Associat e Edi to,; Fi c tion: Richard Lee, Marine Cottage, The Strand, Starcross, Devon , EX6 8NY, UK (richard@historicalnovelsociety.org)
THE HI STO RICAL NOVELS REVIEW
CO-ORDINATING EDITOR (UK)
Sarah Bower, Tanglewood , Old Forge Close, Long Green , Wortham , D i ss, Norfolk IP22 I PU, UK (sarahbower@clara.co uk)
CO-ORDINATING EDITOR (USA)
Sarah Johnson , 6868 Knollcrest, Charleston, IL, 61920 , USA. (cfsln@eiu.edu): Random House (all imprints), Penguin Putnam, Five Star, Cumberland House, Bethany House , MacAdam/Cage, university presses, and any North American presses not mentioned below REVIEWS ED I TORS (UK)
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THE HISTOR I CAL NOVEL SOCIETY O N T H E INTE RNET
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CONFERENCES
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The Historical Novel Society wasfonned in 1997 to help prolllote histori cal.fiction. All staff and contriblltors are volunteers and work unpaid. We are an open so c iet y - if yo u want to get involv ed, just get in touch.
Cover Story
Breathing Life into Shadowy Women from the Past
ELIZA BETH SHOWN MILLS demonstrates how to extract truth from historical records
Features
\Vhat Might Have Been
TOBY FROST provides an overview of .-\ltemate Histoty
Industry
In Search of the Historical Novel 21
NEIL HARGRAVES develops a course on the historical novel
Judging a Book in Translation
LUCINDA BYATT presents the case of Ismail Kadare
Women Novels: a Historical
CLAIRE MORRIS explores the popularity of A Century's Dark Decade
DEAN MILLER examines the hi storical novels of Alan Furst
A Question of Accuracy
MALCOLM ARCHIBALD offers his opinion of historical fiction
In Every Issue
Readers' Comments
Red Pencil
CINDY VALLAR analyzes the work behind James 1 elson's Th e Onjy Life That Mattered
Kate Allan Asks
\Vhat is Historical Fiction?
KATE ALLAN on Jean Plaidy and whether historical fiction is understood
Practicing History
CANDACE ROBB talks shop with fellow historical novelists
\Vhy Anne Boleyn is the Poster Girl of Historical Fiction
IRENE GOODMAN discusses elements of commercially successfu l historical fiction
Fiction
CLAIRE THOMAS: The So lid Five of It
novels based on women from the Bible
\Vrite \Vay to Inspiration
GLENN AUSTIN reports on the historical fiction content at the UK's premier writers' conference
Something New
SARAH JOHNSON discusses the historical fiction of J\ [edallion Press with Vice President Leslie Burbank
LUCINDA BYATT talks to fargaret Elphinstone
CUTHBERTSON interviews J\[alcolm Archibald
Sieur Augustin Metoyer (1768-1856). Born in slavery, this eldest son of Marie Therese Coincoin by the French merchant Pierre Metoyer, was the patriarch of Cane River's Creole community.
In Search of the Historical Novel
NEIL HARGRAVES dmlops a course 011 the histon·ca! 11ore!.
The hi storical novel is a curious beast. Its lineaments as a form are unclear, its potential scope as vast as human history itself, and its narrative devices, underlring motives, and indeed readership enormously diverse. This poses obvious problems for anyone who seeks to teach the historical novel qua historical novel. 111e nature of any useful education is to generalise; nonetheless, it is necessary to avoid the (sometimes valid) charge that "to generalise is to be an idiot." In discussing the historical novel at large, so many caveats and qualifications spring up that any meaningful insights seem to be immediately subject to challenge.
,-\ few years ago I set myself the task of devising a course on the historical novel for the Open Studies Programme of the University of Edinburgh. _-\t the time I had just completed a Ph.D. on the historical thought of the Scottish Enlightenment, and had become interested in the phenomenon of the historical novel as a by-product of my studies. ,-\t first I sought a course that I could take, or at lea st observe, on the historical novel as a literary form and its connections with historical scholarship. But as I searched for this elusive creature, I realised that neither in History nor Literature departments was the historical novel taken seriously for itself and as a discrete form. That is not to sar that individual historical novels were not studied; indeed, one development of recent years connected with multidisciplinarity is the extent to which novels, plays, and films dealing with historical subjects have become integrated into history curricula as teaching tools or supplementary materials, albeit sometimes handled in a rather uncertain fashion. Yet the shying away from a systematic study of the historical novel is revealing and frustrating. In the manner of manr frustrated students, I decided the best way to learn about the historical novel was to teach it myself.
Since all novels concern time, recollection, and the past (to a greater or le sser extent and in vastly different ways), one of tl1e most difficult questions concems definition: exactly what can or should be included as a determinedly historical novel? As an historian by training, I decided to take an historical approach. A starting point could be tl1e extent to which the words "history" and "novel" had been intertwined as far back as tl1e 18 "'-century birtl1 of the English novel. Indeed, novels and histories have traditionally enjoyed a tense relationship. As several scholars from Leo Braudy to Everett Zimmerman have reminded us, novels were "histories": for instance, The History of Tom Jones or, more bathetically and absurdly, The History of Pompry the Great (recounting tl1e adventures of an 18"'century lapd og).' As tl1e latter title indicates, tl1e purpose of tl1e designation "history" in tl1ese early novels was often to undercut or satirise the high seriousness of formal historical narratives, and to question tl1eir superior claims to trutl1. At tl1e same time, tl1e novelist sought to appropriate some of tl1e elements of history in order to distinguish tl1is new breed of story from mere "romances": tl1e " reality effect," tl1e claim to be recovering and reflecting real events, and sometimes tl1e technique of basing tl1e story on documentary evidence (for instance, the epistolary novel form of Samue l Richardson). In time, from being a shabb y poor relation, tl1e novel became cocky enough to assert tlrnt its mechanisms for uncovering tl1e trutl1 of what really happened were frankly superior: that tl1e novel, through its rhetorical freedom of i11m1tio could (when constrained by probability and a sound knowledge of human nature)
grant the reader insights into the internal processes of tl1e individual's mind and heart tl1at tl1e historian - forced to concentrate on external events and tl1e Yerifiable - could not. In some ways, tl1is was a repetition of _-\ristotle's assertion of tl1e superiority of poetry over history, but in a radical modern setting.
Thus, novels have a history, and a history of entanglements witl1 History. The historical no\·el sharpens tl1is dialogue between tl1e overtly fictional and tl1e "objectively" real. This has been given a philosophical urgency by tl1e interventions of Louis [ink and Hayden \'vhite in recent decades, asserting tlrnt fundamentally all History is, as a textual artifact, entirely fictional; what distinguishes it from fiction is tl1e historian's arrogant claim that "he" can distinguish a reality out tl1ere in the past and recover it for us , tl1e readers of History. In actual fact, tl1ey claim, tl1ere is no "History" out tl1ere until the historian creates it, using rhetorical and poetic effects and devices. 2 _-\ccording to tl1is view, History is, therefore, a fiction; historical novels are simply more honest witl1 tl1e reader about tl1eir fictionality, and tl1erefore (possibly) better history.
There are complex philosophical issues embedded in what can often be a tiresome and hackneyed debate between historians and literary critics, which I felt my course could only lightly brush. Nonetl1eless, it is important to state tl1e case for historical novels as offering potentially unique insights into tl1e nature of tl1e historical process, since historians are constrained by rules of evidence and form.111e novelist has freedom to experiment, to make mock, to play witl1 tl1e materials, and to infuse tl1em with a personal voice. The historian has to respect tl1is ability (ratl1er tl1ai1 decry it), and appreciate tl1e degree to which tl1is cai1 communicate historical truths effectively and witl1 subtlety. Historical novels make transparent tl1e process of turning tl1e past into a story, something that appeals strongly to readers who may have little patience witl1 tl1e rigours of academic history. Indeed, if academic histories are disguised stories, historical novels can be disguised tl1eories on history.
The conventional founding father of the historical novel is Walter Scott, and it was through Scott that my interest in the subject initially burgeoned. In some ways Scott is stil l the model for some types of historical novel, and nowhere more so than in Scotland, which could be said to have been subjected in tl1e past two centuries to tl1e relentless romanticisation tl1at tl1is spawned. Scott's successors, Nigel Tranter and D. K. Broster, remain remarkably popular, altl1ough tlus taste is dimi.tuslung. Scott was tl1erefore my (re latively w1contentious) starting point in assembling the course. Scott's importation of certain concepts from Enlightenment philosophical history is w1deniable, as Peter Garside has demonstrated,3 and Scott's interest in exploring social change and development is what gives novels like Wal'erfry and Old Mortafiry a deptl1 and complexity not always granted to him. Even Scott's potboiier non-Scottish novels, such as Qt1e11ti11 D11nvard, can be seen to have complex issues of social change embedded witlun tl1em, notably his character of King Louis XI, a " fleshed-out" version of the figure at the centre of the Scottish historian William Robertson's Vie1v of the Progress of Sotie!J in Europe (1769). Louis is seen as a new type of modem monarch, embodying tl1e principle of reason-of-state, and effectively tl1e instrument for tl1e demise of tl1e etl1ic of chivalry. Altl1ough tlus is now simplistic nonsense, at tl1e time it was avant-garde lustorical conjecture, and Scott translated it into an accessible popular fictional form. T11ere is evidence, tl1erefore, tl1at Scott used tl1e historical novel not simply for entertainment, but for a radical analysis of tl1e impact of change on society and tl1e role of individuals in tl1at process, a refinement and deepening of the Enlightenment vision of social history. This indeed is tl1e essence of Gyorgy Lukacs' formulation of the concept of the "historical novel" as a new and revolutionary literar y form in the early 19 th century, an unprecedented medium for tl1e exploration of
w1precedented social change.• But Scott also knew
his history in the antiquarian sense so often deplored by Enlightenment phifosophes. A.
subgenre of historical crime novels often transfers wholesale tl1e same (or very similar) conventions from one period to tl1e next witl1 only incidental variations.111is is a common and long-standing critique of historical novels, from "ro mances " to "war epics," and it is possible to be far too dismissive of tl1e often excellent effects tl1at are tlrns achieved. Nonetl1eless, tl1ere can be a marketing-driven cynicism behind tl1e creation of such works: which period has n ot yet had its in-house "detective" foisted upon it?
T11e criticism of such works can be eifuer literary (tl1at tl1ey are deficient in character, language, or ideas, or that tl1e y load novels with unnecessary padding and detail tl1at seem to be beside tl1e literary point) or historical (they universalise certain types of human behaviour and pay too little attention to what is truly strange or challenging about a past culture or society). 111is latter for me is tl1e most interesting criticism. It is often tl1e strangeness of tl1e past tl1at is sold short, eitl1er by magnifying it into conventionalised exoticism or simply by domesticating it into a "safe" and understandable past, played to rules tl1at belong more to tl1e genre tl1an to tl1e society depicted. Yet historical novels, tl1ankfully, do not always conform to tl1e rules of otl1er genres. T11ere is such a tl1ing as tl1e historical novel, a novel of human relationships and dynamics set purposefull y in a particular age, and in which fue conflicts and preoccupations of tl1at age are tl1e driving force, tl1e raison d'etre for tl1e novel.
R Q NAN BENN ET T
HC bewildering writer in many ways, Scott is difficult
to encapsulate; he never claimed to be anytl1ing • oilier fuan a romancer, and he certainly had an eye J n j t s th j rd ye a r for tl1e picturesque. Scott's picturesque shadow was cast over fue 19 th -century, but in bofu Wai•erfry and Old Mortafiry tl1ere is a relentless hard-headed rejection of fue otl1er-worldly, alustorical romantic as well as tl1e fanatical, which would surprise his dwindling shortbread-tin adherents.
Scott also shows how linuting and tyrannical tl1e literary historical imagination can be. The entire subject of Scottish History laboured for a century and a half amidst tl1e n1isconceptions and simplifications fuat Scott created, even as !us readerslup dried up. A recent article in The Guardian by tl1e Scots writer Allan \Varner once again rehearses tl1e tl1eme of Scott's debilitating impact on Scottish identity So, Scott's legacy is a divided one, and reveals tl1e dangers of fue historical novel, particularly when it is enormously and indiscriminately popular (as Scott was tl1roughout tl1e 19 tl' century).
Scott's twofold legacy provided one possible means of structuring my course, a bifurcation of tl1e lustorical novel into novels in history and novels about history Novels-in-history are tl1ose which use tl1e materials and paraphernalia of a historical period - costumes, language, even beliefs - for striking and picturesque effects. The
Here we come to what I believe is fue most n eglec ted aspect of historical novels - explaining tl1eir popular appeal, and understandin g how readers construct tl1eir views of fue past from tl1e visions provided by lu sto rical novelists. T11e ways in which readers respond to certain kinds of atmosphere, to certain recurring scenarios, to fue spectacle oflustorical conflict, can tell us a great deal about how we make sense of fue past Cer tainl y, reflecting on my own experience, I feel tl1at we respond to certain images of tl1e past tl1at satisfy
us not only emotionally or imaginatively, but also intell ectually. When tl1e past - with its strange differences - is summoned up in a vivid form, it corresponds to our experience of our culture and our sense of its origins and precursors. To return to Scott, his ability to render to a modern a udi ence fue inner principles of a dead or vanishing world (however flawed and partial Scott's own views and motives might be), to provide an imaginative link to an alien but half-remembered culture, provides us witl1 an exercise in tl1e appreciation and discernment of difference. This is not mere escapism, altl1ough it can become cliched and tl10ughtless in tl1e hands of poor and unimaginative writers (as can all forms of literature). Scott's outlandish depiction of the Covenanters, stereotyped and politically loaded as it was, is nonetheless a powerful depiction of religious fanaticism and intolerance, a phenomenon tl1at profoundly influenced tl1e course of Scottish histor y. The resonances it provoked in its audience, predominantly "enlightened" and "moderate" as tl1e y were, tapped into tl1e deep roots of Scottish culture.
It would be fascinating to study more closely how Scott's readers reconceptualised their hi.story as a result of his canny interventions. Similarly, historical novelists today draw elements from what Philip Hicks has termed our "historical culture," with which they know readers will identify, and that readers will use to w1derstand the past with which they are presented. 5 111ere are profound questions about the historical fragments that we all possess, and how historical novelists manipulate them and press them into service. Part of my purpose in teaching the course would be to try to elucidate the reasons why readers consume such novels. \'(1hat is their experience of the novel as history? How do they seek to use that history? By what mechanisms do readers of historical novels evaluate the trnth of these novels, if at all?
111e novel-about-history is a historical novel that not merely represents the past, but embeds within itself some reflection on the nature of history itself. 111is is a distinction that pivots on the extent to which hi.story as a process, as an experienced living thing, is reflected upon and probed by the novelist. Here, Tolstoy is a principal model. Indeed, for Tolstoy, the abstract notion of History becomes a virtual protagonist of the novel, hijacking the last several hundred pages of War a11d Peace. This has usually been seen as the most serious flaw in the novel, a piece of otiose and ponderous philosophising, although for scholars rather than general readers, it undoubtedly has its interest. 111ere are other, more integrated ways of achieving this reflexivity; Peter Ackroyd has specialised in the mingling or interpenetration of the past with the present, sometimes incorporating a supematural "ghostly" element, but always witl1 suggestive hints and musings on tl1e relation between past and present. Ackroyd's semi-historical novels indeed straddle a boundary between sensationalist novel-in-history and reflective novel-about-history. ,-\ different example of tlus mixed form is Graham Swift's Water/and, a multi-layered work bringing togetl1er elements of the historical novel witl1 tl1e principal character's own tl1oughts on his place witlun the history of the landscape he inhabits (and whose history he teaches).
The novel-about-history enables me to sidestep one of the constraining definitions of the historical novel: tl1at it be set at a certain distance from the present. Indeed, one of tl1e students on tl1e course wished to write his essay about Jonathan Coe's novel of 1970s England, The Ratters' Club. In a sense, this reflects the trutl1 that most novelists today are to an extent historical novelists Gust as most economists are Marxists without realising it). In our accelerated society, writing about even the very recent past involves a sensitivity to minute cultural and social changes, a self-consciousness about historical difference, and Coe's novel is also a reflection on what was probably one of the great watershed moments in modern British history, tl1e Thatcherite revolution. \'(1hat is lacking, of course, is tl1e long perspective, but tl1e use of tl1e novel to explore how individuals relate to macro-cosmic events, great shifts in history, is very much present.
111e novel-about-history can also take me form of a fable, if it plays witl1 and reflects tl1e meanings and reverberations of history. 11ms, Italo Calvino's The No11-E>..istmt K11ight is drenched witl1 historical allusion, despite its very unrealistic and deliberately wuealised setting Calvino is keenly aware of the extent to which we are the products of a dimly glimpsed history, and fiction is one way of seeking to understand it. Calvino also illustrates the romantic and adventurous allure of the mytl-1ical past (after all, his favourite writer was Robert Louis Stevenson).
The question of the differing motives of writer and reader is an interesting one. A case in point is Ronan Bennett's recent novel, Hal'Ot; In Its Third 1 ear, a fascinating and well-written meditation on tl1e nature of tl1eocratic intolerance. It is undoubtedly an historical novel, informed by an immersion in tl1e historical literature of 17thcentury England. The autl10r indeed cites in a postscript the crucial texts tlrnt influenced his treatment, from Christopher Hill to Keitl1 111omas. Anyone reading tlus book might be drawn to it, as I was, by its specific historical setting. Yet Bennett's purpose is different, more political and contemporary. Its atmosphere is less rooted in tl1e actual - tl1ere are no "real" characters, and few of the minute inventories of costumes and artefacts tlrnt tend to stuff denser historical narratives.111ere are w1doubtedly some readers who would be disappointed by fuis quality: altl1ough it establishes a vivid and entlualling atmosphere, it is clear tl1at Bennett's real focus is on tl1e present, and the past is used merely as the backdrop for an exploration of tl1emes tl1at it can be used to dramatise. One critic pointed out, acutely, tl1at tl1e model of intolerance was closer to tl1e spirit of tl1e Presbyterian kirk in Scotland tl1an of nortl1ern English Puritanism. 111e novel is in fact a fable, borrowing from the language and landscape of 17th-century England a pattern of remoteness, solitude, and near-savagery that suits tl1e author's purpose, but which is never meant to be narrowly "true" or real.
This shows tl1e extent to which a serious novelist, witl1 issues to explore, will sideline and modify tl1e lustorical content for effect. Bennett's aim is to capture the mentality of the age, rather tl1an its details; his is no teeming stew of a world, such as a writer like Lawrence Norfolk would produce, but rather a spare and economical, stripped-down historical setting. Even there he has passed that mentality tluough the prism of his own (contemporary) concerns. A revealing comment from the postscript mentions the "voices" echoing tluough the pages - from John l\[ilton and John Evelyn to the Quaker George Fox - thus establishing a linguistic texture, which admirably serves Bennett's purpose, and it is subtly deployed, free of that overblown "gadzookery" that John I\Iullan castigates in otl1er lustorical novelists. 6 The language of the 17 th century, that of tl1e King James Bible and John Bunyan, is distinctive, muscular, and provides us witl1 most of tl1e echoes of our religious sensibility; as a vehicle for Bennett's depiction of a fundamentalist nightmare, it uses our preconceptions to summon up images from our historical imaginations. This gives his tale botl1 a deep resonance and an abiding sense of strangeness. Bennett's work is a novel-beyond-history, in which tl1e writer uses historical material to illustrate themes tl1at transcend tl1e epoch. He could just as easily have set his fable in tl1e future or even an abstracted unreal present (as tl1e recent film The Village did, playing with audience expectations of language and period).
111e eventual form of my course was a combination of tl1e historical approach (Scott and Tolstoy) witl1 a subdivision into several tl1emes
ronfinuelon t":}e5
Something Old, Something New
SAR.AH JOHNSON dismsses the histon·cal fiction ef MedaLLio11 Press 111ith Vice President Leslie Burbank.
As an avid reader of historical fiction , I'm always on the lookout for something different: unique settings, und emsed time periods, fresh storytelling, a new way oflooking at hi stor ical events. \v'hen asked what publisher I might like to profile n ext, l\Iedallion Press came to mind l\[edallion, foW1ded in 2003, is fairly n ew on the block, but they've quickly established themselves as a publisher worth watching.
Not only does l\[edallion willingly take on subject matter that's out of the ordinary, but they go all out when it comes to marketing and promoting their novels It would be hard to miss l\[edallion's presence in the media lately. Striking full- co lor ads for l\[edallion novels have appeared o n the covers of P11blishers lViek!J and Romantic Times. Scott Oden's Alen of Bro11'-e, a historical novel and one of l\[edallion's few hardcovers, made a big splash at BookExpo America thi s June , complete with huge banners hanging from the ceiling of the Javits Convention Center. Historical fiction is just one genre that l\[edallion publishes , but it's a special interest for both its President, Helen R.osburg, and its Vice President, Leslie Burbank: both are enthusiasts who have written historical nove ls themselves.
Just as they promise in their mission statement, l\[edallion's current list couldn't be more diverse . The Hinterlands, by HNS memb er Karen l\[ercury, is a romantic, action-packed, occasionally hilarious adventure set in the steamy jungles of the Kingdom of Benin (modern Nigeria) in 1897. l\[aura Shaw's The Keeners, an entertaining family saga, follows its heroine, l\[argaret l\[eehan, from famine-ridden Ireland to the factory town of Troy, ew York, in the mid-19 tl' century. Scott Oden's Men ef Bron'-e is set in Egypt of 526 BC and based around an episode menti oned in the Histon·esof
am(inuel(romf1":je4
and trends tlrnt would enable me to explore tl1e diversity of tl1e contemporary historical novel. In a second article, I will show how I used m y course to illuminate tl1ese theme s tl1rough tl1e works of certain historical novelists: for example, Gore Vidal's exploration of tl1e political growth of a nation, \Villi.am St:yron's treatment of race and slavery, Amin l\[aalouf's probin g of identity and exoticism in Leo the African, and tl1e uses of Rome as sub ject-matter by -\llan l\[assie and l\[arguerite Yourcenar.
Neil Hargral'l!S studied History and literature al the Unfrersity ef Edi11bur;gh, a11dgai11ed a Ph.D. there H e baspublished articles in Journal of the History ofldeas, Eighteentl1-Century Life, History of European Ideas , and The Adam Smith Review. He is m"ent!J Le,111rer i11 Arts and Humanities at Ne111battle Abb~ CoLLege, Scotland, and is 111orki11g 011 a book-length st11dy ef 18th -century histon"cal thought.
TIerodotus. i\nd Helen Ros burg's own By Honor Bottnd features a romance between two of l\larie .-\ntoinette's servants, set against the fall of Versailles.
Leslie Burbank graciously agreed to answer my questions on historical fiction, l\[edallion's publishing program, and their current and upcoming titles. The company's website (www.medal li onpress.com) provides additional background o n tl1eir n ove ls, including plot summaries, genres published, and submi ssion guidelines.
lf1//1at fa,1ors jig11red into your de,isio11 to form a 1te111compa,ry?
Helen R.osburg, our President, CEO and Editor-in-Chief, was an author first. I, myself am an author. Helen felt that perhaps we could construct a company tlrnt respected tl1e craft of writing in addition to being a business. \v'e envisioned a company that continued to strive to get better, n ot necessruilr bigger, and to create a home for voices not published and s torie s not ofte n written. We discussed all the variables and decided tl1at for us, tl1e company would be about tl1e books, tl1e stories, first and foremost.
U7hy did you decide to get inl'Ofred in publishing histon"cal fiction?
\'('e are both lovers of tl1e epic hi storical novels of the past, and while many people continue to say tl10 se are a thing of tl1e past never to be resurrected, we sunp ly don't agree. A good story 1s a good story no matter when it is set in ti.me.
Notes
l. Leo Brnudy, Narratin Form in IIistory and Fiction: H11me , Fielding and Gibbon (Princeton: Princeton U niv ersity Press, 1970); Everett Zinunerman, The Bo11ndaries ef Fiction: History and the Eighteenth-Century British Noi·el (Ithaca: Cornell Uuiversity Press, 1996)
2 Louis l\link, "Narrative Fonn as a Cognitive Iustnuneut," in R Canary and II. Kozicki (Eds.), The IP'riting ef History: L"terary Form and Historical Unders/andi11g (l\ladison: University of Wisconsi.u Press, 1978), pp. 1291-1-9 I Iayden \v1tite, The Con/ml ef the Form: Narratit-e Distourse and Histon·cal Representation (Baltimore: Jolms Hopkins U1tiversity Press, 1987)
3. Peter Garside, "Scott and the ' Pltilosopltical' Historians," Journal ef the History ef Ideas 36 (1975), 497-512
4. Gyorgy Lubes, The Historical Noi·el (Londo n : l\[erlin Press, 1989).
5 Philip I Iick s ha s explored the concept of " lti storical cultme" in the 18 1' centmy, in for example Neodassical History and English C11lt11re: From Clarendon lo Hume (London: l\[acmillan, 1996)
6. In a review of Rose Tremain's The Colour ii1 The Guardian, San1rday, l\lay 3, 2003
Ll7he11 detidi11g 011 historical noz·eLs to acq11ire for ~MedaLlion, //)hat qualities do yo11 look far?
Again, this is really about just an overall story that stays with us days after we've read it. When I read Men of Bron:;:_e by Scott Oden, I couldn't put it down, and I couldn't stop thinking about it and telling everyone else at the house about it.
What other reasons ,vent into yo11r dmsio11 to pubb.sh Men of Bro11:::_e?
1 think lvfo1 of Bron:::_e chose us. It is an incredible work, and we would have been quite foolish to let it slip through our fingers. It's about the fall of Egypt, but again, not during a time most people know about. In fact, I had no idea that the Greeks and Persians
banded together to take down the Egyptian empire until I read this novel.
Wlzy didyo11 choose to pubb.sh it i11 hardcrmr?
When you publish in hardcover, you are making a commitment to the project in a way no other format does. ,-\.nd it allows for more critical reviews. \Y./e wanted a beautiful book to match a beautiful story, so hardcover really was the onl )' choice.
\Y./e may but the jury is out at this time on that. \Y./e have a few interesting possibilities going on in regards to the paperback versions, but mum's the word at the moment.
Whe11 it covzes to settings far h1ston·calfiction, either time-,vise or place-,vise, do yo11 hai·e a11y perso11alfal'On'tes?
No, actually. I think we enjoy learning about all kinds of times, place, cultures and circumstances. It's really the best way to learn about history in some cases. Our advice is that if you are seeking publication through :l\Iedallion, that you steer away from periods and places that have already been written heavily about. Take us somewhere new.
Historical fictio11 is 011e of those ge11res that p11blishers are abvqys sqyi11g is hard to seLl a11d market. While there are pLen[J of readers, 110 industry e>.1sts like it does far other genres, and it has 1w spedal section in bookstores. Ho,v do you market historical fi1tio11 specificaf!y? Do yo11 do a1rythi11.g spetial, or do yo11 feel that it finds its proper a11dience easi!J enough?
I think it does come down to the amount of money a publisher will spend on marketing and advertising. Any book, in any genre, could be successful with the right amount of money behind it. \Y./e plot out just who the book is targeted to and try to reach that audience accordinglr I do think most writers of historical fiction need to know they may not reach a "break-out" level of success overnight, that it is more of a slow climb, but I think fans of historical fiction are quite possibly some of the most loyal readers an author can have. I, myself will buy every other book a historical fiction author has, if I enjoyed one of their novels.
Doyo11 feel that aLl of the recent promotion of MedaLlion '.r 11oz-eLs has sucmded in attratti11g 11e1v readers of hzston'cal fit1ion?
Yes. It is evidenced by our sales of our June hardcover, Me11 of Bro11ze. If you advertise it, people will come.
In a recent Publishers Week!} artide,you stated that Medallion detided to go after nelJ) ideas and historical Locales that otherpublzshers might not be doi11g. I 1vo11der ijyo11 could expand upon //)hatyo11 meant 1vhe11you talked about the "ewked reader IJ)ho 1vants more gn't a11d se11se ofpLat'C in their romam-e." Do yo11 feel that history-intensive roma11ces are making a comebatk?
I don't believe anything truly goes away. Like fashion, we live in a circle; something is always making a comeback because it never really went awar ,-\gain, if more publishers promoted historicals, you'd see a stronger market, but everyone wants to play it safe, and so they stick to the current trends rather than striking out on their own. In romance in particular, it is a challenge for readers to trust that 15 thcentury India can be just as captivating as medieval England, but it can be done with care and by publishing a magnificent story, as we will with Sunburst'.r Citadel by Therese Nichols in 2006. It's a lavish romance set in a place most readers are unfamiliar with, so you have your romance, but you also really get to explore a new area.
Karen Mermry'.r The Hinterlands is a 1vo11derf11l book, a11d I'm pleased to see that Medallion published it, part!J because it breaks so mairy rules - far roma11ce, that is, although the suf?ject'.r 11ot exatt!J common far historical fiction either. For e,--,.:ampLe, it'.r set i11 colonial Africa, has lots of zio!ence, a11d some of the maten'al 1s11't politicaf!y corrett at all. Does the u1111sual s11bjett matter present a1ry spetial marketing challenges, in yo11r opi11ion? What has reader response been like far The Hinterlands, espetiaf!y from the roma11ce comm111zi[J?
\Y./e aren't billing The Hi11terla11ds as a romance because as you mentioned, it did break quite a few traditional mies. Tirnt being said, The Hi11terla11ds has a fabulous romantic element to it. It steams right
alongside the jungle! It's not necessarily politically correct, but it is historically correct, which, when you are seeking historical fiction, is a must. We felt we needed to call it historical fiction because l\[s. l\Iercury's voice is so much larger in scope than what is traditionally seen in romance novels. This isn't the typical medieval knight story, or, as r..;:aren is fond of saying, "the most notorious rake in London" story by any means, and that presents a challenge. The response, however, has been fabulous _-\nd it further proves that we think readers are far more educated and open-minded than most publishers give them credit for. In fact, we are so pleased with l\[s. 1\[ercury as a literary talent, we'll be publishing The Four Q11arrers of the lv'orld in February of 2006. It's a.11.other historical fiction novel set in _-\frica, ai1d we cai1't wait.
Out of mn·osi(Y, 1vhat ca11sed yo11 to dassify it as histo1icalficrio11 i11stead of historical romance, eJpedal!J• since it's sold i11 the romance secrion of chain bookstores? ll7hem do yo11 dra111 the li11e bet11Jee11 them?
\Ve don't determine where our books are positioned in stores. Wish we did. \'ve've seen Ya.tnpire novels with no romai1Ce whatsoe,·er in them shelved in romai1ee, so go figure. 111e spine clearlr states "historical fiction," ai1d that's all we ca.11 do. A historical fiction work for us is one where the actual historical nature of the story is as strong, or stronger, than the rom,u1ee. :--ls. 1\Iercury wasn't afraid to get dirty ai1d show us what life was really like. In most romai1ees, you never hear about the problems with hygiene. There's a reason for that . . it's not very romai1tic.
Ho111 do yo11r a11thors findyou? lv'hat percentage ofyo11r 11orels arrire through agents?
\Ve certainly do enough ads for authors to find us. \'\'e've attended genre conferences. \v'e have a website, ai1d we are listed in several writers' guides. \Ve aren't sure how they all find us, but they do. I'd actually say a small percentage, maybe 25 %, come through agents. J\ lost are unagented. \v'e don't consider a.11 author more or less talented just because they have a.11 agent. Si.nee both Helen ai1d I were authors, ai1d we didn't have agents ... we ca.11 see both sides of the talent pool, so to speak.
lvledallio11's online s11bmissio11 g11idelines req11est rhatproJpectire a11thon s11bmit a 011e-page domme11t detailing their marketing strategy. Ho111 mlllh does this plqy into the dedsio11 as to 1vhether to accept a ma1111s'7'zpt, a11d ho1v do )'Olt 1vork J1Jith a11thors to promote their books?
It doesn't plar into a decision to buy a mairnscript at all. But it does tell us something about the professional level of the person we are dealing with. \Ve say all the time that authors must treat publishing as a business. I'm not sure why they don't. So, if this is what you wailt to do for the rest of your natural life, wouldn't it behoove you to understai1d the basics in terms of how you will be selling your book? \Ve simply wailt to know if you even have a website, and do you know what a website is? Have you been to writers' conferences? •-\re you a member of a writing group? Ca.11 you do book signings? Will you travel? Will you create a postcard or mailing, etc.?
Can yo11 tell me about some 11pcomi11g historicaljiitio11 (or historical roma11ce, or histon"cal fa11ta9) projeits yo11're espedal(y e,,:dted abo11t?
\Vith the utmost pleasure! l\Iarjorie .Jones's second historical roma.11ce with us will be The Lighthorseman, ai1d this is about a hero who comes back from \Vorld \Var I to his farm in .-\ustralia. During the war he served as a cavalry officer. It's a beautiful story ai1d is set to debut in l\[arch 2006. l\[arjorie really desen-es a special mention because this was a.11 author that we actually asked to write something other than the same old knight/ damsel story. She rose to the challenge most magnificently, ai1d The Lighthorseman is the result. _-\nother beautiful historical romai1Ce set just after the Civil War is Cynthia Thomason's Gabriel's Angel. Scott Oden will be back with 1\[em11on in June 2006. This hardcover details the story of the only Greek general to do battle with _-\lexander and w111. _-\.nother great work by l\[r. Oden.
One of our biggest books in terms of excitement is our Young "-\dult novel, The Lo11gHmzterbyDon 1'[cNair.1l1is is a very strong his tori cal book that chronicles the life of a young boy in the early pioneer days of the East Coast after his fainilr is attacked ,md killed by 1 ati\·e _-\.mericans. It is his desperate search for his little sister who has been taken by tl1e tribe of attackers, ai1d his search for his own self that really brings home this heartbreaking, gut-wrenching novel. \'('hile 1t is aimed for tl1e Yi\ market, I think adults will enjoy the stoq·, though be warned, elements inherent to tl1e time period are not glossed over.
\Ve are tl11i.lled to rurnounce that we've acquired tl1e historical romai1ee Va11q11ished by multi-published, award-winning autl1or Hope Tarr. It's really a delightful novel set during tl1e time of the women's suffrage mo,·ement in Engla.11d. \Ve love strong heroines in not-socommon situations. Herc again, the his tori cal elements of tl1is book really make it stai1d out.
lv'hat do yo11 hope readers come to e:-:pect 1vhe11 thry see l\Iedallio11 name 011 a book?
Quality genre fiction. Stories that provide a.11 escape. We aren't trying to chai1ge the world witl1 what we publish, but we hope readers will trust our books and in them find laughter ai1d chills, tears ai1d joy, ai1d for those few moments a reader is connected to our fiction, we hope they are entertained.
Sarah Joh11so11, American coordinating editor of the Historical Novels Re,·iew, is the a11thor of Historical Fiction: A Gui.de to tl1e Genre (Libraries Unlimited, 2005)
The Blurring of Edges
LUCINDA BYATI talks to Margaret Elphinstone.
I met Margaret Elphinstone in Edinburgh while she was doing research at the National Library of Scotland. One of Scotland's foremost women writers, she has written tl1ree historical novels: Islanders (1994), The Sea Road (2000) - a tale based on the sagas and the Viking explorations of the North Atlantic, seen through a woman's eyes - and V'!)'ageurs (2003), which is set in British colonial Canada and offers an extraordinary insight into the lives of the fur traders, the native peoples and the Quaker missionaries. Elphinstone's prose has been described as "erudite," "mythical," and "magical," and she is passionate about her work as a historical novelist.
Mary Renault 1vrote that the best histon'caffiction sho1vs "that real empatf?y ivith the life-sryle of a period, ivhich is the result of app!Jing imagination, and a deep humaniry, to a kno1vledge of the sources so thorough that it merges into instinct." Didyou feel a particular "empathj' ivith the pen·odsyou hare written about?
I love l\[ary Renault's work. She thinks herself into the classical period - she's such an example of what she's talking about.
I think you have to get beyond the point of showing off your knowledge. For example, if your Vikings are eating soup out of a soapstone pot, you don't stop and say tl1at tl1e soapstone came from the Viking quarries in CUJ1Jlingsburgh.
There are experts on everything and every expert reader has to be satisfied, whether he's a historian of Norse history or a Shetland crofter. You don't want anyone thinking "that's not right." But you can't say everything and sometimes I find the history is so mindboggling you feel swamped.
What you have to do is think who the characters are and be inside them. I've just been re-reading [GK.] Chesterton's Father Brown stories. He talks about how you solve the crime by getting into the mind and heart of the criminal. And it's a bit like that you've got to become these people, you've got to walk around being Mark [the protagonist of V'!)'ageurs], or whoever it may be.
Was there anything in particular that fed you to choose the Viking explorations, oryour other pen ods?
I think in each case it was just a line of particular interest.
In the '70s I worked in Shetland library and did a lot witll the Shetland Collection. I also worked on an archaeological dig on Papa Stour where we were excavating a Viking royal farm, Da Biggins. I was a humble digger - I'm not an archaeologist - but the whole story of the dig and the document tllat led to the dig gave me the idea for doing Islanders. Then I got an Arts Council travel grant to go to Iceland for the summer and I started to work on The Sea Road.
I go to all tlle places I write about. I absolutely have to. There's only one place that I couldn't get to for The Sea Road. I couldn't get a boat to take me from Greenland to Labrador. When I told a high street travel agent in Glasgow that I needed to get from Iceland to tlle coast of Labrador, he replied, "Oh, no problem. You go by Heathrow! "
It feels like being a detective! What I like about tl1e research for historical fiction is tlrnt it is so di verse. One day you want to know what kind of coat buckles they had , and tlle next you want to know who was tl1e prime minister. \Vb.at did they have for breakfast, what did they read about in tl1e newspaper? So many different things come in and I think that gives you a strcngtll because you can't go as deeply into the re search as a historian of the period would do.
When I set out to write V'!)'ageurs I had a moment of comp lete panic when I arrived back in America. I'd spent all this money and got all this funding , and I suddenly realised that I'd contracted to write about Canadian histor y, American history, Native American history, tlle war of 1812, Quaker history, Cumbrian history, Quaker missionaries , the fur trade I thou ght to myself, "'I can't do this." But in fact, yo u can quite easily because you pick up your character and you follow him. He wanders through all these worlds, and you need to know what he needs to know. So I got out my canoe on the Ottawa River and we went canoeing, because tllat hasn't changed. You have to actually stand on tl1e sh ores of Sault Ste. l\farie -which are completely differe nt now of course, but you can see the rapids still, and you can see across the river.
Another example, which I'm working on at the moment, is that my character h as to do some surveying. I don't think my readers want to do trigon ometry anymore tllan I do! So what I've done is to introduce two onlookers. They stand and comment on what my character is doing. By changing point of view, I can explain what my character is up to. A lot of time you need to remember that you don't need to know it all . You need to know what it was like for your character.
Anotller thing I'd like to stress is tlle importance of primary sources. People tlunk tlrnt for lu storical fiction you go to secondary sources, but actually the primary sources are much more important. That's where tl1e language and tl1e voices come from. For example, when I was researching V'!)'ageurs I worked in tlle Carlisle Records Office
Ho111 do you go about your research?
where I found lots of minutes and letter s. Quakers have such amazing records. Reading through the letters gives you the voice and the sense of what it meant to be "disowned." No secondary source can tell you that.
TI1e same is true of the bills of lading for the canoes at l\[ackinac, where they brought furs one way and trade goods the other. The bills oflading tell you exactly what was in each canoe. In fact, I have used one particular bill oflading practically verbatim, just adapting it marginally.
I do a lot of research when I'm travelling •-\s well as tl1e laptop, I also have a series of notebooks, including a little journalist's notebook when I'm in a canoe or up a mountain, because an awful lot of research is done by being in places and writing down what I see, reconstructing what it might have been like. I might be standing on a traffic island in the middle of l\[ontreal or on a headland overlooking tl1e Ottawa River, but I'll still scribble down impressions, details.
TI1ere a.re some bits of research where I get experts to help me. One scene in my current novel describes } ' aw ls sailing around tl1e Calf of l\[an. I managed to talk to a man who had worked on tl1e Port St l\[ary lifeboat for 25 years. As we talked I took loads of notes, and tl1en after I'd written the scene, I said to him, "\Vould you mind reading tl1is?" It was a very good tiling he did, because I had made tl1e tide flow in tl1e wrong direction!
171ere is no end to the material one can accumulate, but you have to stop. Tllis is where it's important to remember tlrnt if you're writing a novel set in 1812, you actually don't have to know what happened in 1815. Time stops at tl1e end of tl1e novel.
}our books mate a tangible reality through minute!} detailed obsem1tions of the physical 111orfd and historical detail. It is intimate!} connected to the chara,ters and to 011r "belief" i11 the 111orfdyou hai-e recreated. Ho111 does the process of "bringing the past back to b.Je" act as a foil for your 11;riting?
I tl1ink tl1is is actually what historical fiction is about. \Vhen Scott invented the llistorical novel, he was looking at what it was like to be tl1e individual in a commu11ity instead of looking at a society in history. A historian can speculate about individual people, but she is not allowed to talk about tl1eir emotions, whereas tl1e fiction writer can enter tl1eir minds, imaginatively.
However, tl1e situation has to be real and tl1is is acllieved by focusing on what is tl1e same. I mean, human emotions stay tl1e same: fear, anger, love, joy, all that. Therefore, tl1e empathy comes through tl1ose. But you always impose your presence on tl1e past. You can't escape from being a 21st-century writer or reader. Sometimes I read historical novels, like George Eliot's Romola, and it's Victorian. It isn't tl1e Renaissance. 111.is is a Victorian construct of the Renaissance. I'm sure people will look back-if anyone's reading my stuff in two centuries time - and say The Sea Road is such an early 21 st-century construct of Viking times.
1011 mate t-ery po111erf11I characters in each book. Ho111 do you blendyour real a11d fictional chara,ters?
Sometimes I have quite deliberatelr picked bits and pieces from people I know, but tl1e main characters are absolutely constructed from witllin - tl1ey are fictional. However, I try to make all tl1e minor characters real. In Vqyageur.r, tl1eir names a.re real- \Villiam l\kGillivray is real, as a.re most of tl1e people at tl1e l\Iosedale meeting in Cumbria.
Quakers have such amazing records. Not many readers know tlrnt the Johnsons' house in Sault Ste. l\[arie is real, and tl1e Johnsons are real people. I found a document written by one of tl1eir greatgranddaughters, reconstructing the fanlily history. So I just used the whole family.
Do yo11 think your books hare something to say to today's J11orfd? Can the past help 11s to understand 111hat is going 011 110J11?
\Vhat I like to tl1ink is tlrnt I haven't imagined anytlling tl1at couldn't have happened. There were stories of people being taken by tl1e Indians. TI1ere a.re endless records of Quaker nlissiomuies, of women going out together-often an older women witl1 a younger woman. You can trace loads of tl1eir journeys because tl1er're very well documented.
Th e Sea Road is based on tl1e sagas, but they were written in tlrntvery terse style so I had to invent Gudrid's inner life. This happened while I was walking round Iceland witl1 tl1e sagas in mr hand -\11 tl1e place name s are the same, tl1e farmhouses are tl1e same. But, for example, I found tl1e sacred well where Gudrid goes. Gudrid tells her tale to tl1e monk -\gnar, who, of course, is totally fictionalaltl1ough again, tl1ere were Icelandic monks in Europe at tl1e time. It does say in tl1e saga that Gudrid made a pilgrimage to Rome in her old age, but we know notl1ing more about it.
The SEA ROAD
Your books seem to f ocus 011 th e "bl11rri11g " of edges: the co-existence of paganism and Christianity , t he ,ro ssing of boundaries bet111ee11 th e old 111orfd and the 11m; be/Jl)eenQuakers and Indian s,jact andfi ,tion. Is this an area of particular interest?
You've put your fin g er on one of mr main interests. I like boundaries, frontiers, edges, cultural clashes, as you sar, blurring. Certainly for Vqyag e11rs I picked a time and place where you ' ve got a maelstrom of cultures and peoples: yo u've go t French , English, Scottish, native peoples all tl1ere I never think, well I'll write about a cultural
confrontation. It's a subconscious interest, but it's what leads me to my subject.
In The Sea Road, I was fascinated by the whole Icelandic thing and how, in about the year 1000, they decided that everyone had to be Christian, if not they'd be killed. I mean what sort of Christianity was that? There were missionaries and believers, like Gudrid, but what kind of believer can you be in that Christian/Pagan world? I find that very interesting. I see Gudrid's Christianity as an overlay, but when she is put in a situation where her deep psychology emerges, then it's her pagan side that comes out.
You inevitably address the concerns that affect you, because if it wasn't a concern in the modern world, no one would want to read about it.
I am deeply interested in episodes like the Peace Testimony in V!D!ageurs. Here is an 1812 Quaker, who finds himself involved in a war. I have created this confrontation between him and the three warriors because it gives me a chance to explore the issue. I am a Quaker myself, but it's not that I'm trying to tell anyone anything.
I think it's similar to my earlier novels that were called feminist. Of course, strong women emerge from these nove ls because they're more interesting One cultural boundary that interests me -particularly in Islanders-is that women were not at all weak in patriarchal societies.
Viking women were certainly not weak. I'm interested in exploring how gender really worked because it's not a simple stori· of oppression. l\Ien wrote the history books, but women were very busy doing something else. Certainly, in Shetland right up unti l recently, tl1e men were at sea and tl1e women were minding tl1e croft.
Which a11thors inspired (i11spire)yo11 as a 1vriter-i11 particular, 1vhich histon"cal nol'e/ists?
I had a very traditional library when I was growing up: Stevenson, Buchan and 20 th -century historical novelists like l\largaret Irwin. I'm also a great fan of Georgette Heyer. I read all of her books between tl1e ages of about twelve and seventeen -and still have little binges! People misw1derstand her work so much. They tl1ink she's a romantic novelist, yet she's so ironic. I fall about laughing, and so did my fatl1er. That's how I learnt to like her. I also grew up witl1 and still love writers writing about tl1eir own period, for example, fue 19tl1century autl1ors. I read Jane Austen about once a year, and of course she's a contemporary writer in her time but time seemed to fascinate her. obody has ever beaten her as an observer. I also love tl1e Brontes. Of course, it's different writing historical fiction when you choose periods where fiction was already being written -as I have, in V1D1age11rs and my latest book. I mean, in 11 th-century Iceland no one was writing fiction.
Are you 1Vorki11g 011 another historical 11orel?
Yes, my current novel [Light, Canongate, spring 2006] is set in 1831 on a small island off tl1e Isle of ~fan. The trigger tl1at set tlus idea in motion was again cultural confrontation I read that the Commissioners of tl1e Nortl1crn Lights took over the ~la.rt., Lights in 1815 as tl1e result of a quarrel between tl1e Liverpool merchants and Trinity House (tl1e English lightl10use keepers). The upshot was tlrnt tl1e ~lanx lights were run from Edinburgh. And when I got
The Sea Road is among fue "100 Best Scottish Books of .\11 Time," published by List l\Iagazine (~larch 2005). l\Iargaret Elphinstone is Professor of Writing at Stratl1clyde U1uversity, Glasgow. Her website is at www.margaretelplunstone.co.uk. Her books are published by Canongate.
furtl1er into it, I discovered tlrnt tl1e Isle of ~Ian had been owned by the Dukes of : \tholl for about one hundred years, so Scots had been seen as "oppressors" and "colonials" by tl1e ~lanx.
L11d11da Byatt is a translator and book reiie1ver li1i11g i11 Edi11b111;g/1.
Readers' Comments
Scott Kemp's article '~-\fo.can Dreaming," in your most recent edition, (Sola11der 17) refers to tl1e novels of Wilbur Smitl1 and how he has handled tl1e rapid changes of attitude and language in tl1e continent over tl1e past twenty years or so. I, also, lived in Africa, however, I can1e to writing much later tlrnn l\Ir Smitl1 did. Consequently I have written on colonial African tl1emes witl1 tl1e benefit of hindsight; nevertl1eless, in tl1e interest of lustorical veracity, I have written witl1 (what I believe to be) autl1entic colonial voices, wluch means tlrnt occasionally I have used certaii1 words and phrases tl1at, if expressed nowadays, would be considered offensive. I know tl1at tl1ese passages might well be picked over by critics who consider tl1emselves to be arbiters of correctness, but I, tl1e autl1or, have to decide to what degree I show my characters' personalities tl1rough tl1eir language. While pejorative phrases and titles ought not to be used promiscuously, it is crucial tlrnt responsibility for accuracy of word and tl1ought is not slurked, since to do so would be to give a wrong impression of tl1e prevailing language and attitudes of tl1e times.
- ~lichael .J Hunt
H ave a comment ab out somethi n g yo u see within these p ages? Pl ease write to the editor at claire.morris@shaw.ca or 324 -2680 West 4th Avenue, Vancouver, BC V6K 4S3 Canada .
Red Pencil
CINDY V,-\LL-\R a11a!J~es the 111ork behind polished final mammnpts In this iss11e, she profiles James L. Nelson.
-\ common fallacy throughout hi story was that women cou ldn 't do what men did. Time and time again, however, women stepped forward to prove otherwise ' \Vhil e Joan of .-\re wore men's clothing, she did not disguise her sex, but others did, including l\[ary Read.
Ffa11ders. The s11mmer campaig11i11g season of the Grand Affiance. A f11ff 11i11eyears before Mary Read 111011/d sta11d at the bar in St. Jago de fa Vega i11 Jamaica and half a 111orld aivqy. The year, 1711. Mary's eighteenth.
She rode through the pre-dai1111 black, the horse and saddle bet111ee11 her legs as ea9 a fit as a 111eff-wom hat. The smeff of the horses, the cumufatire sound of a h1111dred or more riders moiing together, was aff so familiar 110111 that th ry did not intrude at aff on her tho11ghts.
She read1ed do11111 and adj11sted her saber 111here it 111as chr,iffing 011 her thigh, deared her throat, a11d spit 011 the dirt road be/0111 her
She was a horse trooper, a corporal in a fight cai-afry 11nit. She was not Afary Read, of co11rse. Mary Read was someone locked aivqy deep in her memon·es, a fragile doff to be p11ffed 011t and examined once in a 111hife, a thi11gfor her to man·ef at, and then p11t awqy, 11nsee11.
Rather, she 111as Aiid1aef Read, Corporal Alichaef R ead, of the secondplatoon of E Compmry of Ll?'alpofe's Regiment of Light Cai-airy. Ayo1111g man making a military career, fighti11g for his co1111try, and 110 one k11e111 or s11spected a1rythi11g different.
Walpole's 111as one of those elite squads formed in E11gfa11d by some 111eff-heefed ge11tfema11 1iith a tho11ght tOJvard sofdien·11g and mo11ry enough for a commission and for equipping his recruits Once fanned, the regiment of fight horse had been sen I to the kiffi11g fields of Flanders to do battle ,iith the French and stop the affiance of the Bo11rbo11 household in Spai11
Mary, in point of fact, didn't care a pile of dung 111ho sat 011 the thro11e of Spain. But she was a camfry soldier, had been a foot soldier before that a11d a sailor aboard a man-of111ar before that. Sh e had spent most of her life masquerading as a bqy and ma11, seni11g the King of E11gfa11d 11nder anns She 111e11t 111here she 111as told to go, and kiffed 111home1·er she 111as told to kif/.
Thus begins The On!J Life That Mattered, James (lim) L. Nelson's tale about l\[ary Read, ,-\nne Bonny, and Calico Jack Rackham, three 18 tl'-centu1y pirates. \Vhile a crewmember aboard the Golden Hinde, a
replica of Sir Francis Drake's 1577 ship,Jim met a fellow sailor, now his wife, who introduced him to this trio of pirates. "Si.nee then, it was always in the back of my mind that it would make a terrific book. \Vhen the opportunity ca.me to write it, I looked at the primary source material and the secondary material From those sources I imagined what kinds of people these must have been, to lead them to the places where they ended up." 2
Characters a.re essential to a storr \Vithout them, the writer has merely a framework of events without anyone to move the eve nt s to fruition. Yet, readers want and expect more than just stick figures to populate the story. Characters, like people, must be three-dimensional beings w ith strengths and weaknesses, dreams and regrets, a past and a future. TI1is is no less required of historical novelists, but their characters must also interact and think according to the social notms of their time period . .-\n equal challenge for the author to pull off successfullr comes when a character poses as a member of the opposite sex. \Vhile women wear men's attire today, it was not the notm in the past, yet some successfullr masqueraded as men Doing so, though, required far more of a woman than just donning a disguise She had to adopt the mannerisms common to men, such as i\Iary did when she spit on the road. ~Iary Read accomplished this feat not once, but throughout most of her life. Sh e learned to fight, carouse, swear, and walk as men dicl.
\'<; 'hi.le the facts about her early life a.re scarce, what we know of it first appeared in 172--l- within the pages of A General History of the Robberies and A1urders ofthe Most Noton·o11s Pirates by Captain Charles _)ohnson. 3 " ["llhc odd Incidents of their rambling LiYes are such, that some may be tempted to think the whole Story no better than a Nove l or Romance; but since it is supported br many thousand \Vit:nesses .. . who were present at their T r yals and heard the Story of their lives . the Truth of it can be no more contested, than that there are such Pyrates." 4 TI1e passage above from Jim's novel e laborates on the tale Johnson wrote, but does so in a way that makes l\[ary a remarkable, but believable, character who achieved success in a ma.n's world.
Th e O11!J Ltje That Mattered is a reprint of The S111eet Trade, which was published under the pen name Elizabeth Garrett. "There were a number of reasons why the book could not come out under my name, and my agent and I thought it might have more appeal to a female readership if it was ostensibly written by a female a.uthor." 5 When the book initially ca.me out, it didn't se ll we ll . "I think mo st editors who read it were looking for a romance, but it is not that at all Once they read it, most editors did not know what to do with it, and so turned it down." 6 Few authors get the chance to have their work published once let alone twice, but.Jim did not want this to be the end of the tale , for " [t]he story of Calico.Jack, ,-\.ime, and l\[ary is an incredible one, and it holds a special place in my heart. TI1e reality of pirate life was not romantic, and neither is the story of these three peop le. It is a gritty, often ugly story and a part of the real history of piracy in the Ca.ribbea.n." 7 Once the original book went out of print and Jim regained the rights to it, his a.gent submitted the manuscript to a new publisher. "The people at l\CcBooks Press, with their hi s to ry o f producing some of the best maritime fiction currently bein g published, have understood better than any otl1er publisher could where this book fits." 8
Jim's new editor felt tl1e original version dragged a bit and tl1a.t l\[ary's tentmate, Frederick Heesch, was too much of a wimp. Although l\[ary is a nurturer , the editor believed she would not fall
for a guy ifhe was "too much of a putz." 9 Compare how the reader first meets Heesch. In S1veet Trade, Frederick sits before a fire in their tent, cleaning his boots. So intent is he on the task that he fails to hear r--Iary enter.
".Just like home, Freden.,k, " she said.
He looked up, Slllifed, bis teeth 111hite, his face, his foz·e!J face, pleased and disingenuous. Bqyish. l Iis hair 111tls a thick, dtlrk mop, most of it co11ttli11ed by a bfa,k ribbon, tied ba,k i11 a long queue. '~h, li1.ichaef, thereyou are. I did 1101 bearyou approach."
'~ good thing I 111as 110! coming to mt your throat."
"NoJ1J 111ho 111oufd 11Jish such a thi11g?"
'Who, indeed?"
IIYho indeed? No one. No one sai·e the enemy 111oufd wish to hurt Frederi,k. Freden.,k Heesch 111as as kind and u11ass11mi11g ayoung ma11 as one might hope lo find a1rywhere, a great a11oma!J i11 the mde 111orfd of the army .
He 111as Flemish. Like so mmry of bis co1111trymen, he chose to fight with the English army, 1v/1ich promised more at1io11 than the forces of his natii'e land. His bear! a11d spirit were set 011 11101fare, and he 111as eager for combat. But he 111as a thoughtful perso11, good-11atured, with a reacfy wit li1.ary did 1101 thi11k he possessed the soul of a 111am·or.
His Jeffo111 soldiers liked him, ofter the fashion of a sif!Y you11ger brother. Mary Read fmd him, deep!J, profo1111d!J.
\Vhile it's never said in the book, one has to wonder why Frederick gives so much attention to boot polishing when it's pouring rain outside and the campground is a quagmire of mud. As the scene unfolds, r-.[ary points out that he isn't taking proper care of his mount, for Frederick's mount has a welt from a chaffing saddle. He admits to her that, "I would be lost without you." In The 011!J life That Mattered, however, we meet Frederick with his platoon searching for the enemy.
Frederick Heesch, her tent-mate, rode just a little ahead of her and to the right. Mary gal'e her horse a nudge 1vith her heels, brought herself up alongside Frederick. She 111a11ted to hear his l'Oice.
"Fredende," she said, soft, so the sergean t 111011/d 1101 hear her 0l'er th e so1111d of the horses' hool'es, "hai eyou got a pf11g?"
Fredende looked 01 ·er at her and shook his head, his expression a lllL,· of surprise and be11Jifderlllent. He dug i11 the po,ket of his regimmtaf coal, puffed out a t11Jisted hu11k of tobacco, handed it oter lo Mary. She tore off a piece J1Jith her teeth and handed it back.
'What i11 heff are you doing here?" Freden.,k asked i11 the same hushed tone. Frederi,k 's pfa/0011, but 1101 Mary's, had been orderedfor the morning j·fight. Airy sensible person in Maryj·positio11 J1Joufd stiff be safe abed.
~Mary shrugged. "Came to this Godforsaken co1111try to kiff Frend1me11. Hate to miss the chance."
Freden'ck Slllifed al her, that n•o11deijuf smile of his. "Not so Godforsakm, yon f11cking English roast-beef."
Frederick H eesch 111as Flemish. like so ma1ry of his cou11trymm he chose to fight ni'th the English amry, 111hid1 promised more action than the forces of his 11atfre fa11d. His heart. and spirit were set 011 J1Jaifare, and he 111as eagerfor colllbat. But be 1/JOS a tho11ghtj11fperson, good-natured, 1iith a reacfy ,iii. Mary did not think he possessed the sollf of a 111am·or.
I Iisjeffo111 soldiers liked him as agood and decent comrade in arms. Afary Read fol'ed him, deep!J, profou11d!J. She 111oufd 1101 let him nde into battle afo11e, 1vithout her to 111atch his back. That 111as ivl!J she 111as th ere.
The trooper ndi11g ahead and to th eir left s1vi1·ef/.ed around, fro11111ed 111he11 he smv Mary. "Read? 1/1/hat areJOit doing 011 this raid? Ts111ear lo God, [ think you a11d Heesd1 are buggen·11g ead1 other."
'~re you jealous, Adallls? 'Cause l'm happy to do you too, if you 1vish, " Freden.,k offered.
Mary ble111 Adams a kiss. ''Re,ko11 the Fre11chies ,iiff bugger aff of us good before Heesch can."
Nfary affo111ed her horse to faff back a11d she rode 1/Jith rhe others near the batk of the regimmt, far from Freden·,k There 111oufd be opport1111iry later lo get close to him, but for 110111 she 111as better eff keeping her distance, fending some crede11ce to her claim that she 111as there for the fighting alone.
\Vhile this passage provides some physical description about Frederick, it is far less than in the original work. Instead,Jim chooses to reveal the character through action, much like a motion picture does ; \s Renni Browne writes in Se!f-editingfor Fiction U7n'ters' 0 , "It's often a good idea to include a few specific details that capture the look of the character But when it comes to your characters' personalitie s, it's much more effective to have these emerge from character action, reaction, and dialogue than from description." This passage also shows Frederick in a better light, making him appear less of a wimp.
TI1e other aspect that improves the scene is that the soldiers are portrayed in a realistic fashion, and Mary fits right in. No one knows she's a woman, and this scene reveals that she has mastered the habits of men, such as chewing tobacco, and that she exchanges crude conversation with them as if she's done it all her life. Their conversation may jar the reader, but it portrays an element of realism that readers associate with soldiers and sailors.
One other passage provides a glimpse into Mary's character. This 111oufd 110! be a grand fight, a history-making battle. It 1/Joufd not be a Do11a11111orth or a Blenheim or a Ramiffies. The realfighting had moztd south,
into France and Spai11, and on/y iutiges of the armies 111ere 110111 left i11 Flanders, to snipe at 011e a11other and stage small-scale battles and raids 011 one a11otber's joragi11g parties.
But that did not matter to Corporal Read. She had seen enough of real 111arfare to kno/11 that it I/las not someho/11 more glorious to die in the midst of an epoch-maki11gjight. She kne/11 death in all its guises, kne111 the ti/listed, broken bodies, the dull ryes staring t0111ard heam1, the flies s111armi11g around gaping 111ou11ds, kne/11 it I/lasjust as homdi11 ajoragi11g raid as it I/las i11 a battle bet111ee11 the great armies of 11ations. It 111as 11ot for her, a11d she 1//0uld see it 111ould not happen to Frederick. She could 110! allmv so perfe,t a man to end up a mangled a11d blootfy corpse.
Here Jim provides the reader with a window into l\[ary's motivation for staying in the army. It also hints at l\fary's pragmatism. She doesn't fight for glory, but to protect the man she loves. It is a theme that recurs throughout her life, for later in her life, she duels with a pirate to protect someone le ss skilled in the art of warfare.
In my reviews of Jim's books, I've called him a master storyteller, which stems in part from his knowledge of and experience aboard wooden sailing ships. His interest in ships and the sea began in his childhood, during which time he read and reread C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower novels and built model ships. After high school graduation, he hitchhiked and motorcycled around the United States before attending college. He spent two years working in the television industry, but realized he "could not stand a) the television industry, b) Los Angeles and c) being ashore," 11 so he signed aboard the Golden Hinde. He also served on the brig Latfy Washington and spent two years as Able Bodied Seaman and 11urd l\late aboard the I Il\IS Rose, a replica of a British frigate from the American Revolution. In 1996 Pocket Books published his first novel, By Force of Arms. His novel of the Civil War navy, Glory in the Name, won the 2004 American Library Association's \Villiam Y Boyd Award for Excellence in l\Witary Fiction. He lives with his wife Lisa, daughter Betsy, and sons Nate and Jack in Maine. Jim is a full - time novelist, and sometime pirate named Black Jim Spudcake, who educates children on the true history of pirates. '
Notes
1. Vallar, Cindy. "\Vomeu aud the Jolly Roger," Pirates and Prfrateers, .March 2004. ~1ttp :/ /www.ciudyvallar.com/womeupirates.html]
2. From the author's website, http :/ /www.jamesluelsou.com/The%200nly%20Life.htm (accessed 3 August 2005)
3 Some critics believe this was a peu uame and that Daniel Defoe actually wrote the book. Whether the authors are one and the same may never be proven, but it is a main source about 18 th -ce ntury piracy even though the accouuts mix foct with fiction, and sufficient evidence exists to corroborate its authenticity.
4. Defoe, Daniel. A General History of the Pyrates. Edited by Manuel Schouhom. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 1999, (page 153).
5. See uote #2.
6. Ibid.
7. Nelson, James L. The Only Life That Mattered. Ithaca, New York: McBooks Press, 2004. (Author's Note)
8. Ibid.
9. Correspondence with author.
10. Brown, Renn.i, and Dave King. Self-editing for Fiction 117riters New York: HarperCollius, 1993. (page 16).
11. See footnote #2.
Cintfy Vallar is a freelance editor, an assotiate editorfor Solander, and the Editor of Pirates and Privateers (111w111.tintfyi-allar.com/pirates.html). A retired libran·a11, she also ///rites historical novels, teaches 111orkshops, and retie111s books.
Kate Allan Asks ... What is Historical Fiction?
KATE ALL-\N 011 Jean Plaitfy and 111hether histon'calfiction i.,.u11derstood.
T11e line between fact and fiction within historical fiction can be very thin indeed. Historical fiction can be based on stories of real people, for example Jean Plaidy's Queens of England series of novels Real people, but their stories told with the artistic license that describing a work as fiction allows. l\Iore about Jean Plaidy later.
I'd like to ask what readers of historical fiction think historical fiction really is. Is the word "fiction" even properly understood? My cowritten historical novel The Latfy Solider by Jennifer Lindsay came out earlier this year. A lot of its inspiration came from fact, and this is something which many members of the public I've spoken to while out and about doing events seem to have trouble understanding. Am I not explaining things properly? Or is there something more to it?
I'm standing, dressed in period costume, on the edge of an old walled garden in Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, which had been visited by Jane Aus ten herself and now hos ts an annual J a.ne Aus ten fair. I'm talking to people about my books after having done a reading from The Latfy Soldier.
"Do you read historical fiction?" I asked a woman.
"Fiction? Eh, I thought it was a real story. Isn't it real?"
"\Veil, no, it's made up."
"Oh!" She shakes her head. "I like biographies. Not fantasy stuff."
"It is based on some fact. The true stories of women who really did serve as soldiers in historic times. We researched their experiences and with these "
But I've lost the argument. 111e woman simply shakes her head more vigorously and starts to move away. "No, I like stories based on real history, you know."
Fiction stimulates the imagination and this is why it's important. Historical fiction can give us images, sensations, empathy and a connection with the people of the past which can be difficult by other means.
But readers don't want, or aren't used to, historical fantasy. That's a breed apart. They expect historical fiction to be good and true. Something as concrete as a history textbook. We historical fiction authors have a tremendous responsibility on our hands. And a tremendous opportunity.
It's nearly Halloween as I write this but if you are thinking that headless bodices are the preserve of Tudor-costumed ghosts, you're wrong They're the new way to get historical fiction moving off the shelf.
In the last issue of Solander I pointed out how it was time for historical romantic fiction to have a comeback in the UK and there is some evidence of some green shoots in this direction. Arrow are republishing several Jean Plaidy titles. The Shadow of the Pomegranate and Katharine, The Virgin Widow, to be published in February 2006, have trendy headless bodice covers in the style of Philippa Gregory, Susan Carroll and C. C. Humphreys. Elizabeth Chadwick was given her first headless bodice cover for Shado111s and Strongholds, her latest paperback, published in August 2005, and a reprint of The Love Knot, out in January, follows suit, as will the rest of her backlist. Elizabeth Chadwick attributes Shado111s and Strongholds' strong sales and appearance in the fast-seller charts as having been contributed to significantly by the new cover style.
No doubt Arrow's decision to republish some Plaidy titles has been influenced by good sales from their republishing of Georgette Heyer's novels, and from Crown, who in 2003 began publishing a re-issue of ten of Jean Plaidy's novels in the US, bringing her back into print for the first time in twenty years. "I started off with Jean Plaidy years ago," said a UK reader who emailed me last week, "and go through every new historical romance writer that comes on the market."
Publishers! Don't just recycle; give readers new writers to get their teeth into too.
Kate Allan is co -author ofThe Lady Soldier by Jennifer Lindst!J, published by Robert Hale in Mt!J 2005. Perfidy and Perfection by Kate Allan is out in March 2006.
Practicing History
CANDACE ROBB talks shop with feLL0111 historical noi·elists.
l\ly selfish intention for this column is to have tl1e opportunity to talk shop with fellow writers of historical novels. After reading last issue's column, Elizabeth Redfern (The Music of the Spheres, Aurie/ RisinjQ wrote: "Like you, I've always loved history. I also do masses of research, knowing that I'll only use a fraction of it (as with your 14 th-century gloves!) But then I've got it all, somewhere in my head, and I'm free to race along with the story." That freedom is of the
utmost importance, or we begin sidestepping the scenes that come most vividly to mind Elizabeth also commented on the importance of visiting the locales ors tudying old maps: "My books are all set in London's past. I only have to glimpse an old church or a courtyard, or gaze at an old map of tl1e city, and the ideas begin." Absolutely. So often my travel to the sites in the book-in-progress inspires extensive revisions.
This is exactly what I wanted to hear-fellow writers' experiences. We learn by practicing, and by talking shop, just as woodworkers or teachers do.
Susanne Dunlap (Emilie's Voice) and I began a dialogue after she wrote in response to my column, and I've merged a few emails in the following: "\Vhen I was an academic, historical research was very geared toward specialized pieces of an overall historical puzzle. Since my area was music history, I'd pretty much ignore tilings that didn't directly relate to the subject at hand. In the process, tl1ough, I often stumbled upon issues and themes ' that struck chords with me, especially about women and music, and the relationship between women as performers and men as composers and auditors [which is what she plays on in her book]. \Vhen I started writing fiction tlrnt incorporated tl1ose tl1emes, I found that my research was already focused in one sense, but opened up very broadly in anotl1er. Instead oflooking only at those pieces of research within a certain discipline, suddenly I have found more general, day-to-day life stuff tl1at makes those themes and issues even richer Instead of just (for instance) how does this man sitting in the audience feel when he hears this glorious voice, or this gifted pianist, I now ask, what does he see when he watches her? \Vhat are her gestures like, her clotl1es, her hair, her demeanor? Does she look down, or right out at the audience, challenging them? \Vhat made her do this? What was her life like that she has come to be there, an object of male - and femaleappreciation? And not just, what is she singing/playing? but why did she choose this music? Was it chosen for her? How does it make HER feel?"
I was surprised by the diversity of tl1e training tl1at Emilie undergoes in the book in order to perform in the society of the reign of Louis XIV - reading, writing, speaking, dancing, decorum. Susanne explained: "1l1at had to do with the prevalence of the salons, where it was important to be able to converse and be witty. And at court, everyone had to dance the minuet. Emilie wasn't just being groomed for a spot on tl1e stage, but as a contributor to a salon, an ornament to tl1e court. In my mind, this brings out the sinlilarity between being a courtesan and an entertainer, and the underl ying inference tlrnt someone with a voice like Emilie's must be a sensual, se>..-ual being, because her voice provokes tlrnt response in others. It was the tension between her real, innocent nature and what everyone else expected her to be like that I found interesting."
I'd love to hear from other published historical novelists about your "practice." Write to me at solander@candacerobb.com.
Candace Robb is the author of the 01ven Archer and the Marg,aret Kerr crime series, set in 14th -century York and late 13th -century Scot/and and is at work on a noi·ef of Alice Pemrs, the mistress of King Ed1vard III.
Why Anne Boleyn is the
Poster Girl of Historical Fiction
IRENE GOODI\L-\N dismsses elements of commeciaf!y Sf,/ccessj/,(f historical fiction.
It takes the right combination of an interesting life and commercial appeal to make a historical personage a suitable subject for a novel, and no one fits the bill better than the luckless Anne Boleyn. ,-\ member of the powerful and ruthless Howard family, .Anne was trained and paraded before Henry VIII at a young age for the express purpose of becoming his mistress - and if all went well, his wife and the queen of Engl and. Not an easy task for a teenager, and a tall order for even the most politically skilled courtier. Tiungs didn't go as planned; although Anne did become queen, she was accused of adultery and beheaded when she didn't produce a son .
Anne's life was not just an important hi s torical event. It was also the stuff of juic y tabloid stories \Vhile we like to think of o ursel ves as above all that, the fact is that her story pushes all the ri g ht buttons. It has sex, adultery, pregnanc y, scandal, divorce, royalty, glitterati, religious quarrels , and larger-than-life personalities.
If .Anne lived today, she would be the subject of lurid tabloid headlines:
RANDY KING DUMPS HAG FOR TROPHY WIFE
IT'S A GIRL! (BABY LIZ DISSED BY KING)
HANK BEHEADS SKANKY QUEEN
Too often authors think th at any historical event is worth retelling in a novel or that anyone who really lived has a story that could be publi shed \Vhile I agree that living a life is an
accomplishment, peop le are not created equal in how interesting, commercial, exciting, or compelling their lives ma y be. When it comes to fiction, affairs and beheadings are just more interesting than imp o rtant treaties or laws that were
sell books. If you write something that is both commercial and literary (and believe me, it is quite possible), then you will have a winner on your hands. So the consideration of commercial value is necessary-not a necessary evil, just necessar y. And the fact is that the stuff of tabloids can make for very good reading and still be very classy. Even the most literary novel has to have some kind of hook or high concept idea that draws people in.
\ Vhat is "high concept?" It means something that is instantly recognizable and appealing in a short phrase or sentence '~-\ vill age in 17tl' -century England that got the plague and decided to quarantine itself" accurately describes the novel A 1ear of Wonders (Geraldine Brooks), and it's all we need to know. "A banker survives the San Francisco earthquake and builds a new life" is not as powerful or as interesting Why? England works better than San Francisco. Bankers are boring. Villagers are homey and appealing. The plague captures our imaginations more than the earthquake. TI1ere is also a great level of suspense with the plague book, because we know that plague killed off two thirds of a population before mysteriously stopping. So we know we will be presented with a cast of characters and that two thirds of them are going to die - but which ones?
Another factor in success with historical fiction is that the majority of the readers are women, and they like to read about other women. l\[uch of history is dominated by men, which means you have to look for subjects that includ e women. TI1e most common device is to take a woman who really lived and to let her tell her own story, free from the alleged "misrepresentation" of history. Th e Red Tent (.Anita Diamant) did that brilliantly by taking archetypal Bible stories and
Whife fiction can anlshoufcfteach us somefhin_J ahout the p_ast, i6' prima,y purpose is to transport us to another time anlpface.
passed. A novel is a story. While .fiction can and shou ld teach us something about the past , its primary purpo se is to transport u s to another time and place .All novels must have conflict and tension, and the y must have characters we like and can root for. This is true even when the characters in the novel were people who reall y lived. Just because some thin g is famous or true doesn't mean it's a good subject for a no vel.
Let me add a word about this "co mmercial " aspect. Many writers feel tl1at "commercial" is sometlung the y shoulcln't have to be botl1ered about. The y want to write quality .fiction and the y don't want to be burdened witl1 rules or l\[adison .Avenue ideas about what they should write. But "co mmercial" isn't a dirty word. It simp ly means sometlung tl1at a lot of people want to read-sometlling tl1at has wide appeal. If you look at it tl1at way, the Bible is extremely commercial, and so is the Rand l\kNally Road .Atlas. We all want to
presenting tl1em back to u s by telling us what "really" happened This serves as a great eye-opener, and it's also great fun. \Ve alread y know tl1e story, or we think we do, but tl1e autl10r gives it a delightful new spm.
You can use a person or event tl1at really existed, or you can invent a story of your own. Eitl1er way, it has to have tl1at special hook. The qualities that make fiction so entrancing - narrative drive, quality writing, larger-tl1an-life characters, conflict, and convincing period detail - can apply to all novels. \Vhen you add that extra dollop of commercial interest, you will have tl1e ma.kings of a very successful book.
Irene Goodman has been a literary agentfor oi·er t111entyfiveyears, specializing in career b/,(ilding. She represents major bestsellers as 1veff as brilliant ne1vcomers. Histon'caf fiction is one of her first loves.
The Solid Five of It
Ficti
on by CLAIRE THOJ\G\.S
Bonegilla l\Iigrnnt Reception Centre Albury Wodonga, , \us trnlia, 195-l
Dunitra Spyrakos is lyii1g on a small cot bed ii1 a camp ii1 the country.
She arrived here last night with her husband, Andreas, and their three tired children. It was well past midnight when their bus pulled up at the office and the little ones were already asleep. So, _-\ri (baby boy) and Eleni (youngest girl) were dopily hoisted onto a parental shoulder throughout the registration process. Hannal1, the eldest by only eighteen months, stood quietly awake beside them.
"Block 5, Hut 5," the family was told in slow gentle English. ,-\ young woman wearii1g a navy frock speckled witl1 white flowers led tl1em to tl1eir lodgings. The Block Sers walked across tl1e camp in tl1e darkness, many of tl1em starii1gonly at tl1e sweep of the woman's hair or tl1e flow of her sk irt as she strode along; tl1e sole light coming from an enormous torch that she held out in front of her, slicing tl1e way.
TI1ey anived in tl1e dark and fell asleep quickly.
And now Dimitra Spyrakos is waking up.
\'i/itl1 her eyes jammed shut, she is listening to a stream of nan1es booming from tl1e camp's P_-\ system." Luigi Cosimmo. Carlos Cosimmo. George Poulos. Heneik Rokowski. Jan Sillins. Hans Verloop " And a jumble of otl1er words in English, firm and demanding.
Dimitra holds her head awtty from tl1e pillow as tl10ugh tlus smal l upward tilt will place her even closer to tl1e sound. \Vhen tl1e announcement finishes, she rela.,;:es her neck and flops her head back down into tl1e straw. To her left is ,-\ndreas. To her right is ,-\ri in a cot and beyond him, tl1e two girls. Beyond tl1em, several more beds full of strangers.
Dunitrn sits up. She can feel tlrnt tl1e sun has already landed on tl1e corrugated iron wall behind her and she wiggles towards tl1e foot of tl1e bed to get a bit furtl1er away from tl1e pressing heat. Her face scrunches as she notices tl1at tl1e legs of _-\ri's cot are sittii1g in four tin cans filled witl1 water -\n old tomato label still clings to one of tl1e cans. Later, tl1e family will discover tl1at tl1is strange set-up is a way to keep tl1e ants from crawling up tl1e cot legs and across tl1e baby, an iimovation left over from the hut's previous occupants. But for tl1e next week, at least, tl1ey will frown in confusion at tl1e cotleg-cans until Hannal1 looks closely ii1side tl1em and sees a black film of ants floating on the top of tl1e water -\nother Block Ser will confirm tl1eir tl1eory.
Dimitra can hear ,-\ri making noises as he stirs. She sighs, kneeling up higher on her bed to see into tl1e cot. She shakes her head at tl1e sight of him witl1 lus arms flailing about and his face still tlrnt terrible pale green. Before tl1e voyage, Dinutra would never have believed that a human being cou ld turn such a colour - tl1e colour of sea frotl1 in the shade. But here he is, her baby son. Sick. Sick.
They all felt ill on the boat at one time or another; they expected that. But no one anticipated the sickness that would overcome the youngest member of the familr His wobbly walking was funny to start with: those chubby brown legs tottering across the boat deck, resembling a mini-drunk man. But then one morning he couldn't stand up at all. Dimitra went to wake him and put her hand on his forehead, sticky with wayward hair, and felt the heat of his feyer dart up her arm like a shock. She got him out of bed and propped him up against the bunk. She lent down with a bright, animated face and held him under his arms.
"Stand up, Ari," she said. "Come on,pethaki mo11, wake up."
She let go for a moment and h e flopped and collapsed into her hand s, groaning. Dimitra scooped him up tl1en, held him tightly against her, patted hi s small damp head and began to feel a churning panic. She put .-\ri back into bed witl1 the scratchy blue blanket very loose around his chest and went off to find tl1e ship's doctor: an overworked octogenarian who rushed through tl1.e cabins like a whistling sea-wind. Dimitra caught the doctor, explained her problem and gave him directions. The old man touched her gently on tl1e shoulder as he turned to find tl1.e child. Soon after, Dimitra found Andreas witl1 their girls in tl1e breakfast mess hall near the bow of tl1e boat.
"l\lana!" the girls squealed when tl1.ey saw her coming towards tl1eir table.
"He ll o," Dimitra said, leaning in to whi spe r to .-\ndreas. ".-\ri is sick. He has a fever." -\ndreas stood up as Dinutra turned to her two daughters.
"Ele11i and Hannal1, will you stay here for a while? Papa and I have to go for a walk." Dimitra looked closely at her girls. They had messy plaits hangu1g down on botl1 sides of tl1eir faces
"\Vhen did you do tl1ose plaits?" she asked tl1em
']ust then," said Hannah.
"Well," said Diinitra, squatting down beside her daughter's chair. "Wh y don't rou take tl1em out and start agau1 and by tl1e tune we get back, you should be finished."
"Okay," said Eleni, pulling the strin gs from the ends of her hair.
"Is sometl1.ing wrong?" asked Hannal1
"No, no," said Dimitra, tuggrng at her daughter's plaits. "We'll be back soon."
Andreas and his wife turned away from the girls and hurried back towards tl1eir cabii1. They pulled each other tl1rough tl1e people in tl1e corridors witl1 tl1eir fingers twisted tightly togetl1er.
"It's just a bout of sea sickness," tl1ey were told.
But that was days ago, just before the ship's docking at Port l\[elbourne and still, ,-\ri is feverish. Once agau1, Dimitrn is goii1g to find a doctor.
She stands up and walks towards tl1e hut door, passing the family's
two unopened suitcases sitting at the foot of her bed. They all had to sleep in their clothes last night because it was too dark to find anything else and now, for the first time, Dimitra is able to properly see the hut she has already been in for hours. This feeling reminds her of the time she went to visit an old friend in 111essaloniki. She travelled for a dar to get there and when she finally arrived, the city had already settled into its indistinct night. Dimitra had gone to sleep in her friend's home frustrated, eager for the sun to rise so she could see her new surroundings. \Vhen she awoke, the vivid city overwhelmed her and she spent the morning walking down streets she had travelled through the night before, only this time she was able to see tl1em.
Dimitra stands at the door of tl1e hut with her family stirring behind her in tl1eir beds. She lifts the squeakr latch near the handle, opens it and is stunned as the clammy air slaps her face. Directly oppositebeyond several feet of pale ground - is anotl1er row of corrugated iron huts shining like thermometer juice in the h ot morning sun.
,-\11 opportunity to unpack comes later, in between designated meal times and endless administrative tasks. _-\i1dreas and Dimitra are alone togetl1er in hut 5/5 lo oking at tl1eir two unopened suitcases
'Tm going to unpack," she says.
"\,1hy?" asks ,-u1dreas. "\Vhy do you want to unpack?"
"\Vhy not? \Ve have tl1ese two shelves to use."
"No."
"\Vhat?"
"No. Let's leave our suitcases full. \Ve won't be here for long."
"I don't know about tl1at, ,-\i1dreas," says Dimitra gently.
"No. We are only here for registration, for a couple of days. Then I'll be allocated work and we'll leave. To go to tl1e city."
Dimitra nods.
"That's what tl1er said," ,-u1dreas continues. "That's what tl1ey told us."
"I know," Dimitra says, tl1inking of tl1e people who visited tl1eir village montl1s ago. There was a contingent of si.., officials, travelling tluoughout Greece to promote migration to ,-\ustralia. Government sponsored and hassle-free, tl1e men in suits made tl1e whole process sow1d so appealing. They showed grainy films of ,\ustralian bead1es, of neat suburban streets, of productive groups of workers on tl1e Snowy River Hydro-Electric Scheme. Dimitra and 1\ndreas agreed to move. 1l1ey committed to two years in ,\ustralia with tl1e promise tl1at tl1ey were l('Jlving a place of hardship for a place where tl1ey were needed. Those officials generated such intense optimism tl1at tl1e Spyrakos family boarded tl1e ship in Atl1ens feeling as tl1ough tl1ey were precious seeds about to be planted and nurtured in a new fertile environment. ,-u1dreas even scooped some soil into a jar before tl1e journey - just a small pile of dirt - as a reminder of tl1e futility of tl1eir recent farming attempts, tl1eir new beginning and the land tl1at tl1ey were leaving. They carried names and addresses of otl1er people who knew otl1er people who had already made the journey. And tl1ey left.
"But -\i1dreas," Dimitra says. "I spoke to a woman this morning who has been living here for over six montl1s."
,-u1dreas says notl1ing.
"I'm not going to live out of a suitcase for six months," she continues.
"We'll see," \ndreas says _\nd he leaves tl1e hut witl1out waiting for anotl1er word from his wife.
The next dar, Dimitra is sitting on the bed against one wall of hut 5/5 \ pamphlet she was recentli ·given is open on her lap. It's smaller tl1an a book, thinner than a magazine, witl1 a busy bright cover blaring witl1 words -Sqye::;_les Biem ·e1111s 1 U7 zlkommen! Witamy! UYelcome! - but no Greek. She scans tl1e pages for any word she understands, searching across tl1e faint lines of print for even tl1e smallest piece of familiarity. There are a few words she does recognise, words tl1at jump away from the rest like an odd patch of colour in a jigsaw puzzle. Hello breakfast l1111d1 dinner children help.
Dimitra can talk tl1ough, talk and talk witl1 tl1e Australians working at Bonegilla. Yesterday, a lady in tl1e kitchen told her about a birtl1day cake she was making for a child in Block 6. 1l1e lady discussed tl1e ingredients witl1 Dimitra and told her she was going to cover tl1e pale yellow sponge cake in pale pink icing. Dinutra suggested she use some wild flowers as decoration. 1l1e lady liked tl1e idea and tl1anked her. It was a small interchange but it is tl10se conversations that give Dimitra ho pe for something more.
Later today she will go to an English lesson in the \ctivities Room If tl1ere were three classes per day, Dinutra would probably attend them all. There were English lessons on board tl1e ship, five times a week for the duration of the journey, and she didn't miss a single one. During tl1e Crossing of tl1e Equator Celebrations, Dimitra Sprrakos was singled out by tl1e ship's captain and congratulated for her dedication. She was standing on tl1e deck witl1 her family, all of tl1em wearing tissue paper party hats, when tl1e Greek captain told everyone tl1at tl1ere was one passenger who had shown a particularly impressive commitment to learning English. Dimitra remembers looking down at Eleni and Hannal1 when he said tl1is and seeing tl1eir bright faces gritming up at her witl1 pride. Later, Andreas teased his wife.
'~\ new language will mean you can talk even more," he said witl1 a laugh.
Tius moming, ,-u1dreas is pla yit1g soccer 1l1e Bonegilla tean1 recently won tl1e inaugural local competition against men from all over tl1e district; it was big news and one of tl1e first tl1ings tl1at tl1e Spyrakos family heard about when they arrived. After finishing some mandatory tasks - _\lien Registration, Employment Registration, tuberculosis screening- .\ndreas is able to take part in leisure activities for tl1e first time. Indeed, tl1ere is little else to do while he is waiting to be allocated work.
Hannal1 and Eleni are at school.
\nd Dimitra is alone, tl1inking of tl1em all.
,\re tl1e girls sitting next to each otl1er on wobbly chairs? Is ,-u1dreas doit1g tricks witl1 tl1e football? Are tl1ey happy? \re tl1ey yearning for
home? Have they made friends with an Italian? .-\ l\[altese? ,-\ Spaniard? ,-\ Finn? .-\re they scared? Will Hannah and Eleni learn English faster than -\ndreas and I? .-\re any of them feeling as hot as me?
But pushing through all other thoughts - oflanguage, of home, of her girls, of her husband - there is ,-\ri, her sick baby in the Bonegilla Hospital Children's Ward.
He has malaria and the doctors at the hospital are appalled that his condition was not recognised on the ship. Yesterday, when Dimitra was told about this, she found herself defending the old doctor who had attended Ari during the voyage.
"The conditions on board were horrendous," she explained to a Greek woman working as a nurse. "It was good that he had time to see Ari at all given the amount of people who needed his attention "
"I understand," she said. "But malaria is a very serious condition and the sooner it's detected, the better. \Ve are now treating a child who is far sicker than necessary."
Far sicker than necessary.
How could any level of sickness in her son be ne cessary? How could a fever and the horrible shaking of his body be necessary? Just the thought of him - being fed quinine, sitting up and crying in an ice water bath - makes Dimitra want to weep. If only they hadn't disembarked in the tropics; if only a mosquito had bitten her instead of him; if only she had covered his skin.
There are sixteen people living in Block 5 Hut 5.
That's three families, unrelated, together in the one hot space. It could be worse; at least they have not been separated. On the ship, they heard stories about families being pulled apart: men in one building, women and c;hildren in another, separated by hundreds of feet of dusty ground and the constant gaze of the staff. Far better to be crammed with strangers and their loved ones than on ly to be crammed with strangers. Remaining close to their family seems like the most important thing imaginable.
TI1e 5/5 inhabitants ha,·e cosied this hut as much as they can. Against the walls, they have tucked blankets into the gaps between the sheets of hard hot tin. A bit of insulation from the summer outside, they hope. And from the low, slanting roof, there are other blankets hanging down, tenuously partitioning the families. The curtains of grey wool are attached to the roof beams with nails requested from the Supply Store: two nails on the two top corners. The blankets aren't that big, however, and the legs of strangers - moving in bare feet or boots - can still be seen below the bottom edges. ,-\nd their voices float through the hut as freely as flies, the languages merging into a mess of noise. Yesterday, Hrumal1 Spyrakos stood very close to one of the blru1ket partitions ru1d giggled at the sounds of the I talia.11 frunily on the other side 111ey were fighting over something, she thought, ru1d their words were going up ru1d down ru1d round in circles very very fast. .-\ndreas noticed his daughter's curiosity ru1d scolded her.
"The Italian voice isn't funny, Hannal1," he said, straightening the
wall of grey wool. She apologised to him and ra.11 outside.
TI1is morning, the blru1kets in the hut are perfectly still They are hru1ging as lru1k as greasy ponytails, heavy ru1d dark.
The P,-\ rumouncements wake tl1e Block Sers every morning; tl1e list of names of tl10se who have been allocated work is ru1 agonising alarm clock. Today, like the previous days, Dimitra ru1d -\.ndreas are holding hru1ds as tl1ey listen to tl1e rumouncement. TI1ey are lying on their backs, looking up at the shadowy cobwebbed roof, witl1 one arm stretched into tl1e space between tl1eir beds.
The list ends.
Once again, :\ndreas is not summoned ru1d once again he slowlr pulls his hru1d away from Dimitra's ru1d rolls to ilie furtl1est edge of his bed.
1 either of them speak.
Dimitra watches him for a moment, watches his gorgeous big back in tl1at tiny bed ru1d wants to reach across and touch it.
But she leaves him alone and gets up to orgru1ise ilieir children, passing ,-\ri's empty cot as she moves towards her daughters' beds.
There is a special activity for tl1e children today.
Queen Elizabeth is visiting the area in a fortnight's time ru1d tl1e local council has chosen tl1e Bonegilla school to make some decorative • brumers for her arrival at Benalla train station. l\Ciss \Vhelan is stru1c!ing in front of her class, clutching her hru1ds togetl1er and smiling a smile so wide tlrnt it appears to extend beyond her cheeks. TI1ere is a row of pictures behind her on the blackboard. The first one is a coronation portrait of the Queen tlrnt l\[iss \Vhela.11 tore from a commemorative edition of tl1e Australian IVomens U.7eek&. Queen Elizabetl1 is wearing gown ru1d crown, tl1e first voluminous ru1d lemon, tl1e second huge, glistening ru1d perfectly straight. Next to tl1is is a small photograph of the Benalla train station. In a few moments, l\Iiss \Vhela.11 will pull tl1is off tl1e blackboard ru1d pass it around tl1e class so each child ca.11 get a closer look. Finally, tl1ere is a large book entitled Narfre Rock Art, pressed open ru1d resting on tl1e chalk ledge, full of close-up photographs of -\.boriginal cave paintings.
l\[r \Viltshire, Bonegilla's Recreation Officer, is kneeling down at tl1e side of tl1e classroom lifting rolls of calico from a large wooden crate. l\ Ciss \Vhela.11 is struggling to remain focused on tl1e children as she explains tile details of tl1eir task. Instead, her gaze keeps sneaking across to the abundance of materials being delivered by l\[r \Viltshire. For a classroom teacher who is instmcted never to waste a stump of chalk, who rations out old documents from tl1e crunp's administration offices witl1 one blru1k side for tl1e children to use, who is constru1tly attempting to be innovative witl1 gum leaves, iliese rolls of fabric ru1d ilie paints tlrnt are toppling onto tl1e ground beside tl1em are a truly exhilarating vision.
'~-\ny questions?" l\[iss Whela.11 finishes.
"Ca.11 we go to tl1e station to see tl1e Queen?" a boy asks.
"No, Gino, you won't be able to go," l\[iss Whela.11 smiles. "But
Queen Elizabeth will think about the new Australians when she sees your banners, and being thought about by the Queen is almost as good as getting to see her."
With this, the painting starts in earnest. 1l1e tables are shifted into long rows and a length of material is shaken out along them. l\liss \Vhelan moves down one end of the rows, catching the calico and cutting it off with an enormous pair of sewing scissors l\lr Wiltshire moves along the other end with a less impressive set of pinking shears Forty-two children scurry arow1d between the desks. Hannal1 and Eleni Spyrakos are standing quietly together as everytlling reorganises around tl1em.
Once the room is striped witl1 fabric, each cllild is allocated a group, wllich is then allocated a portion ofbaimer to decorate i\[r \Viltshire distributes the acrylic paints before leaving the classroom to coordinate a women's sewing group in Block 17.
l\[.iss Whelan spends tl1e next couple of hours guiding her class through tl1e basics of ,-\bo riginal art forgery. She lets tl1em consult Natfre Ro.k Art for inspiration at1d wllispers encouraging suggestions in tl1e ears of tl1e more tentative children
"It's very easy," she says. "Lots of dots ai1d snakes. Just dots and snakes. ,-\nd ma ybe some of you could even try a big lizard! "
Eventually, a Dutch cllild natned r\nneli Hupps is deemed to be tl1e best Aboriginal artist in tl1e class.
With tl1e reassurance that comes with perfect timing, the Spyrakos fatnily is woken the following day by tl1e announcement of a work allocation for Andreas.
l\[oments later, there is disappointment. 1l1e job is just five days of grape picking in the nearby town of Berq, Six men have been selected to make tl1e journey to tl1e vineyard where tl1ey will live and work w1til tl1e end of the week. ,-\ndreas has decided that this job is worse tl1at1 none at all.
'~-\lmost three weeks I've waited. ,-\nd for what?" he says to Dinlitra
"I know, I know. But it's something, isn't it?"
"Hardly."
"No, it's something. It's a start."
"I atn beginning to wonder why we are here," he says. "If there isn't work for me , there's no reason for us to be here ."
"Don't say that."
"\Ve need money. Real money. I have to send some home as soon as possible. How can I do that witl1 five days of wages?"
"1l1ere'll be more."
'~-\nd with you working, tl1e children will be alone too much ."
"It'll be okay. The girls are at school for most of tl1e day. .-\.nd Ari is still in hospital."
"And what if he doesn't improve, Dimitra? We shouldn't be separated now. \Vhat if ,-\ri gets worse at1d I'm not here when he dies?"
Dinlitra g lare s at her husband, appalled.
"Well?" he ins is ts.
"Don't you dare say tlrnt," she says. "Our baby is not going to die." And she bursts into tears.
She cries ai1d turns from ,-\ndreas He tries to touch her ai1d she flicks him away. ,-\11 she wants is to sob, to feel the tears wash over her face at1d cover the tilings tlrnt have just been said. Our baf?J. Die. Exactly what Dimitra has refused to say until now. _lust tl1e mention of Ari's death has made tl1e idea more feasible Why can words do tl1ismake an idea real? \VJ.1i1 did he have to say tl1at? \Vl.1y did she?
'~-\ri will recover," Dinutra says slowly. ,-\nd she sighs, messily wipes her eyes. "You'll go to tlrnt place to pick grapes at1d when you get back, Ari will be well."
'Tm sorry," ,-\ndreas says, putting his arms around his wife. 'Tm so sorry." Dinutra relaxes into him, breatl1es him in, smotl1ers herself into tl1e darkness of his body at1d holds onto him as hard as she can.
One of tl1eir children is asleep in a small hospital bed. The otl1er two are down at tl1e river tl1at pushes along tl1e edge of tl1e sprawling Bonegilla catnp site.
Little Hat111al1 Spyrakos is sitting on tl1e batlk. 1l1e dust between her toes is pale and tickly, reminding her of soft shaken pepper as it falls arow1d her wiggling feet. She is watching her sis tel: Ele11i in the river in tl1e satne way she used to do at home when people would swim in tl1e sea and squeal at each otl1er across tl1e turquoise water. Hat111ah would always watch from tl1e beach, just at tl1e point where tl1e dry sat1d compacted into wet.
She has never liked being in the water; there is sometlling about tl1e feel of it all over around her tlrnt makes her confused. She cai1't push her body tl1rough it. Instead, each time she has been submerged, Hatmal1 has wanted to stay absolutely still until it felt as tl1ough tl1ere were no difference between tl1e water and herself, as tl10ugh it were possible for her to just dissolve into it like a tablet. Dinutra used to grab onto her legs, make them kick, physically tq, to adjust tl1e instinct in her eldest daughter to float ai1d disappear. But it was no use. Hatmah's body would not swim.
Each afternoon when tl1e Bonegilla children are released from scl1ool, mat1y of them run down here to tl1e river. Some of them aren't wearing shoes and tl1ey run across grass covered in prickly bindies, squeal, keep running, past tl1e blocks of huts, past tl1e kitchen smells, past tl1e gum trees, all tl1e way down tl1e hill to tl1e dirt of tl1e river batik. 1l1en they peel off their clotl1es ai1d run into tl1e water in tatty singlets at1d pants, squealing again at tl1e squish at1d tl1e rocks beneatl1 tl1eir toes.
Swimming here is like swimming in an enonnous puddle, Hannah thinks. There's the brown dirt-filled water, the floati.ng leaves and the way the bank slopes into the river-just like the crumbling edges of a pothole on a road. And most importantly of all, tl1e river is contained; she can see where ti1e water stops and where tl1e land begins again on tl1e otl1er side, It's not like sitting on a beach where it's possible to stare and stare at tl1e sea in front of you until you really believe tlrnt tl1ere isn't an end to it at all. Or like looking out from a ship's deck. She remembers one night during tl1e ship's journey when everyone around her was marvelling at tl1e sw1set and trying to find tl1e perfect word for the purply-pinky-orangey colour of ti1e sky. But all Hannal1 could look at was tl1e endless sweep of indigo ocean - the wide terrifying stretch of it - tlrnt seemed to her to be a vision of notl1ing if notl1ing was even sometl1ing you could put in a picture.
But tl1is river's not scary, Hannal1 tl1inks. The opposite bank is solid and it's covered in tl1e san1e trees as tlus bank with their muted long leaves and layers of soft bark tlrnt can be peeled off into strips of crooked velvet.
Dimitra arrives at tl1e edge of tl1e river. She sees Hru111al1 and tiptoes up to her, covers her eyes witl1 her hru1ds ru1d kisses her warm littl e neck. Hru111al1 turns ru1d hugs her motl1er, delighted tl1at she has come to join her in tl1e sun. TI1ey sit togetl1er on the sloping bru1k, witi1 tl1eir knees tucked up ru1d their light cotton dresses tucked down between tl1eir legs Dimitrn pushes off her sru1dals ru1d nestles her feet into tl1e dusty ground. Now tl1ere are twenty toes tapping tl1e peppery dirt.
"High arches," explains Dimitrn as she puts her hru1d in tl1e space between her daughter's foot ru1d the ground. "You could fit a big spider under ti1ere."
Hru111al1 laughs at her mother. "Like the one in tl1e shower yesterday?"
"Yes, just like the one in tl1e shower. l\laybe even a bit bigger. l\laybe tlrnt spider's papa ."
"Urgh," shakes Hru111a.h.
Eleni, splashing tl1rough a grune of keepings-off in ti1e river, sees her motl1er ru1d waves. She does a somersault in tl1e water and fuushes it witl1 her arms up and a big ta-daaaa. Her motl1er ru1d sister respond witl1 a quick round of applause.
"l\ ly grandmotl1er, who was a ballerina, said someti1ing to me once tl1at I have never forgotten," Dinutra continues. "I was only young, maybe ten years old, like you. She said, 'if you find sometl1ing tl1at makes sense of your world, you must hold onto it for as long as possible,' That's what she said. It's nice, isn't it,pethi mou?"
"Yes," sars Hru111al1, thinking. "Did she meru1 ballet?"
"Yes. For her, it was ballet."
"l\ lmmm So," says Hru111ah, turning to look at her moti1er, "have yo u found sometl1ing?"
Dimi trn smiles, looks closely at her daughter's small serious face, all scrunched up witl1 its thoughts ru1d the sun. "Yes," she sap. "Your papa ru1d you - my babies. Being a motl1er, tlrnt's my sense."
Hru111al1 nods, accepting tl1e ru1swer. "l\ laybe you'll have ru1other baby here ."
"l\laybe," Dinutrn smiles.
".-\n _-\ustralian baby," Hannal1 says."You're luck y, aren't you, l\lru1a?"
Dimitrn looks at her eldest daughter and feels an enOLmous pride. She almost thit1ks it could be visible - tlus beautiful feeling tl1at's pushing inside her. If someone looked at her now, they might see it makit1g her bigger, filling her up like warm gentle air.
"Yes, I'm lucky," Dimitra says.
And botl1 of them look al1ead at ti1e splashing-squirming-squealing bodies in the river.
Dimitra goes to the hospital as soon as she gets up each morning. Yesterday, she walked straight into tl1e longCluldren's Ward with its rows of small white beds, straight to the one assigned to Ari, second from ti1e end on the right.
l le wasn't in it.
TI1e starched sheets were stretched tight!)' over the thin flat mattress; tl1e pillow was centred ru1d still.
Dimitra grabbed tl1e steel base of tl1e bed. She thought she might faint or scream or both. Where is he? Where is he? \v'here is he?
.-\.nd tl1en she heard it.
"l\laaanaaaaaa!!!!" shouted from tl1e door of the Ward.
Dinutra tumed to see Ari tottering towards her as fast as he could. ,-\ smiling nurse stood at tl1e door behind him. Dimitrn watched her son conung closer with a look of absolute bliss on his face. He was freshly scrubbed, wearit1g a new slurt ru1d ru1 enonnous pair of shorts belted around him witl1 a lengtl1 of ribbon. His dark curly hair had even been neatly parted.
Dimitra rru1 towards him and scooped him up.
"He's going to be fine," tl1e nurse said to Dinutra. "You cru1 take him to your hut now. But bring him back each day for a check-up."
_-\nd now she is watchit1g all of her cluldren racing ar0tmd tl1e cramped space of hut 5/ 5 like tiny twigs caught up in a whirligig.
Claire Thomas is an ,-\ustralian writer, living and working in l\ [elboume. Her short fiction has been published in several _-\ustra.liru1 literary journals ru1d magazit1es ru1d she has recently completed her first novel, F11gitii-e B!ne.
Breathing Life into Shadowy Women from the Past
ELIZ_-\BETH SHOWN l\1ILLS demonstrates ho111 to extrad truth from historical records.
Shaped by the author from a presentation she delivered at the Historical Novel Society conference in Salt Lake City, .-\pril 17, 2005.
Historical novelists well know L. P. Hartle(s opening line in The GoBetJ11ee11: "The past was a foreign country. They did tl1ings differently there." Yet we struggle to capture exactly what it was tl1ey did there. \,11en I set out to write my four-generation epic Isle of Canes, I felt Hartley's line would be my litmus test. How well wou ld I recreate tliat past? Not the stereotyped past, but tl1e uniqueness of a forgotten world most of my readers would not know.
The past is a will-o'-tl1e-wisp I've spent my professional life trying to capturehoning research techniques tlrnt would weld tl1e precision of hard sciences to tl1e intuition of tile social scientist and the creativity of the writer. As a historica l researcher, not only for my own works but for countless otl1er writers over tl1e past quarter-century, I live by one creed: Reading about Paris isn't tl1e same as going tl1ere! So, how can ~ve write convincing!)' about a past we've never personal!)' visited?
Historical writing offers us d1oices. \Ve can recrcle ideas and images borrowed from books we've read or we can offer new realities, witl1 fresh characters and events that are starkly real. ew trutl1S do exist for tl1ose who personally journey back into the records created by tl1e people tl1ey write about. That point is profoundly made by tl1e central character in my novel, a legendary but very real woman born into slavery in 1742.
The Legend
When I first heard of Coincoin, she had been an idol for decades, lauded in newspapers, histories, and glossy books about art a.ncl architecture •-\11 writers embroidered the same faded canvas tl1ey called "legend." Tius shadowy woman from tl1e past was named l\Iarie TI1erese, but was called "Coincoin." She came from tl1e Congo as a child - or else she was Indian. She belonged to tl1e commandant at a colonial Louisiana outpost ca.lied Natchitoches, and he gave her land and freedom because she was his daughter, some said - or because she had saved lus life, otl1er versions swore.
,-\t tlus point, tl1e legend became a romance. There ca.me from France, supposedly, a man who could not afford land of his own, so he wooed her and sired a fa.nuly by her. Together they became fabulously wealtl1y, but tl1eir offspring squandered tl1e fortune, leaving notlling but tl1e mansion she built and her memory that still haunts it.
Curiously, tl1e legend also denigrated its own heroine. That "strange nickname," Coincoin, meant "quack quack" in French - a sobriquet: supposedly given her because she went around quacking like a duck!
The Reality
Of all tl1e legend, only one detail proved true: For tl1e first two rears of Coincoin's life, she was owned by tl1e post commandant. Beyond tl1is, tl1e story of tl1e fantastic world she spawned belies the fiction of prior writers and defies most stereotypes of his torr-
In 1735, at Natchitoches on Louisiana's Cane River, tl1e commandant acquired a pair of slaves and arranged a marriage between them. TI1ey were both _-\fricanborn; at least one was from Togo. They were legally married for twenty-two years, produced eleven children, and died togetl1er from yellow fever tl1ey caught nursing tl1eir mistress tl1rough the plague. TI1eir second daughter, bom in 1742, was baptized under the Christian name Marie Therise, but her parents gave her an _-\frican name, Ko11K11111. French and Spanish scribes would spell tl1at name in many ways, eventually settling upon Coi11coi11.
At seventeen, Coincoin bore her first child to an Indian husband. ,-\t twentyfour, she was rented to a yow1g French merchant to be his concubine - an arrangement: for which she paid a horrific price. ,-\fter twenty years, her wlute lover took a wlute wife, compensating Coincoin witll a deed to sixty-seven acres of wooded land.
By tl1e time she was cut loose, Coincoin had birtlled fifteen children. The first five, born of her slave union, had been sold to tl1e wind; five of her half-white children would remain tl1e property of tl1eir father until tl1ey were twenty-five to tl1irty-five years of age. Now middle aged and her body ravaged by all those cluldbirtl1s, Coincoin set out to free her family and earn tl1em respect and citizenship.
On her sixty-seven acres, she grew tobacco. ,-\ skilled healer, she made medicines for the community. She trapped wild turkeys and bears, processing the meat, hide, and grease for slupment to tl1e international market at ew Orleans. Living frugally in a two-room cabin, she used all income to buy tl1e freedom of her children and grandcluldren. ,-\s she aged and could no longer maintain tl1e level oflabor needed to fulfill her dreams, she bought slaves to help her. By her deatl1, she owned a tl10usand acres and tlurteen slaves, but she still lived frugally in her little cabin - not that fine mansion of lore.
Cover S to1:1
Bui lding o n the sta r t she gave them, Coincoin's chi ldren and grandchildren built an agricultural empire: 18,000 acres of alluvial land on Cane River's is le and a dozen manor houses, not just one. .-\s religious leaders in the parish and heavy ta..\":payers, they were respected by French neighbors but resented by the Anglo Americans who took over Louisiana after the Purchase of 1803. Denied access to community sc h ools for their chi ldre n , they b u il t th eir own academies, bringing in tutors from France.
At their deaths, Coincoin's children left estates valued at millions in today's currency. But the Civil War would destitute the Is le. Postwar, Jim Crow wou ld strip her grand- and great-grandchi ldren of the limited political rigl1ts they once enjoyed under the Creole regime Her offspring to the fifth and si..\":th generations would never know citizenship. Still, they held on to the memory of the woman who had delivered them from slavery and given them hope.
Out of that memory grew the local legend that a woman bom in slavery had been free and rich, but al l the embroidery by creative writers never captured the eloquence of her life. So where was her story found? How did I take a legend and breathe life back into the d1aracter she really was?
The Challenge
.Alex Haley described the challenge of writing the ,-\frican-.-\merican story this way: "In those days slaves were sold and shifted much like livestock, so records were sporadic." \Vhen we search for past lives in a slave society, he concluded, "oral history is without question, the best source." 1 I disagree Coincoin and countless other sla,·es, whose lives have been resurrected by skilled researdlers over the past quarter century, have proved otherwise.
Telling Coincoin's story at the Historical Novel Society's 2003 conference in Salt Lake City, I distilled my research into ten core principles - simple ones on the surface, but powerful ones when put into practice. Here, I'll illustrate each one briefly.
1. Do your own research-in original records.
Historical research is far more than looking up facts and details, and much more than reading books others have written. Historical research is all about absorbing the culture and lives of the place and time. If we write about real people, we cannot assume that prior writers have adequately rooted those lives out of the historical records, no matter how much is already written. The chasm between Coincoin's legend and her reality makes that point.
2. It is folly to trust record indexes and databases.
Even when we "get down and dirty" in the records - those original records - we cannot trust their indexes. For Coincoin's place and time, three core collections exist: censuses, courthouse records, and Catholic registers for births, marriages, and deaths. ~[y predecessors had looked at some of them but missed the gems because they did not probe beyond those indexes and databases.
Today's researchers are blessed to have online access to image copies of all US censuses through 1930, with splendid seard1 engines. Yet Coincoin appears in none of them. The colonial Spanish censuses that do cover her are not online, had not been published then and, consequently, had never been examined. The old manuscript church registers had scarcely been peeked at; witl10ut finding aids, tl1ey were such a daunting chore.
Official indexes to the local courthouse records were the only resources prior writers had harvested, but those indexes offer only seven documents for Coincoin. Between 179-t and 1796, she bought and freed two daughters and three grandchildren (only a fraction of the actual number she actually rescued). In 1802, she acknowledged the gift of those sixty-seven acres from the Frenchman some years before. In 1807, she purchased a neigl1bor's farm , which she sold to a son in 181-t. Finally, in 1816, she divided the rest of her property among her children.
None of these indexed entries, however, give us anything on Coincoin as a slave They offer nothing on her life before age fifty-two, and only sporadic information after that. Superficially, yes, Haley's advice would seem appropriate here: records for slaves seem sporadic or nonexistent. But if we used that as a license to create our own version of the past, we would violate the reality of Coincoin's life and times.
So where did I get that information about her trapping bears and turkeys, growing tobacco, and making medicine? How did I discover when she was freed or the kind of house she lived in? \Vhere did I leam about the savage pw1ishment inflicted upon her because, while she was a slave, her mistress rented her to a man to be his concubine? How do I know that at least one of her parents was from Togo, or that her "peculiar nickname" was \frican and had nothing to do with ducks? The answers come from applying the other eight research principles.
3. To find a fema l e, follo w the males to whom she was attached .
For female characters of tl1e past, if we simply look up tl1eir names in official records, we'll find little. Prior to the 20 th century, few women had a legal identity of tl1eir own. Husband and wife were one person under the law, and that personhood was assigned to the husband.Widows and spinsters had the legal right to act for themselves but seldom did. ~[ale kinsmen typically conducted tl1eir legal affairs \Vomen born into slavery, so we are told, rarely created records of tl1eir own. Thus, tl1e ma..\":im: to find a female, follow tl1e
Agnes Poissot, wife of Augustin Metoyer, Coincoin's eldest son by Pie rr e
males to whom she was attached-husbands, brothers, sons, fathers, emp loyers, or masters.
Legend connected Coincoin to two males: her white lover , Pierre l\fetoyer, and the commandant who owned her , Juchereau de St. Denis. Neither man, courthouse files imply, created any le gal document that named her. Local church records offer a 17-l2. baptismal for a black child born into the St. Denis household, but that entry does not call her Coi11coi11 or identify her parents. J\Ioreover, the blotched ink, tattered pages, and torn-awar sectio n s of the registers si l ent l r scream two cautions: "The name's the same" does11 't mean the person is, and The "011!J one in the record" still mqy not be the nght one!
St. Denis died just two years after the birtl1 of this black child.
Following his h eirs tl1rough the records wou l d eventua ll y provide proof of the babe's identity. i\s his sons came of age, two lists were drawn up, itemizing fiftysome thing slaves
His poignant sto r y, which Mills
Isle of Canes, is just one of the n1an y
records at Ne"' Or l eans.
held by tl1e estate. _-\gain, only one l\farie 111<:~rese appeared. TI1e 1756 list cites her as tl1e second daughter of tl1e -\fricans Frarn;:ois and Fanny; tl1e 1758 list explicitly calls her Coincoi n Those lists also identified ten siblings for her - siblings who would provide tl1e key to her roots, once I applied anotl1er research principle.
4. To understand a woman, thoroughly study all known kinfolk.
Surviving records had now given me tlurteen slaves to trace, n ot ju st one. Thirteen lives begged to be reconstructed, but tlrnt meant ferreting out all church and civil records created by a dozen masters as tl1ose slaves were so ld , rented, and inherited. ,-\mong tl1e jewels found, as I followed that popu lation down into tl1e next century, was at1 182.5 court case witl1 slave fan1ily trees dating back to tl1e nud1700s. One sketched four generations from a "los t" daughter of Coincoin, offspring she had n ot been allowed to buy and free.
,-\mid tl1at study, I noticed sometl1ing else. Three of Coincoin's siblings also had "peculiar nicknan1es," each was spelled in various ways, but none had a French equivalent. Dgimf?J, Cboera, at1d Yancdose - as well as Ko11K111/1 and otl1er variatlts of Coincoin - were more likel y African tl1at1 French, I tl1eorized. Jat1 Vansina, a professor of ,-\fricat1 linguistics at ilie University ofl\Iiclugan, confirmed tl1at. In tl1e Glidzi dialect of tl1e Ewe people of coastal Togo, KonKwn was
a name reserved for second-born daughters. Significantly, when Professor Vansina reported his conclusion, he did not know Coincoin's birtl1 position.
Tirnt finding makes tl1e case for anotl1er important research principle:
5. Tradition often ain't!
Too often, so-called oral history or family tradition is of historically recent vintage. J\Iost trace back only to tl1e late 1800s and early 1900s, when a burgeoning breed oflocal historians and lin eagesociety hopefuls heard something curious and tried to create a "logical explanation" for it. Even researchers who work in otl1er cultures, such as griots in tl1e Gambia, report this same problem witl1 "handed-down memories." Correcting tl1em, however, may require more labor tl1at1 most of us anticipate - as tl1e next principle suggests.
6. Track down records at every level of government, not just local ones.
Even historical writers who diligentlr pursue local records may overlook tl1ose created or maintained elsewhere, particularly at higher levels of government. The oversight cat1 be serious. For tlus freed slave, living in a crude cabin on a sparsely populated frontier, I would find records in five otl1er commercial centers witl1in tl1e colony and
even more in tl1e national archives of four nations. Few of those records would be indexed or cataloged, at1d none would be recorded under her name.
The ,-\rcluvo General in Seville, for exatnple, houses records that Louisiana's far-flung outposts sent to Spanish governors at New Orleat1s. This trove yielded petitions, letters, passports, at1d tax lists for Natchitoches - none of tl1em duplicated locally. -\nud tl1e mat1y new bits at1d shards I could use to piece togetl1er tl1e mosaic of Coincoin's life was a 1792. passport issued to her enslaved sons. \Viili tl1e commat1dat1t's permission, tl1ey took a barge to New Orleat1s laden witl1 Coincoin's produce for ilie rear: 9,900 rolls of tobacco, 300 skins, at1d 2. barrels of bear oil.
In the US National Archives, a repository that would not exist for more tl1an a century after Coincoin's deaili, I found still more. She had been one of tl1e mat1y caught up in tl1e turmoil created by Thomas Jefferson's purchase of Louisiatrn. Like oilier landowners, even tho.se who had lived on tl1eir farms for generations under tl1e French at1d Spanish, she had to take "proofs" of title to tl1e newly opened lat1d office, days away, and tl1en wait years to learn tl1e fate of her property. -\gain, Coincoin's sons traveled on her behalf, filing tl1e papers she had protected for a decade against vermin, floods, at1d tl1eft.
There in \Vashington I fow1d a survey of her sixty-seven acres, complete witl1 a birds-eye view of her little cabin. l\latching tlrnt sketch to sun'eys filed by neighbors revealed tl1at tl1e surveyor used different drawings for different types of dwellings; and some of tl10se houses still stand today to show exactly what each sketch
Born 1800 o n a Cane River plantation, Auguste Metoyer, Coincoin's gra nd son, s h atte red a nt ebellum social and economic barriers against fr ee Negroes.
skillfully weaves into
she uncovered fro1n forgotten
Cover J"toiy
represents. \Vhat's more, finding those surveys enabled us to locate her home precisely on the ground so that archaeological excavations could tell us even more about her day-to-day life.
Still, major gaps existed in her life's story. .One of these, when and how she gained her freedom, would be filled by following the next research principle.
7. Don't just search for your character, include her FAN Club.
For Coincoin, the contemporaries I call her "F.-\N Club" (Friends, Associates, and Neighbors) now numbered in the dozens -\11 created records with valuable evidence. Si."teen years into their concubinage, for example, Pierre J\Ietoyer visited a notary in 1 ew Orleans to draft a will that would have fueled gossip in their village - a will he eventually replaced with the less-revealing one his heirs would probate. The first two provisions of that New Orleans document tell us:
"I declare I am a bachelor and therefore hare 110 children
By prit-ate paper, in 1778, Ifreed the negresse J'i1arie ThereJ·e Coincoin, and I beg 11ry executors not to obstmct her freedom in a,ry 111qy "
From this, we learn three important things. First, the year she was freed. Second, considering that she stayed with Pierre until nearlr 1788 (the year he married), we know their affair lasted a decade after she had the freedom to leave. That, itself, speaks to the nature of their bond. 111ird, the real doozie, is that declaration, "I declare I am a bachelor and therefore have no children." In light of such explicit denial, how can I contend he fathered Coincoin's half-white sons and daughters?
The question is critical for historical writers who deal with real characters and controversial issues such as miscegenation and illegitimacy Alex Haley himself, amid his discussion of the difficulty of proving interracial relationships, adamantly asserted: "Records [do nbt] reflect dungs like children born from unions between white masters and black women." Truth is, t!1e records often do.
In Coi.ncoin's case, the remainder of Pierre's will and countless otl1er documents make his paternity quite clear. The real issue for tl1e historical writer is tl1is: Why the explicit denial? \Vas it born of callousness, as tl1e world assumes for tl1e similar situation of Thomas Jefferson and Sall)' Henungs? If we created tl1at negative story line for Pierre and Coincoin, we would again violate the past in which tl1ey lived and - I tl1ink - loved. Pierre's predicament becomes clear when we apply tl1e next research principle.
8. Legal records have to be interpreted in the context of contemporary law.
Past societies encouraged "regular behavior" and protected famil y fortune s by denying illegitimate children a right of inheritance. That view Qike many otl1er legal stances) changed gradually over place and time -meaning tlrnt every legal document we find must be inte1preted in tl1e context of tl1e law that existed in its time and place. In tl1is case, had Pierre acknowledged fatl1eri.ng tl1ose cluldren, the law would have prolubited !us leaving them any inheritance at all. In tlrnt "foreign cow1try" called tl1e past, Pierre had no choice. In order to leave to !us
cluldren what he and tl1eir modi.er had labored to produce, he had to publicly deny tl1en1 for posterity.
Legal records (and tl1e F -\N Club principle) would also reveal tl1e most horrific episode of Coincoin's life. Ten years after Pierre rented her, tl1e local priest filed charges against her owner. Neitl1er tl1e case label nor the index referenced Coincoin or J\Ietoyer, altl10ugh it would be Coincoin who would par the savage price when all of tl1em were found guilty. The crux of the case was that Coincoin was Pierre's concubine; and charges and countercharges flew all over town, producing marvelous context, events, and insight into characters far better tlrnn anytl1ing I could have invented.
Still more legal records were fow1d outside tl1e parish courtl10use br following anotl1er research principle.
9. Don't lock your research into too tight a time frame.
One hundred and fifteen years after Coincoin bore her first child to Pierre, tl1eir half-white grandchildren were sued by Pierre's wlute grandchildren. 111at 1883 case fizzled before it went to court, but not before the white familr matriarch gave a priceless deposition: "J\Iy grandfatl1er was Claude Thomas Pierre J\Ietoyer. He had a colored son, .-\ugustin Coincoin [and others]."
11us legal case, found not in tl1e parish courtl10use but in tl1e private papers of a law firm, was disco\·ered by also applying one otl1er research principle.
10. Identify unofficial record keepers and locate their papers.
Every commwuty had its w1official record keepers: lawyers, doctors, merchants, and ministers, as well as neighbors who died holding notes on people and others whose estates were auctioned. No research job is complete until we have identified tl10se individuals and tracked down tl1eir records. This last step yielded a tl1ousand windows into tl1e persona of Coincoin and all my characters.
.-\nud tl1e accow1t registers oflocal merchants, for example, I noticed another "curiosity." In this society, the best of families had
outstanding loans and charge accounts. Despite the historical stereotypes we've learned elsewhere, merchants and prosperous
Melrose, allegedly built by Coincoin in 1750, actually built by son Louis in 1832
residents also lent money liberally to African ,-\mericans and extended diarge accounts even to Indians. Yet I never found one for Coincoin - her half-French sons, yes; but not Coincoin herse lf.
Similar!)', as I worked ta..-.,: assessments from Spain, I noticed a parallel. Some of those lists represented sums paid; others were delinquency rolls, often quite long. Coincoin, as a free woman, appears on several of the paid tax ro ll s, but never on a delinquent list.
What does this tell us about her character or mindset? Clearlr, she was a good citizen who paid her ta..-.,:es on time, e,·en when prominent neighbors did not. Obviously, she was frugal, never buying on credit what she did not have cash to purchase. To get this insight into her nature, however, I had to first define the patterns that prevailed in her community, patterns no other hi storian had conveniently laid out for me.
The Researcher's Dilemma
In a recent magazine interview, a historical novelist stated that she spent some 10% of her time doing research, about 50% doing the writing, and about 30% on rewrites. _-\s witl1 our financial portfolios, each of us must decide tl1e balance that best meets our goals. For me, tllose tluee tasks are far more evenly balanced, but tl1e weight definitely tilts toward research.
For Isle of Ca11eJ~ tl1e deptl1 and breadtl1 of mr probes yielded rich returns. \Vhen reviewers express surprise tliat its autl10r - whose photograph attests a fai r comp lexion -could "get in side the skin of tl1ose who were black and yet not black at the same time, to show tl1e world of slavery and race from a new aJld unexpected point of \ iew" aJ1d when tl1e HNS concluded its review witl1, "You mar never look at ,-\mericaJ1 history tl1e saJne way again," 2 tl1e credit goes to tl1at research.
Historical novelists need so maJ1y skills . We pursue fine arts degrees. \Ve hone tl1e craft of writing in workshops, at conferences, and in writing circles But we hMdicap ourselves if we accept the assumption tl1at tl1e past is past , tlrnt hist oriaJ1s have interpreted it, aJ1d that we caJ1 read tl1eir works for tl1e facts aJ1d background we need to weave o ur tales. Not!
I come to historical fiction as a historiaJ1, a genealogist, aJ1d a writer of historical nonfiction All tl1ese roles convince me tlrnt true insight into tl1e past comes from immersing ourselves in tl1at past. It comes from touch ing what our characters touched, from reading what tlley wrote. Br going personally into their world to immerse ourselves in the very artifacts tl1ey created, we caJ1 far better see and feel the world they experienced.
Notes
1. Interviewed by Eliot Kaplan , "Roots: T11e Saga Co ntinues," Fami(y IF'eek(y, 2 August 198 l. 2. Sarnh Joluison, HNR, August 200~
Efi:::_abeth Sho111n Miffs is a historical J1Jriter 111ho has Jpent her lzje stutfying ethnic mftures and relationships. She, her research, and her books hare been featured Oil tele1ision and radio across three continents, i11cf11ding America's CNN, Australia's ABC, and the United Kingdom's BBC Her 111ebsite is 111111111.isfeojccmes.com
What Might Have Been
TOBY FROST prolides all orenieJ1J of Alternate History.
Robert Harris is not the first author to wonder what the world would have been like had Hitler won \X'orld \'('ar II. Fatherland (1992) is one of the most faJnous exaJnples of alternate histor)', a genre that seeks to portray what would ha,·e happened had history taken a different route
-\tits worst, alternate his torr reads like a mixture of science fiction without the science and historical fiction without the historr I Iowever, the genre offers readers tl1e opportunity not only to experience a fictitious world populated by imaginary characters, but to engage \\·itl1 tl1e writer in a complex and entertaining gaJne of "What if?" l\Core tl1an aJ1)" otl1er type of fiction, alternate history relies on the reader knowing more tl1aJ1 tl1e characters: not just about plot, but about tl1e very world in which tl1e story is set. It is this interplay between tl1e reality of the story Md tl1e reader's knowledge of events as tl1ey really happened tl1at makes tl1e genre unique.
It is difficult to pinpoint tl1e very first alternate history novel. .-\s a genre, itlrns link s to the "Fuh1re \'( 'ar" and ''l'ellm,· Peril" schools of near-future science-fiction popular in tl1e late 19th century, as well as a number of British and AmericaJ1 novels from the 1930s which imagined the consequences of a Nazi occupation of tl1e Englishspeaking world, generally for satirical purposes. However, tl1ese books were set not in alternate realities, but in near-future versions of the real world. Perhaps tl1e first book to deal specifically witl1 alternate history was a collection of essays entitled Iflt Had Happened Othemfre (1932), one of which was contributed by \'\'ins ton Churchi ll himself -who has since appeared as a character in numerous alternate history novels. This and similar books are more speculative essays rather thaJ1 true historical fiction, aJ1d strictly speaking fall outside tl1e boundaries of the alternate history novel.
The first alternate his torr novel to win serious acclaim was Th e Afall in th e High Castle (1962), by Philip K. Dick. Like Raymond ChMdler's crime novels, it is not the first of its type, but it botl1 sets out tl1e rules of tl1e genre Md deals with tllem in a more subtle and complex way tl1aJ1 maJ1y of its successors.
Dick takes the concept of tl1e alternate reality to its furtl1est point: like many of his books, The Man in the High Castle uses a sciencefiction scena110 as a basis for discussion of philosophical issues. The story is set in a Japan-controlled \\est Coast, where .-\merica has been di,·ided between tl1e victorious -\xis powers after World \Var II. 111e characters in the novel come to suspect tlrnt their reality is not in fact tl1e true one: tl1at in another reality, GermaJ1)" aJ1d .JapaJ1 did not win \\'odd \Var II. To furtl1er complicate tl1e issue, tl1e titular "1\Ian" is aJ1 author who has written aJ1 alternate history novel of his own called The Grasshopper lies 1l eary, in which Bt1taiJ1 has completely defeated tl1e .-\xis powers aJ1d subsumed most of Europe into the British Empire. The Grasshopper lies Heaiy is alternate history not only to us, but to tl1e characters of The 1\1a11 in the High Castle.
Dick uses alternate history as a way of peeling back different versions of the truth, like layers on an onion, asking both the characters and the reader, "How do you know that you are living in the real world?" ,-\lthough I think that most readers would agree that Fatherland proposes a more likely vision of an .A.xis-controlled world (Dick's
ITAS I
Nazis have drained the l\[editerranean and are contemplating amission to Mars in the 1 %Os), Dick gives the genre a unique philosophical slant.
,-\lternate history combines the complexities of science fiction with the need for accuracy of true historical writing. It must be both plausible and imaginative to succeed: a fine balance to strike. So what appeal can such a difficult genre have for readers and writers? Sophia McDougall's recent novel Romanitas (2005) imagines a society where the Roman Empire has never fallen, complete with trains, televisions - and crucifixions. She writes:
"Bypassing some of the rules of reality gives a writer great freedom, but to bypass them all would be like playing chess against someone who always lets you win - dull. In an alternate setting, not just the individual lives of the characters but the global setting are under your control You can create characters and have them live out your ideas about what makes it possible for a person to change history."
One of the defining features of the genre is the "point of divergence," the moment where the history of the novel took a different course to that of reality, and whose repercussions are what make the present of the book different to our own The point is usually something
technically feasible - an assassination attempt that worked in reality fails, bad weather prevents a ship from sailing, or the unexpected tactics of a general alter the real result of a battle. On occasion, though, science-fiction trickery has been used: in Harry Turtledove's Guns of the South (1992), tl1e result of tl1e American Civil War is altered when modem men use a time-machine to supply tl1e Confederates witl1 more 20 th -century guns. Purists would argue tlrnt tlus makes the novel science fiction, altl1ough tl1e rest of tl1e story is played out as straight history.
I consider that the point of divergence is as essential to alternate lustory as tl1e existence of a crime is to a detective novel. Often, writers on ly drop clues as to the point, challenging readers not to identify the murderer, but to find out when tl1e world of tl1e novel parted course with our own. That said, botl1 Fatherland and Len Deighton's SSGB (1978) have detective heroes who move from slums to tl1e mansions of Party bosses, w1covering the full, grisly workings of a victorious Nazi Germany .A good proportion of \Villian1 Gibson and Bruce Sterling's The Difference Engine (1990) also follows an an1ateur detective arow1d a computerised Victorian London . .Alternate lustory may centre around romance, adventure or any other type of plot: detective stories set in alternate worlds are particularly popular, as tl1ey enable the writer to show the reader the full breadtl1 of tl1e imaginary society.
,\tits far ends, alternate history begins to resemble fantasy. One of the most extreme examples is Harry Harrison's Eden trilogy, which starts from the basis that tl1e dinosaurs only died out in Nortl1 _\merica The three books tell the story of a war between cavemen and strange, highly advanced beings that have evolved from reptiles
.A sinular approach is taken in Dougall Dixon's speculative fieldguide The NeJ1J Dinosaurs (1988), in wluch he imagines tl1e next steps in dinosaur evolution had tl1e great extinction not taken place
.Altl1ough it offers tl1e reader new possibilities, alternate history also has the potential to fail in ways that other types of writing do not. Firstly, and most obviously, tl1e sheer effort of building an alternate reality can prove too much in itself. The - sometimes conflictingneeds to alter history convincingly, to create feasible characters, and to tell a good story can easily wrench a novel out of shape .As Sophia McDougall says, "In alternate lustory, you have to create a particularly huge scaffolding for tl1e novel to rest on, sometlung to bear tl1e san1e weight as real history. This can take a lot of work, and in the end most of it won't be visible."
Furtl1ermore, tl1e novel always runs tl1e risk of becoming a platform - knowingly or not - for tl1e writer's own beliefs .An obvious, if unlikely, exan1ple nught be of a writer witl1 Fascist sympatlues using an alternate history to suggest tl1at tl1e world would be a better place if Hitler had been successful. l\[ore subtly, I suggest tl1at a writer has an obligation not to abuse the dead by writing them into situations where tl1ey would have had no part. It is easy to imagine Oswald Mosely as a quisling head of government: however, it would be a disservice to Neville Chamberlain to depict !um as serving in it. To give anotl1er example, an autl10r dealing witl1 an alternate reality in which Protestantism has been crushed in its infancy (as with Keitl1 Roberts' Pairme (1968)) would need to be careful not to allow his story to become a wholesale praising or condemnation of Catl1olicism.
.A second, less obvious problem lies in tl1e sheer complexity of
trying to imagine the results of an altered past. The setting must be sufficiently feasible for the reader to accept it as a background for tl1e story. If the background is obviously impossible, readers are much less likely to care about the plot.
Changing one historical event could produce a variety of different consequences, depending on the author's interpretation. The failure of Rudolf Hess to fly to Britain in 1941 might be used by one author as a means for ending World \Var II prematurely; another writer might imagine the change in events as prolonging the war beyond 1945. To alter history is not simply to switch tl1e train from one set of rails to anotl1er: any number of outcomes could flow from the change. The results can be extremely complex. It is a mark
of quality in tl1is genre that the results of tl1e change be logical and convmc111g.
Such issues take the autl10r into the realms of both psychology and historical philosophy. The more significant the end result of the change in history that the autl10r creates, the more powerful and tightly controlled the author's imagination must be, and the more skilled he must be as a historian.
To me, the genre of alternate history offers readers tl1e charice both to experience a new world, and to read a commentary on the real one. A successful alternate history works not just as a conventional historical novel, but runs parallel to reality. Like good science fiction,
Defining features of Alternate History:
• A point where history diverges from what really happened, which may or may not be explicitly stated in the story
• A setting whose present logically follows the consequences of that divergence
• Working laws of physics - so no magic, and usually no science fiction
However:
• The story need not be set in the present day
• The characters need not be famous (real) people
good alternate history reflects, and sometimes parodies and satirises our own world, so that what we recognise becomes as important as what we do not.
Tof?y Frost is a nonpractising bamster, and in his free time 1JJrites science fiction and alternate history. He is the secretary ef Verulam Writers Circle.
Convincing in Every Detail
KATE ALLAN comments on Robert Harriss Fatl1erland.
In 1992 the debut novel from journalist Robert Harris went to the top of the UK book charts, spent three months on the New York Times bestseller lists, and was short-listed for the Whitbread First Novel Award. Fatherland was a powerful thriller set in 1964 - but in a 1964 where there had been a very different outcome to World War II. Adolph Hitler rules a German Reich which had got its lebensraum, stretching across Germany and Central Europe as far as the Eastern edge of European Russia, and 1964 is the year of his seventy-fifth birthday.
"Convincing in every detail," wrote Martlrn Gellhorn in British broadsheet newspaper The Daily Telegraph. "You read the book with a shivering sense of what we escaped."
And this is, in essence, is tl1e crux of it. Fatherland was the novel which took Alternate History mainstream. Harris was successful in presenting a convincing possible answer to one of the most emotive "what ifs" in living memory. What if Germany had won World War II?
Kate Allan is co-author efThe Lady Soldier f?y Jennifer lindscry, published f?y Robert Hale in Mery 2005. Perfidy and Perfection f?y Kate Allan will be out in 2006.
A Century's Dark Decade
DEAN MILLER examines the historical novels of Afan Furst.
At the northwest comer of the rue Auguste Comte and the Bou!' :Mich' in Paris's 6 th Arrondissement, is a substantial, two-storey storage building, probably belonging to the groundskeepers of the nearby Jardin de Luxembourg. The structure is built of that "official" pale golden Parisian tujf, and one wall, facing the comer, is heavily pocked with what look like old scars from automatic weapon and rifle-fire, and a few weathered, deeper craters, probably from the 20mm. cannon carried by Wehrmacht armored cars. There is an enamel plaque commemorating a fallen FFI fighter (Forces Franc;:aises de l'Interieur, the mostly Gaullist Resistance group) attached to the iron palings at the corner. Paris has cleaned up almost all of its World War II souvenirs, but we have to tlunk that there was armed action on tlus spot during the Liberation of Paris in August 1944. 1 This event could serve as the terminus of Alan Furst's "dark decade," from 1934 to 1944, the years in which his historical espionage novels have their vivid life, and his cast of characters also live -or die.
Paris's Liberation is a fitting event to end the decade because Paris keeps emerging and re-emerging in the narratives of Furst's eight espionage novels: Night Sol.dim (1988), Dark Star (1991), The Polish Officer (1995), The World at Night (1997), Red Gold (1999), Kingdom of Shadows (2000), Bl.ood of Victory (2002) and Dark Vl!)'age (2004) (Pans is less so but still referred to in tl1.is last novel). Mostly tlus is not a Paris remembered, Wtingly, in flowering April, but recalled as if in the dark, both physical and psychic - as five of his titles clearly reflect. The action in the novels may reach Eastern Europe, to the Danube, to various more or less permeable Polish or Czech or Slovak or Hungarian frontiers, to Varna or Istanbul, to Switzerland, to Belgium, or to the south of France where Petain's Vichyite puppets held whatever power the German occupiers permitted them after the disaster of 1940, even (by sea) to North Africa, and the edges of Scandinavia. But frequently, at least in the first seven novels, we come back to Paris - despite the fact that only one main character, Jean Casson (in two books, The World at Night and Red Gold), ex-filmmaker and reluctant Resistance fighter, is what we'd call a genuine Parisian. 2 Casson is so tied to Paris that, at the end of The World at Night, being taken out of harm's way - the Gestapo was looking for him - he jumps from the boat evacuating him to England, swims back to shore, and returns to tl1e manifold dangers of the occupied capital. But other protagonists also find themselves in the city-first Stoianev, Bulgarian ex-NKVD operative and a deserter from the International Brigade in Spain, the Russian Jew and Prai-da correspondent Andre Szara and tl1e Russian writer I. A Serebin, the Hungarian aristocrat Nich~las Morath, even .Alexander de l\iilja, "the Polish officer." Another Hungarian noble, the fat, urbane and deadly spymaster Janos von Polanyi de Nemeszvar, briefly operates his espionage "orchestra" from there. \Ve see Paris in the mid 1930s, reluctantly picking up fue human detritus fleeing Germany or new fascist regimes in Eastern Europe (or the Falange and tl1e Stalinists in embattled Spain), Paris in a state of hedonistic excess (and pullulating with informers, agents and handlers from every faction and nation) during the Phony War, and then Paris suddenly, shockingly occupied by the old enemy, with plenty of spies still left in tl1e shadowy corners of the city but also plenty of collaborators, and with Gestapo, SD, ordinary German military serving here (and praising tl1eir luck), and everywhere the mass of Parisians, resentful, resisting, resigned or
collaborating, trying to keep "Systeme D" going as long as fuey could. Oh yes, Paris is a character in Furs t's novels.
Ti m e and Place
Since the central characters Furst invents are all men in their late 30s and early 40s (born, that is, in fue last years of fue 19 th century or the first years of fue 20 th) they naturally have memories, personal evidence of the roiled time of the Great War and of the 1920s. But it is tl1e decade from 1933 to 1944 - the decade Adolf Hitler's Thousand Year Reich was in fact granted - that is tl1e main timeframe of action. \Ve could say fuat the Third Reich itself is anofuer character in Furst's fiction, as "time" elapsed, as a world power, and as space or place. Here are the burgeoning ultra-nationalist groups (fascist or proud irnitators of fue Nazis), waving tl1eir flags, wearing fueir uniforms and bellowing their hate-filled chants (and frequently exploding in murderous violence) all over Europe. Many of these movements drew inspiration from Mussolini's successful (if often opera beffa, and as often vicious) squadriJascisti, tl1ough Italy and its flamboyant regime is not, to date, prominent on Furst's fictional landscape. The rise of Nazi Germany is central: fue Third Reich's juggernaut "invited" into Austria, rolling into Czechoslovakia after Munich, destroying fue Polish army and occupying Poland, reducing France's army to impotence, and finally, fatally, breaking the bizarre, perverse "loveaffair" between Hitler and Stalin (an extraordinary image, laid out in Kingdom of Shadows) and storming into Russia and so, eventually, ensuring its own destruction. The chief dramatic crises of tlus decade are right in view: the Spanish Civil War (Night Soldiers), the..Sudetrn Crisis and the craven diplomatic abandonment of Czechoslovakia to Hitler (Kingdom of Shad01vs), the Nazi invasion of Poland (and Stalin's opportunistic pounce on the eastern Polish borderlands as well in The Polish OfficefJ, tl1e fall of France (The World at Night) and all that followed, with Operation Barbarossa and an increasingly deadly Ostfront off on the temporal and spatial horizon. Sub-plots may involve such matters as "Sea Lion," German y's serious (according to Furst) and barely aborted invasion plan for England (Red Gold), tl1e attempt to keep Rumania's essential oil from tl1e Reich (Blood of
Victory) and even the countermeasures attempted against th e alltoo-s uccessful German submarine warfare (Dark Vizyage).
In all of this novelistic sweep and flow we should note that Great Britain is a marginal player, and the United States is almo st invisible Great Britain, in fact, is a less-than-noble presence in Furst's earlier novels: a clique of upper-class Britons who gather at the Brasserie Heininger in pre-war Paris are as vacuous as any of \Vodehou se's aristos, but much more corrupt; British attempts to recruit agents before the war and to then build up resistance groups in Occupied France are desCLibed in frequently unflatte1ing terms, and tl1e B1itish attitude toward their " allies," and how tl1ey manipulate tl1em , is made all too clear. All in all, tl1e focus in Furs t's series is trul y continental European.
Furst's well-developed talent at delineating place is n o t limite d to Paris; in Dark Star, for instance, tl1ere is a phantasmago1ical gatl1ering o f bewildered diplomats fleeing Polish-Ukrainian Lv ov, se t in a hu ge, ghostlr, once luxmious, deserted spa - a scene straight out o f Fellini. Lvov is also tl1e flame-lit stage for an earlr atrocity in a war tlrnt would see manr of tl1em - tl1e terror-bombing of civilians. Szara is caught in the middle of the bombing, sees how the population recovers from it, and says of tl1e experts, prescientl y ~1ow much should we credit tlus prescience?) " tl1ey were wrong"civilian moral e may not be inevitably broken br tl1e shattering, imper so nal power of high-explosive bombs.
The bi g moments in tl1is dark decade are all well and good, but o f co ur se Furst is writing spy novels , and that intri ca te ly h\ is ted and perverse wo rld has to be seen and somehow described , and especially the subfu sc confrontations and complex maneuverin g (tl1e dirty little plot s) among intelligence-gatl1ering gro up s, sec u1it:y serv ice s, overtly or covertly sponsoring powers, and all tl1e ever-treacherous re st. "Trust no one" and "expect to be betrayed " are tw o catchphra ses, phra ses reinforced many times tl1rou g hout Furst's books. Then tl1e dark a rt of espionage, and of tl1e complex politics behind tl1e sprin g, is taken by tl1i s autl10r to construct interm e diary plot structure s and ten sio n s. Casson (in Red Gold; becomes a pawn in tl1 e game pla ye d between British intelligence, ilie Gaullist FFI, and tl1e Co mmuni s t ·esistance, tl1e FTP; Szara is caught up in an even m ore d an gero u s rivalry between Soviet khrnsry, tl1e " tail s" composed of tl10se m e n belonging to various nationalitie s jockering for pow e r under Stalin (Sza ra is connected to ilie ']ewish" khrnst but tl1e "Georgians" win - and while tl1e deadly Purges still rage to win means to b e able to annihilate your rival s) Even tl1e Hollander De Haan find s himself (and his ship and crew) manipulat ed b r competing forces: tl1e British on one side, tl1 e marginali zed Dutch gove rnment-in-exile on tl1e otl1er. 3
Characters
The characters tl.e n ovel s center on are a melan ge of European natio nalitie s: two Russians (o ne a Jew, one half-Jewi sh), a Hungarian, a P o le, a Bulgar, a Dutchman, and of course a Frenchman, witl1 a dark cluster o f Germans see n mostly as antagoni stic backdrop (not all of tl1ese are Nazi villains and Gestapo fiend s - tl1ere is one Geiman Jew who is a cats paw industriali s t and a victim of intric ate ly cross-cut plots, also tl1ere is an opera-lover who happ e n s to pilot a Luftwaffe b o mber, several anti-Nazi agents, and a number of o tl1 ers). 4 From a large selection of ancillary characters we meet dour peasants fr o m Slovakia, savage Ukrainian bandit gangs, French border-crossers who can escort yo u into V ich y territory and, witl1
lu ck, bring you back, foul Iron Guardists in Ruma.nia., edgy and su sp icious T urki sh Em11ryetsecurity men (111 fact security officers from a dozen states are here somew here) - and expatriate \'\llute Russians wh o fought cavalry-bat tl es in Uk r ain e in 1921, who, drinking in a Paris cafe, remember Berdichev taken and retaken by whichever si d e twenty-seven times (four teen times in an otl1er of Furst's books), and "Jewish prayer-shaw ls used as sadd le-cloths" (Blood of I / ictory). Furst is expert at the quick, slas hing shot of individuals who mi g ht n o t ever appear again in hi s narratives - like tl1e German policeman o n duty on Kristallnacht, s tanding mute, conflicted, frozen, while terrible crimes he had been ordered not to interfere in go on all around him (Dark Star).
His main characters m ay be on tl1e fringes of grea t even ts, but in almost every case th er a re in vo lve d - i11gagi- tl1 ey are n o t , like E ri c Ambler's protagonists in hi s classic Ba,kgro1111d to Danger or A Cofftn for Dimitrios (or the E ng li sh hunt er in Geoffrey I Iousehold's one well-crafted piece of suspe n se fiction, Rogue Male), innoce nt bys tand ers drawn by happ enstance into tl1e heart of tl1 e maelstrom. I'll return to tl1 e comparison witl1 _\mb ler and other s.
No ne of tl1 e protagonists h ave wives o r children (Casso n's wife h as anotl1er life, de Milja's wife die s); tl1ey are, invariably, so litari es who have le ft n o familr as h ostages behind tl1em. They ha ve no hom es, and ther usually eat in Europe's cafes and restaurants, so metim es well, sometimes not. 111ey have active sexual li ves, ratl1er upm ar ket at time s (J\ loratl1 witl1 an _\rgenti nia.n h eiress, Sza.ra witl1 a famous actress, Se reb in witl1 tl1e delici o us wife of a co mplace nt French diplomat) or they have con n ectio n s wi tl1 you n ger, g lam orous women (Casso n, the French film m an, h as botl1; hi s ex-wife mixes witl1 tl1 e chinless grand ees of tout Pans, hi s mistress, if briefly, is a young Italian gi rl). 5 Fucst's h eroes evidently h ave to be attractive to women and satis factorr, even exceptio nal , lovers, tl10ugh unfortunately their women tend to disappear one way or a.notl1er. This decade was no time, we are told, for "normal" relationships. But iliere is no sexual angst or n euroticism here - tl1e pain of loss to o n e side. Fur st has sometlung lik e a black-and-white world of perpetually renewed peril to d esc rib e - one aspect of w h at h as been cal led, in tl1e US at least, " tl1 e Good War" - and h e makes tl1.e most of his opportu niti es.
Plots and plotting
Obvious ly Furst has a huge and almost overactive narrative canvas in view, and hi s instinct is to explore as many of its spatial components, and touch as many bases, as possible. In Night Soldiers his Bulgarian h ero mak es a tour, from tl1.e Danube, to NKVD training sc h oo ls in tl1e USSR, to Spain , to Paris, to tl1e maqms of tl1e Jura, eventually back to tl1 e Danube (tl1.e book's ending is rushed and improbable) In Dark Star(also a big book) \ndre Szara too is continually on tl1e move; he is a newspaper correspondent, after a.II, recruited to espionage, and his itinerary takes him to Prague, Paris, Antwerp, Berlin, Poland, finally back to Berlin and on to Switzerland at tl1e book's ratl1er weak end (perhaps he's simpl)' worn out). The Pole de J\li lj a escapes from Poland to Ruma.nia, tl1en goes on to Warsaw, Gdansk, Paris and eventually eastward a.gain to Bessarabia l\[orath (Kingdom of ShadOJvs) de trains in Paris, arriving from Budapest, and he wi ll find himself in Ruthenia, the Czech Sudeten l and, and Transylvania. Casson tl1e Parisian manages to make his way south to Lyo n and r-[arseille and even to Spain; Serebin tl1e writer leaves Rumanian Constanta. for Istanbul, is in Paris of course, is in an incident near St. J\[oritz, and finally a very odd Danubian adventure. De Ha.an tl1e ship's captain (Dark Vizyage) sails under various flags
from Tangier, on to -\lexandria, to embattled Crete, and eventually to Skane and tl1e Baltic. In fact tl1e penpeteia is such tlrnt it is almost as if Furst, converting Raymond Chandler's advice on solving detective story emergencies ("have a man come tl1rough tile door witl1 a gun"), has his own fonnula: when in doubt, or when tl1e action slackens, send tl1c protagonist off to Prague, Budapest, Istanbul or maybe Riga.
Critical comment
Furst is, witl1out doubt, a constructor of adventurous entertainments of superior talent. To say tl1at he picks easy targets would be a bit unfair, but he is a master at tl1e slightly ambiguous happy ending, he is a sophisticated romantic (nco-Romantic?) and his creations can occasionally move closer to Sabatini tl1a.n to .-\mb ler's mordant, leftanchored sensibility or Le Carre's agonized moral neutrality and his mostly gray or mottled characters. Furst's most successfu l fictional characters, I tl1ink, arc Stoianev and Casson - men who sometimes have to scramble for tl1eir next bad meal, and who walk meaner streets, in perpetual peril. His less successful creatures are his aristos, like l\Ioratl1, but he doesn't fawn over ancient bloodlines -he is no Ian Fleming.
Furst's smooth (or sometimes slick) style as a writer is nicely balanced by his sense of humor, and by tl1e skill witl1 which he can insert a brilliant image: "the assorted ghosts and wolves who live in tl1e cafes" of 1939 Bucharest, for instance (The Polish Oiftcei'J. But in a historical novel tl1e de,·il may be in tl1e details if tl1e autl1or builds his story on detail, and tl1is Furst must do - sweep of view or vision, rapid pace of action, and density of detail clearly are his hallmarks, and in the latter area he can be vulnerable. Looked at another way, tl1e gaseous em·elope of fictional character, invented dialog, and described incident has to be supported by an armature
of fact, and if tl1is skeleton is malformed or brittle or broken, holes can be poked in tl1e gas-bag, and some credibility escapes. Furst's canvas (to change tile image) is, of course, immense, and to tackle this huge and ambitious canvas (an ambition which absolutely is to his credit) giYes plenty of opportunity for error. Occasionally tl1e misstep has to do witl1 losing sight of hi s audience or hi s fictional frame (w h y should a character be told tlrnt tl1e French DST is like tl1e ,-\merican FBI, when tl1e character may not know what tl1e FBI is?). l\lore often the errors are simp l y elementary mistakes or misstatements, and tile closer Furst gets to armed action, and tl1e military "trivia" (trivia taken very serious ly by tl1ose bearing and using tile atms, since tl1eir live s are at stake) the m ore likel y tile howlers are to appear. I have a sizeable List of (adm ittedly minor) infractions, and most of tl1ese could (and should) ha,·e been eliminated by judicious editorial intervention. 6
In tl1e end, .-\Jan Furst may airily toss off tl1e occasional bloomer, or be responsible for a hiccup in detail from time to time; tl1e fact remains that in tl1ese eight novels he shows himself a first-rate craftsman of fiction, formidab ly skilled in plotting, delineating character, and building tension, immensely inventive, and witl1 iliat large hi storical canvas still his to in vestiga te and use. He will continue to give great pleasure to his readers, and I certainly wish him well.
Afan Furst's 11e ....-t eJpio11age IIOl'e/, The Foreign Correspondent, 1iiff be published in 2006.
Notes
1. In fact the front end paper map ill Colli.its and La Pierre's ls Paris Burning? shows the Luxembourg area to have been h eavily contested ill August, with three German strongpoiltts and one FFI combat headquarters identified
2. A "l\kGuffin" appearing in most of the novels is the Brasserie Helllll1ger, where a Bulgarian headwaiter named Omaraeff is killed (ilt the ladies' room) in Night Soldiers, and a bullet hole in a mirror is kept as a souvenir of that dramatic occas io n TI1e restaurant seems to migrate, however; ill the earlier novels it h as to be ill the 7 th Arrondissemenr, but by Dark f /l!)'age has moved across the Seil1e to the Place de la Bastille.
3. TI1e British attitude toward its allies is said to vary dependil1g on whether the ally had shown some fight when the Germans attacked: Poland and Norway resisted; France and Holland capitulated -1-. A highly efficient Gestapo Funkabwehr officer, Sturmba1U1fi.ihrer Grahnweis, tracks down a cla11destil1e radio operator, but this triumph euds ill black comedy; the operator conun.its suicide and her boobytrapped transmitter explodes: "Grahnweis left the hotel 011 the Sail1tRustique side of the buildi..t1g " (The Polish Offtcer,189).
5. Even Stoainev, the village-born Bulgarian, is allowed to have liaisons, ill Paris, with upper-class women looki..t1g for sex,.rnl adventure with "a siluster-looki..t1g Slav" (Night Soldiers).
6. Furst often employs a pointilliste techu..ique, dotti..t1g i..t1 little characteristics to suggest a larger reality; so~ vapidly fashionable cocktail-circuit-socialist American couple are said to have "voted for (Eugene) Debs ill 1932"difficult to do, Siltce Debs died i..t1 1926. The poinle here is utisshapen, and so the picture goes slightly awry.
Dean J\fiffer, a professor emen·tus of history and comparatfre religion, 1vas trained as a By'-antinist, b111 has a fongfasti11atio11 1vith both military history and historicalfiction. His book, The Epic Hero, J1Jas published l?J The Johns Hopkins Uniz'erszjy Press in 2000. Dean has also publishedpoetry in Wooster Sauce, the journal of the British P. G. Ll7odehouse Sotie(J.
Judging a Book in Translation
LUCINDA BY.AIT presents the case of Ismail Kadare, 1vi1111erof the 2005 J11tematio11al Man Booker Prize.
The Intemational l\Ian Booker Prize was only awarded for the first time in June tl1is year, in tl1e recently nominated UNESCO City of Literature, Edinburgh And tl1e prize-winner well, he's from ,-\Jbania. But tliat, as I hope will become clear, is tl1e whole point.
Ismail I<adare was bom i.n 1936 in tl1e town of Gjirokas ter in sou tl1ern ,-\Jbania. He is ,-\Jbania's best known poet and novelist. His first novel The General of the Dead Army was published in 1963, and its translation into French in 1971 laid tl1e foundations for Kadare's growing reputation in Western Europe. The book is a study of postwar ,-\Jbania and a meditation on tl1e futility of war. ,-\1tl1ough he lived witl1 tile horrors of tl1e repressive Hoxha dictatorship, Kadare
was no easy task. TI1e prize aims to "recognise one writer's achievement in literature," it is awarded for a body of work, not a single book,and it can be won by a living author of any nationality, provided that his or her work is available in the English language. In an important break with most other major literary awards, the prizewinner can nominate a translator who then receives a separate award. This year's judging panel included the eminent literary critics .John Carey (chairman), Alberto l\Ianguel and \zar N afisi. ,-\11 three judges highlighted the international scope of the prize, a fact that was bome out by over half the shortlist of eighteen writers, including tl1e winning autl10r, being read in translation.
The new prize may mark an interesting turning point because, in tl1e past, very little has been done for nonEng l ish au tho rs. 0 ften shunned by the major publishers, it has fallen to the few brave stalwarts, often smaller presses who specialise in tllis area, to carry tl1e burden of extra translation costs. The truth is that the returns are far from assured since large chain bookstores and consequently most English-language readers are hesitant to read translated works. In tl1e UK our reading tastes are too often dictated by commercial requirements and tl1e "pile 'em high and sell 'em quick" mentality. However, as .-\Jberto l\Ianguel pointed out, the fault also lies in our failure as readers to rebel, to demand more European and non-European autl10rs. He cited tl1e statistic tl1at approximately 3% of books published in the US and UK is translations, compared to a staggering 26% in Italy (2002)2: shocking, but hardly surprising given tl1e dominance of tl1e English language
£.Ven when3ou ta!k., about somethin_J that happeneclthe cfa3 before, it is somehow histo:!J, because that aCIJ is afreac(i; over, 9Jma,r1<.aclare
continued to write, but "often sailed perilously close to tl1e wind": several texts were banned; others he managed to smuggle out of tl1e cow1try as pages stuffed inside wine bottles to be stored in safekeeping by his French publisher.' Kadare was ~anted political asylum in France in October 1990, shortly before tl1e collapse of Hoxha's regime, and did not return to Tirana until 2002.
In the imposing surroundings of Edinburgh Uni,-ersity's Old College, I listened as tl1e judges of tl1e inaugural International l\lan Booker Prize set out tl1eir criteria for choosing tl1is year's winner. It
The choice of Kadare as winner has proved controversial. Since his nomination in June, many have questioned his real relationship with tl1e despotic -\Jba.nian regime and tl1e reasons for his exile.
Writing in The G11ardia11,Julia.11 Evans quotes Kadare's response to tl1is absence of dissent: "That was not possible. You risked being shot. Not condemned, but shot for a word against tl1e regime. A single word." Instead, Kadare "revived old forms - parable, mytl1, fable, folk-tale, legend - packed them witl1 allusion and metaphor, plundered tl1e past." 3
9nlusfr_J
.Another question that has generated lively debate focuses on the problem of judging a book in translation. This is especiallr tme in Kadare's case, because few of his works have been translated directly from .Albanian. i\[ost have been translated from French and are therefore "twice-removed" from tl1e original text. Translation is a complex art, an imperfect process: Umberto Eco and otl1ers have drawn attention to tl1e Italian pun on "tradurre/tradire" (to translate/ to betray), which raises tl1e problem of tl1e translator's loyalty to the original. In Kadare's case, tl1e addition of anotl1er layer of language, a "re translation," adds yet anotl1er filter. David Bellos, tl1e translator chosen by Kadare to receive tl1e special translator's prize, has written illuminatingly on tl1is subject 4
Those of us who read historical fiction have to be pleased that tl1e first winner of the Prize is a historical novelist: (altl1ough he doesn't label himself tlrnt way) and history plays a major role in his writing. To pick out just a few of his historical works: The General of the Dead Amry (Harvill 1963) tells tl1e story of an Italian general sent to recover tl1e remains of soldiers who fell in tl1e Albanian campaigns some twenty years earlier It was later turned into a film, with i\Iarcello i\[astroianni memorably cast in tl1e role of tl1e Italian general. Kadare's native town of Gjirokast:er, with its lofty stone buildings towering over narrow cobblestone alleys, provides tl1e background to Chronicle i11 Stone (Serpent's Tail 1970), a largely autobiographical account of a young boy's coming of age during World \Var II when the town was successively occupied by Greek, Italian, and German forces. Above all, !~dare draws on the myths and history of medieval ,-\lbania, which provide a rich vein of parable, political allegory, and metaphor. The Castle tells the story of _-\lbania's struggle against the Ottoman Turks, involving tl1e siege of a medieval .,-\lbanian fortress by tl1e Turks in the 15 th century, and tl1e defeat of tl1e Turks by Skenderbeg. The Three-Arched Bridge chronicles the constmction of a bridge across a great river in 1377, witl1 the bridge emblematic of tl1e disintegration of the economy and political order as it attempts to straddle cultural divides. The river is personified as the "Wicked Waters" as it pits its strength against tl1e bridge's masonry; when a body is discovered walled up in the foundation, the local community is overshadowed by uncertainty, superstition and murder. Lastly, in Dom11tine, one of tl1e most well-known Albanian mytl1s is transformed into a medieval thriller.
Kadare rejects any attempt to label his writing, in particular tl1e term "historical fiction." In an interview given in Jw1e 2005, when asked, "\Vhat is tl1e perception of history from tl1e writer's point of view?", he replied, '~-\s I have said before, I don't accept so-called ''historical literature." I tlunk tlus tenninology makes it easy for superficial critics or for students to study literature at school. History is part of human life .,-\nd because human life gives birtl1 to literature, tl1ese artworks include historical events. The difference is tlrnt literature does not see what we call historical events as such, but as simply events .And to a certain point, anytl1ing is history, whetl1er it happened centuries ago or two days ago. The term "historical literature" does not exist for me as a writer. Literature is tl1e art of narration, and anytlung tl1at is told somehow has happened. I know it is not an easy issue to explain for tl1e public. The question is, "\Vhat: does lustory represent for literature?" I believe tlrnt history for literature is part of everyday life. Notl1ing more." 5
In another interview, tl1is time for Ne1v European Rez£e1v, Kadare was asked how important lustory is in shaping a writer's conscience, and his work, and why are writers and readers so fascinated witl1 history? Kadare replied: "Tlus stems from literature's very tradition. Literature
denotes storytelling and tlrnt: is how it started. It means telling tl1ings tlrnt have happened. Literature has, by its very nature, a historic dimension. In a sense, literature is in itself history, for even when you talk about something that happened the day before, it is somehow history, because tlrnt day is already over. This is not surprising .,-\ncient literature was more than historic. It was mythological , which is deeper and more distant tlrnn history. -\ person, whetller writing or reading, needs some degree of remoteness from particular events." 6
\ Vriting in The Spectator, ,-\lberto i\Ianguel commented tlrnt:, "Kadare is an explorer of vast areas of human suffering, a writer who recognises, in our myriad conflicts, st:OLies of humour and misery, happiness and treason, evil and greatness, tl1at: have changed little since tl1e times of Homer." 7 Witl1 or witl10ut: the label, tl1is is tl1e essence, I would say, of all historical fiction.
In his presentation speech,_lohn Carey laid considerable emphasis on tl1e failures of tl1e publishing industry to promote non-English writers, s ta.ting tl1at: "To an outsider, the British publishing ind us try can seem like a conspiracy intent on depriving English-speaking readers of tl1e majority of good books written in languages otl1er tlrnn tl1eir own." However, tl1ere is undoubtedly a growing awareness of tl1e imbalance between English and otl1er languages, and, bearing in mind tl1e role played by readers in tl1is two-sided process, it is encouraging to note tl1e contribution made by the Historical Novel Society. Contrary to tl1e complaint: tlrnt literary editors commission few reviews of translated books, a steady stream of works in translation has been reviewed in every issue of tl1e Histo,ical 1"\'01-efs Ren"e1v. \Ve can hope tlrnt tl1e new prize will provide access to even more historical fiction in translation.
Two new Kadare titles are due to be published shortly: The Su ccessor (forthcoming, January 2006) and Agamem11011's DatQ:hter (forthcoming, date TBq. In tl1e UK, he is published by Random House (Harvill/Vintage), and for the two fortl1eoming novels and relaunched backlis t:, Canongat:e. In tl1e US, he is published by "-\rcade.
Notes
1. David Belles, Adventures in Kadaria, Indepe11dent, 24 June 2005
2. Fabrizio Megale, fl diritto d'auto r e de / tradu ttore, Editoriale Scientifica, 200../-
3. "Living with ghosts, Julian Evans talks to the controversial Albani.an novelist Ismail Kadare" , The Guardian, Saturday September 17, 2005 David Bellos, 1l1e Englishing oflsmail Kadare. Notes of a retrnnslator. The Complete Ruie1v, iray 2005
5. Interview for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty given 011 23 June 2005
6.www neweuropereview.co m
7. The Sputa/or, 25 June 2005
Lminda Byatt is afreelance translator and book rez£e111er !iz£11g in Edinburgh.
Whales for the Wizard
SARAH CUTHBERTSON i11tenie1vs Makolm Anf1iba/d.
Whales for the IVi·:;:_ard, which won the Dundee Book Prize for 2004, opens in 1860 in Dundee, a city undergomg great industrial change. Robert Douglas, an ex-soldier, finds work as an assistant to George Gilbride, a whaling-ship owner. But he has already fallen foul of the sinister John Wyllie, who ha s him drugged and taken aboard Redga1111tle1, a steam-whaler that is believed to be h aunted. This is just the start of a gripping adventure involving a mystery that will take Douglas and his companions a dangerous .Arctic voyage and more to unravel. Whales for the Wi::;_ard has been described as "Inspector Rebus meets The 011edi11 Lim," and is praised by Ian Rankin as "a rip-roaring adventure mptery with terrific detail of place, period, and shipping lo re."
U'i'hales for the Wi::;:_ard is publi sh ed by Polygon at £8. 99.
Could you tell us a little about your backgro1111d?
Born in Leith, brought up in Edinburgh, I won a scholarship to the Royal High School, but hated the place, and I believe the feeling was mutual. 111e only two subjects that I was ever any goo d at were History and English. I left as soon as I could and worked in a variety of jobs, from travel agent to retail to a postman in the Scottish Borders. Eventually, and belatedl y, I realised that I was going nowhere - or rather Cathy, m y wife, realised that for me - and I applied for Dundee University as a mature student. Since graduating with a hi s tory degree i.n 2001 I have worked as a researcher, a postman again and now as a history lecturer in Dundee Co llege. 111rough it all, I h ave written articles and, when p ossib le , books.
Youi·e published sei-eral ll'orks of 11011fictio11, including Scottish Battles, Scottish .Aninrn1 and Bird Folklore and .Across the Pond. Is \v'hales for the Wizard yourfirst not·el?
No. My first published novel was Soldier of the Queen, which is partly based on tl1e Boer War journal of Cathy's great uncle. It came out in 2003, published by Fledgling Press. The remainder of the trilogy, Horseman of the Veldt and Selkirk of the Fethan, togetl1er with Aspects of the Boer War, which gives tl1e hi storical background, was published in .August of this year. \v'hile Soldier shows tl1e realities of Vic to nan soldiering from tl1e point of view of a private soldier, tl1e series 1s intended to show different angles of tl1e war, for instance the role of irregular horse and the influence of otl1er nation s in what could be termed Queen Victoria's last colonial war. In some ways, Whales for the Wizard is sinlilar. I wrap up the genuine hardships of the whaler's life inside an adventure story, tinge it witl1 an unobtainable romance and dash it witl1 Victorian clas s tensi ons.
What inspiredyo11 to ll'lite Whales for the Wizard?
Dundee was Britain's major whaling port in the late 19th century, but there are few reminders of the industry in the city. I wrote my finalyear dissertation on peop le's perception of the whaling men, which co uld h ardly have been worse. When I wrote Whaleh11nters, which was a social history of the people involved in the trade, I realised that there was the p ossibi lity of a story that would explore the se men and women. Hence LF'ha!esfor the IF-'izard Nine teenth-century sailoring could be a grin1 trade, and the w haling men, or Greenlandmen, had an un e nvia ble reputation for drunken violence. However, they also seeme d to inspire an amazing loyalty among their wives, which I tried to highlight with my Ivanhoe widows. \v'hatever the y were, whalers were not a homogeneous group of sea-going clones, but a multi-faceted group of people who worked in appalling conditions to earn money for their families.
Is it based 011 real emzts and/ or real people?
Indeed. Most of the events in Whales for the Wizard occurred, altl1ough not in the same time or place. 111e whaling indus try existed as I described, with the first steam whaling ships built around 1859. Ships were abandoned in the ice , and could be retrieved a year or so later and the Inuit were known to help stranded whaling crews. Co ntemporary newspapers talk of illegal prizefights, and tl1e Victorian criminal element was probably worse than anything that I described.
Nea rl y all the names I used were taken from tl1e crews of Dund ee whaling ships, and Bull y Forbes, one of the main characters, is based partly on Mr. Martin, the mate of the Dundee whaler Narwhal who in 1859 was being "so foul moutl1ed tlrnt he even astounded and astonis hed tl1e crew." If yo u 'll remembe r , Ca ptain Raphael Se mmes of the Confederate Navy's ,-\labama had a similar reputation. I amalgamated Mr. Martin with the .Aberdonianjames "Bu ll y" Forbes, who captained clipper ships in tl1e 1850s and came up with what I tllink is an interesting character.
i\[y main character, Robert Douglas, is an ex-soldier and ex-Chartist returning to Dundee but unable to find work. Victorian Britain was full of such people, as Kipling reminds us witl1 his "Shilling a Day" :
"Give 'im a letterCan't do no better, Late Troop-Sergeant-Ma jor an' -runs witl1 a letter! "
Dundee, of course, was known as a "wo man's town" where there were limited jobs for men, so any returning squaddie would find it
hard to find work - remembering that the reputation of soldiers was rough!)' the same as whaling men. The connection there is obvious: give the supposedly worst type of people the dirtiest job. Crimping men onto sailing ships was also a fact of Victorian life, as was the massive industrial development of Dundee at the period, with merchant princes such as George Gilbride with his fantasies of emulating his hero, \X'alter Scott. Ellen Gilbride, too, is based on solid historical fact; women such as Ellen worked in some of the most horrendous places imaginable to help the destitute and diseased at a time when the National Health Service was not even a dream. True angels.
The women on the other side of the di,·ide were also based on truth: women were heavily itffolved in the licensed trade and ran quite a few crimping establishments. I used one, irother Symrden, augmented the historical facts with a notorious Edinburgh brothelkeeper from my own time, and created ira Scott.
.-\11 in all then, most of my characters could be met in the streets of Dundee, or probably in any other \'ictotian city in the \'\es tern "·orld.
The a//e11tio11 to period detail and atmosphere i11 \'\11ales for the Wizard is imprwil'e. Did J'OII find a lot ef histon·caf ma1en·a1 lo 11se i11 creating the scenes and backgro1111ds?
irost of the on-board material came from Victorian photographs, ships' log-books and the journals of people who sailed in whaling vessels. The speech patterns came partlr from journals and diaries, although I had to alter words and phrases to make them fit in with mo<lcrn i<liom; \'ictori,u1s could be wordy ;md pedantic - although my wife accuses me, completely unjustly, of being tl1e same. Dw1dee has changed a lot since tl1e 1860s, but there are remaining pockets of the built environment where the Victorian atmosphere can be captured and I filled in the gaps witl1 old photographs and maps to recreate the city as it was. My postman experience helped by giving me access to places that most people do not go, and often do not wish to go.
Old newspapers are also handr, not so much for the headline news, but for the snippets that might otherwise have been lost. The advertisements tell what books were popular, which songs were being sung, what style of clotl1ing the shops were advertising for sale. Minor but important details of everyday life.
IFhen 11singyo11r research, did yo11 find it diffim/t deddi11g 111hat to p11t in and 1v/1at to fea/'e 011! to keep the story flowing?
-\bsolutelr - I'm still not sure tlrnt I got it right. I try to illuminate the lesser-known facets of history, but tl1ere are so many of tl1em that I'm always afraid tl1at I am clogging tl1e flow witl1 items tl1at may onlr be of interest to me. Luckily I had a brilliant editor in Helen Simpson, who helped keep me 11ght. I tlunk tlrnt she is freelance, but Polygon employed her to scrutinise Whales. ,-\11 credit to her.
Ho111 do yo11 organise your wn/i11g aro1111d your other 111ork? Do you hai·e a slrid ro11ti11e for writing?
I write best in tl1e early mornings, so I'm up about five and put in a few hours before I start work. I also write at weekends. I would not call it a strict routine -I can get an idea, or a phrase, or a mental picture for a scene, at any time, and tl1en it's a mad dash for pen and notebook to put it down before I forget. I have seen me start up in bed to sc11bble down a few words or a few paragraphs at any time of the night. I'm very glad that I'm not married to me.
Do yo11 plan to wn"te more histo,icaf 110/'efs? If so, cany o11 !elf 11s 111hat setti1,gs and s11bjet1JJOII might me?
.-\lways planning the next book! I have a sequel to U7hafes for the IF'i~ard wit\1 the publishers, but that is no guarantee tlrnt it will be published. TI1is book has many of tl1e main characters, but ratl1er tlrnn whaling it is centred around tl1c gold clippers. You'll have heard of tl1c 18.+9 gold msh to Califomia, but tl1ere was anotl1er to .-\ustralia in tl1e 1850s and 1860s. Clipper ships can1ed emigrants from Britain to .-\ustralia and carried back vast fortunes in gold dust. Some had really amazing sto11es -again, I ha,·e based the story on actual events, with a few tweaks to make it interesting. If tlrnt book is published, T ha,·e an idea for tl1e next, again with some of the same characters, but based around tl1e French invasion fears tl1at began in 1859 -\.nd that's all tlrnt I am saying on tl1at subject.
As a history /ect11rer, do yo11 think historical fiction has a role to plqy i11 i11creasi11g historical a111are11ess among students and the general p11bfic?
\'err much so. Many people are introduced to history by historical fiction, which helps tl1e readers realise tl1at history is not about dates and statistics but about people. Who they were, what happened to tl1em, how tl1ey liYed and why they acted as tl1ey did. Sometimes I think tlrnt nm·elists arc more aware of ordinary people than many professional historians are. Of necessity, novelists deal witl1 people and tl1eir problems; they put a human face on facts. \'( 'hen I was at Dundee University I had the pri,·ilege of being taught by Doctor Christopher Storrs, who is undoubtedlr one of tl1e most brilliant scholars I ha\'c ever encountered. On one occasion he ad,·ised me to read lusto1ical fiction of tl1e pe1iod he was teaching; I would encourage any of my students to do tl1e same.
U7hid1 historical 1101'e/ists/ histOJicaf 11oz-efs do yo11 most admire and 111I!]?
If one defines a historical novel as a story written about the past, does that include authors such as Jane .-\usten and 1--::.ipling, who wrote about events contemporary to their life? Given that historical fiction is any fiction based in the past, I can use both these authors. Personally, I do not think that .-\us ten can be beaten for detail, or I--::ipling for atmosphere - try his "The i[ru1 Who \Vas" on a dark night after a couple of whiskies. Or try "TI1e irark of tl1e Beast" for understated horror ru1d tl1e clash of cultures. For precise nautical detail,_lohn iraseficld's The Bird ef Da11111i11g is impeccable, as it should be, coming from ru1 ex-mariner - but Conrad beats him witl1 tl1e soul-searching agony in Lord Jim
Have I ever mentioned tl1e importru1ee of place? Try reading Neil i[unro's Para Hand)· stories while on the Scottish \'('est Coast, preferably with tl1e sound of tl1e sea shattering on tl1e shore, or George iCacDonald Fraser's The Ca11dfemass Road while sitting in a cottage or a tower house tucked under tl1e long green hills of tl1e Border.
I'm not sure if that ru1swers tl1e question or not - I'm not sure if tl1ere is ru1 answer. T agree tl1at Stuart Cloete ru1d Wilbur Smitl1 both paint a vivid picture of Soutl1 -\frica.n history ru1d tl1at iracDonald Fraser's Flaslunru1 se11es is constantly inspired genius but which autl1or do I return to again ru1d again? Robert Louis Stevenson. The most underrated professional author in B11tain -\ c1itic once compared my work to his - nonsense; I'm not fit to lace his boots.
A Question of Accuracy
l\L-\LCOLl\I ,-\RCHIB,-\LD offers his opi11io11 of histon·cal fiction.
Good literature has the ability to endure, with the recent film T1T!J a rehash of Homer, and Jane ,-\usten's novels enjoying consistent popularity as they are re-issued and re-filmed. l\[y wife claims that I tend to watch each programme with a critical eye, and point out the omissions of historical detail. I refute such accusations as vociferously as my fifteen-year-old daughter would deny any affiliation with teamed school history, although she actively enjoys Pride and Prejudice and Hombfo1ver. At her age, to be cool is everything, but some of her friends also enjoy historical novels and films. \-Vhen I asked her what she likes about such stories, she replied, with a shrug ,"I don ' t know."
I lecture history at Dundee College, where many of my students dropped out of education at the earliest opportunity, and others, the more mature, were never expected to continue. \'('hile teenagers today are compelled to be cool, in the 1960s and 70s, many yow1gs ters were encouraged to leave school early and find work. I well remember my grandmother glaring at me:
"Sixteen years old and still at school? You should be ashamed of yourself!"
Family persuasion is as powerful as peer pressure and it often takes years of working in unrewarding occupations before adults realise that they have missed something. The more motivated, or frustrated, apply for a college place and some eventually blink at me across the classroom in a mixture of hope, expectation and trepidation. One of the first things I do with a new class is ask them why they want to study history. The reasons are as varied as the students, but there are always common threads . There are the students who chose history because they thought it easy at school. There are al wars some who chose history as a "filler" subject, a last resort. And there are always students who claim to have a genuine interest 111 the subject.
Experience has taught me that these last will often obtain the best results. ,-\.n interest gained in their own
Indeed, what is a historical novel or a historical novelist? It is a simple question, but tl1e answer may be more complex. 1l1e Oxford English Dittionary defines "Historical" as "belonging to tl1e past, not tl1e present" or "dealing or professing to deal witl1 historical events," while a "novel" is "a fictitious prose story of book length." ,-\ historical novelist, tl1en, could be defined as a writer of such books, or in tl1e old Scots phrase, a "furtl1-setter" who sets fortl1 tl1e story Given tlrnt tl1e above definition is accurate, then any work of fiction based in tl1e past is a historical novel, while any book set in tl1e author's contemporary world is not. \-Vesterns, C. S. Forester's Homb!01JJerseries, most works of\Vilbur Smitl1 or George l\IacDonald Fraser, Catl1erine Cookson's novels, are all historical fiction, while Jane ,-\us ten's, set in the world tlrnt she knew well, are not.
Should tl1is, could tl1is, definition be challenged? Should historical novels include works written contemporaneously, but which have aged well? l\[y students certainly do not differentiate; tl1ey bracket ,-\us ten witl1 Smith, Du l\[aurier witl1 Dickens and George l\[eredith with l\Ll\[ Kaye. Closer questioning reveals a consistency about tl1e student's interests. The novels tl1ey like, tl1e novels that have stirred an interest in history, are those which are, or which appear to be, accurate, whose characters are believable, yet which hold the attention by a strong plot.
,-\ccuracy of detail appears to be tl1e most important single item If tl1e novel can make tl1e reader suspend his or her disbelief, tl1en it will hold his or her attention. Austen and Dickens wrote with stunning accuracy as they highlighted social or gender issues, while l\Iereditl1 can tend toward political idealism, but tl1ey all had the advantage of a contemporary, or near contemporary view of the society tlrnt tl1ey portrared. l\[odem histo1~cal novelists can only seek to emulate such accuracy by research, knowing tlrnt a single slip will inevitably spoil tl1e flow of tl1e story and therefore tl1e enjoyment of tl1e book. It is tl1e detail tlrnt gives a novel its aura of autl1enticity, yet tl1ere appear to be few gender differences in tl1e type of detail that are remembered.
I had expected my male students to recall
1Joes historica(fiction t1rovjcfe an anticlote to the su[1[1osecffa;.in_Js ofmoclern socje'!J?
environment will be sustained longer than anything forced, even in the gentlest of manners, at school. Being a naturally inquisitive person, or just plain nosey, as my wife says, I enquire after the source of their historical interest. A few have read history books, but historical novels or historical films have aroused tl1e interest of tl1e majority. They can look embarrassed at tl1e admission, as if they think it is sometl1ing of which to be ashamed, or as if they should spend all tl1eir leisure time reading densely written academic tomes.
But where lies tl1e difference between a history book written b y a professed academic and a historical novel created by an autl10r?
teclmical aspects, such as the suspension of a hackney carriage, or tl1e workings of a l\IartiniHenry rifle, while the females mulled over tlle
material used in a crinoline or early 19 thcentury hairstyles. I was wrong, and I should have known better for my daughter knows far more about motor vehicles tlrnn do I, and asks me technical details about tl1e rigging and sail plan of Hornblower's ships. Interestingly, where contemporarywritten novels are concerned, it does not appear to matter if tl1e autl10r is male or female. l\[any of my male s tudents knew Austen's works, while women were as likely to enjo y Wilbur Smitl1
11rnt fact in itself pose s an o tl1er que s ti o n : ju s t what is the attraction in history? Do people view an historical novel as an escape into a world where tl1ings were suppo sedly simpler? In other words, do people use history as escapism? Or are readers seeking sometl1ing
they believe is missing from their own world? In this age of ladettes and sleaze, are men seeking a feminine woman in the pages of.Jane Austen, and women seeking a tall, handsome upright man through the pen of Wilbur Smith? Does historical fiction provide an antidote to the supposed failings of modem society?
Possibly it does, and possibly people were more gender specific at some periods of the pa.st. Certainly there have been times when men and women were expected to obey certain patterns of behaviour, but perhaps a more careful interpretation of novels written duri.ng the periods will reveal hidden truths. There is no secret that -\us ten longed for greater freedom for women, despite the femininity of her main characters, while t--Ieredith's Beachamp} Career reveals some women, notably the heiress Celia Halkett, as more than the meek milk•and •water creatures that contemporary society was supposed to have expected. In these cases, novels written at the time present a more accurate picture of women than historical women do. Rather than the brash, bold creatures that stalk the pages of modern, soon• forgotten bodice•rippers, women a.re portrayed as intelligent, subtle and central. Real people, indeed, which is tl1eir appeal.
But how important were women in tl1e past? \Vere tl1e novelists penning a.n ideal: how they would like women to be, ratl1er tl1an a reality? In 19 th -century Dundee, women owned whaling ships, women worked in mills, women organised their own trades union, women bought and sold fishing boats, a woman founded tl1e university where women were enrolled on equal terms witl1 men, women fought for a sailor's home and opened centres to care for the poor and destitute .-\ Dundee woman travelled to Africa as a missionary, anotl1er sailed to the United States and became a leading astronomer, otl1ers were prominent in the suffragette movement. And that was just one city.
How about men? \Vere men more "manly" in tl1e past? Certainly tl1e y had more ph ys ical occupations. To take Dundee again, men worked on the whaling ships, or i.n the quarries, they were engi.neers or carriers, but many were unemployed at tl1e age of eighteen, for the mills sought mainly female labour The great i.ndustrialists were men, the Baxter fanuly who owned some of tl1e largest linen mills in tl1e world, or tl1e Coxes whose jute empire extended from Scotland to Calcutta. So tl1e experience of men spanned tl1e social divide, from tl1e ultra-rich to tl1e destitute.
If Dundee can be seen as tl1e epitome of industrial Britain, has historical fiction retained its accuracy in portrayi.ng such a city, where tl1e massed female workforce clashed witl1 the industrial giants? Perhaps not , for most books of the period show tl1e poverty but not the humour, the power but not the humanity, and if tl1ere is a female character, it is nearly i.nevitable that she will face antagonism from men Did tl1ey?
In many cases, yes. The first female doctors found horrendous sexism, so tl1at some adopted a male disguise in order to practise medicine. Female students found many courses barred to tl1em, and most careers were closed to women. But there were also the women who owned property, the innkeepers, the women who served on board ships. \Vhatever tl1e public.school educated establishment believed, Nelson's seamen seemed to welcome and accept tl1e presence of women on boa.rd men•Of•wa.r. History is too complex for a blanket statement. After all, male Chartists campaigned for women to get
tl1e vote, tl1ere was a female slup's master in tl1e early 19 tl' century, fisherwomen were the equal of tl1eir men and Boer women fought alongside tl1eir men against tl1e British in 1900.
These facts a.re fairly well known, yet not all a.re represented i.n lusto rical fiction. Is it true then, tl1at historical novelists follow a set agenda, create formulaic novels? Personallr, I would argue that while some do, tl1e best do not. Some lustorical fiction is as accurate as many academic history books, and better tl1an man y works of popular his torr- As a history lecturer, I have no hesitation in encouraging my students to read fiction. It whets tl1eir i.nterest, it i.ntroduces tl1em to historical periods in tl1e best possible manner, and it leads to questions. Any decently written 11.istorical novel will teach sometl1ing, and by using characters witl1 whom the reader can identify, will ease tl1e flow of information while providing a reminder tl1at 11.istory is primarily about people ratl1er tl1an events.
To my mind, tl1at is a major strengtl1. Knowing tl1e date of tl1e battle of Balaclava or tl1e passing of the Corn Laws is mandatorr, but knowing how tl1ese events affected people is ultimately more important. While a history book may offer a paragraph or two describi.ng poverty or a battle and can compare lifestyles, Life seen tl1rough tl1e eyes of a character can often be more grapluc. 1l1e reader will identify witl1 tl1e character and will "live" each event anew. The ability to bring tl1e past alive is the main advantage of a historical novel, and one in wluch detail plays a vital part. Perhaps my daughter does not yet know why she enjoys a lustorical drama, but she can tell me tl1at she likes tl1e dress styles worn by .-\us ten's characters, and sometimes she repeats , inadvertentl y I am sure, a particular turn of phrase.
Can we claim tl1en that historical novels offer n o tl1in g more than escapism, or is tl1ere more? ,-\re people genui.nely i.ntere s ted in tl1eir past? On balance, I would say yes. Not just tl1e broad sweep of history, the rise and fall of empires, tl1e probing expeditions of explorers, the careers of tl1e great and tl1e good, but tl1e minor details that bring our ancestors alive. In an academic history book, the colour of a woman's dress or the number of fartl1ings i.n her purse ma y n ot be important, but to tl1at woman tl1e y ma y have meant tl1e difference between contentment and worry, or starvation and plentitude It is in tl1ese details tl1at tl1e lustorical novelist scores, and tl1erei.n lie s tl1e strengtl1 of tl1e genre.
Mau.vim Archibald is the a11thor ef\Vhales for tl1e Wizard, JVinner ef the D11ndee Book Pn·zefor 200-/.. He has al.so wn"tten a Boer War tniogy p11b/ished l?J Fledgling Press- a my small Edinb11rgh compa1ry. Soldier of tl1e Queen 1vas joined this s11mmer l?J Horseman of tl1e Veldt a11d Selkirk of the Fetl1an, accompanied l?J a no11jittio11 book, Aspects of tl1e Boer War, to explain the histon"caL bmkgro1111d a11d explore t·arious aspe,ts ef the JVar.
Biblical Women N o v els: a Histo ri ca l Fi cti o n Sub - G enre?
CLAIRE t-.[ORRIS explores the popularity of 11ot·els based 011 1110mm from the Bible.
"\Ve live in desperate, troubled times when millions seek answers. These women point the way. The lessons we can learn from them are as applicable today as when they lived thousands of years ago."
Published in twenty-one countries and translated into nineteen languages, Anita Diamant's novel starring Dinah, daughter of the patriarch Jacob, became an international bestseller. 1 But when St. Martin's/Picador published The Red Tent in 1997, it wasn't immediately apparent that this, the author's first novel, would become a publishing phenomenon
Diamant's portrayal of this "silent" Old Testament woman struck a chord among readers. ,-\1 though Diamant has not written another "Biblical women" novel, fans of fiction based on female characters mentioned in the Bible need not despair. These novels are in ready supply; Ingrid Bertrand, a researcher at Universite Catholique de Louvain, who is studying this very topic for her doctoral thesis, points out that more than one hundred such novels are currently available on the market. Some of these were published in the last two decades of the 20 th century, but a greater proportion landed on bookstore shelves in the past four or five years, and more are scheduled to appear in the coming months. 2
Is this a result of the success enjoyed by The Red Tent? \Vhen asked what prompted Signet to publish Ann Burton's series (Abigail's Story, Rahab's Story, }ael's Story, and Deborah's Story), Editorial Director Claire Zion said, "We noticed a growing interest in subjects of this kind. \Ve noticed the success of The Red Tent, as well as lesser known books like In the Shado111 of the Ark (Anne Provoost). We also saw that readers were more and more interested in straight history in the success of Philippa Gregory's The Other Bo~11 Girl." 3
While Crown Publishing acquired t-.[arek Halter's trilogy (Sarah, Zipporah, and Lilah) because of his "combination of historical scholarship and compelling narratives," Senior Editor Alison t-. le Cabe says, "The Red Tent demonstrates that there is a huge audience eager to read [Biblical women] stories." 4
Can women mentioned in the Bible be segmented from women
- Francine Rivers, Lineage of Grace series mentioned elsewhere in the historical record, turning fiction based upon their lives into a specific sub-genre? A marketing trend presupposes this segmentation. Setting tl1e obvious linking factor of a common source book aside, are "Biblical women" novels really distinct from novels about famous women such as Boudicca, Eleanor of -\quitaine, and Josephine Bonaparte, not to mention lesser-known "real" women like t-.[ary Boleyn? Do these novels have a specific readership, shared characteristics, or a common method of treating the Biblical text?
The Re ade rs
Although none of the people interviewed for this article could share statistics, a picture emerged of a readership that is principally American,5 female and over forty,6 and either Christian7 or with some familiarity with Biblical characters. 6
"Readers already have an existing framework, " says ]\[cCabe. "\Vhen they pick up a novel based on a female figure in the Bible, they are already somewhat familiar with her. TI1ey can inlmediately decide, 'I've always wanted to know more about this woman.' Then they buy the book." 9
Bertrand concurs. "Everyone [in the western world] is fan1iliar with at least some of [the Bible's] stories and characters, which means that novels like Diamant's The Red Tent, [India] Edghill's Q11ee11maker or (]\[argaret] George's Mary, Called Magdalene invariabl y evoke something in the mind of the reader, who remembers names and events mentioned at Sunday school, in church, at the synagogue or the temple. " 10
A smaller group of readers are historical fiction fans who do not fit the above-mentioned criteria, 11 of which an even smaller percentage is male. 12 However, we must be careful not to place the audience in a box. r--1cCabe says, "Base d upon the feedback from our sales reps and bookstores these novels have a universal appeal Biblical stories are simultaneously epic and human in scale - the characters' actions form much of the fow1dation of westem ethos, and they are challenged by the human weaknesses we grapple with today This makes for very compelling reading for a wide range of people." 13
The Characteristics
Do Biblical women novels share characteristics other than their source material? Bertrand's analysis
female characters as male [in the Bible] - except that the women are not heard." 16
India Edghi.ll's acknowledgements in Q11ee11maker tell us that her novel is "an attempt to give a voice to a Biblical woman [r--lichal] long
"A provoc th>e new writer."
-Anne Mc:C..tfrey
condemned to silence." 17 With Sei-en DC!JS to the Sea, Kohn wanted r--riryam and Tzipporal1 to have a voice, because she feels they have been neglected in favour of Moses. 18 Bertrand reminds us that the Bible is largely a story about men written by men. "The women it features are systematically overshadowed by their fathers, husbands or sons, and reduced to silence. These gaps and si lences have intrigued and inspired numerous authors, urging them to put pen to paper to explore and reinvent the destinies of the silen ced in novels reflecting the values close to their own
has led her to answer "yes."
First, most of these novels are written by women. She mentions the emphasis that many of the authors place on the influence Biblical women often wielded, something that is typically downplayed in the Bible. Other common themes are a goddess element and the importance of the bond between women, especially between mother and daughter. They also assert a woman's right to a voice and to telling her version of the story. 14
The Slant
This theme of giving voice to women recurred throughout the research for this article. Like Diamant, both Rebecca Kohn (The Gilded Chamber and Sel'l!II DC!JS to the Sea) and Marek Halter desired to expand o n the bare facts documented in the Bible. Kohn says, "I thought I would enjoy peeling off the la yers of interpretation to see if I could reveal a uniquely female voice in Biblical characters. I felt Esther deserved a fair hearing (protagonist of The Gilded Chamber'). We always think of her as the good girl who does what she is told. But if you really read the story you see that she is a very brave woman who is torn from her home and thrust into a difficult political situation. It would have taken a lot of wit- not just a pretty face - to come out ahead! So I wanted to give her a chance to shi.ne." 15 Halter says, " If one tries hard to count them, one realizes that there are as many hearts." 19
Do Biblical women novels adhere to the version outlined in tl1e Bible? All conscientious researchers, the four authors interviewed for tl1is article impose tl1eir own imagination on the story, as any serious writer of historical fiction should do. Edghill points out tlrnt even autl10rs such as Francine Rivers and Brenda Ray, who write principally for tl1e Christian market, are fleshing out Biblical women characters and putting their interpretation on events. 20
But do readers expect a faitl1ful re-telling of the Bible story? It is, after all, not just any source document, but a religious text. Edghill, Kohn, and ,-\nn Chamberlin (Tamar and Leaii11g Eden) have all been on tl1e receiving end of comments tlrnt would suggest some readers do expect tlus. 21 In Edghill's opinion, if tl1ey are interested in a story that follows tl1e Biblical one precisely, they should be reading the Bible, not tl1e novel. 22 Yet, as she discusses on her website, tl1e Biblical stories are treated variously, depending on the writer. 23 Some of tl1e novels included in her list of Biblical women novels treat Biblical events as literally true; others use the Bible as a source, but feel no compunction to present events in ways familiar to readers. But if, as both r--1cCabe and Bertrand believe, readers tum to tl1ese novels because tl1ey are already familiar witl1 tl1e names of tl1e d1aracters and feel they'd like to learn more about tl1em, should these readers tl1en be disappointed if the character in question behaves differently tl1an tl1ey expect?
"Often what someone complaining about 'accuracy' means is tlrnt tl1e Biblical characters are not presented in tl1e same golden light in which tl1ey were offered up in Sunday school," Edghill explains. "But if you read tl1e Bible, many of tl1e main characters have some
less-than-sterling moments." She also reminds us that there are inconsistencies in the Bible itself-more than one version of how David came to fight Goliath, for example. 24 ,-\nd even if we read the accounts in the Bible, translation colours our interpretation of it.Kohn believes that with Biblical material writers have to be careful not to be influenced by any particular religious agenda. "\X/hen researching Esther, I made sure to look at source material by scholars of many different backgrounds," she says. "But I have not told the story with a traditional interpretation and that riles some people. TI1is will surely be true for my new book because the exodus story is so much more familiar to peop le. But when someone is annoyed and I tell them to go back and look at the text they are often surprised to see that assumptions they made about the story turn out not to be true!" 25
Chamberlin reminds us that ten different commentators on the Bible will provide ten different interpretations. She, like Kohn, studies as much on the topic as she can, and in the end, writes her novel. But fiction, she feels, gets certain people riled up in a way that nonfiction commentary does not. 26 In the end, it is a quagmire that all histotical fiction authors find themselves in to some extent, though perhaps those who choose to base their story on a religious text are subject to more criticism than most.
Edghill states that, "It is a wtiter's responsibility to tell the best story he or she can. But I think the reader also has a responsibility to not deliberately pick up a book that's clearly labeled 'fiction' -especially in the case of the 'Biblical women' novels, which often have such sellcopy lines as 'innovati,·e' and 'startlingly different' - and blame it for not being something it's not meant to be." 27
Perhaps readers who object to the interpretations offered up by some Biblical women novelists would find them more palatable if they viewed these new versions as contributions to midrash, a tradition that stretches back more than 1,500 years, when the rabbis began writing down stories about Bible stories. 28 Essentially these commentators were filling in the blanks, and isn't this what writers creating novels on Biblical subjects are continuing today?
Biblical women ver s us Biblical men
Although novels on Biblical men have recently been published, Bertrand feels tlrnt the focus in today's book world is clearly on Biblical women. She attributes tl1.is in part to tl1e attention given by scholars, particularly feminist scholars, over tl1e past two decades, to tl1e Biblical stories featuring women. TI1e questions generated by tl1is attention have reached authors, who are now writing fictional versions. 29 Kohn says, "I tl1ink tl1e female characters just haven't been explored so much and tl1at's why we see tl1e explosion now." 30
Botl1 Chamberlin and Kohn write about women because tl1ey believe tl1ey can best express a female point of view. 3 1 Chamberlin goes one step further: as a woman, she finds women and "women's history" much more interesting. She tells how a male reader once commented, '~-\.II tl1is stuff about childbirtl1 and menses - tl1is isn't history." In her opinion, the man's version has already been done. ']ust crack tl1e old King.James," she says. 32
And tl1e male autl10rs who are writing about Biblical women? Halter, who is currently working on a novel about ~lary, the mother of Jesus, explains why he chose tl1is focus. "It's a duty for a storyteller like me, attached to the Bible. To understand why women and their
accounts were excluded from tl1e holy books can help us to better understand tl1e reasons for prejudices which still exist in our society." 33
The Trend
In the end, tl1e sub-genre can be defined by the most tenuous of threads: the fact that all these novels have as their central character a woman mentioned in tl1e Bible. Tilis is Edghill's selection criteria for the list on her website. 34 Reviews on _-\nrnzon.com indicate that readers of one Biblical women novel will also read another. Comments from editors and PR spin aside, there does appear to be heightened interest in these novels. Kohn's publisher asked her to complete her novel about Estl1er when she was trying to sell another novel;35 Edghill's self-published novel was acquired by tl1e mainstream publisher of The Red Tent. 36 Then there's the recent publication of several series, and the list of forthcoming Biblical women novels.
If tl1ey are not already, should w1i.ters be scribbling away madly because of tl1e upswing in interest in Biblical women novels? Probably. Carol Johnson, Bethany House's \ ' ice President of Editorial says, "There are many more [Biblical women] whose stories could be told well witl1 tl1e right creativity." 37 ,-\nd Zion explains tl1e choice of central d1aracters for Burton's series as an attempt to focus on women who are interesting but less well known. 38 ~lcCabe says, "\Ve see tl1e readersllip [for Biblical women novels] continuing and likely growing, so long as talented and com.nutted novelists keep exploring the fertile possibilities in the Bible's treasure trove of stories." 39
But it's worth noting that the four autl10rs featured in tl1is article did not write about Biblical women because tl1ey wanted to capitalize on a trend. Chamberlin, raised ~[ormon and with a degree in Middle Eastern archaeology, decided to "write what she knew," and figured she knew Biblical times about as well as anyone. \Vhat resulted were "slightly subversive versions of women's lives intersecting witl1 religion." 40
Edghill tells how she started her research for Queenmaker and discovered that King David's reign was a great time and place to set a story. "The time period is one of massive sweeping societal change taking place witllin tl1e space of one lifetime. Technology was rapidly developing; religion was changing. ,-\ people who had traditionally dwelt as nomads in tents suddenly found themselves city dwellers and rulers of a good-sized chunk of tl1eir world." 41
Halter has been passionate about "telling tl1e stories of tl1e Bible in tl1e manner of .-\.lexandre Dumas" since the age of four, when his grand fatl1er gave !um Biblical Tai.esfor Children and a children's version of The Three Musketeers as tl1ey can1ped in a cellar in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. He says, "One is not obliged to believe in God in order to appreciate tl1e Bible. To my knowledge, no other [book] so precisely speaks about all of us: women, men, children, old men, as well as our hopes, our failures, our passions, our desires and our faults." 42
Bertrand concludes, "On the whole, tl1ese novels answer tl1e need many men and women feel nowadays to have a religion tl1at is closer to their everyday life, more familiar, more feminine. This predominantly male angle from which tl1e Bible has traditionally been (re)written and read is felt to put too much emphasis on God 's stern transcendence. Female perspectives often intend to bring tl1e divine presence closer to our hearts and minds." 43
ronanuerlon/i"Je40
The Editor 's Last Word
\Ve all relish the moment: opening a new novel that reviews have claimed is a must-read. Smoothing out page one, skimming that allimportant opening paragraph. But no matter how we trust the reviewer, the story sometimes fails to move us. Occasionally the plot is so lacklustre, the characters so cardboard, that by page twenty-four, we're rolling our eyes, shaking our heads, and all the other cliched actions of discontent. T11ese are the novels that generate the snide remarks - "all romance is formulaic", "all literary fiction is pretentious" - that cause readers to boycott a particular sub-genre of his tori cal fiction.
I've learned to keep reading. Every year, I find several historical novels that ha,·e me offering to lend my cop)' to everyone I know. I document the attributes of these novels in emails to people I've never met. If I come across criticism of these novels one-lists or in the papers, I become so indignant, the person who made the comment may as well have criticized the size of my beloved hound's paws. ,-\s the year draws to a close, I've been tl1inking about tl1e books I've had tl1e privilege to read over tl1e past ten montl1S. Top of my list of favourites sits Andrea Levy's Smaff Island. Frank Delaney's Ireland isn't far behind ..-\nd, a surprise winner for me, The IVido,v ef the South by' Robert Hicks, which has just enjoyed several weeks on tl1e 1e,v 1 ork Times bestseller list. I say surprise because tl1e -\n1erican Civil War isn't a period tl1at particularly attracts me . .-\.nd yet, tl1is book was so incredibly compelling, I spelled out my love for it in tl1e Historical Noi ·eLs Reziem
On tl1e surface, tl1ese tl1ree historical novels have notl1ing in common. But all tluee autl10rs are writing what tl1er know. Levy draws her multi-prizewinning portrayal of Jamaican immigrants in post-\'1/WII London from the history of her own family. Delaney's epic story of tl1e Irish people - his people - is told witl1 tl1e same passion he devoted to his si..,-part television series The Celts, a passion tl1at several years ago convinced me to travel to Hallstatt in ,-\ustria to see witl1 my own eyes tl1e place where archaeologists found what Delaney called "tl1e very first proof tl1ere was a people called Celts." As for Hicks, he's lived in Tennessee for tllirty years, and has dedicated time and energy to preserving tl1e Carn ton Plantation, where his story unfolds.
It seems to me tl1at tl1e old adage holds true - if you write what you know, it will prove powerful. It will move your readers and convince tl1em to recommend your novel to otl1ers. Witl1 historical fiction, it's often difficult to write what we know, as Elizabeth Shown t--Iills reminds us in tl1is issue's cover story. \Ve weren't present when Jacques Cartier sailed into tl1e Baie des Chaleurs, or when Shal1 Jahan erected tl1e Taj t--lahal -\nd yet, if we draw upon our own traditions, our own beliefs, our own heritage and that of tl1e place in which we live and in which we belong, will we not produce historical novels tl1at captivate readers long after tl1e final page?
CLAIRE MORRIS
oon{inuerl{rom /X'JCY}
The author 1vo1dd like lo thank the foffoJ1Ji11g inditiduaLs for their generous assistance J1Jith this article: Brett Benson, Ingrid Bertrand, A1111 Chamberlin , India Edghiff, Darlene Faster, Marek Halter, Carol joh11so11, Sarah Joh11so11, Rebecca Kohn, Guido Latri, ALfron M,Cabe, and Claire Zion.
Bi bl ical w o men n o vels me n ti oned i n the te xt
Ann Chamberlin, Tamar (1994) and Leaii11g Ede11 (1999) India Edghill, Queenmaker (1999) and Wisdoms Daughter (2004) Marek Halter, Sarah (2004), Zipporah (2005), and Lilah (fortl1eoming in 2006)
Rebecca Kohn, The Gilded Chamber (2004) and S et en Dqys to the Sea (fortl1coming in 2006)
Ann Burton, Abigazls Story (2005), Rahabs Story (2005), ]aeLs Story (fortl1coming in 2006), Deborah's Story (fortl1coming in 2006)
Anita Diamant, The Red Tent (1997) 'l\ largare t George, Mary, Called Magdalene (2002) Anne Provoos t, In the S hado/11 ef the Ark (2004) Francine Rivers, Um ei/ed(2000), U11ashamed(2000), Unshaken (2001), Unspoke11 (2001) and Unafraid(2001)
Notes
1, www.anitadia1nant.com/ theredtenl.htm
2 Interview with Ingrid Bertrand (August 2005)
3. Interview with Claire Zion Qune 2005)
4. Interview with Alison 1 [cCabe Quly 2005)
5 Bertrand
6. ibid; Interview with Carol Jolu1son (August 2005)
7. ibid
8. McCabe; Bertrand
9. tkCabe
10 Bertrand
11. Bertrand; Zion
12. Bertrand; Interview with Rebecca Kohn Qune 2005)
13 tkCabe
14 Bertrand
15 Kolm
16 Interview with Marek Halter (August 2005)
17. India Edghill, Queenmaker (St. 1fartins Press, 2002); Bertrand
18. Kohn
19. Bertrand
20. Interview with India Edghill Quly 2005)
21. ibid; Kohn; Interview with A.till Chamberlin Oune 2005)
22. Edghill
23. www indiaedghill net/ eve_esther.html
24. Edghill
25. Kolm
26 Chamberlin
27. Edghill
28. Kolm
29. Bertrand
30 Kolm
31. Chamberlin
32. Chamberlin
33. Halter
34. www indiaedghill net/ eve_esther.htm1
35. Kolm
36. Solander (t--Iay 2002) 11.
37. Johnson
38. Zion
39. tkCabe
40. Chmnberlin
41. Edghill
42. Halter
43. Bertrand
Cover photos co urt esy of Elizabeth Shown Mills. Front: Born in slavery in 1807 , "M clite " was the g randdau g ht e r and nam esa k e of th e legendary African, Marie T h e rese Coincoin. An astute bu s ine ss " ·o man , s he survived the worldwide
