldmann admired was its anti-tobacco campaign. Of course, he would not have promoted it for the purpose of "rac ial purity. "
''A drink, tl1en?" TI1e Reichsmarscha.11 gestured to the liqueurs lining tl1e top tray of an antique cart next to his desk. The place resembled a museum. E.."cept for tl1e lion cub- tl1e doctor could scarcely believe tl1e rumors were true but in fact it was a lion cub, and yes, tlus, too, ilie doctor could confirm, tl1e Reichsmarschall did call tl1e creature by a name. "l\Iucki" rested calmly among cushions in tl1e comer.
The doctor declined the drink as well. This was not a social call
The Reichsma.rschall shrugged and selected a cigar. "I can say tlus no more plainly." He closed the box. "I would not wish to see you stay in Germany much longer. My wife, I k.now, would share tlus sentiment. In fact, it was Emmy who insisted-"
TI1e doctor waited.
"She gets me into trouble," the Reichsma.rschall confided, witl1 a small smile. "Your case is hardly the first she has brought to my attention. My colleagues don't approve."
Dr. Weidmann recalled a conversation with the Frau Reichsma.rschall , after the horrendous events of November. , \11 of tl1at had displeased her, she had told him. ''And my husband was quite upset as well," she had said. "It was all quite contrary to Hermann's own policies, you understand, for tl1e economic arena. 'A band of rowdies goes and destroys an enormous fortune in a single 1ught,' he raved. Of course," she'd added, primly, "It would not be proper for me to discuss what he said about Jo - a.bout his colleague who organized tl1e - events."
Yes , Dr. Weidmann could see how tl1e Frau Reichsmarschall might cause her husband a bit of trouble.
Klara \Veldmann, too, could pose domestic difficulties.
''A t least he's good for sometlung," she said that night after Ernst had returned from Karinhall and recounted a.II that had happened.
Ernst gave her a look, which he hoped she'd understand meant ,please lmveryour wice, as the children have on!J just gone to bed.
"So let's go, tl1en," !<Jara urged, her voice still strident. "If he 's willing to help us."
She'd wanted to leave Germany for years, already. He was tl1e one reluctant to abandon tl1e land of !us ancestors He just refu se d to believe tl1a.t tlus absurdity would continue. And had he not occupied sometlu.ng of a privileged position, son of a man fallen for tl1e Kaiser? Remained exempt from so many of tl1ese decrees rather longer tl1an lus colleagues? But after November 9th - after ni.ne of Berlin's twelve synagogues were torched and children from tl1e Jewish orphanages made homeless and more tl1an one thousand.Jewi sh men sent away from tl1e city- well, so much had changed.
''You know it will be impossible otherwise," !<Jara said. There, she had a point.
"But what a.bout tl1e rest of tl1e family? " he asked. After twenty yea.rs of brave widowhood his moilier had died. Lise returned from Mwuch for tl1e funeral, witl1 her lawyer husband and tl1eir young son. At tl1e end of ilie burial he and Lise had stood togeilier at tl1e cemetery, apart from tl1eir spouses and children. He'd stared at lus fatl1er's name , and tl1en lus brotl1er's, on its own child-sized tombstone He'd heard Lise take a breaili, as if to speak. But tl1en she had turned and walked away.
Perhaps he should ask if tl1e Reichsmarschall nught also arrange for Lise-
"We must think about ourselves," !<Jara said, as if she had read his thoughts. ",\bout the girls. \Ve cannot risk ha ving him become impatient." She paused. "I wouldn't even ask for my own family."
Ile struggled to look at her. He could not believe that her eyes remained dry.
It was not that Dr. Ernst Weldmann's reputation preceded him to ew York, precisely. But once he had established !<J ara and Ruth and Rosa and himself in a smal l apartment near the Co lumbi a University, with friendly downstairs neighbors; once he had located a few other emigre physicians and followed their instructions abo ut commencing the process of practicing medicine in America; o nc e he had fulfilled all the requirements and the referrals started streaming in h e needed, again, an office manager and a nurse and, ultim ate ly, a you ng medical student to help manage all the children and all the mothers who sought his care and expertise.
Which was not to say that everything flowed smooth ly.
For it seemed that his new country didn't quite welcome such an influx of immigrants, even skilled ones . There'd been new laws in New York, as well. In the end he had to wait five years for citizenship, while working rather humiliating jobs in hospitals (and serving as an intern, himself!). He'd been forced to supp lement his income with lectures when he could (some, in New York, recalled his scholarship on scarlatina). And then he'd had to sit for another set of licensing examinations, of course. That he didn't mind. That he cou ld have handled the first day they'd landed in New York.
But at least Ernst Weidmann and his family were in New York-not Berlin - when Germany attacked Poland in September 1939. They were in New York when Germany joined Japan in the war against the United States. They were in New York when those who had managed to survive the death camps (a group that Ernst soon learned, with a dull stab that was ne,0 er quite to leave him, for all the years that followed, did not include his sister, brother-in-law, or nephew) were at last liberated.
And they were in New York when the International i\WitaryTribunal indicted the Reichsmarschall - and his colleagues - and commenced a trial in Nuremberg, in the fall of 19-+5.
One evening that fall, after the girls had cleared the supper table so they might settle tl1ere once more with tl1eic homework, Ernst retreated, as usual, to a chair in tl1e living room !<Jara brought him the newspaper. She glanced back quickly to tl1e girls, tl1en pointed to tl1e front page's corner.
"Have you seen tl1is yet?"
Sometimes he managed to read a bit before the evening meal, or between patients. But not tl1at day.
Klara clasped her hands. "It's quite a lot to read." She sighed, then returned to tl1e dishes waiting in tl1e kitchen sink.
She was right. The entire Indictment appeared a few pages later. But Ernst somehow knew he needed to read only tl1e last section in
Count Four, beginning with the part on "PERSECUT IO N ONPOLITIC\L, R,\CL\L ,\ND RELIGIOUS GROUNDS I N EXECUTION OF ,\ND IN CONNECTION WITH THE COi\1i\1ON PLAN i\lENTIO ED IN COUNT ONE."
How clear and clipped it all seemed on the page: "1l1ese persecutions were directed against Jews. They were also directed against persons whose political beliefs or spiritual aspirations were deemed to be in conflict witl1 the aims of the Nazis."
He kept reading: "Since 1 September 1939, tl1 e persecution of tl1e Jews was redoubled: millions of Jews from Germany and from tl1e occ upi ed \Vestern Countries were sent to tl1e Eastern Co untrie s for extermination." The page blurred. Smt to the Eastem Countries for extenninatio11.
"Papa, what's happened to. \unt Lise?" Rosa h ad asked, one horrible afternoon. He'd known it was only a matter of time, he'd known that at some point tl1e twins would start asking questions h e would not want to answer, would n ot be ab le to answer. If only he'd h ad tl1is phrase at his fingertips tl1at day, if on ly he'd been able to open his mouth and rep ly: "Your ,\unt Lise? Ah, well - she was se nt to the Eastern Cou ntrie s for extermination." ,\nd if he'd found himself capable of saying tl1at, perhaps h e'd also h ave paused just anotl1er moment before continuing, perhaps even witl1in l<l ara's hearing: "You see, your mother felt it would h ave been too much to ask someone - that we could not risk him becoming impatient with us."
He wiped his eyes and kept reading. Because after all tl1at textwhich seemed somehow preliminary information - came the profiles of each indicted man.
The doctor scanned until he found the paragraphs on Edda's father. How different, this postwar characterization of tl1e Reichsmarschall - really he must stop thinking of tl1e man tl1at way! The war was over. Thank God. The Reich was no more.
1l1e newspaper included a few photographs. How much weight tl1e Reichsmarsch -he - had lost! But then, prison life could not be easy for tl1e sybaritic king of Karinhall. Dr. Weidmann cou ld n ot help wondering what had happened to little Edda, and to her motl1er. Where were tl1ey? How had tl1ey fared in tl1e aftermatl1? He scoured tl1e paper, but discovered little, save for the snippet about some families detained under guard.
!-.Jara reappeared, wiping her hands on her apron. "They' ll go after the wife, too, at some point," she sniffed.
He gave her a sharp look.
"\Vhat?" His wife's eyes flashed irritation. "It's the trutl1."
It wasn't tl1e veracity of her comment that he questioned. And there was no doubt tl1ese men - Hermann Goring himself, and Ri.idolf Hess and i\1artin Bormann and all tl1e rest-deserved to be punished. Joseph Goebbels, the colleague whom Frau Emmy Goring had so delicately refrained from incriminating in her discussion of tl1e events of November 1938, had committed suicide back in April, as had tl1e ''Reichschancellor.''
Still, no amount of punishment would bring back Lise, or her little boy or her husband, or Klara's relatives, or any of tl1e millions who were now gone, forever.
He pulled away. At tl1at moment he simply did not want her touching him.
\Vhy had he boiliered to discuss tl1is? Always, tl1ere had been so Yet sometlung had to be done. much about him she hadn't understood. Always, sometl1ing about her heart had remained unyielding, beyond his comprehension. But how much punishment? .And who should decide? On what basis?
But that was the point. So much remained beyond his comprehension. Klara's voice broke into his tl10ughts.
"I hope iliey rot," she said. ''All of tllem."
"Klara," he warned, glancing over to tile dining alcove and to tile twins, still at tl1e table.
Her eyes followed !us. Her cheeks reddened.
"I need to iron tl1e girls' dresses for tomorrow," she announced. And again she left him in his chair.
All of them.
He turned his eyes away from his daughters and tl10ught of Edda. She would be seven - no, she would be eight now, not much younger tl1an anotl1er little girl had been - his sister - when tl1eir fatl1er was killed on a battlefield in France.
It was difficult to lose a parent so young.
He stared once more at tl1e newspaper photographs. They were evil, tllese men. That's what Klara believed, tl1at's what virtually everyone iliey knew believed. The neighbors downstairs, for instance, whom he and Klara had come to know fairly well; tl1e two families now gailiered for coffee and cake most Sunday afternoons. Those neighbors had lost botll sets of parents, all siblings, countless nieces and nephews. At tl1e hands of tl1ese evil men, even if only by tl1eir signatures. Surely he must share tl1e desire for retribution, if tllat pain stabbing his heart every time he tl1ought of Lise and her fanuly reflected any degree of sincerity, any true grief.
But-should it make any difference if one of tllese men had effectively saved Ernst and Klara Weidmann and tlleir two daughters? Did four lives matter, cast against tile shadow of millions?
He held the newspaper closer, as if studying Hermann Goring's visage would provide an insight, an answer. He remembered tile man's small smile emerging, and tl1e phrase tl1at had followed it.
Yo11r case is harcf!y the first she has bro11ght to my attention.
Should someone in autllority perhaps be made aware-?
He folded tile paper, carefully. He didn't need to decide just tllen.
''Are you crazy?" !<Jara asked a few evenings later, when, as tl1ey prepared for bed, he suggested tllat he might write to tile Nuremberg tribunal. "Have you gone completely insane?" She studied him, still gripping her hairbrush. "It's a serious question, Ernst. Did you inhale someiliing at your office today? Accidentally inject yourself?" She patted his forehead witll her free hand. "Or is there some new epidemic you haven't told me about?"
"Everytl1ingis not always so black and white, you know!" The vigor in his voice stunned him, probably at least as much as it astonished !<Jara. Her eyes widened and she dropped her hairbrush. For once she seemed speechless.
"'.-\11 of tllem'!" He shook his head."Everytl1ing is not always so clear!" !<Jara watched him until he had pulled back tl1e bedclotlles, hurled himself onto tile mattress, and covered himself again He closed !us eyes but he could sense her watching him, still, for a long moment before she retrieved tile hairbrush and resumed preparing for bed.
Late tile next Sunday afternoon he and tile girls had just returned from coffee and cake downstairs; !<Jara had remained to gossip still more.
"Papa, what are crimes against humanity?" Rosa asked.
His tllroat nearly closed. He sensed Rutl1 watching him.
"\Vhere did you hear tl1at phrase?" he managed.
Downstairs, it seemed. He must have been involved in anotl1er conversation. Perhaps it had even been Klara who mentioned tl1e term, in tile kitchen, witll tile women.
Botl1 girls waited. A look of puzzlement spread across Rosa's face, an expression tllat was all tllat distinguished her from her twin, who studied him for a iliorough moment and ilien supplied: "Maybe tllere's some tiling about it in tile newspaper."
"That's a good idea," he said, his voice nearly breaking. He didn't really want tllem reading about iliese horrors, eitller. But just tllen anyiliing seemed preferable to discussing all of iliis directly.
His cowardice shamed him. "Look in tl1e newspaper, tl1en," he said, and settled in his chair in tile living room, watching as his elevenyear-old daughters bent over tile table, reading all about murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, "and oilier inhumane acts "
An image returned to his mind, a picture of iliat lion•cub, curled against its cushions in Karinhall, and he heard tile ReichsmarschallEdda's failier -offering him first a cigar, and tllen a drink from tl1e antique cart, before making tile very polite suggestion tllat Dr. Weidmann relocate. Wiili his wife and children, of course.
''Aliliough naturally Emmy and I will be sorry to lose you," tile oilier man had concluded iliat night. "Emmy swears we won't be able to find anyone she'll trust quite so much wiili Edda."
\Vho was caring for Edda, now? .-\nd who would care for her, should she lose both parents? Unlike his own children, she did not even have a sister.
The dull stab in his heart sharpened. Lzse. Lz·se. He pictured her that last dar, at the cemetery, with her little son, and her husband.
I Ier lawrer husband.
The Reichsmarschall and his family could certainly use a good lawyer right now.
When was it, Dr. Ernst \Veldman.n tried to recall -and this question would return in irregular dreams and in unforeseen waking hours, on I Iolocaust Remembrance Days and on all those anniversaries of what would have been his younger sister's birthdays - that he had decided to specialize in tl1e treatment of children, anyway? .-\t the table tl1e twins still read. He could not leave his chair.
They'll go after the wife, too.
It was true. Frau Goring wouldn't be tried at Nuremberg, of course. But it would happen somewhere. l\Iaybe he couldn't, in good conscience, write a letter defending the husband. The trial would reveal all Goring's misdeeds, and if tl1ere really were some otl1er explanation or interpretation for his own expressed wishes to expunge Jews from tl1e "economic arena," ifhe really hadn't known about tl1e even more horrific measures his "colleagues" had takenwell, the truth would prevail.
But did that mean Ernst should - or must - remain silent about everything else? He shifted in the chair, watched his <laughters for a few more moments, tl1en breatl1ed deeply.
"Can one of you bring your father a pen?"
The acknowledgment-not that he'd expected one-arrived in 1949. \Vnen he thought about it later he realized tl1at it had arrived, in fact, almost exactly ten years after he'd been summoned to Karinhall to meet with tl1e tl1en-Reichsmarschall.
The letter came to his office. He waited until all the day's patients had been seen, all tl1e staff had departed, and then he settled behind his desk and removed tl1e opener from its place in the drawer that held, here in ew York as well, tl1e old letters from former interns and grateful parents.
i\.[y dear Dr. Weidmann, tl1e letter began. I do not kno1v ho1v mllch of nry storyyour Amen·can papers hai e continued to report. I am 1ve!l, alld the most important thing , of course, is that after a long separation I am once again 1i2 rh Edda. For that I be!iei e it ca11 be argued that I hai ·eyou - and so maJry others - to thank.
I was, I confess, zery surprised and lltter!J moi·ed qy the ma,ry statements made in my beha!f at my tn.al in Gamusch. Amollg these yollr letter, and other testimoniesfrom Jewish cz"rdes, bat·e meant the most to me. So llftexpected, and so i-ery mmh apprea·ated.
Dr. Weidmann set tl1e letter down. A slight queasiness bubbled witlun him. This woman's husband had been sentenced to death and avoided tl1e punishment by killing himself. Now Frau Emmr Goring had survived tl1e denazification and was living an apparently quiet life witl1 her daughter. But where? Where could they live a "normal" life, in Germany? Had they returned to Berlin?
He inspected the envelope's postmark.
l\I!JNCHEN.
His heartbeat raced. His head pounded. Before him he saw not the letter on his desk, not the envelope witl1 its postmark but tl1at final image of his sister, in the dark traveling suit that had served as a mourning outfit, too. She had come so far. But at the cemetery, when she might have said sometl1ing he could now recall - even if tl1er had been hurtful words -he'd attended instead to tl1e alreadydead.
He stuffed tl1e letter back into its envelope. He didn't need to know anything else. His job was done.
Erika Dreifus 1vrites and teaches i11 Massa,husetts. She earned a Ph.D. i11 historyfrom Han:ard U11frersi(Y,jolfo1ved qy a11 M.FA. i11 Creatit-e Writi11g from Qllee11s U11frersity of Charlotte. Her short story, "Homecomi11gs, " wo11 the Daiid Domstei11 Memorial Creatii'e Writing Colltest ill 2003; heressqy, "Ei·er After? History, Healillg, and 'Holocaust Fiction' ill the Third Generatioll" is forthcoming in Beyond Camps and Forced Labour: Cun:ent International Research on Survivors of Nazi Persecution (Secolo Verlag). She pllb!zshes a free month!J lle1vsletter, 'The Practicing Writer," for jictiomsts, poets, and writers of no11jictio11 (http://1v1v1v.practiti11g-11mier.com ).
Slaves, Savages & the Rogues Gallery: forty-one years of Wilbur Smith
The impact of writers on our cu lture is often debated and always debatable. Common ly, those engaged in that debate, particularly those in the rarefied circles of literary criticism, would prefer to attribute cultural impact to so-called " high-brow" works. I disagree. .A proudly " low-brow" reader, I subscribe to the view that a book sh ou ld be judged not by th e sop hi sticatio n of its themes but by its compe lling readability and common appeal. These are the features that lead to cultural impact, as th e works of William Shakespeare and Edgar Rice Burroughs clearly demonstrate.
After more than forty years of full-time writing, translation of his twenty-nine novels into tw enty-s ix l anguages, and over seventy million copies of his books sold, it is fair to say that, like Shakespeare and Burroughs before him , Wilbur Smith writes with undeniable common appeal. With thi s man y b ooks so ld and read, and with his consistent focus on the African continent, it is also reasonable to suggest that as a writer, h e h as had a greater imp act o n our cultu re than most, particularly in our view of th at continent and it s history.
So what makes him so appealing? Good research? Interesting settings? Sex and violence? Certainly all of these contribute. However, the real power in Smith's work is in hi s deft handling of motivation and classic themes. Sm ith says about his writing, "I believe in the triumph of good over evil and that love conquers all. I haven't got really cynical." 1 In the end it is that belief, combined with a rare brutal mercilessness with development of his characters' motivations, that makes Smith's work so compe lling.
This retrospective looks at some of Wi lbur Smith 's work, outlining stories and characters, identifying link ages between the works, and discussing tl1e themes in the context of his life and opinions.
The Courtneys
Wi lbur Smi tl1's first novel, When the Lion Feeds, was also the first in the Courtney saga. It was published in 1964. Witl1 its great success, Smith was able to write n ovels full -time and he immediately began to establish the cracking pace of production tl1at has characterized hi s career, publishing two n ew books by 1968.
The Courtney saga started as a series about a white family in Africa in tl1e l a te 1800s. Set against tl1e backdrop of go ld -mining, exploration and exploitation in co lonialist Soutl1 Africa, Sean and Garrick Courtney are tl1e focus. Smith draws much from his personal experience as a boy born in then Rhodesia. Polio struck him as a youth and "his right leg is withered." 2 His father gave him his first rifle as a reward when, at tllirteen, he defended tl1 e family ranch by killing two lioness wh o were hunting cattle. He was also sent to boarding schoo l where h e learned "sto icism and to endure."
The comparisons are easy to find. With hi s usual garish imagery, Smitl1 describes a watershed moment in When the Lion Feeds-when Garrick's leg is sho t off by his brotl1er Sean in a hunting acc id ent: " tl1e bone chips showed white in the wound and the blood pumped dark and strong and tllick as custard." 3 The brotl1ers' relationship forever changed; tl1ey go on to boarding school where Sean, stro ng and commanding, becomes th e natural leader over his brotl1er the peg le g. Things change, Garrick gets the girl, and the rivalry begins in earnest
However much he draws from personal experience, in tllis first novel, Smith incorporates many of the features common to all his works: powerful soc ial dynamic s set up by family rivalries, distinct archetypal characters and the age-o ld motivations that drive the human race: love, lust, h atred, greed, jealousy, revenge and pride.
It wasn't until 1976, twelve years later, tl1at Smith finally returned to the Courtney clan to continue development of this, the first of the family sagas for w lli ch he has become well known. However, wllike the Ballantyne Saga, Smith didn't write the Courtney books in order. For example, though written second, A Sparro1v Fallr is set after Th e Sound of Thunder, which wasn't published until 1992, sixteen years l ater. Taking tl1e successful writer's prerogative, Smith has filled in the lives and loves, hatreds and reconciliations of Sean Courtney and his brotl1er Garrick and their antece dent s and descendants comple te ly as the spirit has moved him, through eleven novels. Through these novels, and the eyes of his fictional characters , Smitl1 presents a well-researched and fairly comprehensive lli story of South Africa . Fans are hoping he will fill tl1e gap between Blue HoriZfJll and When the Lion Feeds.
The tab le below may clarify the situation for tl10se who want to read the novels in order.
Title Birds Of Prey
Monsoon
Blue Horizon
When the Lion Feeds
The Sound Of Thunder
A Sparrow Falls
The Burning Shore
The Power of the Sword
Rage
Golden Fox
A Time to Die
Late 17th / early 18 th Century
Early 18 th Century
Late 19t h and early 20 th Century
Late 19 th and early 20 th Century
Late 19 th and early 20 th Century
Early 20 th Century (WWI)
Early/m id 20 th Century
Mid 20 th Century
Late 20 th Century
Late 20 th Century
Key Protagonist
Hal Courtney
Hal Courtney (and sonaj
Jim Courtney, Grandson of Hal
Sean Courtney
Sean Courtney
Sean Courtney
Centaine Courtney
Centaine Courtney
Centaine ' s sons
Centaine's sons
Sean Courtney jr.
Smith's latest novel, The Triumph of the Sun, is a Courtney novel that brings Ryder Courtney together with the Ballantyne family in IS::hartoum, in 1884.
The Ballantynes
Like the Courtney saga, these novels are a multi-generational tale that starts in l\[atabeleland and wild .\frica and progresses through to the origination of Rhodesia and its eventual violent transformation to Zimbabwe.
In the first of the four Ballantyne family novels, A Fakon Flies, Smith begins the story of Robyn and Zouga Ballantyne, a British missionary and her brother in Africa at the time of rampant colonial exploitation in the region around the Zambezi (Pre-Rhodesia Zimbabwe). Pillaging the coLmtry for go ld , ivory and slaves, Europeans are cu tting a wide swath of devastation and destruction through the continent. Through Men of Men, The Angels llYeep and The Leopard Hunts in Darkness, Smith moves from describing the atrocious behaviour exhibited over the last few centuries by colonialist Europeans to the atrocious acts perpetrated upon ,\fricans by other Africans.
It is perhaps partly due to his distaste witl1 the ongoing catastrophes in Africa, from HIV and AIDS to genocide and oppression, that has led Smitl1 to now write about tl1e more distant past. In 2003, he was quoted as saying, "TI1e co lonial society which I grew up in was w1ju st by 21st-century standards, but it was not brutal as Zimbabwe is today People like l\lugabe have tl1e i.nstinct of tl1e fox. They are very hard to get rid of." 4 Judging by l\[ugabe's tenacious hold on power tluough recent elections in Zimbabwe, it appears Smith remains on target with this observation.
The "Other" Novels
In addition to his family sagas, Smith has written numerous selfcontained works. Usually adventure stories, these made up most of his early work and their settings range widely, tl1ough almost all are set against \Erica's tawny, sun-drenched backdrop.
In the early 1970s, Smith established a pattern of production that would carry l1U11 tl1rough three decades as a professional author. Apparently, meeting his wife of forty years was the key ingredient. For years he began each new book on the date of their wedding anniversary in February, worked from dawn to dusk for eight montl1s or so, until finished, and then played for four montl1S, traveling, hunting, fishing, SCUBA diving and touring to publicize his work.
Throughout tl1eir marriage, Smitl1 dedicated every one of his books to his wife, Danielle TI1omas, an accomplished author in her own right. After Danielle TI1omas passed away, Smith married again. His new mu se is the recipient of his dedications now but apparently he still begins his books in February. 5
, \.part fr o m Th e Smzbird, described witl1 the Egyptian novels, Wilbur Smitl1 has written ten self-contained novels:
• Th e Dark of the Sun (A.KA. Th e Train from Katanga), 1965, involves tl1e rescue of a remote diamond mining settlement.
• Shout at the Deiif, 1968, featuring tl1e classically named Irish-American rogue Flynn Patrick O'Flynn, is about ivory poaching and war (and was made into a movie starring Roger l\[oore and Lee Marvin).
• Gold Mine, 1970, was described by the Sunday Express as " a brutal tale of violence, greed, chicanery and lu st amid the gold dust. " (I guess tl1is is what tl1ey were aiming for, as tl1e review was printed on tl1e back cover of tl1e paperback.)
• The Diamond Hunters, 1972, set in Africa's ocean diamond fields, is another story of sibling rivalry, where violence and hatred go against courage, determination and love, and lose, naturally.
• Eagle in the S~, 1974, is a very different setting for Wilbur Smitl1, starting in the cockpit of an Israeli i\urage fighter jet. However, like the Courtney novel, The Buming Shore, it features a brave flyer, a strong woman, tragedies, reconciliation and a retum to ,\frica, where David and Debra struggle witl1 tl1e land and an evil man.
• Eye of the Tiger, 1974, is a treasure hunt set around an island in tl1e Indian Ocean.
•Cry l"/;/o!f, 1975, is a tale about World War II and tl1e Italian invasion ofNorthem .\frica
• Hungry as the Sea, 1977, reflects Smitl1's passion for the sea, deepsea fishing and diving. For marine epic aficionados, Hungry as the Sea shou ld be your choice from the Wilbur Smitl1 collection.
• Wild Justice, 1978, is a terrorist novel and a reminder that, though it may not have been noticed in tlle US until that fateful September 11, 2001, terrorism has been alive and flourishing in the rest of the world for decades. In WildJustice, Smitl1 pre-dates Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum and a host of other authors with his anti-terrorist multinational commando
• Elephant Song, 1991, is a modern talc of conservation set against the Chiwewe National Park in Zimbabwe
In 2003, Smith was quoted as saying, "I've eaten lion, le opard, crocodile, python. I don't recommend lion. It tastes exactly like when a tomcat comes into your house and sprays." Then, "I don't know how many lions and leopards I've shot. I've shot two elephants, which was enough - never again. It's a melancholy and moving thing to hunt an elephant. It's like shooting an o ld man." 6
The African continent seems to demand a certain ferocity. At lea st, one gets tl1at impression from reading Wilbur Smitl1, very much an African son. As in his hunting, Smitl1 is rutl1less witl1 his characters and unapologetic in his flourish for brutality. However, rather ilian being gratuitous, this brutality gives his work an honesty and integrity that similar adventure novels lack. People don't just get shot and go down quietly like in a bad Hollywood movie. Instead tlley go down screaming and bleeding.
This may stem from his own experience as a witness to man's inhwnanity to man. "When I was doing National Service in Rhodesia I saw little girls who had been held up by tl1e legs and sliced down tl1e middle. We had to fish them out of the pit lavatory. l\[y motl1er asks me why I have to go into so many gory details in my books, but witnessing such brutality affects my characters, just as it has affected me." 7
The Egyptian Novels
Apparently, The S1111bird, published in 1972, was Smith's first novel after meeting Danielle, and it is said to be his favourite. Certainly, it is significant. He has a small, royal blue sunbird on his personal stationary, an impression of a sunbird can be found on tl1e bottom right corner of all his hardcover books, and his property in Constantina is called Sunbird Hill. 8
As mentioned above, The Sun bird was a significant novel for Smitl1. It is also an interesting early bridge between the stories set in tl1e comparatively recent 17th, 18th, 19th and 20 th centuries and his ancient Egyptian/Phoenician tales, as the second half is set in Opet in ancient times. With tl1ese facts in mind, it is perhaps not surprising tl1at Smith eventually turned his focus to ancient Egypt, returning to The S1111birdera.
Although his newest novel, The Triumph of the Sun, is not set in ancient Egypt, Smith has found best-selling success and new fans witl1 his latest works, The Rfrer God, Warlock and The Smnth Scroll. All three are related though self-contained, linked tl1rough the popular character of Taita the Eunuch and Slave. With remarkable attention to detail, tl1e world of tl1e Nile of 4,000 years ago is brought alive.
In Smith's own words, "If you take one fal se step or say one wrong word, the spell is shattered." 9
\Vhatever tl1e secret, Wilbur Smith is still casting his spells at age seventy-two after forty-one years of writing. Legions of fans are hoping he keeps on casting them for a long time to come
References
Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, 1995, Vol 46, pp. 384-386
1. Wilbur Smith official website, http:// www.wilbursmitl1books.com/author.html, St. l\[artin's Press
2. Wilbur Smitl1 Fan site, http://members.tripod.com/ ~rollindice/Smitl1.html
3. Wilbur Smith, When the lion Sleeps, 1964
4. From an interview with Hilly Janes for The Obsen:er, Sunday March 9, 2003
5. Wilbur Smith official website
6. Interview witl1 Hilly Janes
7. ibid.
8. Wilbur Smith Fan site
9. Wilbur Smith official website
Matthe1v Rockall is an mid reader and det·otee offine fiction of all sorts. When not acting as a butler for t1vo spoiled cats, he 1vorks as a 1vriter, particular!J of angry letters and occasional magnetic poems,from his home in Mission, British Columbia. Matt also teaches communications courses at the British Columbia Institute of Technoloy.
The Greatest Historical Novelist of Our Time?
RICHARD LEE i11tenie1vs l~ilb11r Smith.
We meet in the l\ lacmillan offices in London, the publishers witl1 whom Wilbur enjoys "an almost family relationship." He is dashing, in a long black coat, still slim and fit at seventy-two, with a fineness to his face that isn't apparent in photographs. T11ere is also a wicked smile. "All booted, spurred and ready for action, I see," he twinkles, when we meet his publicist. Abashed and flattered, she tugs at her skirt.
This is public Wilbur: tl1e Big l\[an; tl1e jewel in his publishers' crown. Cordial, professional, measured.
As always witl1 writers, though, I'm more interested in private Wilbur Or should I say, writing Wilbur.
How has he stayed at tl1e top of his game for so long? 111.is year it is forty-one years since his first novel, tl1e bestselling When the Lion Feeds The Tn·umph of the Sun is his tl1irtieth straight success.
\'<!hat hunger drives him? Wilbur Smith has been a very rich man for decades, so it isn't money hunger. He has also topped the lists for a very long time, so it is hard to argue tl1at he still needs to be competitive. For most authors, a good goal would be to sell a million books. \'<lilbur is already past tl1e seventy million mark Sales are global -not just tl1e English-speaking world, but places as varied as Russia and Japan. In Italy, sales of each new book approach 400,000 in hardback alone.
And what demons does he fight to write each novel? He has tl1c usual writerly demons: "I hate the loneliness, the doubt. Usually halfway through a book I have a serious depression." But there a.re other issues involved. He is variously criticized for colo11ial attitudes, for hunting, and for the "armchair bloodlust" of his prose. The press obsess about his wealtl1 Q10uses, holidays, cars) and his love life (the prostitute who was trying to blackmail him; his marriage in 2003 to a twenty-eight-year-old Asian beauty). Every time he publishes a novel the pack of publicity hounds surrounds him and tries to bring him down.
Wilbur acts as if none of tl1ese tl1ings could possibly concern him. l\[any times in our conversation he gives voice to his robust selfbelief.
0peciaf ~eature
"I glory in being politically incorrect," he says at one point, smiling, as if inviting confrontation Or again, "I play the ball the way I see it lying." Other writers may write their books, he is saying, and they should let me write mine. "I know what I like writing and I know that I can do it because I've done it so often, and I'm quite content with that."
Perhaps this is an answer to the 'how' of what Wilbur has achieved, or as near an answer as it is possible to get. \Vilbur does not write like anyone else. He is not a part of a. literary movement or coterie, and a.voids fellow writers.
' ' You know Stuart Cloete? He was writing in the '30s and '40s and I knew him when I was a young man. He was getting on in years and I looked upon him as my guru. He said that in general you should avoid the company of other writers, because some of them will be more successful than you and you will envy them, and some of them will be less successful, and you will despise them. He said you should find your friends somewhere else. And Emes t Hemingway said something like, 'I wrote my books while the others were sitting in their pavement cafes in Paris talking theirs away' So you know I don't frequent literary circles."
I le describes his style as less a technique, more a way of thinking. "I suppose it's your state of mind, the way you perceive the world. r-.Cine comes from my upbringing in .Africa, and my fascination with certain aspects of African life. I just translate from my own experience, my own thoughts. I don't like to think too deeply about what my style is. It's my style and it's natural to me like the way I eat and the way I sleep."
It is interesting to note that it was natural more or less from the start. The very first book that he completed was a failure. "I was trying to write the great : \frican novel, full of political cant, and far too many characters -more characters than War and Peace, and no continuity " It never got published, and still languishes somewhere in a desk. "And then I wrote When the I.ion Feeds, which was a story about people, and it's been my observation that people like stories about people."
I smile at this. The people that Wilbur Smith writes about are very extraordinary people. You could spend a lifetime and not meet anyone like them.
We talk for a. while about When the Lion Feeds, a truly exceptional first novel for maturity, vitality and storytelling. I suggest that the book is not really about a man, but about an alpha ma.le.
"What you say is true, most of my main characters are alpha males, and so they are driven by something. You can't imagine any of them ever having ten acres and a car and living there happily all their life and having dozens of broods of children. They want to do things, and this makes them interesting for me, and gives the excitement to the book. What's he going to do next? And in the process of it - well, put it this way- in the hunt for glory or fortune or fame or whatever it may be, people get hurt. There's no question about it. Highly successful men leave a trail of hurt and envy and disaster and bitterness and unfulfilled duties. TI-tis is the way life is."
One of my brothers, I say, stopped reading three books into the Courtney saga. because of just this bitterness. Wilbur shrugs.
"It h appens, it's what the characters do. I don't set out to make them fit into a mold, but as they develop, the bitterness comes. Competition over a woman, for the affection of their father, or whatever they rrtight be competing for
".And this is partly what makes a book compe lling If you have a sympathetic character and you inflict hardship upon them, it gets tl1e attention of the reader. You know the readers don't really want it to happen, but they want to see how she, or he, is going to so lve it.''
Wilbur's latest book, The Tn·umph of the S1111, has all these hallmark Wilbur elements. There is competition between heroes, between siblings, and an unmistakable bitterness that falls upon more than one character. There is plenty of action and excitement, plenty of detail. We have already witnessed two infant deaths by page 36, the second of whom falls off a steamboat in tl1e arms of its young motl1er, and both are sucked back into tl1e boat's propeller. This is like the flute note in what soon becomes a full orchestral overture of violence and "mulberry-colored" water. It is justifiable, historical violence, as a boat tries to break through the blockade during the Siege of Khartoum, but few authors would approach it with quite Wilbur's zest.
The subject matter of the book probably gives the clearest answer to why Wilbur still writes. "I'm a writer, and if I stopped writing, I'd be nothing," he says, and that is one answer, but he is also a writer of Africa, and Africa is, he finds, an endlessly stimulating subject. "There's a multitude of wildlife, very exciting peoples, the whole sweep of geographical terrain from snow-topped mountains to vast deserts and jungle. With Africa's turbulent history of colonialism, its extraordinary demographics, and the pathos and the savagery of the slave trade, it's the perfect setting for the adventure novel."
It is a vast canvas, and Wilbur Srrtith has plundered it for the richest adventure: pharaohs and pyramids, lost antique cities, pirates, explorers, missionaries, imperialists, gold-rushes, diamond-pipes, civil wars. His heroes have traded, fought and loved their way to the remotest comers of the continent - buttoning on tl1eir starched dress uniforms, or filling their pitl1 hats witl1 unprecedented wealth, while struggling against climate, land scape, indigenous peoples and murderous rivals.
The Triumph of the S1111 is evidence of this variety. Despite twentynine books a.bout Africa, the Sudan and Abyssinia are countries Wilbur has not written about before. But it is not a book about a side issue or footnote in history. The Siege of Khartoum is a pivotal moment, which helped form the British attitude to .Africa for the next fifty years.
"For me it was perfect. That incident had all tl1e elements of a great story setting because you have fue captive characters who are having to interact witl1 each other because tl1ere is no escape - siege conditions. Also tl1e river. I'm fascinated by fue great rivers of .Africa. Played against tl1at was a sort of island setting in the desert. Then it had such powerful influences at work - tl1e British Empire against tl1e revolting l\Ia.hdis.ts, the conflict of religions, Gordon and fue l\Ia.hdi, bofu of them totally fanatical, believing that they spoke directly to God, and unbendable and unbending."
"There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing during all that time, the running in of supplies to the embattled garrison, trading backwards and forwards. Spies from tl1e t--[ahdi getting into Khartoum and reporting back, so they knew exactly what was going on. And like any siege conditions there were the black marketeers trying to profiteer from the food supply. So all human vices and virtues were there in siege conditions. People forced to tl1eir utmost resources in an enclosed scenario."
\Ve talk about research and resources.
"I used the diaries of a lot of the people who were there. One of tl1e most valuable to me was that of Rudolph Slatin, an Austrian; he was captured by the t--[ahdi and was a prisoner for tl1irteen years. He wrote a book called Fire and S,vord in the Sudan. He gives eyewitness descriptions of all tl1e main characters of the l\lahdi, of Abdullahi, of Gordon, and he describes exactly the conditions, the equipment the Mahdis.ts had, their uniform and ceremonies, religious observances, so tl1at was terribly important. Then there was another gentleman, a fantastic Victorian called San1Uel White Baker. He was the Governor General of the Sudan just before the siege. He is tremendous at detail and descriptions of everything from the Arabs to the way they dressed, to the way tl1e women made up their hair, to the way they hunted with swords for elephant - all good stuff. Another good source was The Rii'er War by \Vins ton Churchill, who was with the 21 st Lancers at Omdurman. He's excellent on tl1e historical and political detail. And after that I fill in with my own imagination."
All his sources are published, if rare, works, and I express surprise at this Apparently Wilbur has never consulted manuscript letters or journals for his books, but ilie details that he extracts from ilie published works give more tl1an enough feeling of accuracy and individuality.
The history is ultimately less important to Wilbur ilian the story.
"I go to a great deal of ca.re and trouble to get the historical ba.ckgrow1d correct, but having done that I am not averse to altering it slightly to fit my story line. What I'm trying to say is that it's historically researched, but then history is bent to accommodate the stories that I want to tell."
As an example, I ask about the Benbrooks, central characters in the book. David Benbrook, apparently, is British ambassador in Khartoum, and one imagines that if tl1ere were such a man, he would be well documented. One also imagines that his daughters would not have behaved as Wilbur Smiili's book has tl1em behaveWilbur's gift for graphic and exciting description does not end at the bedroom door.
"There were ambassadors, and it was a British consulate in Khartoum because although Egypt was running the country, Egypt was a puppet of the British Empire. It was only later on that it became the Veiled Protectorate, as Baring used to call it. So they did have a consul. But obviously they didn't have Benbrook and his three lovely daughters - they are my invention."
The three lovely daughters are at the centre of the book's storylineas a.re Ryder Courtney and Penrod Ballantyne, the latest representatives of Wilbur Smith's two great fictional dynasties, the Courtneys (of
South Africa) and the Ballantynes (of Central Africa), meeting here for the first time on neutral ground.
I ask how Wilbur defines the differences between these dynasties.
"Right from Birds ofPrry (chronologically tl1e earliest Courtney book) the Courtneys were pirates, merchants, looking to seize the main chance. TI1ey were very much driven by monetary considerations. But witl1 tl1e Ballantynes it was much more empire, patriotism, glory - the soldierly virtues. I've kept tl1em intact."
And so it is. I will resist the urge to give spoilers or suggest which (if eitl1er) hero gets the girl, but suffice it to say that the 500 pages of the novel have Wilbur frequently at the top of his form, and bring tl1e siege graphically to life.
I ask which bits of the book he is most pleased with.
"There are some passages of description - but mostly I just look at the book as a whole. Does it work? Is the continuity there? Is the pace sustained? Is the timing right? Not too much description, not too much detail. Are tl1e characters believable, and a.re they reacting in a human fashion with each other? And generally speaking, I give myself about an 8 out of 10 for it."
This leads us to talking about the way tl1at he writes. He writes quickly, about 4,000 words a day- "That's a good day, but yes, I'm not a bleeder, I'm a gusher!"
He does not self-edit as he goes along.
"I like to get it all down, tl1en go back and re-write and polish. If you go back on a daily basis it becomes episodical, you know, your timing is off. If you write it as it occurs to you and then go back and start again from ilie beginning and read tluough it- that's the way I do it. I don't rewrite a great deal. I keep about ninety percent of what I originally put down. The rest is just changing a word here and iliere or rewriting a sentence, or you know, tl1e sense of this passage is not quite clear -I rewrite it. But tl1at goes quickly, and that for me is one of the most enjoyable parts. Because at iliat stage I have written tl1e beginning of the book six months previously, and it's gone a bit cold, and I reread it again with a fresh eye and pick up where it's good and where it needs adjustment."
He also writes in all kinds of different places (he owns houses in many countries).
"I don't have to write in one specific place because the story's in my head, it's not in the surrow1dings. People say you must like to write with the view of mountains, or looking out on the Zambezi river. o -I like a blank wall in front of me!"
An interview is a strange business: an hour spent in very artificial circumstances, a tape-recorder running to undermine any contact or trust two people might be forming, an undercurrent of preconceptions on both sides, of botl1 questions and answers preprepared. At the same time, though, you do develop a very strong impression of each other- something beyond or between tl1e words.
r--fy overriding impression of Wilbur Smitl1 is of a steeliness that is rare in anyone, and particularly rare in writers. Writers must possess the gifts of empathy and imagination - Wilbur has them in
abundance - but the exercise of them will usually lead to self-doubt, self-criticism, even to a questioning of identity. If \'?ilbur has fought such enemies, he has undoubtedly won. In fact he seems to possess the hardiness and focus of the heroes in his books. Certainly he shares their unceasing pursuit of success on their own terms.
In his mid twenties Wilbur worked as an accountant for five years without leave: "I was accumulating my leave to have cash in lieu of leave. At the end of that I worked out that I had enough to live on for two years, in a frugal way, and that's when I gave up formal employment." In other words, he gambled seven years of his life away to have a chance at his writing - with no surety but a failed earlier novel.
I question this steeliness a few times. Has he ever considered writing a different kind of book - a thriller, or murder mystery? No. Or a different kind of adventure - one set, say, in \Vorld War II? No. Or a first person narrative? o. Or has he ever thought of writing a different book of Africa - something more contemporary? Again, no.
"l\ly books are a celebration of the European, particularly British influence in Africa, and the colonial days - Empire. After that, it's different. It's gone back to the original owners, the indigenous people, and if any books are to be written about the present time, they should be written by blacks. So I'll leave that to them. I'll keep the Empire, they can have the rest of it."
He smiles at this. He is aware that it is contentious, or at least a potential rod for his back. This isn't to say that he does not have heroic non-European characters. In his latest book there are heroic Sudanese of both sexes, but there is no sense that they are equal to the whites , or that they feel they could or should be. 111ey are heroic but not heroes, and I ask ifhe feels any temptation to write a black f11aracter as hero.
"No, because I'm not black, and because that would not fit comfortably into the mode of .African life."
(And probably, I think, because his books have never yet failed commercially.)
Historical fiction inevitably reflects the time of its writing as well as the time it depicts, but historical novelists can be broadly divided into two camps. There are those who are looking to revisit the past to throw a contemporary light upon it, to right perceived wrongs, to point up the ironies that hindsight has revealed. Literary novels frequently do this, but also the kind of popular novels where tl1e heroes get to stand up against the "injustices" of past times, where the victim gets to win. The other camp of historical novelist is tl1e one to which Wilbur Smith belongs. He is not trying to reform colonial Africa for our eyes. one of his characters sees any irony or sense of fragility about colonial supremacy. The world is as it wasat least, as it was to tl1e confident, successful, outdoor types of those days. Wilbur Smith's kind of historical fiction is the sort that believes tl1at the past was brighter, more exciting, more brilliant than the present, and that its heroes, like Greek and Roman heroes, belonged to a Golden Age.
Does tl1is make Wilbur Smitl1 a nostalgic author? Perhaps, but it is not cosy nostalgia. A complacent autl1or? Not at all. Both his Courtney
and his Ballantyne series take the reader to the point where colonialismcollapses. Nor does it make him an unintelligent or unambitious writer, unless one wishes to level those same complaints against tl1e .Augustans tl1emselves.
It does call into question the phenomenal popu larity of his books. 111rough the forty years of his writing life the world would seem to have been travelling in the opposite direction. "I wish I'd been born fifty years earlier and experienced the old Africa, which my father was a part of," Wilbur has said. His father was an artisan emigre from Brighton, England, who managed to earn enough to buy a farm in what is now Zambia. Any time away from the hard physical work was spent hunting. He used to fly off in his Tiger i\[oth to see where tl1e game was lying, ratl1er like Robert Redford in Out ofAfrica, and Wilbur learned the skills of tl1e hunt with him.
It is the spirit of this world that Wilbur Smith captures in his novels. They are pioneer fiction. 111ey depict a simple, physical, elemental, self-reliant, dangerous, romantic, and uncivilized world.
They represent a life that his readers have never experienced, and would never wish to. But there is a part of most of us tl1at is glad it existed.
African Dreaming
SCOTT KEi\[P Looks at ho1v African history is reflected in the not'e/s of Wilbur Smith.
European history constantly juts itself into our popular culture through movies and tales: King Arthur, Elizabetl1, Shakespeare and the wide cast of adventurers and heroes. As apoleon Bonaparte stated, "History is written by the winners." European domination lies not only in the politics of history, but in the literature and stories passed tl1rough the words of authors and tellers. Where is the history of African success and failure, beyond those indicated in the stories of colonization?
Other than the legends of Nelson Mandela, Cleopatra and the slave trade, .African history has been largely left on the shelf. Yet Wilbur Smitl1 has brought a voice - loud, yet not preachy - to this relatively unfamiliar terrain. In 196-t, his first novel, When the lion Feeds, excited readers witl1 accurate, biased accounts of Africa in the throes of the Boer War. Since then, Smitl1 has not stopped. Whetl1er stretching the tale to Ancient Egypt (Rfrer God, the Smnth Scroll, and Warlock), or 17ct, century Soutl1ern Africa (Birds of Prey), Smith has given his readers a history lesson. He has challenged tl1em to step into a world that is rarely heard, and often sensitive.
Wilbur Smith's forty-year publishing career has seen monumental shifts in .African motivations, politics and relationships . .Arguably, Africa has made larger in-roads into global change than any other continent in the last hundred years. At the turn of the 20 th century, the quiet continent whispered its words. Throughout \Vorld \Var I, Africa was divided, and then re-divided as colonial European property. After the defeat of Germany, the League of Nations declared that British and French colonies were to be prepared for independence. The words of Africa were finally being brought to the light.
On the eve of the publication of When the Lion Feeds, Smith witnessed Nelson Mandela stand proudly and declare before entering the Supreme Court, "During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
Smith was beginning his career with a novel ripe with condescension toward black Africa - quite expected from a white African writer of the 1960s.
On the threshold of an overhaul in the international governance of African finances, Wilbur Smith has come a long way. His 2003 release, The Blue Hon·zo11, displays an author in touch with the m o dern sensibility that European colonists were, in fact, the "mos t dangerous predators crazed by greed, jealousy, and lust, and determined to destroy utterly all."
Standing behind his passion for the land, residing in South Africa, Wilbur Smith has constantly evaluated the path Africa has taken. In the years surrounding his first novel, colonialist independence became a reality for most African nations, including Zaire, Algeria, Ghana and Kenya. Free from European domination, tl1ey sparked tl1e neocolonialist movement in African writing, making tl1e African voice audible.
Smith's early works often spun around the relationships of black and white Africa, challenging the doctrines that colonialism had set in place. For example, he let The Dark ef the Sun exemplify the inability of one race to trust the other, reflecting the emotions that ran high through the continent. At that time (1965), African nationalism was at an all-time high. Unfortunately, Smith floated away from the hot topics as he developed his mass appeal. By 1976, in Cry Wolf, he had subsided to pressure and westernized his heroes, leaving tl1e heroics to tl1e American and British adventurers. This was the mindset of the era.
With the voices of Africans getting louder, he refused to dabble in tl1e realm of political correctness, saying in an interview: "Political correctness is the most over-valued virtue in the world." 1 Allowing himself not to get swayed by the political pressure to say the right thing is most evident in his works. Birds ef Prry describes Deborah , a black servant, "'not over-burdened with brains.' She was 'about tl1e size of a Centurion tank' and 'has babies just by passing someone in tl1e street. And she passes a lot of people.' She calls him 'master.' .To his face."
With the controversial publication of The Afn"ca11 Origin efCiiiliZf1tio11 by Cheikh Anta Diop in 1976, knowledge of African perspectives in history was finally confronted. This influential work was known, from Asante and Abarry, to "identify the distortions [about African history] we have learned and correct them for future generations." 2 This revolutionary text changed tl1e \Vestern-Eurocentric view of African history, turning the volume of African voices up one more level. Smitl1 was indebted, as a white African, to a portal into the psyche and mind space of black Africa's past. Witl1 the release of the first Ballantyne series novel,A Falcon Flies, Smith re-established the
heroic nature of a black African and allowed perspectives uncovered within The African Origin ef Ciiilization to influence his writings.
Realizing the reception for African-only stories, Smitl1 slowly began to integrate European historical impressions into his African war stories. Leaving an unfettered romantic ideal of Africa behind, he wrote novels that encapsulated the majestic African landscape, but lacked tl1e characterization and depth of his earlier works, an attempt to capitalize on the Eurocentric mass market.
In 1993, Wilbur Smitl1 tried something different. He wrote River God, a tale set in Ancient Egypt, a time and place in African hi story that was already charted terrain. This novel looks at tl1e history of Ancient Egypt, but also tl1e mythos. \Vilbur Smith was able to portray Ancient Egypt witl10ut romanticizing.
Distancing himself from tl1e history of racial tension, Smitl1 took a breather following the release of Nelson l\landela from prison in 1993. Smitl1 stated his need for distance in a London Sunday Express interview. ''A t the moment it's horrific -crime, and lack of discipline No one wants to work Everyone wants to dance in the streets and celebrate. But discipline will come back. Tribal discipline is very stric t." 3
As social standards for African people have changed, Smitl1 has maintained a faith in their discipline. The stories of African civilization, political strife, and textured racial nuance will never be the Shakespeare of the New World. However, Wilbur Smith has brought humanity to the voiceless He has channeled the histories, perspectives and mythologies of African life through the action that we expect in his writing. Although sometimes criticized for his condescension upon black Africa, Smith ha s taken the violent, dark road compared to his contemporaries. Alexander l\lcCall Smith is renowned for the simplification of race issue s throughout his n ove ls. l\kCall Smitl1 has never taken the chances that \Vilbur Smith inevitably has taken. No one can ever call \Vilbur Smitl1 out for not being ballsy.
Wilbur Smitl1 is unafraid to lay punches where necessary, and is quick to acknowledge his swift progression from typical white African in the early 1960s to an open-minded African patriot. Through his body of work, he helps to tell the stories of tl1e nameless faces, the historical events and tl1e poignant moments of Africa's rich tradition. He refrains from sentimentalizing, and quilts textured, accurate tale s, showing us that African history can have as much intrigue, royalty, betrayal, love, lust and violence as the European history that underlies so much of our popular culture
While teaching in Ottaiva, Ontan·o, Scott Kemp 1vn"tes fiction and poetry in his spare time.
Marketing Historical Fiction
Creatively
KIJ\[ l\[URPHY shares the challenges and reivards of a creative marketing approach.
Fewer and fewer people are reading these days, much less his tori cal fiction. The general public has little spare time, and when they do, they choose entertainment that is immediately gratifying rather tl1an reading a book. I'm sure we've all heard the statements. The unfortunate truth of the matter is that over 175,000 books are published each year in the US. Of those, 17,021 are fiction titles. In the UK, 125,000 books are published each year wi tl1 fie ti on comprising 11,810 titles, and in Canada, approximately 50,000 books are published with 7,000 fiction titles. \v'hat also needs to be taken into account is these figures do not include all published books. l\lany small presses, especially those with catalogs consisting mostly of e-books, do not assign ISBNs, and are excluded from the tally.
So how do unknown historical fiction authors go about marketing their books and successfully getting noticed among the hundreds of tl10usands of books released each year? By being as creative in marketing tl1eir books as they are in writing them.
Like most authors, I dreamed of ilie traditional market witl1 my books prominently displayed on the shelves at tl1e local chain stores, followed by numerous book signings. To follow that dream, I read several articles on how to line up book signings and make them successful. Among fue most frequent suggestions were fuat an unknown author needed to go beyond an ordinary signing and reading, and tum it into an event. From my research of the American Civil War, I chose two topics that diverged as far from battles and generals as I could possibly get. As well as varying from fue norm, they were subjects I had researched thoroughly and felt comfortable discussing with an audience. To top off my event, I planned to wear period attire.
Because I live in the state of Virginia where fifty percent of tl1e Civil War battles were fought, I thought acquiring period dress would be the easy part. I naively located a sutler through an ad in a Civil War publication tl1at had a store within easy driving distance of my home. During the war, the sutler's role was selling soldiers food, drink, and difficult-to-find goods, often at exorbitant prices. Basically, the modern sutler serves the needs of tl1e re-enacting community witl1 period dress and equipment, and the outrageous prices persist.
\v'hen I explained to the sutler that I was an autl1or, rather than a reenactor, she thought my idea was a splendid one. First, she asked to see my book and bought a number of copies for her store. In turn, I purchased a dress and hoop skirt in order to cast me in the role of a Victorian lady during the early 1860s. Since this first purchase, I have discovered that a better way to acquire period attire is from someone who is not only familiar with the era, but makes tl1e garments using period methods. As a result, the clothing lends the appearance of being more period correct, and it's much more comfortable without necessarily being more expensive.
With my dress and hoop skirt in hand, I was ready to tackle the bookstores. Call me naive again, but I spent months making numerous calls and sending out free review copies (which are routinely returned to the wholesalers by the chains for credit). Although I'm not published by a large company, that fact was generally a minor problem to most store owners and managers. An unknown author published in fiction was their greatest concern. I kept reminding
myself of the articles which stated auiliors could sell 1,000-2,000 books a year from signings alone, and persevered.
At long last, I landed a real book signing. The small independent bookstore (that paid for their review copy) decided tl1at a talk wasn't necessary. Instead, tl1ey hooked me up with a local celebrity to draw people into the store, and in addition arranged for television and newspaper publicity. Even with a camera crew in the store doing interviews, no one came. There were several advance orders, but because a separate local event occurred on tl1e same day, the timing had turned out to be totally wrong. ,-\t least tl1e authors and store clerks kept each otl1er company, and as good sports, we bought each other's book.
The site of my second signing was at a large chain bookstore. l\[y dream had finally come true. l\[y books were prominently displayed where everyone entering tl1e store could see them. Unlike fue independent bookstore, I was expected to give a talk. l\[y preferred topic on the myths of Victorian courtship and se}a1ality was regarded as being a little too risque for the store's conservative customers. Instead, tl1e manager chose my backup presentation on the roles of women during the Civil War. She also pointed out that she could tie in my appearance with \Vomen's History month and combine publicity with local university activities.
.Advance publicity brought in about twenty people to hear my talk, which was an excellent turnout for a normally slow Wednesday evening. But the manager had placed my books on a large table to tl1e front of the store. l\[y talk was held in another area. 111e great feeling
faded, and the event went from bad to worse. There was no table for my props, and even with a microphone, I could not compete with the piped music and buzzing intercoms. These conditions made it nearly impossible to give my presentation. Then, when my talk was over, people went home instead of visiting the table at the front with al/ of my books. I made a handful of sales through the store, but not a single one on the night of my appearance. Several months later after the manager had left the store and the state to get married, the rest of the books were returned to me by the wholesaler in a severely scuffed condition.
i\[y partner, Catherine Karp, has had somewhat better success with an individual independent bookstore. Even then, bookstores prefer authors to give a return appearance only after their next book is out, making such events a limited resource. In fact with the sizeable book return rate, bookstores are of questionable business value.
On average, hardcover books are displayed in bookstores for a single four-month selling season. Paperbacks have a much shorter shelf life with three to four week displays not being uncommon. Display means spine out, unless a publisher has paid for a special placement at the front of the store or at the end of aisles. Unsold books are returned for credit. Large publishers then sell these books to remainder dealers for approximately 1-3% of the cover price. In 2003, US ,-\dult i\[ass Market paperbacks reached an astonishing 41 % return rate of sales, and Adult Hardcover returns reached 31 % .Anecdotal evidence from publishers and distributors suggests the rates are significantly higher for fiction. These incredible figures only hurt authors.
As Dan Poynter, an autl10r of self-publishing fame, has often stated, "Bookstores are a lousy place to sell books." I would take his statement one step further Any place tlrnt predominantly sells books, such as book festivals, is nearly as bad. With all of the bargain books in the world, there is too much competition between publishers and authors, scrambling for far too few readers.
So if the most obvious places of selling books are unfriendly to unknown authors in terms of sales (my partner and I hai e met some wonderfully helpful bookstore owners), where should historical fiction authors sell tl1eir books?
Fortunately for my books and my sanity, I hadn't placed all of my efforts into bookstores alone. In the months of unsuccessfully trying to drum up bookstore signings, I was investigating other markets, including libraries, sutlers, gift stores, historical museums, and Civil War events. Like bookstores, libraries prefer to have an author give some sort of presentation, ratl1er than do a simple book signing. However, libraries differ from bookstores because they don't necessarily expect the author to bring tl1eir own audience.
Libraries are more open to diverse topics and tend to find a discussion on tl1e myths of Victorian courtship and sexuality enjoyably different, rather than too risque. Some libraries will even pay a modest speaker fee. Even if no fee is involved, my experience has been that libraries will purchase multiple copies of an autl1or's books to supply tl1eir individual branches. ]\[any patrons that attend tl1e talk also buy books. Unlike bookstores, libraries rarely return books, which is a definite advantage.
Gift stores are another often overlooked market for autl1ors. \¼at better way to sell historical fiction than placing books in a gift store with the appropriate theme? I approached several gift shops that
sold to Virginia tourists. ]\[y discovery was tlrnt small gift stores were similar to bookstores of any size by buying one or two copies witl1 one major exception - gift stores do not return books. ]\[id-size to large gift stores often buy in multiples of sixes or dozens of each title, again with all sales being final. And a gift store that hosts book signings is an invaluable find.
Unlike bookstores, gift stores care little about whether an author chums out a book every year or not. In fact, they prefer carrying books that tend to be unique, ratl1er tlrnn just stocking tl1e latest bestseller. Gift stores are also unconcerned about publication dates, and as long as titles continue to sell, they will continue to buy. In the way of promotion, gift stores tl1at cater to the tourist trade do very little. Instead, they arrange an author signing for a time when a crowd is expected. \Vith the right gift store, an author can get very spoiled.
To date, my best straightforward book signing has been at a gift store connected with an 18 "'-century tavern, which fed me delicious period meals and gave me an employee discount as a bonus in addition to selling forty-eight books. The gift market is a lucrative one, and I hope to eventually find a distributor. I firmly believe this market is one that every historical fiction author should at least consider.
Except for ilie initial sutler, I have yet to sell to an o ther . Soon after tl1e release of my first book Promise & Honor, I made appearances at a couple of small Civil War events -one at a historical museum and another at a library. Sales were fair, but not overwhelming. ,-\gain, tl1e library bought copies of tl1is book, as well as my subsequent title Honor & Glory, for several of tl1eir branches. In addition, my name is on a list tl1at alerts library acquisitions when any of my new titles are released From these events, I branched into selling books at small re-enactments.
Until my second re-enactment, I had yet to pay a vendor fee. TI1e smaller events tend to have no fee or a nominal one. \v'hile most of these smallish events only sold eight books on average, they were beneficial in other ways. TI1e public began to perceive me as an author, and the events were relaxed enough for people to stop by and chat with me. However, the greatest gain from small events was making contacts, which often led to invitations to other, more important and larger events. One re-enactment has even invited me for a return visit this year as a paid speaker.
Small re-enactments also made me comfortable with protocol. Some large Civil War re-enactments have several pages of rules and regulations in order to portray the correct, period image. Larger re-enactments are fewer in number. One I attended last year is held only once every ten years on the anniversary of the battle With all of the established sutlers contending for a spot, competition can be fierce for an unknown autl10r. This is when previous contacts become invaluable because prominent events can be tremendous for book sales.
ISince large Gvil War events are infrequent, I started checking into other avenues in which I could sell historical fiction. At first, I tried locating other period-type events, such as Victorian Festivals, but again, their frequency lin1its the number of books that can realistically be sold. I enthusiastically attend such events when tl1ey occur, but I have broadened my horizons by looking for new markets.
My search led to new discoveries. My first nonperiod festival was a well-attended summer festival with perfect weather. I sold nine books. While it paid for tl1e vendor fee, the event did
little else. I was uncertain if non-period events were a good place to sell historical fiction. Soon after tl1e summer festival, I tried my luck at an old-fashioned county fair with no midway. Despite a terrible location and the weather being uncooperative, book sales were good. But it was an exhausting four-day event.
After the fair, I tried several more festivals and street fairs. Unlike the summer festival, sales were good to excellent. I was off to a promising start. For clarification, I consider sales of twenty to twenty-five books as good, and over tl1at amount as excellent. To break sales down from a business standpoint, I have created a spreadsheet so I know the exact net revenue each event takes in. This process makes it easier to decide which events to consider the following year. Sometimes the highest revenues per book are not always the best events because tl1ey often entail no vendor fees, few crowds, and even fewer people buying books. Another factor to take into account is that some street fairs are only one day in length. I regard a good event in tlus category superior to a good event that might sell a couple more books, but is two days long for the reason tl1at it saves on time and energy.
During tl1e holiday season, I turned to arts-and-crafts fairs. While my book sales ranged from fair to good at these events, I feel they are worthy of further exploration.
How do my experiences help otl1er historical fiction authors who don't write about tl1e ,\merican Civil War? Hopefully, b y helping them think creatively in marketing their books. l\[y decision to purchase period attire has become tl1e backbone of all of my book events. I have gone from asking coordinators if tl1ey wish for me to wear period dress to telling tl1em that I will do so. early every coordinator h11s absolutely loved tl1e idea , and as a result, the public takes my presence more seriously. Long dresses and hoops give people a sampling from tl1e era. They feel comfortable asking questions that otl1erwise would go unasked Some are astonished that my attire is correct down to tl1e undergarments and find it humorous to learn that if a corset is made correctly, it is no more uncomfortable than modem undergarments. On numerous occasions my dress has
caught the attention of passersby. After a quick chat about the era, many go on to purchase books.
Frequent author appearances are making me a recognizable figure I won't kid anyone. I am no celebrity, but people often stop by that have seen me at other events. Those who remained uncertain or were short on cash at a previous event will often buy my books after the second or third time. Otl1ers who have already purchased my books will tell me how much the y loved tl1em. And what author doesn't like to hear the praises of her books being sung? In tum, I have formed a mailing list for the release of m y next book.
Each event lends me the opportunity to pass out bookmarks and other promotional materials. Soon after, I detect an upswing in sales at Amazon.com. Instead of buying books, some people ask me to appear as a guest speaker for their clubs I have yet to do so but will continue to keep this aspect under consideration, when the right opportunity arises.
An added bonus for authors booking events on their own is the ability to deposit the proceeds into tl1e bank directly following the event, not several montl1s later. The flow of cash from tl1e bookstores to wholesalers or distributors and finally to publishers and authors
can take months, sometimes up to a year or more after returns are acco unted. But how does an author go about finding these events? In the US, the most comprehensive service I have discovered is Festival Network Online (http:// festival.net.com). I began with the free service and discovered that the time saved was well worth the subscription fee. (Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with the company, otl1er tl1an being a saris fied customer.)
I recommend tlrnt autl10rs choose juried shows as much as possible. For tl1ese events, a potential exhibitor must submit slides or photos of their work to be reviewed by a jury committee in order to be accepted. l\[any of these shows state tl1ey will allow handcrafted items only. However, most shows that include arts accept books as a fine art, as long as authors are exhibiting tl1eir own work. Review any non-juried event with caution before entering. \v'hile I have made appearances at some excelle nt non-juried festivals, authors could wind up trying to se ll tl1eir books at a flea market if not careful.
H.&&T TH£ AUTHOR
For on lin e marketing, authors should have a website to showcase their work, in addition to having their books registered witl1 the major online bookstores. l\[any authors feel that once tl1eir book is available, the public will flock to a website in droves to buy it. The reality in my experience has been that online sales are supplemental to other book sales. Like a brick and mortar bookstore, the customer needs a reason to visit the site and shop, which means autl10rs must promote their books in some way Most of my online sales have been through Amazon.com. The public tends to feel more comfortable shopping witl1 an established company, rather than an obsc ure publisher's website.
And finally, I have yet to discover a market for my books in an electronic format, commonly known as e-books. \Vitl1 tl1e exception of one or two sales a montl1 tluough an e-book distributor, I have so ld exactly two e-books in over two years. l\[aybe my ideas haven't been creative enough for this market. Otl1er genres seem more open to the electronic format, but for the time being, I sincerely believe the markets for historical fiction lie elsewhere.
Altl10ugh authors of historical fiction spend most of their creative time writing their books, the same authors need to be equally creative in marketing them once published. They must tl1ink of who tl1e readers will be for tl1eir particular era and location, tl1en devise a method of reaching tl1em. Contrary to popular belief, historical fiction doesn't need to be a tough sell. I, for one, have discovered an American Civil War re-enactment in the UK. and hope to attend someday.
References
.-\ssoc iation of American Publishers , "Consumer Book Sales Up Six Percent in 2003: Juvenile, Religion, Audio, and EBooks Drive Growtl1 as Otl1er Sectors Falter." http:/ /www.publishers.org/ industry /index.cfm.
Book111ire, "Canadian Book Production, 19992001 (All Hard and Paper)." http:/ /www.bookwire.com/bookwire/ canadianbookproduction.htrn.
Bowker, "U.S. Book Production Soars to 175,000 New Titles in 2003; Trade Up, University Presses Down." http:// www.bowker.com/ press/ 2004_0527 _bowker.htrn.
Poynter, Dan. "Book Industry Statistics " http:// www.para.pub.com/ s ta tis tics
Kim Murpl?J, along with herpartner Catherine Karp, founded Coach!ight Press, LLC, in 2001.http://111111111.coachlightpress.com. Kim's debut noi·el Promise & Honor 111as a finalist in Fore Word l\[agazine's 2003 Book of the Year alllard. Recent!J, she has fimshed Glory & Promise, the final book in her tnlogy, 1vhich 1vi!l be released in Fall 2005. She has dedded to take a short break from historicalfiction to lllrite a contemporary paranorma4 lllhich of course has an Amen·can Ciiil War backstory.
Of Kilts and Standing Stones
CL\IRE MORRIS talks to Diana Gabaldon about ho111 noi·els and characters el'Oll'e.
People disappear afl the time. [ J Ma11y of the lost JI/if! be Jo11nd, el'en!Haf!y, dead or alit-e. Disappearances, after all, hai·e explanatio11s Us11al!J.
- from the prolog11e of Outlander
"It was the kilt," Diana Gabaldon once said when asked how she ca111e to create her bestselling Outlander series. Soon after she decided to write a historical novel, she sat down to watch a Dr. \Vho re-nm. 1l1e episode featured a young 18'h -century Scotsman, weanng naturally- a kilt. .A day later, Diana was still dunking of tl1e man in the kilt. Since her concem at that point wasn't so much where or when she set her story, only tl1at she find a place to start, she chose 18 th-century Scotland as her backdrop. Only, as readers of her series well know, tlus "backdrop" ca111e in some ways to drive tl1e action of tl1e five (soo n to be six) novels about laird s and smugglers and time-travellers and proudly independent people.
"I have no formal background in history," she explains, "just the six hours of \Vestern Civilization tl1ey make you take as an undergrad. (She holds a PhD in Ecology.) So I knew I'd have to look up everything, no matter what time period I chose - I was just searching for one tl1at seemed appealing to me."
\v'hen she visited tl1e library and began researching Scotland in tl1e 18 tl' century, a brief perusal made it clear that ilie chief point of conflict was tl1e Stuart Rising of 1745 -\ltl10ugh, at tlrnt point, she had never attempted to plot a novel , Diana understood tlrnt conflict was vital to a successful story. Plunging her kilted Scotsman into ilie days of Bonnie Prince Charlie seemed the most efficient way to achieve iliis ..-\nd so was born Ja111ie Fraser, tl1e large, red-haired multi-din1ensional character who has battled his way across Scotland, France and huge swailies of tl1e ew World and won the hearts of readers around the late 20 th-century and early 21st-century globe.
When Diana relates the story of how she meta111orphosed from university professor into bestselling author, it sounds legend-like, tl1e drea111 of a nullion writers. But could it really be luck? Two tl1ings struck me as I sat across the table from tlus world-fa111ous novelist: she is determined, and she believes in her own abilities.
"I set out deliberately to write a historical nove l," Diana tells me. "I needed to find out what it takes to get all the way tl1rough a novel so I could decide - do I want to do tl1is for real, and if so, I will pick some commercially feasible genre and set out to get published."
Although her publishers were initially uncertain quite how to market her book (was it romance? fantasy? mainstrea111? what?), Diana never questioned that it was lustorical fiction.
You can do anything within the context of a historical novel," she says. "They can range from historical romance to the autobiography of Henry VIII and everything in between, including historical mystery as a specific sub-genre. All you need is a really vivid, convincing, believable backgrow1d that will pull yo u into the story and make you feel that you are in another time."
She tl10ught historical fiction would work well for her because being a research professor, she was used to looking things up. She confesses that the possibility of finding a ready-made plot within the historical record also attracted her to tl1e genre. "In case I tumed out to have no imagination," she adds.
Diana Gabaldon witl1 no imagination? It seems inconceivable to those of us who've followed the intricate plots she's woven a.round Jami~ and his fanlily. But her background was in science and teaching, and 111 tl1e 1980s, all her writing to date had been non-fiction and often technical (with tl1e exception of some Walt Disney conuc books). evertheless, she created her first novel, O11tfa11der (Cross Stitch in tl1e UK), without ever setting foot in tl1e Scottish Highlands. 1l1is feat seems even more remarkable considering that she's lived nearly her entire life in .Arizona, fa111ed for its SW111}' climate and arid landscape.
"Scotland is a popular country- so much has been written about it produced about it, that it's really very easy to get a good impressio~ of what it's like," she says.
Although Diana has tl1e scientist's rational way of explaining events, when she relates how her Outlander protagonist ca111e into being, it sounds inexplicable, magical, someiliing destined to happen Soon after plunging into tl1e conflict leading up to tl1e Stuart Rising, she realized that she required a female character to create se:ln.1al tension (tlrnnks to the "kilt factor," she already had a nwnber of Scotsmen in place). On tl1e tlurd day of writing, it occurred to her that making tlus woman English would introduce even more conflict which naturally, the novelist craves. So Diana wrote tlus Englisl~wom~ into her fledging story, but she had no idea who she was or how she ca111e to be in a Highland cottage full of Scotsmen. The woman walked in, and when Jamie's uncle Dougal MacKenzie asked her who she might be, said, "l\Iy na111e's Claire Elizabetl1 Beaucha111p and who the hell are yo u?"
"I thought , you don't sound at all like a historical person," Diana recalls. "So I fought witl1 her for two or three pages, trying to beat her into shape and make her talk like an 18 th-century woman. But she wasn't having any of tl1is, she just kept making smart-ass remarks, and she also took over telling the story herself! So I said, 'go ahead and be modern - I'll figure out how you got there later."'
Diana kept writing her "bits and pieces" (she never writes a novel in a straight line), but as she did, she could not escape the fact that she would need to solve the problem of Claire's origins. Suspending tl1at concern initially, she focused on anotl1er important point. She decided that to survive in the 18 th century, Claire would need to know how to stay alive, which meant she would also know how to keep other people alive. Having taught a class on Human .Anatomy and Physiology, one of tl1e introductory courses for nursing, Diana
knew the basics of clinical medicine, and felt this would allow her to believably portray a nurse. ,-\nd so Claire's profession was unearthed.
Wanting the medical aspects of the story to be immediately understood by her readers, Diana realized that Claire would need to be familiar with the three great advances of modem medicine: antiseptic, anesthetic and antibiotics. But she did not want her to be reliant on technology such as l\IRI, as this would render her powerless in 1743. And as she got to know this character better, she decided that her attitudes weren't quite the same as a woman of the late 20 th century. \Vhich brought Diana to World War II.
"It seemed promising, because not only is that the point when modem medicine actually began to develop, but if Claire had been in the war, she would have a lot of competence and strength and would have been through tough times."
And so Claire Beauchamp Randall - the time-traveller, the outlander, was created.
And Gabaldon's Theory of Time Travel was born.
''.Anyone who writes time travel eventually comes up with an explanation," Diana says. "Some people fall back on magic - it just happens - but I didn't want to do that. Of course I was doing research all this time on Scotland and all its aspects. If you look at the geography of Scotland, England and Brittany, tl1ey're covered with stone circles."
Diana goes on to explain how she initially thought she should mention stone circles in tl1e story because of the mystery surrow1ding them. Any description of stone circles that she read claimed that no one actually knows tl1eir purpose. Taking up the challenge, Diana has now created a purpose so believable tl1at who is to say she is not right?
The sixth book in the Outlander series, titled A Breath of Sno1v and Ashes, will be released later this year. l\Ieanwhile, Diana is also working on her offshoot series, the mystery novels featuring Lord John Grey, who plays a role in the lives of the Frasers in tl1e main series. When I asked how John Grey came to have his own series, she admits it was an accident. She was invited to submit a short story to the Ellis
Peters Memorial Antl10logy of Historical Crime (published as Past Poisons). Kn.own for the size of her novels, her initial response was, "I've never written anytl1i.ng under 300,000 words - interesting technical challenge!"
But she took up tl1e challenge, and wanting to stay in the same time period, chose Lord John, since he wasn't one of the major characters in the Outfandernovels.
"I like Lord John," she says "He's got a good voice - he speaks to me."
But this story, Hel!ftre, was only published in tl1e UK. Overwhelming interest from fans in the US and elsewhere convinced Diana that perhaps she should write another short story about Lord.John and that eventually she could publish a collection \Vorkingon this second "short story" in between her Outlander novels, she soon realized it was nearly 90,000 words. When she told her agents this, they said, "That's not a short story - it's the size of a normal novel!"
And so they sold it as Lord John and the Private Matter. Diana reports that the publishers said, "Here's a Gabaldon book we weren't even expecting and it's short!"
Diana is currently working on a second Lord John mystery. She refuses to limit herself to a word count, though she suspects tl1is novel will not be as long as the main Outlander ones (her last book, The Fiery Cross, is 500,000 words)
Isn't she breaking the rule that tells novelists they must streamline tl1eir work to 70,000 words if they wish publishers or agents to look at it? Absolutely. But she possesses the storyteller's gift. And as I noted at the start of our conversation., she is determined and she believes in herself. Is it any wonder she has succeeded so spectacularly?
Despite selling millions of books worldwide, Diana does not act as if her success is unattainable by others. I have heard her speak publicly on four occasions, and each time I have been struck by her down-toeartl1 and genuine nature. She is witty, stylish, and as charismatic as her characters She gives credit where it's due, and she is lavish with her advice. Before I thanked her for her time, I asked her if she had any pointers for aspiring novelists. In answer, she recited to me Gabaldon's three rules of writing:
1. Read everything. This is how you find out what you like and don't like, and it is also how you distinguish technique and style.
2. Write. Because unfortunately this is the only way to learn.
3. Don't stop.
Diana Gabaldon's novels
Outlander (Cross Stitch in the UK) (1991) Dragonfly in Amber (1992)
V qyager (1994)
Dmms of Autumn (1997)
The Fiery Cross (2001)
Lord John and the Private Matter (2003)
(non-fiction)
The Outlandish Companion (Through the Stones in the UK) (2001)
Time Travel: What's the Fascination?
!-(.-\RI KYDLAND explores the endun·11gjasd11ation of time-trai·e! /lOl'efs.
What would it be like if we could visit another time? How well could we learn history if we were able to transport ourselves back to view major events, perhaps carrying a concealed can1eorder? Could we help ourselves by visiting the future to see the outcome of current events?
From the moment H.G. \Velis' The Time Machine hit the market in 1895 as an instant success, time travel has had a niche in the literary world. Long confined to the realm of science fiction, time-travel novels have broken into other categories in a surge of popularity. Time-travel fiction has entered mainstream, literary, chick lit and romance. I Iowever the protagonists are transported, the results often have the common thread of overcoming the obstacles associated with living in a different time. This does not mean that time-travel novels are all the same; they can be serious, rife with allegory, commentaries on society, romances, humorous or a combination of these.
Time-travel romance novels exist that have nothing to do with science fiction. Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, which lies in both mainstream and romance, uses stones in a Druid henge in stead of fictional science to transp ort Claire Beauchamp Randall back to 18 th -century Scotland. She is initially unaware that tl1e strange experience she felt was because she had been taken two hundred years back in time. Even when she stumbles mto a battle, she tl1i.nks she's merely run into a modern re-enactment of a historical event. If romance novels give the reader an emotional journey to start with, adding the onus of overcoming vast technological and etlucal differences increases the tension.
Nove ls such as Audrey Niffeneggcr's The Time Trai-e!!er's Wife attract an audience not normally attracted to time travel. In this novel, Henry, whose surname is never given, begins traveling tl1rough time as a young child, often visiting himself or his wife, C lare His wife first meets him when she is six and he is in his tl1irties; he first meets her when he is twenty-eight and she is twenty. At tl1at point she already has known him for years, but he knows nothing about her. Editor Anika Streitfeld of l\[acAdam/ Cage Publishing believes tl1at, "much of what has captured readers' hearts is tl1at tl1e time travel serves as a kind of metaphor for tl1e difficulty, fragility, and power of relationships. It is a beautiful, heartbreaking love story." While Henry travels back and forth in time, it's never more than fifty years either way
About her upcoming time-travel chick-lit book, A Connecticut Fasbio11ista in King Arthur's Court, l\[arianne l\[ancusi has tlus to say: "I tlunk the classic fish out of water experience is a lot of fun. We're intrigued by the past and would all love to relive it-even for a day- to see what it's like. Witl1 time travel, you can journey to this world and experience it from tl1e comfort of your living room."
l\Iancusi believes tl1at the draw of time-travel novels is "the fun of seeing history unfold tl1rough tl1e eyes of someone who has a similar view of the world as you do. That's tl1e big difference than say, reading a straight lustorical where all the characters belong in tl1e time/place you're reading about. The best time-travels have you really relating to tl1e time-travelling character and feeling like you're travelling with her - really seeing tl1ings through his or her eyes." l\[ancusi found tl1is provided her witl1 a lot of opportunity for humor. Her protago1ust, Kat, stumbles through the medieval setting of tl1e Arthurian legend, using her own modem frame of reference to navigate. Kat "constantly uses pop-culture references to define her situation and get out alive."
l\[ancusi combined research into medieval times witl1 research of the Artlmrian legend, because "if ,-\rtlmr really did exist, he was most likely some 5th-ce ntury tribal chieftain, not a high king with a g lamorous castle and knight s in shining armor. When tl1e French storytellers first started retelling the tales, they used modem conventions of tl1c 11 th and 12 th centuries, in which they li ved. So I loosely set my fantasy kingdom in tl1e 12t1'-ce ntury - making my heroine go back a tl10usand rears - and tried to stay true to the conventions of that time period."
Unlike Gabaldon's Claire, who is inadvertently transported back in time tl1rough stones in a henge, l\[ancusi's heroine, Kat, is whisked back by tl1e magic of a woman in King Arthur's time.
One of tl1e intriguing aspects of time-travel novels is the different methods used to travel through time. l\[odes of transport include machines, portals, magic, and quantum physics, to name just a few. l\Iichael Crichton's Time!ine uses genuine quantum physics tl1eory as tl1e springboard for !us fictional quantum time travel. He extrapolates his fiction from the tl1eory that there are subatonuc wormholes all around us in sometlung known in scientific circles as quantum foam. To overcome the obstacle of tl1e tiny size of tl1e worm holes, his characters are compressed, broken down and reassembled in another time and place in a fashion somewhat akin to Star-Trekian beanung. Characters are transported to 15 th-cen tury France, ostensibly to gather data to aid in the restoration of some ruins and later to rescue someone who inadvertently becomes stuck there. Since reconstruction is never one hundred percent of the original, tl10se who travel through time can only do it a linuted number of times. Those who abuse tlus can end up witl1 serious physiological and/ or psychological problems. His research of tl1e period is impressive, and so his novel fits in botl1 tl1e science fiction and historical novel genres.
In the science fiction comedy of manners To Sqy Nothing of the Dog, Hugo Award winning autl1or Connie Willis has her protagonist, Ned Henry, "dropping" into the 1940s to find an elusive item required to complete a 21 "-cen tury reconstruction, and later into1888 to endeavor to rectify a time-continuum error caused by a woman inadvertently bringing a cat from 1888 to their present 2057 after cats arc extinct. The entire transport of the cat is one of the mysteries to be unravelled, since apparently notl1ing can be brought back to the present from the past aside from insignificant items such as the air in your lungs and the things you took with you, such as your clotl1ing.
Ned Henry was also sent to 1888 to get two weeks' rest because he had developed advanced time-lag from making way too many
time jumps in a week. His relentless employer broke multiple time-travel laws in her pursuit of accurate information for the restoration of Coventry Catl1edral in England. She would never allow him to rest ifhe stayed in his own place and time. Characters pop in and out of an elusive "net" tlrnt can be set to the place, day and minute tl1ey wish to arrive, but tl1ere can be slippage in time and location so tlrnt tl1ey land off target in space and/ or time. TI1is slippage increases if tl1ere are breaks in tl1e continuum.
Time travel isn't confined to the realm of conventional fiction. Physicists such as Stephen Hawking have tl1eorized about how time travel might be accomplished based on Einstein's tl1eory of relativity. Time travellers are referred to as chrononauts. Otl1er physicists, such as !\lark Paetkau of Keya.no College in Fort l\[acl\[urray, -\lberta, believe time-travel tl1eories to be no more than science fiction, despite the quirkiness of worm holes and quantum physics.
In botl1 The Time Trai e!fer's UYife and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Fit'e, time travel is uncontrollable and triggered by emotional stress. In tl1e fom1er, Henry has sometl1ing called chrono-displacement disorder which is caused by a genetic aberration. Henry is suddenly transported forward and back in time, always arriving naked and desperate for clothing. In tl1e latter, the protagonist finally learns tl1at he can stay in his own time if he concentrates on the positive instead of tl1e negative.
Isaac Asimov's The End of Eternity is mostly set in the future. In it is an exclusive organization called Eternity, consisting of a staff of people called Eternals even tl10ugh they are mortal. Eternals travel through time in a portal tlrnt links all time from a few centuries hence until tl1e sun becomes a supernova. Time and space are considered inseparable, which deftly avoids the problem of the earth and sun moving through space. The protagonist, Andrew Harlan, is one of a number of Eternals called Technicians. Technicians arrange for small events to occur to change the course of time to keep the human race from extremes in an effort to preserve it. The book examines tl1e consequences of tlus and eventually unfolds tl1e riddle of tens of tl10usands of centuries that the time altering staff is unable to access because the portals are locked.
In Gregory Benford's Timescape, people are unable to travel tluough time, but discover how to send messages back thirty-five years. Released in 1980, Timescape begins in 1998, when life as we know it is doomed due to mutations in microscopic marine life caused b)' fertilizers first developed in the 1960s. This results in enom10us deadly diatomic blooms. Physicists decide to beam tachyons, subatomic particles tlrnt can travel faster tl1an light, in patterns replicating !\Corse code back to 1963 in a desperate attempt to halt the development of these fertilizers. TI1is novel allows for the movement of tl1e solar in space as well as time, and so tl1e tachyons are beamed to tl1e point in space tl1e Earth was in 1963; tlrns tl1e need for a message medium that can travel faster tlrnn light, since radio waves would take a good sixty years to travel that far.
In The House 011 the Strand by Daphne Du l\[aurier, Dick is transported to tl1e 14th-century by an experimental hallucinogenic drug. The hallucinations prove to be of real people and events,
witl1in tl1e realm of tl1e novel, as archives gradually reveal that tl1e people in tl1e hallucinations actually lived in the area Dick is visiting. In addition, tl1e man who asks him to test tlus had tl1e same type of visions when he tested the drug on himself. As Dick becomes more engrossed in the people of the past, he loses interest in his fanuly.
TI1e earth becomes divided into multiple time periods as a time storm sweeps the globe in Gordon R. Dickson's Time Storm. "l\Lst walls" appear, some stationary, some moving. There are always two different times on each side of tl1e wall. :\s these mist walls sweep by, all but one to two percent of tl1e people on the planet die. The "statistical survivors" are left in chaos and anarchy. !\[arc Despard finally realizes tlrnt tl1ose who have survived one wave of time change become immune. Instead of running from tl1em, he begins searching for a mist wall where he can find people from tl1e future who might hold a key to eradicating this storm. In tl1e end, with tl1e help of an alien and a few otl1ers, he begins a psychic battle with tl1e philosophical universe via future technology, and so tl1is is more of a fantasy treatment than scientific or magic.
A drawback to time-travel novels is the difficulty caused by the possibility of a paradox. If the protagonist alters history it is possible tlrnt she or he might either have never been born or the technology to time travel might never have existed so tl1at an unending cycle is set up. Different novels approach the theories of time paradoxes caused by travelling back in time in various ways. Crichton eliminates this by making it impossible. In The Time Trai ·e!/er's Wife, Henry is unable to change the past however much he might want to. In To Sqy Nothing about the Dog, Willis's protagonist spends almost tl1e entire novel attempting to fix a problem in the time continuum, and, of course, in The End of Etemity changing the time continuum is all part of the daily routine of Eternals. Controls are in place to prevent paradoxes.
Anotl1er riveting element of time-travel novels is the inherent ethnic, cultural, linguistic and technological differences the travellers encounter. However tl1e protagonist is transported back through time, sinular challenges always exist. First, tl1ere is the obstacle of appearing to be from the time you land in to avoid arrest and even execution. Second, there is the difficulty of modem knowledge versus current. It is easy to be accused of being a witch or a sorcerer in much of history, and tlus very thing happens to Claire in Outlander. In The Time Trai e!fer's UYife, Henry resorts to living by his wits and breaking tl1e law to obtain clothing whenever he lands, and is arrested on more than one occasion. He meets his future wife when she is just six, and since she, in the future, has written a list of all !us pre-marital visits, he gives that to her and convinces her to Jude clothing for him each time he comes.
!\[arc Despard in Timescape drives down a highway tlrnt starts in one era and ends in a far distant time where tl1ere is a sea covering much of the l\[idwest. He and his two cohorts are captured by lizard-people from a time either far in the future or the past. They live on a large living raft and appear to have no form of commu,ucation. Despard fears that they are being kept as a future food source for the lizard-people, but is tlnvarted in his ability to escape. He and his companions finally make a narrow escape when a sea monster tilts tl1e raft intent on devouring the lizard-people. amtinuelon /X-'je37
Pioneering Efforts in Christian Historicals
S.,\R.,\H .JOHNSON profiles Betha,ry House.
Bethany House, the l\li,meapolis-based Christian publisher, takes a refreshing approach to historical fiction. Not only do their historical novels sell well, but the genre is a staple of their front list. As Solander readers know, this is unique in today's market. The back cover of their summer 2005 catalog boasts a colorful ad with the heading "Historical Fiction- What's New and Hot!" Both their focus on the genre and their efforts to attract new readers are worth noting.
Bethany House ha s been publishing books for over fifty years, and their initial venture into historical fiction grew out of author interest. "Since we didn't set out to be a big fiction publisher, the development of our line, at least at first, was somewhat a product of what authors brought us," said David Horton, Fiction Acquisitions Editor. "l\Iany writers were writing historical works, and since readers seemed to like that genre, we simply continued along those lines." In 2002, Bethany House was acquired by the Baker Publishing Group, yet its editorial and marketing departments remain separate from the parent company.
The emergence of Christian fiction
In 1979, Bethany House published Love Comes Sl!ft!),, Janette Oke's first historical romance. It was their first step into fiction publishing, and it clearly filled a niche. Response was so tremendous that Oke followed up with seven more in the series. She has since written dozens of novels for Bethany House, most of which incorporate his tori cal settings. Oke's pioneering influence on Christian historical fiction, and Christian fiction as a whole, has lifted her to near-legendary status.
Lm·e Comes Sl!ft!),, set on the Canadian prairie sometime in the mid19 "'-ce ntur y, tells the story of l\Iarty Claridge, a young woman from the big city forced to fend for herself after her husband's death. For
the sake of her w1bom child, and to have a home during the coming winter, l\Iarty agrees to marry a complete stranger: Clark Davis, a widower who needs a wife and whose young daughter l\Iissie needs a mother's guidance. Although l\Iissie adapts fairly quickly to the new arrangement, Clark is best described as the strong, silent type, and his relationship with l\Iarty is awkward at first. Over a period of months, l\Iarty and Clark grow steadily closer, sharing their lives, hopes, fears, and beliefs. Soon they realize that neither wants to live without the other.
Although no specific year is given in Oke's novels, and outside events rarely intrude, readers should have no doubt that they're reading historical fiction. Oke, the daughter of an .,\lberta farming couple, grew up during the Depression years. In her novels, she includes elements of her own loving home environment, as well as the homespun details of 19"'-century pioneer women's lives: sewing clothes, baking bread, killing chickens for the evening meal, and reliance on friends, neighbors , and their faith during tough times.
Love Comes Soft!J was made into a Hallmark television miniseries in 2003, and a sequel was produced in 2004. Oke's novels have sold over fourteen million copies in all. This, if nothing else, should demonstrate their lasting significance to readers - and not just Christian readers, either. The religious elements feel appropriate to the time period and setting, and Oke's novels appeal to people who simply wish to read a gentle, romantic, and heartwarming story.
The mainstreaming of Christian fiction
The publishing industry insists on segregating Christian (also called "inspirational") novels from other fiction genres in general chain bookstores. This belies tl1e fact tl1at in tl1e United States, Christian fiction is mainstream, and has been for at least the past decade. This may surprise many Solanderreaders, as tl1e inspirational fiction genre doesn't really exist outside of Nortl1 America As a Library Journal article posited in 1991: "l\Iany books [from Christian publishers] would be on mainstream best seller lists were they not sold almost exclusively through Christian bookstores." 1 \Vhile Christian publishers still derive a considerable amount of sales from specialty religious bookstores, tl1eir novels are also found in neighborhood retail outlets, such as Wal-l\Iart, tl1roughout the United States.
This same library Journal piece mentioned tl1at inspirational fiction was often ignored by traditional review sources because of tl1e trade paperback format. This is no longer true. Bethany House's historical novels are frequently reviewed in Library Journal (which instituted a Christian fiction column to meet the demand of library patrons), Booklist, and Publishers Week!),, not to mention the Histon'cal Novels Reiie1v.
Contrary to stereotype, most inspirational novels are not conversion stories.111e authors create characters who strive to follow the religious doctrine they tl1emselves follow, and tl1e y place tl1em in plots and settings that reflect the religious beliefs of the era. The protagonists learn how to survive adverse circumstances in which their faith is tested and strengthened. As demonstrated by Bethany House's diverse backlist, the historical settings for tl1ese novels can vary tremendously. They often reflect author interest and preference rather than what is currently seen as marketable.
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Although the authors typically write for their fellow C hri stiansmarket research revealed that the average Chri stian fiction reader is a 42-year-old woman 2 - reader s n ot fittin g this description may find these n ovels of intere st. C hri stian hi storicals offer family-oriented content set in a wide variety o fl ocales and eras. T11ey can also provide what some readers ma y consider a m o re accurate view of o ur religious past. By combining research with th eir own beliefs, the n ove li sts can take readers back to a histo rical time when religion played a major role in the average person's day-to- day life. Because of the religious focus, profanity, explicit violence, and sexual content are avoided.
Be y ond Janette Oke
Looking at Bethany H ouse's summer 2005 catalog, it's clear that historical ficti o n forms a strong part of their publishing program. From May thro u g h August, they will publish at least two new historical novels each m onth, and many longtime favorites will be reissued with new covers de signed to appeal to today's readers. One example include s Gilbert t\Iorris's House of \'('inslow series, an American saga following members of the same family from colonial times through World War IL Each cover not only features characters in period garb but als o announces the date when ea.ch takes place. The Gypsy Moon, thirty-fifth in the series, will be published for the first time this June. T11e Winslow novels h ave sold over twelve million copies in all; this is a. significant number for the historical fiction
genre, a field where "selling well" usually means that novels have sold in the tens of thousands. Bethany House has also repackaged Janette Oke's Canadian \Vest novels, a six-book series, complete with vibrant colors and vivid scenes of the early Canadian frontier.
What are some new and upcoming titles the company is enthusiastic abo ut? "C heck out Deeanne Gist's A Bride Most Begrudging, fortl1coming tlus July, for a truly funny historical se t in colonial Virginia in the 1640s," David Horton advised. The gorgeous cover of tl1is historical romance was clearly designed to catch readers ' attention. "-\ colonial woman wearing an elegant gown faces away from tl1e reader, fingers crossed behind her back as if she has a secret to hide. In addition, Horton adds, "We are also excited aboutJuditl1 Miller's fir st solo historical series witl1 us, beginning with First Da/1111 in July 2005." t\liller's novel takes the reader to tl1e author's home s tate of Kansas during the Civil \Var. Like most of Betl1any House's historical novels, t\liller's latest forms part of a series. It will follow a sharecropping family from the war-torn South through their settlement in tl1e small pioneer town of Nicodemus, Kansas.
Wo rkin g with authors and readers
t\liller had previously written two series jointly with Tracie Peterson, Bells of Lo,veff and Lights of Lo,veff, botl1 set in the mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts, during the early- to n1id-19 th-century. Tracie Peterson, a bestselling author whose most recent novels are set in 1880s t\Iontana, launched her own career by co-writing novels with anotl1er author, Juditl1 Pella. Likewise, many of Pella's historical n ove ls for Betl1any House were written jointly with well - known n ov elist Michael Phillips.
This marketing strategy, common in Christian fiction but not nearly as widely used in other genres, has worked well for Betl1any House "The pairings with more established authors gave tl1ese relative newcomers a built-in audience, and it gave them a built-in writing mentor, as well," David Horton said. "Increased visibility and sales potential were strong benefits for all concerned." The publisher finds m os t of its new authors via. agents, writers' conferences, and b y referrals from their current authors. Historical novels are defined by tl1e publisher as novels with pre-1950 settings.
One need only look at tl1e Christian t\Iarketplace Best-Seller List (o nline at http:/ /www.cbaonline.org) to see how well Betl1an y House 's Christian historicals a.re performing. Fiction bestsellers for April 2005 included Lauraine Snelling's Opal (women's lives on the western frontier, #9); Tommy Tenney's and Mark Andrew Olsen's Hadassah (a retelling of the Queen Estl1er story, #17); and Tracie Peterson's and Juditl1 t\liller's A Lo t·e Womz True (a bolitionists in 1840s Lowell, t\Iassachusetts, #18).
Bethany House activel y promotes its historical titles to readers Readers may sign up for a lustorical fiction e-newsletter on tl1eir web site (www. bethanyhouse.co m) , and tl1e site offers a hand y "search by series" feature that lets readers track what their favorite autl1ors have written. Brett Benson , Public Relations Director, mentioned ways in which they market historical romance titles: "\Ve work with numerous romance magazines and websites to promote our titles tl1at could be categorized as inspirational romance. And with the on line romance community growing in leaps and b o unds , we plan to have a very active role tl1ere."
Appeal and diversity
\Vhen asked why he felt historical settings were so popular with Bethany House's readers, and with inspirational fiction readers in general, David Horton replied: "I suppose the focus on historical settings was initially popular in Christian fiction for the same reasons it has long been popular in general market fiction. !\[any people love reading about other times, in particular 'the good old days' when, or so we like to imagine, life was simpler and/ or more exciting. Historical fiction often avoids the language and sensuality issues more prevalent in contemporary fiction because authors and readers - perhaps mistakenly - imagine that these issues did not exist in the same measure they do today. Historical (or "nostalgic") fiction is a great match for anyone desiring a 'gentle' read."
.Although some of Betl1any House's historical fiction falls into the "gentle read" category, which would include Janette Oke's prairie novels, readers should not assume tl1at today's Christian historicals avoid tackling serious issues or focusing on tumultuous times in history. Jack Cavanaugh's forthcoming novel Dear Enemy will center on tl1e complicated relationship between an American nurse and a wounded German soldier during World War II. !\[ulticultural fiction is also on the upswing, as demonstrated by Michael Phillips' Shenandoah Sisters series (2003-04), in which a North Carolina. planter's daughter and a former slave are forced to fend for tl1emselves during the Civil \Var, as well as Denise Williamson's The Dark Sun Rises (1999) and its sequel When Stars Begin to Fall (2001), critically acclaimed novels about slaves' experiences in antebellum South Carolina Ann Tatlock's a.ward-winning ALL the Wi:ry Home (2002), which Publishers Week!,y called "unusually fresh and inventive," centers on tl1e friendship between two American girls, one of German-Irish and tl1e other of Japanese ancestry, at the time when Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps.
Judging by Bethany House's backlist, it seems that there are few if any settings that a.re considered off-limits. (This isn't exclusive to Bethany House; it reflects Christian historical fiction as a whole.)
Though some settings, such as Biblical times, are perennial favorites, historical fiction fans have a wide selection of settings to choose from in their repertoire. For example, it is hard to imagine any general trade publisher deriving success from novels about
Norwegian immigrant women settlers in late 19tl'-century Nortl1 Dakota, yet "Lauraine Snelling is having great success witl1 her Dakotah Treasures series," said Horton. Otl1er settings and topics found in their backli.st, yet not commonly found in general trade fiction, include Harvey Girls in tl1e early 20 th -century West (Tracie Peterson's WestJ1Jard Chronicles and Desert Roses series), tl1e War of 1812 (T Davis Bunn's and Isabella Bunn's Heirs of Acadia series), and tl1e trials of a female lawyer in early twentieth-century Los Angeles (Tracie Peterson's and James Scott Bell's legal tl1rillers, The Shannon Saga).
Like all good publishers of historical fiction, Betl1any House expects its autl10rs to respect historical truth. As Horton replied: "\Ve expect our authors to strive for comp lete accuracy in regards to known historical facts. In terms of tl1e fictional storyline, we expect historical plausibility."
Looking toward the future
.Altl1ough historical fiction dominated tl1e market in past years, today's reader of inspirational fiction has many genres to c h oose from. These range from contemporary thrillers to women's fiction to conte111pora.ry romance. David Horton reported on Betl1an y House's experience: "Sales of our historical novels remain strong, but as a percentage of the who le market, historicals are not as dominant as tl1ey once were. This is due in l arge part to the diversification of Christian fiction into all sorts of other genres Historical fiction is not al l we do, although it sti ll p lays a major role. Many other genres seem to get most of the press these days, but based upon reader interest, historical fiction isn't going away anytime soon."
Surely good news for fans of inspirational historicals, and historical fiction fans in general
Notes
1 Lauer,Jonathan D. "Popu lar Fiction for the Faithful." library Journal1 Nov 1991: 65.
2 "Communication from CODES." Reference and User Senices Quarter!J,42.1 (2002): 95.
Sarah Johnson, American coordinating editor of the Histon'cal Noi·e!s Reiie111, is the author ofHiston'cal Fittion: A Gmde to the Genre (Libran·es Unlimited, 2005). She 1vouLd like to thank Brett Benson, Public Relations Manager at Betha,ry House, and Dcmd Horton, Fiction Acquisitions Editor,for answering questiom related to this article.
"Why do we have to learn this stuff?"
Historical Fiction in the Classroom
Jacquie Bird argues that historicalfiction can be a po111e1f11I tool in adolescent education.
I believe that everyone has a moment in their life when they finally "get" history. It's the realization that what happened 1,000 years ago has everything to do with who they are today. They understand that dates do have significance, and they even wonder about the role that their ancestors played in great events in world history. They finally realize that history is their story, and often the more they learn, the more they want to know. I also believe that once people have an experience with the past that they can identify with, they can never look at history the same way again.
l\[y task as an educator is to create the opportunity for this real life experience to take p lace in the lives of adolescents. !\[ore often than not, even in this age of the computer, my tools are still books. And I believe that well-written historical fiction has a crucial role to play in creating this opportunity for many young people in the classroom today.
TI1ere are two factors involved in my conviction to use historical fiction in the classroom. The first is the nature of the learners themselves. Every student has a natural learning style that adds to their uniqueness, and one of my roles as an educator is to meet the various learning needs that make up any given classroom. I am especially concerned about the needs of those students who are not necessarily oriented toward success in traditional schooling. The act of personality typing can seem cold and clinical; however, haying participated in numerous tests in my career, I am convinced of their value. The Jung Myers-Briggs typology test has been the most eyeopening for me.
Carl Jw1g classified people using three criteria:
1. Ex tro version or Introversion. This is the source from which people get their energy, whether it is from the external world of people, actions and objects, or the internal world of thoughts and ideas.
2. Sensing or Intuition. This is how people acquire information, either through immediate, solid facts and experiences, or through imagination and the interpretation of possibilities.
3. Thinking or Feeling. This is how decisions are made, by objectively analyzing and ordering facts, or by subjectively weighing the value and importance of the choice for oneself and others. I often call this: "head" versus "heart."
Isabel l\lj•ers-Briggs added a fourth categorr:
4. Judging or Perceiving. This is how people organize their life, in a planned orderly fashion, or in a flexible and spontaneous way.
These indicators reflect a continuum in which everyone has some of both; however people demonstrate a dominant preference for one
or the other in each category. Caroline l\lamchur, in A Teacher's Guide to Cognitii'e Tjpe Theory and Leaming S!Jle, has further taken the typology of Jung and Myers-Briggs and applied it to helping educators in understanding the diversity ofleamers in the classroom .All four of the criteria, resulting in sixteen distinct learning types, are useful in providing guidance for the educator when planning methods of instruction. However, it is the second indicator: 'sensing' versus 'intuition', which I feel provides the most insight into why historical fiction can play such an influential role in connecting learners with the past.
U nde rstanding the sensing learner
Senses and intuition are the two ways in which people gather information from the world. Studies indicate that eighty percent of the population are sensing learners. \Ve often know these people as the ones who throw out the instructions and try to figure things out by just pushing buttons. If you are "sensing" it means that you gather information best through your senses of course: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell. These people look for information that is practical and to the point. They must see a reason for what they are learning, and it helps if they can relate the new information to something that they already know. They learn best through observing and mimicking and then, of course, experiencing it for themselves. \Vhen they come across theory they often skip it, as theory often frustrates and makes them feel stupid If theory is to be presented, it is best done so in small pieces that they can connect to the immediate learning task. Classes like industrial education or home economics are practical and hands-on. Students that may be identified with ''learning disabilities" in more theoretical classes can often excel in these classes simply because of the more practical method of delivery. I empathize with the student who asks me, "Why do we have to learn this stuff?" Or the one who comments, "This is in the past and has nothing to do with me!" I recognize that these are the types of remarks that often come from sensing students who are capable oflearning the material, but who are frustrated by the method of delivery.
So what about those intuitive learners? TI1ey gather their information through the internal world of thought and imagination, and therefore tend to get more out of traditional methods of schooling. These are the types of people who might even be caught skimming through the instruction manual. They like to create patterns and invent hypotheses about theory presented to them. They add their own ideas to facts and are able to see the larger purpose for these detrul s. Because they can often see relationships, which do not come as naturally for sensing learners, they are more self-confident and inventive in the classroom setting. The remaining twenty percent of the population falls into this intuitive learning category, and typically most teachers are also intuitive learners. Consequently, wlless teachers are aware of this fundamental difference in how people acquire inforn1ation, they have a hard time identifyingwitl1 why their students would ratl1er eat a textbook than read it.
,\dvances in education have been made to reach this larger percentage of sensing leamers. 1l1e traditional method of delivery in Social Studies i.e. I Iistory class, has been to read the textbook, answer questions, or to write down notes dictated by the teacher -\s revolutions in delivery methods filter into the school system, one such tool has been the use of historical fiction. In addition to pictures, illustrations, maps and primary documents, textbooks are also including articles of historical fiction in order to bring the history more alive to the reader. The more dimensions that can be added to the traditional history book, the better it is for sensing leamers. Sensing learners need help to create images that they can relate to. 1\lthough intuitive learners can more naturally transfer words into images, they too can only benefit from more creative, sense-laden methods of instruction.
The role of historical fiction for the sensing learner
I l1storical fiction is one of the best tools that a teacher can use to help learners better"get" history. It pro,·ides insight and helps to create an experience that they can relate to. Children growing up in middle-class orth ;-\merica do not have a lot of experiences that allow them to relate to events that they often prejudge as hanng nothing to do with them. Historical fiction is like the missing link. It adds the undocumented emotion into history that more intuitive people can imagine without help. It provides universal themes like love and hate, family and friendship, fear and hope. Since the average North American student has had no experience with war, crumbling empires, foreign lands, or life without computers, they are unable to see the bigger picture, or to understand what history has to do with them . By providmg emotion, values, motivations and rationale into history, students can more easily identify with, and experience, something that seems to have nothing to do with their immediate adolescent world.
At the very least, even minimal exposure to historical fiction can trigger an experience with some aspect of history, and thus provide a building block for learning more in the future.
Of course, there will always be those students who just won't be successful in the classroom no matter how hard the teacher tnes. These are the ones who should run around the Tower of London, climb along the Great Wall or crawl around l\lachu Picchu. Then maybe the book will make sense to them, because they will have had enough experience to finally be able to relate. Unfortunately this is fiscally impossible, so many of these students slip through the cracks of academic success. Nevertheless, thanks to the imaginative power of historical fiction, many more sensing children are being included in the wonder of things gone by.
n1e second factor in my conviction about the revolutionary effect of historical fiction in the classroom is my own experience as a highly sensing learner. \'\'hat else would you expect from a sensor? l\ly schooling experience was devoid of any insight into history that I could relate to. There were certain dates that stuck in my mind: 1066, and I could have even told you what happened in a word or two, although I had no idea what a Norman was and why they would want to bother with those poor Anglo-Saxons. The significance of the events that encircled these dates meant nothing to me and my world as I knew it. I even resented my education and I was upset that
I could not remember more of what I had supposedly learned I was a 'good' student, but I always felt out of the loop, like I couldn't get the bigger picture of what was going on. I was good at memorizing "stuff" for the exam, and then promptjr forgetting it, not having properly absorbed it into my consciousness.
,-\ few years ago a friend of mine suggested that I read the first book by Jack Whyte in his A Dream of Eagles series It greatly influenced my life as a learner of history. There was suddenly a story to follow, a place to put the facts that I was learning. I soaked up tl1e historical bits as they related to the characters tl1at I had grown to love. I laughed at tl1eir joy. I cried at tl1eir sorrow. I marveled at the passing of one generation to another and at the circle of life and death. I suddenly understood their world and it opened up my world as well. The more history I knew, the more capable I was to reflect on my own ancestors and the role tlrnt they played. For tl1e first time in my life I felt smart about hi story. Not that I wasn't always intelli gent, of course, but I also understood my learning type and I was tl1rilled to have found a method of delivery tlrnt worked for me.
This is also why I'm convinced tlrnt even a little historical fiction for the sensing learner at a young age is a powerful thing. Since sensing learners take on tl1eory slowly and build on past experience, every time I read a new book I am able to build on my past knowledge and compare it to other books. I love the historical bits because they mean sometlung to tl1e characters that I can relate to. And what is hi story anyway? Is it not shaped by the autl1ors of non-fiction as much as it is by those who write historical fiction?
I am fully confident that soon I may even pull one of those dusty old history books off my bookshelf and read it without flinching. But why botl1er when reading historical fiction is so much more fun? And fun is sometl1ing tl1at botl1 adolescents and adults can relate to.
Jacquie Bird is a French and S odal Studies teacher i11 liiissio11, Bn"tish Columbia. She has just retumedfrom ayear of teaching and trai·el in the UK, 1vhere she chose to base herself in the so11thll'est of England, hating been inspired l?J Jack W1!J,tes noi·efs about King Arthur. She lom ex:pforing histon·cal sites all around the 1vorfd.
Creative Juices
From food poisoning to fiction SAR.:\H BO\VER talks to Peter Elbli11g, author of The Food Taster.
Peter E lbling ha s worked as an ad man, folk singer, stand-up comedian and actor. He h as produced and directed television, and co-wrote the comedy film, Ho11ry, I BLeJV Up the Kids. The success of the movie led him to a career in writing. His "discovery" of the manuscript memoir of Ugo di Fonte during a trip to Italy was the catalyst for his first novel, The Food Taster, published in February this year by ,\tlantic Books.
SB : Do you see J1Jriti11g a 1101"el as a co11tin11atio11 ofyo11r role in the entertainment business?
PE: Oh, yes. It's not the most obvious thing to do in Hollywood, but then again, I'm not the on l y novelist who live s there. Even if the works are serious, they're basically entertainment, so I think it falls under the same umbrella. Graham Greene used to have two types of novels, his serious novels and his entertainment side. If you don't entertain readers, .nobody's go in g to buy your book.
SB : What made yo11 dm'de to J1Jrite this story as a 11oi·eL, gfre11 yo11r e>..perience in sLTee111vn.ting, theatre 1vork and so 011?
PE: I had been acting, and writing for TV, film and stage, for quite a while and was at that point in my life where I wasn't getting either the work I wanted or a lot of satisfaction out of what I was doing, so I went to a writing class in LA, which I stil l attend, actual ly, and it was through that I became interested in writing a novel. \'<!hen I had the idea for The Food Taster, I decided that, rather than subject myself to all the restrictions that would be put o n me in writing a screenplay, which is in some ways a limiting form, what I wanted to try was a novel. I'd just come into that genre, as it were. Also, as I started researching the subject, it seemed a waste not to use everything I'd learned. In a screenplay, so much of that would be done ii1 the art direction, but this way I was able to enclose it all in the fictional world and that made it much more interesting and satisfying as a writer.
SB: Do;·011fi11d 11oi-el 1vriti11ggeneraf!y more satisfying to you as a 1vriter?
PE: To do something like this it must be. If I had an idea for a contemporary love story, then it might well end up as a screenplay, but with this, the joy of writing took over and that drove me to write the novel.
SB: I'm getting the feeling from yo11 that theres something i11herent!J problematic about translating a historical story to film. Do yo11 think thats the case?
PE: Not necessarily. I've just written a screenplay based on the novel, but given the difficulties of getting a movie produced, when you write a novel, the only expenses are your own. \'<!hen you're writing a screenplay, you're trying to get somebody to put up forty or fifty million dollars, and when you start adding all the extra expenses
ii1eurred in makii1g an historical movie, it makes it even more difficult. You then have to pare down the novel. I mean, I could probably write two or three screenplays based on the novel, or a five or sixhour mini-series. You've got to reduce all that down to only two hours, and that involves a lot of cutting and re-writing. i\lost historical films are adapted from novels rather than startii1gout as screenp lays.
SB: UJ'hat 1vas the root ofyour interest in the Renaissance?
PE: \'<!hen I came up with the idea for The Food Taster, I spent a lot of time decidii1g what period I cou ld set it ii1, and the first choice
that came to me was the Biblical era. Then I did some more research and disco\·ered that duru1g the whole of the fifteenth century, a little before and maybe later, poisoning was a very prevalent method of killing people. I think maybe that had to do with the rising interest in botany and science, so they conducted all sorts of experiments. .And the Renaissance is such an incredible period. :\lso, so much has been written about it, it was much easier to research than Biblical times.
SB: Where did the idea of making a food tasteryour pri11apal character come from?
PE: \'\'ell, there's a humorous story that goes along with that. I'd been to a restaurant to celebrate someone's birthday, and when I got home, I became very ill, obviously because of the food. It was an expensive restaurant, so next day I went b,ick and complai.ned.111e maitre d' was an obnoxious guy who said, "Well, what do you want me to do about it?" I'd thought maybe an apology was in order, but
his attitude made me think, well, how about a refund. He said, "We don't do refunds just because the food doesn't agree with you." I said that it wasn't a question of its not agreeing with me, I'd been poisoned, to which he replied, "Perhaps you need a food taster." I was just thinking, perhaps you need a fat lip, when I realised what a wonderful idea that was for a novel so I hurried straight home and wrote it down. Several years later, when I felt better equipped, I started writing. When I'd finished, I went to show it to that mrutre d' but, happily, the restaurant is no longer in existence.
SB: Do you find there's a particular challenge in describing taste in JIJOrds?
PE: No more than describing a room of that period or anything else. If anything, it was a bit easier simply because you can actually prepare and taste the food. I like food. I'm not a great connoisseur, but I certainly enjoy it.
SB: Hou; didyou research the culinary side?
PE: There's one very well-known book, by Platina, which has hundreds of, not just recipes, but details about food. I think it was written in the fifteenth century, in Italy. I got a lot of stuff from there. I read a lot of books about Italian food and cookery. In so many modem Italian cookbooks they'll tell you that this dish was devised in Bologna in 1543 to commemorate a visit by the Pope, and so forth.
SB: ) 011 i·e included sei·eral Renaissance retipes in the batk of the book. Didyou hai·e to modernise these at all?
PE: No. I had sent the book to Charles Perry, who was the LA Times food critic, when it was in its second or third draft, to get some feedback, and he sent me an article he had written all about Renaissance food. He had taken half a dozen recipes and updated them, and he gave me permission to use those.
SB: Let's moi·e from food to the charatters. The one 1vho real!J leaps off the page for me is Duke Federico. Do you find it easier to create iiflains than heroes?
PE: Oh, sure. The answer is to take all the people you hate and roll them into one. The Duke isn't really based on anybody, but there are certain characteristics of people I've met that I put into him, and he was just wonderful fun to write because he has so few redeeming qualities.
SB: So yo11 don't actual!J dislike him?
PE: I don't think you can help liking him. There's nothing he does in the book that's any worse than a lot of real lords of that period: the i\.1alatesta of Rimini, the Baglioni of Perugia, they were terrible people. They were the forerunners of the l\lafia godfathers of today. The lineage is so obvious, it's amazing.
SB: I 1vas interested i11 hoJIJ the Duke's relatio11ship J1Jith Ugo becomes imreasing!J !Jmbiotic. Thry hai·e a lot in common.
PE: One of the themes of the book is power, the use and abuse of power. As Ugo moves up in the food chain, as it were, he
subconsciously begins to understand that more. He learns from Federico about the use of power in very subtle ways, so I tlunk that's something which binds tl1em togetl1er.
SB: What do yo11 think are the partimlar dJa!lenges of dealing with the Renaissance? It's a pen·od of s11ch e,Ytreme contrasts, betJ1Jeen mediaei ·al superstition and barbarity, and the daJ1J11i11g of h11ma11ism, the fa11tastic art a11d so forth.
PE: That's tl1e delight of the Renaissance, I tl1ink tlrnt's what makes it such an exciting period to write about. If anything, you
THE FOOD TASTER
THE lNTERNATlONAL BEST ELLER PETER ELBLING
'fr'-uo"" _1t If I ' \.
have to be careful not to overdo it. You may remember that marvellous line in The Third Man, where Harry Lime says, "In Italy for tl1irty years under tl1e Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but tl1ey produced l\lichelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotl1erly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock." You can overstate it, but there's so much meat there you can hardly fail.
SB: B11t do you thi11k there are challenges in making it sympathetic to a modem audience?
PE: To be quite honest, when I was writing, I didn't concern myself about h ow accessible it would be to a m ode rn audience. It was my first novel, and just the difficulties of writing it and h opi n g I'd succeed in what I was trying to do was sufficient for me to chew on without having to worry about whether people would enjoy it or find it accessible. I think if you can create the world sufficiently well, tl1en readers can place tl1em se lves in it and understand where you're coming from, for want of a better phrase.
SB: Didyou co,mious!J try to dra1v modern parallels, for e,....-amp!e that the dukes class are the ancestors ef the Mqfia godfathers?
PE: o, I didn't. I read a lot of very esoteric books about the Renaissance, including one called Women ef the Streets, about women and how tl1ey survived in tl1e si..,teent\1 century. The challenge was to put down on paper so people would understand that a woman didn't have a choice to become a lawyer or a doctor, she was eitl1er a whore or someone's wife or a nun, or a spinner or weaver, tlrnt was pretty much it. Once readers understand that, they become, if not sympathetic, at least empathetic. That, I think, is tl1e best you can hope for.
SB: You also start 1vith a readership 1vho are disposed to immersing themseLns in another pen·od.
PE: Yes. From what I understand, the hi storical novel is one of tl1e most popular genres in Engl and, and that I find very gratifying. One of the pleasures of reading, more tlrnn any other art form, is tl1at you can lose yourself for days inside a novel.
SB: Didyou travel to lta!J 1vhzle you //Jere 1vriti11g the book?
PE: I went tl1ere right at the beginning of tl1e novel - and I had no idea what I was doing there! I knew I wanted to do some research, but I really didn't know what I was looking for. I went a second time when I was just finishing tl1e first draft. But I did most of my research in tl1e bowels of the UCL-\ Library. 1l1ere's such a wealt\1 of material tl1ere, and I'm not fluent in Italian so going to some of tl1e libraries in Italy wouldn't have helped. What I mainly got from Ital y was being able to describe a Tuscan landscape, to find out what flowers grow tl1ere in which season, what trees there are, what the cas ties look like.
SB: ls Federicos duel?] mode/fed 011 airy particular place?
PE: It's sort of based on Bibbio, which is a wonderful little town in Umbria. I think the Weeping Steps are just pure invention, but tl1ere are some wonderful old steps in tl1e middle of Perugia. So I just took bits and pieces from different places.
SB: At 1i'hat point do yo11 Leaz·e research behind and Let imagi11atio11 take oz er?
PE: It's not a question of telling the imagination to take over, it just takes over. To me, one of tl1e delights of d oing this is finding some strange little kernel and tlunking, oh, th at's fascinating, and a sce n e ju s t evolves o ut of it. For example, when I di scovered there was a period just before Lent when ma sters exchanged places wit\1 their servants, I thought, here I can have Ugo change places wit\1 the duke and tlrnt's a perfect scene for a poisoning. That entire scene came from one little piece of information. Whenever sometlung like that came up I ju st went wit\1 it. I could have written a whole otl1er novel which I threw away just to get d ow n to what I have h ere. I'm sure every novelist does tlrnt, I'd hate to think I was the only one.
SB: }ou'z ·e set this noz·ef up 1ve!ffor a sequel. Do you i11tend to wn"te one?
PE: Oh, I'm in th e middle o f it. I would hate to put a date o n it, but I'm working as fast as I can. Ugo gets into a whole lot of new adventures I'd ratl1er not talk about.
SB: And 1vhat about the screenpiqy ef The Food Taster?
PE: 1l1ere are a lot of people waiting to see it so we'll see what happens. It's always a difficult process. There are so man y tl1in gs tl1 e writing has nothing to d o wit\1, like actors who don 't like to wear tights. And n ot least, money. This couldn't be a cheap movie. It would be wonderful to go to Italy to shoot it. There are a couple of people I have in mind for Federico, o ne beingjames Gandolfini. \Vhen I was at tl1e Palio in Siena, I took pictures of pe op le to have wit\1 me while I was writing. The various families parade tl1rough the streets in tl1eir Renaissance gear, and there was one gentleman, dressed up like a knight, who looked just like Jame s Gandofini's COUSl11.
SB : Thanks so much. Its been a pleasure talking to you, and I did so enj(!J the book. Its tremendous jun.
HNS Members
This is your magazine. \Vhy not let us know what yo u tlunk of Sola.nder? If you've not yet filled out our sur vey, please visit http:/ /www.historicalnovelsociety.org/solander-survey.htm.
Reflections on the Salt Lake City Conference
T Al\L\RA l\L\ZZEI and GEORGINE OLSO report 011 the first North American HNS ,wiference.
TAM A RA MA ZZEI
"Saving civilization is a big job. We've all got to work at it." -:Judith l\[erkle Riley
When I originally offered to report on the first North American conference of the HNS, I wasn't aware that so many authors were planning to sign up for an editor appointment, leaving me with only enough time to attend one session. So, in lieu of describing all the wonderful panels (and I know there were many - everyone I spoke with was just delighted with them), I can only add my general impressions.
First and foremost, from my point of view, it was a smashing success. Saral1 Johnson, Ann Chamberlin, Claire !\[orris, and everyone else involved did an excellent job on what was, by far, the most interesting conference I have ever attended - and the most fun. How can you top getting to meet long-time e-mail friends like Teresa Eckford in person, knowing that you can chat about the best primary sources for researching King Stephen as easily as you can chat about your pets or your families?
And apart from the joy I felt in meeting like-minded souls who don't greet the words ''historical novels" with a quizzical stare, I was also excited by what I perceive as indications of a positive trend. From the moment I decided to concentrate my publishing efforts on historical fiction, I hoped to find a path to success publishing in a niche that often receives pejorative labels and negative attention from the mainstream. In fact, I've often felt as ifl were searching for an elusive, un-nameable stream, with no certainty it was there.
Like anyone who reads the HistoricaLNoi·els Reiieivand SoLander, I am aware of the variety of historical fiction that is being published all the time. But what the conference brought home to me is the incredible range of material this "genre" can include -and where it is going. And yes, I believe it is going somewhere - somewhere very good. I feel this way for a number of reasons, but the diversity of material I saw at the HNS conference is reflective of what, to my mind, is the most important reason: historical fiction is finally beginning to coalesce into a distinctive entity- I hesitate to use the word "genre" simply because it often implies a strict definition of type, and historical fiction will never be defined so narrowly in any way other than by the boundaries of time.
The conference provided an excellent opportunity to see this coalescence in action. I spoke with so many authors known for writing "romances" or "mysteries," who have written something historical - some falling into the strict confines of an existing genre, and some not; but all with an overriding passion and knowledge about the stories they want to bring to the world. Knowledge and passion are important, of course, yet even more so for those of us who love it, is the growing awareness that the words "historical fiction" do not
Kathleen Cunningham Gule r, Rosalind Miles, Rhys Bowen and Mary Peace Finley conduct book signings.
denote "bodice rippers" or arguably worse, the Cliffs Notes version of the "real" history that some of us avoided in school. These stories and the ways that we tell them are an essential part of our culture. They are not history "light;" they are literature, a point made very nicely by Jack \v'hyte in his Friday night speech.
For me, a high point of the conference was in the single session I did manage to attend, which focused on bridging the gap between modem readers and the primary sources man y authors need to use for research. It was led by Judith l\!erkle Riley, one of my all-time favorite authors, who brought photocopied examples from The Book of Margery Kempe, Chaucer, Nostradamus, and The Paston Letters. She described some of the ways that authors can absorb and synthesize their sources so that they don't lose their original disposition, but can still be appreciated by modern readers. This is heady stuff for anyone who has struggled to shed the image that historical fiction requires less intellectual rigor than other types of fiction (add a knight in shining armor, a ripping bodice or two, a bit of flowery dialogue, and boom: you have a novel).
Judith l\!erkle Rile y was joking when she said the words that appear at the beginning of this article, and yet, they have stayed with me because they were an echo of many similar sentiments I heard expressed during the conference. I went away with the feeling that all of us, whether we are the tellers of the stories, or the audience who gratefully receives them, have begun to realize the value of these tales and how important it is that we not allow them to fall by the wayside simply because the mainstream has run a different course for a while.
Listening to Jack Whyte speak of his own passion for stories, to Rachel Kal1an describe her work with the Jean Plaidy estate to re-
issue those much-loved books, to the authors with whom I had appointments telling me of novels set in Dutch Colonial Jakarta, ancient Rome, prehistoric Britain, early modem France, and cow1tless others, I began to feel as if my divining rod is very near to finding water -not a stream, but a river!
Tamara Ma«ei is the ma11agi11g direttor of T riiium Publishing, LLC. S be has been a professional 1iriter a11d editor for eighteen years. In addition to her business and publishing interests, she has afwtrys had a strong interest i11 history. This has led her to 1vork 1vith professio11al histon·a11s 011 methods of e-.;plaining the !vf.iddle Ages to a11tbors to improi-e the /ere/ of acmrary a11d ,vlor for readers of biston"caf Jittion a11d historical Janta!J.
GEORG IN E OLSON
For the life of me, I can't remember what made me decide to attend tl1e Historical ovel Society Conference in Salt Lake City tl1is spring, but I'm so glad I did! I'm not even sure I thought I'd be getting more than food for my reader's soul, but I sure did. Those who decided not to attend what they fe lt would be purely a writer's conference really missed out on an informative and energizing experience.
The conference was well organized from tl1e get-go and the organizing team was a plea.sure to work with. Even an a.ftemoon of he lping file registration materials was a pleasant interlude (made even more so later when, along with other conference volunteers, I received a lovely book for my "hard work''). From my point of view, as a librarian working with the reading public and as a reader, there was not one time slot where I felt I could "skip" a session. I was right; every session was interesting, and every session had a bit of information or piece of knowledge that will be put to good use as I read, and as I work for and witl1 others who read historical fiction.
For me,Jack \v'hyte's keynote really set tl1e tone of the conference when he spoke of novelists as storytellers, who, like bards and troubadours of old, could open readers' eyes to the world. I particularly enjoyed his "eleventl1 commandment:" Thou shaft not commit boredom upon your reader Now, if we only knew, as librarians and readers' advisors (or as writers), just the right tum of phrase or storytelling style that would prevent tlrnt infliction of boredom, our lives wou ld be so much simpler.
It gave me a bit of guilty enjoyment (or was it more a wry twinge of shared pa.in?) as panelists in two sessions discussed and wrestled with the concept of "literary" vs. "genre." The speakers and comments from the audience indicated that authors, publishers, and readers' advisory libra.ria.ns face si.milar problems in getting beyond the perception that writers and readers of popular or genre fiction are somewhat "less" compared to readers and writers of what contemporary reviewers term '1iterary fiction." I didn't say anything at tl1e time, but I personally like to remind myself that Charles Dickens, tl1e Brontes, Ai D William Shakespeare (to name a few) were, in tl1eir time, writers for the masses - not tl1e icons of literature they have since become. Since I'm primarily a genre reader, I find great comfort in this analogy.
I thoroughly enjoyed the presentations and discussions about historical research: where to go; what to look for; how much is enough; is there such a tl1ing as too much? That's a problem librarians face, too, as we work with our patrons doing research. \v'hen someone asks for information about English sumptua.ry laws, it makes a difference whetl1er it is for a two-page history report (probably due tomorrow), information for planning an upcoming SC\ activity, or a major plot thread in a novel. In my business, it's just as bad to overwhelm tl1e harried student witl1 too much information that cannot be readily distilled into what's needed as it is not to be able to head tl1e serious researcher in tl1e right direction. Your local public library isn't likely to ha, e the primary sources so near and dear to tl1e hearts of tl1e autl10rs who spoke in Salt Lake City (unless it's local information), but we sure should be able to help tl1e novice find tl1e solid secondary resources that will get research headed in the right direction. From what I heard, it would seem that there's no such tiling as too much information for an autl1or digging into history, so
I will no longer worry about making too many suggestions a.bout where information might be found or having too long a list of titles tlrnt we could borrow from otl1er libraries.
Even as I devoted my time to attending tl1e sessions and workshops I felt would be of most interest and use to readers, there was no way to not become more aware of a major concern of the a.utl1ors: marketing and sales. It was obvious that tl1e authors were paying serious attention to what the editors and publishers in attendance said -even when it was a short comment during a program. I really don't know whetl1er tl1e editor/ publisher aspect of the conference met the expectations of tl1e a.utl10rs, but as I noted tl1e postcards, bookmarks, and flyers on the handout table and in tl1e hands of a.utl10rs as tl1ey chatted during breaks and at meal functions, I iliought back to Fairbanks and a local autl1onvhose first novel (science fiction) is coming out toward tl1e end of tl1e year. Once tl1e euphoria of having sold his novel passed, and tl1e nitty gritty of publishing began to settle in, he realized tl1at HE was going to have to do some selfpromotion if he wanted to earn more than his advance from tl1e ron{inuelon ft!Je J6
ffichard Scott rubs elbows with Jack Whyte, Guest of I Ion our.
The Editor's Last Word
Lately I joke to friends that my life consists of three pillars: work, Wally, and the Historical Novel Society. l\[y communications job at the University of British Columbia does keep me occupied, and my Irish wolfhow1d mix needs feeding, walking and all the rest. But even though I've been involved in the H S for seven years, it was only when I joined the organizing committee for the recent Salt Lake City conference that the Society began to feature prominently in my schedule. Then in January I became co-ordinating editor for Selander. l'lfost people accept my preoccupation with historical-novel-related activities -like many HNS members, I need a special room to house my shelves of historical novels, I'm a sometime writer, I review books, delight in obscure facts and language tl1at transports me to anotl1er time. But every so often, someone will question why I devote precious "free" time to what I like to call, "furtl1ering tl1e cause of tl1e historical novel."
I'm not sure if tl1ere is one answer to that. Perhaps it's because I live in Canada, where tl1e term "historical fiction" is seldom considered worthy of discussion, even iliough, as George Bowering pointed out recently on a panel dedicated to the topic, more tl1an half of tl1e attention-getting novels published in Canada in the past five years are historical. Perhaps it's because I've heard too many times tl1at publishers aren't interested in historical fiction and I'm afraid tl1e novels I crave will disappear from libraries and bookstores. Or perhaps it's because of tl1e friendships and connections I've made, and am confident I will continue to make, through a shared love for historical novels.
This shared love was evident at tl1e recent HNS conference in Salt Lake City. Georgine Olson and Tamara I\lazzei provide more details in tlus issue on the very successful conference - first ever for tl1e HNS outside of tl1e UK- but I'll mention one observation of mr own: the enthusiasm that pulsed tl1rough tl1e hotel from at least tl1e evening before tl1e conference to tl1e closing sessions and into tl1e shuttles en route to the airport. 1l1ere was a genuine camaraderie between attendees, presenters, special guests and volunteers, and it was mtlike anytlung I've ever witnessed at professional conferences and literary events tlrnt I've frequented elsewhere.
No wonder I sometimes feel like a missionary. (You too can join!)
One of the most positive outcomes of the conference was ilie sense tlrnt historical fiction is BIG. This view was expressed publicly by literary agent, Irene Goodman, and I heard it echoed in private conversations. As ilie conference progressed, tl1ese conversations became louder and more bold and as I write iliey've become discussions on ilie need to hold anotl1er Nortl1.American conference very soon. 1l1e entlmsiasm, it would seem, has not stayed in Salt Lake City. l\[y conclusion? These are exciting times to belong to tl1e Historical Novel Society. Spread tl1e word!
CLAIRE MORRIS
My thanks to Richard Lee, Kate Allan, Cincfy Vallar, and Lucinda Byatt for 111orking J1Jith me 011 S o!ander.
amlinuel(rom (X'Je 35 publisher. We have spent some time lately (over coffee and away from work) talking about how he can market his book to libraries - and, maybe, just maybe, push it into a second or a larger print run. It has been an eye-opening experience for me. In fact, I'm beginning to iliink iliat a useful program at ilie next conference nught be one where autl10rs could leam ways to work successfully witl1 libraries to market tl1eir books.
I was sad to leave Salt Lake City. It was not just leaving behind green grass and spring flowers in full bloom to come home to several inches of new snow; it was knowing tl1at it will be two years before there's anoilier such energetic and energizing gatl1ering of ilie Historical ovel Society on iliis side of The Pond. Ah, well, it just might take me iliat long to work my way ilirough ilie contents of iliat extra piece of luggage I brought witl1 such foresight- tl1e one iliat can1e home packed wiili a dozen or so new books to read and lots and lots of scribbled notes, business cards, bookmarks, flyers et al tlrnt will lead me and ilie readers I serve to many an hour happily experiencing otl1er times and oilier places.
Sunday's panel discussion on Writing Action Scenes.
Georgine Olson has been reading historical fiction for wer ha!f a ce11t11ry and, as a librarian, recommending it to readers for more than 35 years In her professional life, she is the Outreach Senices Ma11agerfor the Fairbanks North Star Borough P11blic Library and Regio11al Center i11 Fairbanks, Alaska, and is chair ef the Alaska Library Association Adult Readers Ro1111dtable. She moonlights as a J1Jriter ef Read-Alikes and ll?"hat We're Readi11g col11m11 s for Noi ·eList, a fi ctio11 database that proiides s11bject amss, reiie111s, annotations, topical articles, a11d more for oi er 120,000 fiction titles
Debra Tash, Juliet Waldron, Patricia Wynn, Jack Whrte, and Irene Bennett Brown at
con{inuerf(rom (M'je 25
They make it to land, and travel until they can move into a different era. In Timeline, one of the time travellers becomes Edwardus de Johnes, a man who is mentioned in The Hundred Years LP'arin France by l\LD. Backes. Legend has it that this man could , anish in a fla sh of light, and this is how Crichton's time travellers appear to exit the times they visit. l\[ost of the would-be rescuer s are unable to speak the archaic forms oflanguage spoken then, so they are equipped with translators in their ears. Dick, in The House on the Strand, is simply somehow ab le to under stan d those around him for reasons unknown to him.
The fa scination of time travel cannot be summed up in a single sentence, because there are different elements that can draw people to read these books. There is the lure of seeing history through the eyes of a visitor of yo ur own time, the fascination of fictitious futures, the intrigue of what could happen if history were altered even sli ghtl y, and tl1e emotional roller coaster of romance between a present-da y person and one of tl1e past, to name a few And of course, the all-pervading question: what would it be like if we could travel tl1rough time?
Bibliograph y
,-\simov, Isaac, The End ef Etemi0J, Doubleday, c1955, 191 pp. Benford, Gregory, Timescape , Simon & Schuster, 1980, 412pp Crichton, Michael, Timeline, Alfred ,-\.. l( nopf, 1999 , 449 pp Dickson, Gordon R., Time Storm, Ba.en Books, 1992, cl 997,420 PP·
DuMaurier, Daphne, The House on the Strand, Doubleday, 1969, 308pp
l\ [ancusi, l\ [arianne, A Co11nectimt Fashionista in King Arthur's Court, Love Spe ll , May 2005
N iffen egger, ,-\udrey, The Time Trai ·effer's Wife, MacAdam/Cage Pub., c2003, 518pp
Vonnegut, Kurt, Slaughterhouse Five, Dela.carte Press, 1969, 186 pp Well, H.G., The Time Ma chine, 1895. Various reprints, including Dover Publications, c. 1995 and Tom Doherty Associates, 1992. Willis, Co nnie , To Say Nothing ef the Dog, or Ho111 LP'e Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last, Bantam, 1995, 493 pp.
Kan·n I<;ydland is a 1vn"ter liiz"11g in Ne,v England. She is cumnt!J 111orki11g 011 a literary histoncal novel
Short Histories: the Historical Short Fiction Prize 2005
En tries are invited for original short stories on a historical tl1eme Each one will be read and assessed b y tl1e panel of judges and tl1e top ten s tories will appear in tl1e Short Histon·es Anthology, to be published by Fish Publishing in 2006.
Closing date: ,-\ugust 31, 2005
First Prize: £2000
Runner s-up (nine ) : £250
JUD G ES :
B arb ara Erski n e is the autl10r of tl1e worldwide bestseller Lacjy ef Hay and seven other novels. She has published tl1ree collections of short storie s, each of which has sold over 100,000 copies: En counters, Distant Voices and Sands ef Tim e. Her latest novel Daughters efFire, will be published in August 2006.
Miche l Faber's first published work was a collection of short stories: Some Rain Must Faff and Other Ston·es. He has won numerous prizes, and was the editor for Shorts: the Macallan/ 'Scotland on Sunday' Short Story Collection. He is tl1e autl10r of internati onall y acclaimed The Cnmso11 Petal and the White and tl1ree otl1er novels.
Rose Doyle is tl1e autl10r of eighteen novels. Her books celebrate Ireland and particularly Dublin, past and present. She has been de scribe d as a romantic novelist, but is also compared to Patricia Co rnwell. Her !ates this torical novel is Gambling With Darkness, which tl1e Irish Times de scri bed as "popular fiction wilh acumen and a cheeky sense of justice."
CONTEST RULES:
See http :/ /www. fi shpublishing.com / short_story_hsfp.htm
5 th Annual UK HNS Conference
New Cavendish Club, London
22nd October 2005
£59 (or£ 49 if registering before 31st August). Registration closes 31st September. Speakers include Tom Harper, Julian Stockwin, Edwin Thomas and Martin Stephen.
