Solander

ISSN: 1471-7484

founder/ publisher

Richard Lee Marine Cottage, The Strand Starcross, Devon EX6 8NY UK <richard@hiscoricalnovelsociety.org>

managing editor

Sarah Kelly 6 Strathmore Court, Arthur Road London SW19 8DD UK <sek40@cam ac uk>

associate editor, features

Suzanne McGee <suzanne.mcgee@gmail .com >

associate editor, profiles

Lucinda Byatt 13 Park Road Edinburgh EH6 4LE UK <mail@lucindabyatt.com>

associate editor, fiction

Debbie Schoeneman 73 Deepdale Drive South Huntington, NY 11746, USA diterarymuse@hotmail.com>

associate editor, industry

Cindy Vallar PO Box 425 Keller, TX 76244-0425, USA <cindy@cindyvallar.com>

art & design consultant

Esther Alcaide <estherpyn09@gmail.com> conferences

The Society organizes annual conferences in the UK and biennial conferences in the US. Contact (UK): Richard Lee

Contact (US): Sarah Johnson

membership details

Membership in the Historical Novel Society is by calendar year Qanuary to December) and entitles members co all the year's publications: two issues of Solander, and four issues of Historical Novels Review. Back issues of HNS magazines are also available. For current rates, contact:

Sue Hyams 56 Ackroyd Road

Honor Oak Park, London SE23 lDL UK <sue .hyams@virgin.net>

Susan Higginbotham 405 Brierridge Drive Apex, NC 27502, USA

<boswellbaxter@bellsouth.net>

editorial policy

Reviews, articles, and letters may be edited for reasons of space, clarity, and grammatical correctness. We will endeavour to reflect the author's intent as closely as possible, and will contact the authors for approval of any major change. We welcome ideas for articles, but have specific requirements co consider. Before submitting material, please contact the editor co discuss whether the proposed article is appropriate for HNS magazmes.

copyright

In all cases, the copyright remains with the author of the articles. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the authors concerned.

The Historical Novel Society was formed in 1997 co help promote historical fiction. All staff and contributors are volunteers and work unpaid. We are an open society - if you want co get involved, get in touch.

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Lucinda Byatt Reports from the Edinburgh Book Festival

For the past twenty-six years keen readers, both adults and children, have flocked to the Book Festival, with an estimated 200,000 attending this year alone. Edinburgh itself became Unesco's first City of Literature in 2004, and the annual Book Festival forms part of a vibrant local writing scene drawing on much loved and respected historical roots. The Book Festival has been praised by the likes of Harold Pinter, who called it a great event, the pinnacle of literary festivals, and it is this reputation for excellence that allows it to offer an array of topclass authors. Yet the Book Festival also retains a compact atmosphere, enclosed within the cast-iron railings of Robert Adam's classic ew Town square, and no one has been foolhardy enough to suggest moving it to a larger venue. Indeed, the decision to keep it small-scale - the biggest marquee in Charlotte Square has just 570 seats - ensures that most precious of commodities, a certain intimacy between author and audience.

Last autumn ick Barley took the helm of this, the world's biggest

book festival. Barley ran his own publishing company before becoming editor of Scotland's well-known events magazine, The List, in 2003, and director of The Lighthouse, the National Architecture and D esign Centre in Glasgow, until it closed in 2009. His debut at this summer's Book Festival was accompanied by a number of innovations, including a strand of more personalised programming guided by "guest selectors" and a free, unticketed evening event, "Unbound", designed to encourage new audiences and to promote live literature.

The 17-day kermes saw the participation of over 750 authors from 50 different countries, ranging from top-ranking authors to writers making their debut . In particular, the programme included 10 out of 13 of the 2010 Booker long-list authors, and three Nobel Prize winners. At the other end of the scale, this year also marked the launch of the Readers First Book Award, due to be announced soon (voting closed on 30th September). (1)

ick Barley is remarkably suave

and, having told him a little about the Society, I suggested that historical fiction was well represented on this year's programme at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. "I don't want to compare this year with last year," he replied. " onetheless, we have enjoyed programming historical novels this year. My question is, where does history start? There are a number of novels, such as David Mitchell's Booker prize long-listed novel (The Thousand Autumns if Jacob de Zoet, Sceptre 2010) which are not classical historical novels as your readers might think of them."

I wasn't sure what sort of "classical" historical novel he had in mind (although I'm afraid stereotypes die hard), but I did clarify the usual definition for a historical novel. Because this is Edinburgh, it also seemed appropriate to use Walter Scott's subtitle for his first historical novel Waverlry, or tis Sixty Years Since, as the chronological limit. However, it was interesting that, later when listening to the talks by the authors themselves, I also came across this confusion of what actually consti-

The gardens at the Edinburgh Book Festival 20 10 tutes historical fiction.

The Book Festival features the full range of historical fiction: from mainstream literary works - notably by AS Byatt, Helen Dunmore, Adam Foulds, Andrea Levy and Michelle Lovric - to the various genres, particularly historical crime Gake Arnott, Philip Baruth, Shona Maclean, Shirley McKay). Of all them, Barley affirmed: "They are here because I think their books have something to say in the context of all the other books That's the key to it. These books are fundamental to our understanding of the world. The historical novels that speak to me are also those that speak about contemporary life. I think that's why people read them It's not simply to escape to another era, but they can speak about who we are. We can see ourselves in these stories."

Barley continued, "For me the interest is how the historical novels fit together with other genres . The fascination is how ideas transcend genres and break out of genres. Having put together this programme,

I see how many ideas cross over. The point of the programme was to tease out some of those ideas."

Another innovation of this year's Festival was to tackle major geopolitical and cultural themes. One was the New World Order, which is echoed by the Festival's motto "The World, in Words". The emphasis seems to be on the world we live in today, but of course there have been many moments in the past when societies found themselves facing a New World Order and being forced to defend or adjust their geographical, mental, economic or spiritual boundaries. In one way or another, it is a theme common to all the historical novelists present, and highlights Barley's belief that "writers are fundamental to our understanding of the world" - past or present.

It is worth mentioning a few of the historical fiction events at the Festival, and in particular some insights from the authors themselves.

I was struck by Andrea Levy's new work, The Long Song (Headline Re-

view, 2010) set on a sugar plantation in early 19th-century Jamaica, in the turbulent years before - and just after - the abolition of slavery. It brought home to me how there can often be a gulf between intention and perception, and how labels can be treacherous. When Andrea Levy was asked by the interviewer whether she thought of her book as a historical novel, this was her rather ambivalent reply:

''Well, I don't know if there are any real criteria for a historical novel. However, my book is set in the past and I had to research it. What's more, everyone says it is "

She went on to add - and this may be the key to the immediacy of her style and her confusion about the "historical novel" per se: ''You have to take account of the mores of the time, but these were just people, so I really just thought, 'how does a human being react?"' Above all - and this was striking in contrast with some other writers at the Book Festival - Levy claimed not to "want to put my character centrally in the historically known facts of

the end of slavery. I mean, I didn't want her to have tea with William Wilberforce I deliberately wanted her to be like most of us: I've never been at the centre of any historical event in my life, but I notice them and their impact on me. There's nobody famous in the book, but there are events that did actually happen."

Other writers were courageous enough to try to use "real life" historical figures: in particular, Adam Foulds (whose book, The QHickening Maze, Vintage 2009, recounts a brief incident involving two great poets, John Clare and Alfred Tennyson), and a debut novelist, Annabel Lyon, whose work, The Golden M ean (Atlantic Books 2010), has won acclaim for its lucid portrayal of Aristotle - narrated in the firstperson and the present tenseduring the years while he tutored young Alexander. Lyon admits to having had fun fleshing out the character of this worldfamous figure, and giving him a bod y as well as brain. Lyon's book was one of those entered

for the 2010 Readers' First Book Award.

One area of the Book Festival that has expanded over the past few years is the variety of author-led workshops focusing on specific genres or topics. In keeping with the burgeoning interest in the genre, a couple of this year's workshops were on historical fiction. One was led by romantic historical novelists Sara Sheridan and Eileen Ramsay who set out not only to explain why they were drawn to this genre but also to discuss researching and constructing best-selling stories. Judg-

ing by the sell-out response, there were many who were keen to learn

For me the undoubted highlight of this year's festival was listening to AS Byatt talk about her latest work, The Children's Book (Vintage, 2010)

(2) Remarkably, this was the first time that B yatt had accepted an invitation to speak at the Book Festival, a timely appearance that coincided with her winning the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Yet like Levy, Byatt occasionally has difficulty in seeing herself as a historical novelist: "I'm not a genre writer like Mantel," was her response to a direct question on the subject. Her own writing, she said, was more inventive, her characters completely fictive, albeit

often based on multiple "originals". She regards putting oneself inside a real person's mind as a presumptuous and impossible feat: Byatt hinted that her next book might be about surrealists and psychiatrists, but she'll certainly never use Freud as the narrator

Returning to Nick Barley, when I asked him for his overall impressions of this year's festival, he replied: "It's been a hugely fulfilling and enjoyable experience". Apart from the occasional pitfall -a fairly major one being a "misunderstanding" with Philippa Gregory that resulted in the author pulling out after she was not allowed to make last-minute changes to her event -I would second that wholeheartedly. This year's Book Festival seemed to me to have renewed scope and vigour. Not least in the area that particularly interests us: historical fiction. Cynics might argue that Mantel's multi-prizewinning Wo!f Hall has given a welcome lustre to the reputation of historical fiction. But afftcionados know better and affirm that the recent surge in interest is merely due recognition of a genre that continues to grow in popularity and - more importantly - quality.

ucinda Byatt is th e Profiles Editor ef Soland er.

1. There is a wealth of material on the EIBF website, including audio and video podcasts, as well as details of the Readers' First Book Award and other commissioned works:

2. Doug Kemp recently profiled AS B yatt in Solander, 14, May 2010

Nick Barley, Director of the Edinburgh Book Festival

SO LANDER' s Sho rt Sto ry Award Winner HIDE

by DAVIN

IRELAND

ISeth Darrow found his way onto our land just as sundown was departing the rural Kentucky skyline a tired horseman drawing rein at a tired part of the day.

"]-Jerome," he whispered, and dismounted in pitiful stages like a rheumatic minding his joints.

My father, in the act of closing his bible, stepped down from the porch to greet our nearest neighbour.

"]-Jerome," Darrow repeated, and slumped forward.

My father caught the local wheelwright just before he hit the ground, and managed to drag him to the oak stump we'd been meaning to uproot since the spring.

"Timmy, get some water," my father barked, waving me off as I sprinted out of the corn. "And tell your mother to get that fire lit."

I did as I was told, returned in time to see Seth moving his lips without speaking.

"Hush now," my father told him, "enough talk. You need to save your strength for what's ahead."

Darrow looked grateful. He slipped a hand inside of his shirt, withdrew a crimson, shaking claw. The departing sun struck a pincer-like shadow off it that trailed all the way to the woodshed.

The old man was dead before nightfall.

II

My father rose in darkness the following morning, shaved in his customary silence. He was gone before the first delicate threads of dawn touched the sky. I found a folded note on the dresser telling my mother to empty the shotgun into the Wootton boy's britches

should he dare call on Suzy again. He had also scribbled a line to me, which I skimmed briefly. I could find the milking shed easy enough, thank you, and I'd shucked a fair share of corn in my time, too. I refolded the note and returned it to the dresser; filled a basin, dragged a comb through my hair, tried to match the look in my father's eye at the moment the gleaming straight razor traced the contours of his chin and throat. I couldn't do it.

Tiv-mry, my mother called, don'tforget to empty the grate before schooL Suzy, breakfast's near!J reac!J . I want )'Ott ottl of that bed 11011;,young lac!J.

I scarcely heard the words for the blood beating in my ears. All my mother had to do was glance up, and there I'd be: twelve years old and heading out of our smallholding on Seth Darrow's chestnut gelding a frightened child with scant knowledge of the wider world tracking a man who knew the wider world only too

well, and had chosen to keep it at arm's length.

But my mother was too busy tending the dead to pay the living much heed, and pretty soon I was out of range and sorely regretting the urge to follow in my father's footsteps. Ticks and saddle rash were responsible for much of that disillusionment,

Dusk came and went I shivered and peered into the darkness of the deep woods. Severin had tracked steadily through pasturelands and cottonwood groves for most of the day, and now her reward was a nosebag on the far side of a clearing strewn with rocks and the ashes of old campfires . The warmth of a

The man who thrashed me when I misbehaved, but also dried my tears when I grazed a knee, rode out of the valley ... and never once looked back.

Kentucky coffee tree, he was just a man alone a stranger to others, a stranger to me, in many ways I had known him my entire life, I realized, but didn't really know him at all. Lingering in the dense woodland shadows, the moon riding high in the sky, I fancied I saw him as others might see him: a gaunt, sinewy fellow with a face unnecessarily the drudgery of the open road took care of the rest. I appeared to be alone in my discomfort.

The man who thrashed me when I misbehaved, but also dried my tears when I grazed a knee, rode out of the valley in that strangely upright manner of his back straight, head held aloft and never once looked back.

For the second time that day, I found myself mimicking his actions and nearly toppled straight back out of the saddle in the process. III

fresh fire, coupled with my father's reassuring presence, prevented her from straying more than a few feet at a time.

I began to feel uneasy. I had always perceived my father in that one narrow sense as my father, one half of a parental union, the central purpose of which was to discipline and nurture its offspring. Out here in the rural Nelson County darkness, camped beneath an aging

stern for its years. I loved and feared him in equal measure. What I feared even

more was the notion I might witness a side of the man heretofore unseen. Would he curse or belch out loud now that he was away from the house? Shoot prairie dogs for fun? Leave in the morning without properly extinguishing his fire?

My stomach whined at the smell of cornbread and salt pork warming over hot embers. My heart yearned for the stolid comforts of home. It was time to leave. If I rode all night,

Elizabeth Loupas is a Texan and a lifelong devotee of history and historical fiction ; she holds degrees in literary studies and library/information science. Her debut historical novel is The Second Duchess (Penguin, forthcoming), set in the magnificent court of sixteenth-century Ferrara. Elizabeth is presently working on a new novel set during the early years of Mary Stuart 's personal reign in Scotland.

ELIZABETH LOUPAS

I told myself, my mother would be so relieved to see me I'd avoid the beating I most surely deserved. I had crept no more than ten paces toward the rutted track, however, when my father's voice boomed in the trees: ''You don't get over here soon, son, I'm apt to finish this supper by myself."

NThe stab wound that killed Seth D arrow was the work of an Indian, my father later told me. ''A Shawnee, to give it a name," he added, and threw more wood onto the fire. ''We

haven't seen that kind around this part of the world

J.n, oh, fifteen years? He's holed

crop their women folk's noses if they do so much as look at another man. "

"Is that a fact?" My father sipped at his coffee, eyes taking on that same distant look they acquired when the straight razor was in his hand.

"Uh-huh. And in winter-time, they slice open live buffalo and stow their feet in the guts to ward off frostbite "

My father took another sip of his coffee He seemed to like the taste of it less and less. "Good Christian

and loneliness oozed out of the darkness to engulf me in a tide of their own It were as if by revealing a glimpse of adulthood, my father had somehow taken leave of me.

VFurther details of Seth's demise remained vague. From the old man's final, tortured raspings, my father had gathered the Indian in question was a man he had once known.

''Worked the fields most days," he

"The Indian? Far as I know, he ain't dead. Not yet. But he soon will be."

observed, "helped his woman in the kitchen, too. That's pretty unusual for a man of any up a ways from here. Built himself a hide, so the story goes "

The darkness seemed to close in around us at the very mention of the ancient Algonquian tribe "Bobby Wootton told me all about them Shawnee," I said. "Bobby's grandpa was a U.S. Marshal back in '76, reckons the old boy helped run 'em out of the state during the Chickamauga Wars."

My father removed the toothpick from his mouth and rolled it between his fingers, as if weighing it against my words . Then he seemed to change his mind, and pitched the toothpick into the fire "That's a long time ago," he said. "Let's hear what this Wootton boy has to say."

I watched the toothpick flare and blacken amid the flames. "He reckons they got horns, some of 'em They eat their newborns when there's birth defects or famine, and

folk'll do that too if the weather's cold enough," he said He sat up, swirled the grits in his cup, and tossed them aside ''And not just with buffalo, neither. I've seen people do the exact same thing with their own horses and not so much as blink."

"Honest?"

"I wouldn't lie to you, Timothy."

All of a sudden I felt close to tears. They seemed to well up inside of me, an inexorable salt tide I had to bite down on to keep inside and not only because of the unsettling image in my mind. This was one of the few times I could recall that my father had called me Timothy instead of Timmy or Tim. I should have been glad. I should have felt gratitude for this newfound level of parental respect But I felt nothing of the sort. Instead, fear

breed." It was late next morning, and my father had already shocked me to the core by revealing that, prior to his departure, he had told my mother I would probably follow him out of the valley, and not to stand in my way. I was still digesting this startling revelation when he said: "He even learned to read the bible, by the sound of it. Or maybe his lady friend just read it to him and he memorized the parts he liked ." A shadow of doubt crossed his brow. "Hard to tell what a man's saying when he's hurt that bad."

"So why'd they kill him?"

"The Indian? Far as I know, he ain't dead. Not yet. But he soon will be."

As he said this, my father unholstered his gun and rested it on the pommel of his saddle. We were making our way around the edges of an abandoned farm at

the time. The main barn nestled at the base of a line of rolling green hills sparsely dotted with flowering oaks and elms. A pair of wild sheep emerged from the elevated treeline to monitor our progress, but they soon got bored and wandered away.

"They shot him when they couldn't get the noose round his neck," my father added. "They must have overlooked the blade tucked into his boot." He sighed . "I guess he escaped in all the confusion."

I listened to this with a growing sense of bewilderment. There was something missing from the tale, and it took me a while to work out what it was.

"What did he do wrong?" I sensed that part of the account had been omitted for my benefit, and didn't like it one bit. ''.And why wasn't the sheriff involved?"

M y father surprised me by cracking a rare smile. "You're a bright one, Timmy," he said, "that's for certain. And what he did wrong is a question for the ages. Cattle-theft, is what Seth claimed, along with some other stuff I don't remember. But there's a more fundamental issue at stake here, son. You understand what I'm saying?"

I told him I wasn't sure.

"The polite term for it is 'cohabiting with a white woman', but I'll say no more on the subject."

I had no idea what co-habiting was, but when the words white woman

appear in a sentence referring to an Indian, even indirectly, you don't need a dictionary to take the meaning of it. "Is she dead?"

My father opened his mouth to speak, then stiffened on his mount.

VI

The thing he had spied from the foot of the hill was a hanging tree, noose tied and ready to go. After ascending to the summit, we discovered the ground beneath the

noose to be thoroughly gouged by hooves and bootheels. "Must have fought like an cat in a sack," was my father's only comment. He tilted his chin at the thicket beyond, eyes narrowing as he listened "Plenty of undergrowth between this rise and the next," he said. "If he's hurt bad enough, that's where he'll be."

My stomach rolled over 1n anticipation. "You're not taking him back to town, are you?"

My father raised his hand for quiet, head tilted into the wind . "Get down," he whispered. Gun still in hand, he dropped from the saddle and practically yanked me out of mine. His final instruction was to remain close at all times. Then he melted into the trees like smoke on a high wind

I had never seen my father in circumstances quite like that before, yet he seemed more assured, more at home with the

world, than he ever had back on the farm. I had also never seen him draw his gun before, yet it sat in his palm as comfortably as any book. With swift, fluid movements, he graduated from coppice to clearing and back into trees, halting periodically to put his ear to the wind.

The final swell of undergrowth gave onto a rocky incline choked with weeds and bushes that crowded the banks of a dry riverbed. Just the

lace to break an ankle, I thought, then spotted a pair of booted feet sticking from beneath a juniper bush on the opposite slope. The bush was augmented by branches torn from a low-hanging shingle oak. This was the hide Seth D arrow had spoken of. I opened my mouth to say as much, but my father waved a hand for quiet. He was already searching the ridge for a better vantage point.

The Shawnee was still alive when we blindsided him, but only barely. You could hear him breathing from a distance of ten feet, lungs bubbling like a stewpot over high heat. My father eased his way around the bush, weapon raised and primed for action.

The man was in his mid-thirties, dressed pretty much as we were aside from his moccasins and a leather braid to keep the hair out of his eyes. Part of his chest and abdomen had been blown away. What remained was a blackened crater of scorched flesh and punctured organs that exuded an evil stink. Among the ruins of red and black meat, the exposed lower

half of a single lung inflated and emptied. Its owner was deathly pale, lips blue from lack of air. M y father knelt at the man's shoulder, fed him sips of water from his canteen Their eyes locked once the man's thirst had been quenched, and for a long time neither of them moved or spoke.

Then m y father looked at me. "I think it's time

looked as if he had been turned half inside-out, and began to cry.

''W-what?"

"I told you to open his shirt."

"But why? Do I have to?"

My father barely seemed to notice the sickness I felt at the prospect

cylinder span and clicked back into place.

I undid the last of the buttons.

"Can I stand up now? Please, daddy?"

From out of nowhere, I was gripped by an irrational fear -that m y father had been planning -

w e did what we came here for ." • to kill us both all along , me for disobeying him b y leaving the valle y, th e

I glanced at the Indian, a mounting dread blurring m y thoug hts.

''We?"

My father dislodged the cylinder of his rev olver with the heel of his palm and checked the load.

With studied ease, he said : "Open his shirt, Timothy."

I g az ed at the dying man, who

of touching a nose-cropping, babyeating Shawnee.

"Do it," he said, and casually slapped m y face.

Blubbering now, the tears dripping off my cheeks and chin, I reached down with hands that shook uncontrollably, and struggled to unbutton fabric soaked in layers of black and congealing blood. Off to the side, the revolver's ammunition

Shawnee for his crime. He would return home with a contrite look on his face and a story about a headstrong boy and a tragic accident. But instead he told m e to lay m y hand on the d ying man 's chest. He pointed to the exact spot.

Continued on PAGE30

Davin Ireland was born and bred in the south of England, but currently resides in the Netherlands. His fiction credits include stories published in over fifty print magazines and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic, including the BBC 's Aesthetica magazine , The Quiet Feather, Zahir, Storyteller Magazine and Albedo One. You can visit his site at http://members.ziggo. nVd.ireland/

Life During (and after) Wartime: SATJTjY ZIGMOND profiles SARAH WATERS

Can it really be eight years since Solander last featured the novels of Sarah Waters? 1 That being said, it also seems no time at all since this talented and innovative historical novelist burst on the literary scene with what she happily refers to as her "lesbo historical romps''.2

Given the impact these novels had across the literary spectrum, it might have seemed tempting, therefore, for her to continue writing novels in the same vein. But no.

In that S olander interview of 2002, Lucienne Boyce asked about her future writing plans:

"I think I'm going on to the 1940s. (I didn't want to go back in time, further back than the 19th century didn't much appeal to me.) Much as I love the Victorian period, I did feel that it was time for a change, although I may want to

go back there in the future. But I didn't want to become completely contemporary. The '40s seem like a really interesting time, especially just post war. It's a modern period but it is still far enough away to be radically different."

These thoughts became the Man Booker-shortlisted The ight Watch. 3 Waters admits she was overwhelmed by the amount of material available when she was researching the period In a 2006 interview with The Guardian, she says:

"Immediately, I was both captivated by what I began to discover about wartime

Britain, and disconcerted by the sheer amount of material available for research. For information about nineteenth-century life I had been more or less limited to books; now I had a whole new set of re-

sources: films, photographs, sound recordings, civil defence records, the physical ephemera of war, and - since so many people in the 1940s felt compelled to make a record of the startling events they saw unfolding around them - a staggering selection of diaries and memoirs. On top of that, there was the fact of the period being still very firmly within living memory. Giving an early public reading from the halffinished manuscript, I found myself talking confidently about what the 1940s were 'like' - then had the unnerving experience of looking around the room and realising that many members of my audience were old enough to recall the decade for themselves." 4

And this brought further problems:

"Then again, memory is a funny thing, and experience is necessarily partial. 'Women didn't wear trousers then,' someone assured me very confidently, when the issue

came up. And, 'You never had dinner out, at restaurants, like you do today,' said somebody else. Yet,[ ] Joan Wyndham, keeping a diary in London at the start of the war, regularly recorded having suppers in Chelsea and West End restaurants: minestrone and veal with spaghetti at Bertorelli's, for example, and 'chicken paprika at the Leicester Square Bierkeller'. Habits, fashions and mores are clearly class- as well as gender-specific; increasingly, as I researched the war, I found myself relying less on oral history and anecdote than on the journals, letters, and novels written while the war itself was ill progress, or just after."

Waters's three Victorian novels - Tipping the Velvet, Fingersmith, and Affinity - each

© Charlie Hopkinson subverted the great writers of the time such as D ickens and Wilkie Collins; the same approach is apparent from the moment one starts reading The Night Watch. Nonetheless, much of what readers had come to expect from Waters is present throughout The Night Watch. Gay relationships, both male and female, are a central feature .

Waters' research revealed how much lesbianism, in particular, was able to find expression because of war.

"The'40s,'' Waters told The Guardian, "was a fantastically exciting period for many lesbians and gay men. The

mix of servicemen in London, and the blacked-out streets, provided new opportunities for gay male cruising. The uncertainties of the time, and the horrors of air-raids, gave many people 'whose only problem was a slight deviation of the sex urge' - as Mary Renault rather waspishly put it - a new determination to enjoy themselves

while they could. The conscription of so-called 'mobile' women after December 1941 sometimes produced the trauma of secret lesbian separations; but often, too, it created romantic opportunity, as women were moved away from home into same-sex institutions perhaps to encounter the idea of lesbianism for the first time ."

The Night Watch also explores other sexual relationships, all of which are intensified by the presence of war. The threat of imminent death has the effect of making living more immediate, in a strange way, more exciting In one memorable scene, Waters describes a frantic ambulance journey through bombed-out streets ill the middle of an air-raid. You can sense the danger, but also feel the adrenaline-charged exhilaration

It is, however, in the structure of the novel that Waters is at her most daring. The novel opens in 1947. London is still war-damaged, lethargic and grubby around the edges; so are its major characters when we first meet them Kay is alone, aimless and detached. Helen and

Julia are in the last throes of a great romance, Helen suffering from debilitating bouts of jealousy. Viv is at the fag-end of an unsatisfactory liaison with Reggie, a married man . Her brother, Duncan, was in prison but now lives a twilight, unfulfilled existence with "Uncle Horace".

The natural instinct of a reader is to find out "what happens next".

But in Th e Night Watch, Waters turns that notion on its head and, disregarding the future, shows us how her characters came to be where and what they are The subsequent sections of the novel take us back to 1944 and then 1941 And so, instead of turning the pages to find out how these relationships develop, bit by bit these people's pasts are revealed in shocking, surprising and fascinating ways.

There is a nod to Waters' methods when Kay explains her lonely visits to the cinema. "Sometimes I go in half-way through, and watch the second half first . I almost prefer it that way - people's pasts, you know, being so much more interesting than their futures."

Waters says she didn't feel she had anything new to say about London during the Second World War and wanted to concentrate on its aftermath. But she was finding the actual writing a struggle.

"I began to realize that the very things that had led me to the postwar scene in the first place - the blighted landscape, the austerity, the sense of inertia, the reticencewere weighing my writing down, or drying it out 'Don't let's talk about the war,' m y characters were mut-

tering to each other, authentically; but the fact was, they had nothing else to talk about, no events to live through that were half so vivid as the experiences I imagined they'd had in the previous six years. At last I saw that there was no getting away from it It was not my characters' futures that would make them interesting to me; it was their pasts The moment I did, things opened up I saw that the novel might work best if I put its action in reverseif I kept its opening in the post-war setting of 1947, but then plunged back into the trauma and excitement of the war itself." 5

In an interview with Litnet, a South African literary site, Waters admits:

'The Night Watch is quite a melancholy book, but I hope people won't go away from it depressed. To a large extent it's about the failure of intimacybut at the same time, it contains scenes of real human connection. For me, these work like little lights glimmering in the darkness. Some of the characters, at least, finish with the potential to make positive changes in their lives; and though people behave badly here - by letting each other down, in large and small ways -I tried to make the book a compassionate one, understanding and forgiving weakness. And everything is complicated, of course, b y the novel's reverse structure - which means that it ends on a point of optimism for nearly all the characters, but has already given us a glimpse of their sometimes unhappy futures. Lots of readers say they finish the book and want immediately to go back to the beginning. There isn't the

traditional closure of a beginning, middle and end. But that's like life, isn't it?" 6

Although in The Night Watch, Waters doesn't venture beyond the war and its immediate aftermath, Waters felt she could not let that period of history go In her interview with Litnet she also says:

"I have just started work on a new book - but to be honest, it's still in such an embryonic form, there isn't much to say about it. I can tell you that it's set in the late 1940s again: I've grown very attached to that era, and, having finished The Night Watch, feel there's more about postwar Britain that I want to explore. I'm interested, for example, in the impact of the war on the class system. I'm also thinking of setting the book in a small town, rather than in London -a new departure, for me " 7

This "new departure" was The Little Stranger, Waters' latest novel. 8 On the surface it appears a much more conventional novel but, as we have come to discover in Waters' novels, there's a lot more going on than is apparent on the surface. She takes what seems to be a straightforward literar y stalwart - the ghost story - and subverts it into something quite different

The setting moves away from London into Warwickshire, and although the characters share the post-war listlessness and displacement already shown in Th e Night Watch, that's where the similarities end This is a novel about the shifting dynamics of

the British class system, about the early days of the welfare statethe ational Health Service and council house building- the demise of the great country families and noblesse oblige.

Here is Waters on the subject of class in The Little Stranger in an interview with The Guardian in August 2010: 9

"The deep anxiety I'd seen at work in the fiction of conservative '40s writers such as Angela Thirkill and Josephine Tey- an anxiety about a changing social system and a newly confident working class - amounted, at times, to a kind of hysteria In looking for a way to address the issue, I had been thinking of attempting a rewrite of Tey's fascinating but deeply troubling novel of 1948, The Franchise Affair. [But] it struck me that I could take the class tensions underpinning conservative postwar paranoia and rewrite them as something actively paranormal. I suppose I was thinking, in effect: 'I'll give those snobs something really to get h ysterical about!"'

The novel opens as Doctor Faraday, a local general practitioner, is called to Hundreds Hall. Faraday has not visited the grand house, where his mother once worked as a nursery maid, since he was a young boy. He is shocked at how run-down and dilapidated it is, and to observe the reduced lives of its inhabitants, but is also resentful of their patrician attitudes. We meet

what is left of the Ayres family: Mrs Ayres, her son Roderick, who was badly injured while on active service, and her daughter Caroline.

Then there's Betty, a young, homesick maid, who confides her fears about the house to Faraday. "There's so many corners and you

don't know what's round 'em. I think I shall die of fright sometimes." Rational, science-trained Faraday dismisses her words, but the reader knows better than to ignore this first spine-tingler.

In the same interview Waters says: From the start, I knew that a poltergeist would serve me better

than a simple ghost. I've always been drawn to the post-Freudian interpretation of the poltergeist as an acting-out of psychic distress'a bundle of projected repressions', as Hereward Carrington and andor Fodor put it in their 1951 study of the phenomenon, Haunted People. In other words, while Hundreds Hall, my fictional setting for the novel, was definitely to be a haunted house, it was to be haunted not by the spirits of the dead, but by the unconscious aggressions and frustrations of the living. I wanted The Little Stranger to be a sort of supernatural country house whodunit - a 'whose poltergeist is it?' - in which the Hall's hapless inhabitants would get picked off one by one, and every character - the grieving mother, the war-scarred son, the spinster daughter, the lonely servant, the whole changing nation around themwould have more than enough unconscious conflicts to constitute a possible 'suspect'."

At first it seems Faraday is a typical ghost story narrator in the manner of M R James's stories; a dispassionate observer of horrific events. But as Waters explains, his is a much more central role. 10

"The novel's narrator, Dr Faraday, I at first planned to be a rather transparent figure in the classic ghost-

Hiding in Fiction: RONI COATES speaks to memoirist MARLENA de BLASI

American author Marlena de Blasi has achieved success by writing about food, romance and Italy. In her first memoir, A Thousand Dqys in Venice, we meet her future husband, see her sell off her American home, and wonder at her impulsive decision to move to Venice with just enough knowledge of Italian to order from a menu . Each book builds on the last, providing intimate insights into the people and foods of Sicily, Tuscany and Umbria . revelled in each new workAfter building a career in memoir, based on memoir, but a surprise was in

storereaders were surprised this spring when her latest work, Amandine: A Novel appeared.

Set in France during the 1930s and 1940s, Amandine takes us into a new and unexpected realm. Although a work of fiction, it is as intimate as de Blasi's memoirs, while unveiling a world of truly original and unforgettable ch aracters.

Born out of wedlock to a young woman of Polish n obility, Amandine is placed in a French orphanage as an infant . Provisions for the child's care are made by her

maternal gran dmother, but she is never to know of her family. Although deeply loved by her caretaker Solange, Amandine eventually begins searching for her true mother.

When I spoke to Marlene de Blasi in August, I was curious to discover what inspired this historical novel.

Why did you choose to w rite Amandine as a historical novel? Were your choice of time and place made to intentionally hide the true identities of the people you describe? Is this, too, a book about yourself?

Marlena De Blasi: An ancient tactic, to hide oneself in fiction Though Amandine and I have much in common, she is from another era, another geograp h y, another family. Her tragedies are not mine, not all of them, anyhow. I chose to write Amandine's story as fiction so that I c ould enlar ge upon it, fill in the inevitable lacunae, invent upon the empty spaces, upon the same sort of voids which compose all of our lives .

When did you begin writing A mandine, and why was this

the time to write a novel?

MdB: Once again, as with the other books, I wrote first in my head. I suppose Amandine was racing about for years before I proposed it to my publisher. I began putting down the text when I did, in part, because of the modest security I'd felt having produced four well-received memoirs. Having already spent years in the work of emotional excavation, having been the beneficiary of the wisdom of so many of the characters (both individual and composite) in Amandine, I felt ready. The road was often painful, always lovely.

I'm fascinated by your ability to characterize relationships, such as the one between Mater Paul and Fabrice. Their dialogue rings so true: you feel you're eavesdropping on the private conversation of a couple embittered by a long and disappointing marriage. How difficult is it to write such dialogue?

MdB: The only 'difficulty' in writing intimate dialogue is that I must restrain myself. I could go on and on yet I know it's the compression, the fleeting gaze into the keyhole, the ear to the wall for that half moment before someone comes into the room these are what compel.

In music, there are eighty-eight

keys with which to compose. In life there is less basic material. Life often seems a three-step dance: guilt, expiation and forgiveness.

One of the things that makes your writing so compelling is that you often leave the main story to take us aside to share a bit of gossip, a small insight.

feel the thoughts empathetically, yes, but that would hardly be enough. I want the words to resonate personally, to invite a kind of identification. I don't think I would write if I weren't reaching for that sort of 'holding hands' with the reader.

You are presuming there are revisions; that makes me

Amandine

Is this how you naturally write, or are the diversions inserted in subsequent revisions?

MdB: I think the 'diversions', as you call them, come about as devices to reinforce the narrative, to illustrate, demonstrate, drive home a thought. Make another impression. I want the reader to

smile. It would make many of my editors shake their heads, roll their eyes. I've yet to 'revise' a text. Mostly my editors make a fair number of queries, a part of the process I enjoy for the provocation their questions raise, the parrying back and forth. That's as far as the 'revisionary' process has ever gotten. It's true though with A Thousand Dqys in Venice, I did have an editor temporarily. It being my first book, I was deeply intimidated by her, wanting sincerely to learn from her, to please her. The process was fraught with difficulties and taught me to trust myself and - to the point of rigidity - that's what I've done ever since.

The conflicts between mother and daughter are important in Amandine as well as in your other works. You keenly understand a child's need for unconditional love, and yet mothers (and fathers) still have their own unmet needs.

MdB: The narrative 1s about

mothers and daughters and the endless, nearly universal, repetitions of the follies perpetrated between them. Daughters forget that their mothers are still little girls, that one scant generation separates them. When these same daughters become mothers (especially if they bear daughters), mother-empathy may come to light. If daughters don't become mothers, mother-empathy is often lost.

'Unconditional love' has become, at best, a banal phrase. We all know there is nothing - no emotion - that endures without 'condition'. Even the all-devouring, all-sacrificing mother may draw boundaries. (Hosannas to her when she does.) The job of meeting needs for love and security belong to each one of us. Unmet (read: grotesquely voracious) needs dangle from generation to generation, gathering force. In every family someone, sooner or later, finds the courage to step off, to step away from the path.

But Amandine never sought 'unconditional love'. I don't think she even sought love itself. Her need to love was greater than her need to be loved. I think children who grow up as she did are often more generous than those who grow up more 'traditionally'. Amandine had a great need to comfort. When she could comfort someone, she herself was comforted. Perhaps more important than that side of her nature is this: she, though she hardly could put a name to it, had reconciled herself to destiny. One of my fa-

vorite scenes in the text is when Amandine waits, once again, for a convqyeur from the Resistance to take her through the next phase of the line.

Mater Paul is so needy that she cannot give even compassion to an orphaned child. This is not how we normally view nuns, and we struggle to understand her. Why is she is obsessed with knowing who Amandine is and why does she not believe Fabrice? Is it simple jealousy or is there more?

MdB: Is jealousy ever simple? Perhaps yo u're right that Paul hardly fits a central casting image of an abbess. However, convent girls from anywhere in the world may very well recognize her.

Paul does not believe Fabrice because Fabrice has often lied to her. As happens in any 'marriage', when the trust is broken into too many pieces, all becomes suspect. Apart from her rancour for Fabrice, Paul - even after fifty years - has not reconciled her lot, her portion in life: that her father abandoned her to a convent. That at some point in those fifty years she might have left the convent, struck out on her own, has not occurred to Paul. Worse - and more likely - the choice did occur to her and she refused it. (We go back to the truth that one must take the responsibility for meeting one's own needs for love and security.) Comfortably entrenched in self-pity, it's Amandine who comes along to rankle her. Never mind that Amandine,

too, has been abandoned. Paul only sees the trappings, the attentions which she would have liked for herself. Even though they are not mother and daughter, this 'baby envy' is a common enough 'mother-daughter' phenomenon.

The Countess Valeska is troubled by her actions, yet she sent Amandine to the very place where her daughter was happy as a child, and leaves her the very object that identifies her heritage. Can you help us understand her?

MdB: Valeska is really rather a transparent figure. Her emotions are fierce but not whole. There are always cracks. She admits that she committed 'her sin' - abandoning her daughter's child - not to protect her daughter but to protect her own pride. She will not suffer the infant, but admits to an instinctive love when she first holds her, on the night she is born.

Most of the men in Amandine Gosette's father, Mater Paul's father, Fabrice, Solange's father, Count Czartoryski) do not come off well, yet you balance the scales with Pere Philippe, the doctor Jean Baptiste and Catulle. Do you believe that's what it takes to make the world right -a few very good men to balance so many venal ones?

MdB: I would never venture to suppose what might create a balance between good men and the venal ones, as you call them. But let's look at Josette's father, Paul's

father, Fabrice, Solange's father. We have little enough to go on, perhaps nothing sufficient even to form strong impressions of them. We know of one or two of their deeds, something of their temperaments, appetites no, surely not enough. Or do we? They seem weak. Angry boys commanded by their sex A type wellknown to all. Predictable, pitiable. Discardable Philippe, Baptiste, Catulle? If we're fortunate we get to know one or two like them in a lifetime. Catulle, primarily. But he existed, his counterparts do still. Yes, his troupe is a less populous one. Can this minority 'make the world right'? I think they try.

Some of your characters say that by always wanting more, we suffer from a greed that is not limited to just things. Have you arrived at that view in recent years, or did you always feel that way?

MdB: I began life with very little. I think it's easier to be content with one's portion if that's the case. Almost everything seems grand. A sort of 'Boxcar Kids' vision of life. Making do can be an exciting thing. I am also careful not to romanticize 'making do'. I know where the boundaries are.

Later, living in northern California in the late 1980s I was instructed about the perils of having too much. It was a moment of great prosperity, an economic boom. Drywall contractors were becoming millionaires overnight - that sort of thing. Arrivistes, nouveau riche they were vulgar not

because of their purses but because of their behaviour. People would go to restaurants and order from the right side of the menu, the wine list. There was a kind of decadence no, perhaps it was more like moral squalor. When I exited that period of my life, it felt like a liberation. I never looked back.

In several of your books you speak of the need to accept the salt with the sugar if one is to truly live. You also make repeated references to destiny. Many cultures accept the futility of fighting one's destinysome call it accepting the will of God. Clearly you believe in fate. What about the notion of creating your own destiny?

MdB: I would take it a bit further than 'acceptance'. Life is made of salt and sugar. It's just the way it is. If one tries to refuse it, it's not as though the salt goes away.

Fate? Destin y? How can one travel very far in life and not make friends with them? Surely there is also free will. We make a thousand choices each day. But in the scheme of things, destiny leaves very little string for us to play with . Not enough, I think, to 'create' a personal destiny. The plutocrats of the world will, of course, disagree.

You use letters to compress the story and rush us to the ending. Why? Also, why do you not let us see the mother-daughter reunion? Is this something we might see in a sequel?

MdB: I didn't let you see the mother-daughter reunion because there wasn't one. A sequel perhaps, but no reunion. As for 'rushing' you with the device of letters, the book might well have been Tolstoyan in length had I not.

To me Amandine is a story about the need to belong. Even if we wish it were not so, our identities, our self-worth, our understanding of ourselves as adults, stems from knowing our kin and our culture. Was that the idea you wanted to convey?

MdB: I don't think I can agree that Amandine has an innate need to belong. I return to the premise that she has, rather, an instinctive need to give. To show love. The narrative, I hope, demonstrates that she, not knowing who she was or from whence she came, became herse!f. She consented to her lot. She hardly became a victim of the voids and losses. That she was Polish is vital to the story. Her Polishness, I believe, was her saving grace. Her zal [a melancholia often associated with Poles]. She is serene. What hurts her never leaves her, but neither does it interfere with her capacity for joy.

A journalist asked me recently what I thought would have happened to Amandine had she been

From Jakarta to Agincourt: JAMES HAWKING Explores the Life and Work of Beloved Dutch Novelist HELLA HAAS SE

Most English-speaking readers who appreciate the D utch author Hella Haasse know her as the author of the three fine historical nove ls which have been trans lated into English (In a Dark Wood Wandering, Threshold of Fire, and The Scarlet City), but her contributions to the histo rical novel go far beyond these works. Like Alessandro Manzoni before her, she has written on the theory as we ll as the history of the modern historical novel. In her essay " D e Moderne Historische Roman," she traces the origin of the historical novel to its roots:

''You could even propose that writing was invented, had to be invented, in order to be able to exp lain what happened, or what men thought or wanted to have happened."

Haasse shows how the fictional treatment of history continued through epic poetry, drama and the eventual development of the historical novel. In the same essay, she discussed a hybrid form she has developed by using the basic tools of the historian to form historical fiction.

Ms. Haasse was born He len e Serafia Haasse on February 2, 1918 in

Batavia in the D utch East Indies. Her mother was a concert pianist, her father a colonial financial official. She spent her childhood in what is now Indonesia, with the exception of ages six through nine, w h en she lived with her grandparents while going to school in the etherlands. She returned to the etherlands in 1938 for her education, and she was there throughout the azi occupation. In 1944 she married Jan van Lelyveld In the 1980s they moved to France where her work was very popular, but they eventually returned to the Netherlands They had three daughters and were married until his death in 2008.

Haasse's position in D utch literature is unassailable and unique. For her ninetieth birthday two years ago, there was a ceremo n y planting a tree in her honor in Amsterdam's Vondelpark. She has won the Constantijn Huygenprijs, the Annie Romeinprijs, the P.C. Hooftprijs, and the Prijs der Neder landse Letteren, 2004, all for her complete works, as well as numerous prizes for individual nove ls

The D utch have an annual March ce lebration called Boekenweek, a week of ten days celebrating literature. Each year a D utch or

F lemish author is asked to provide a novella which becomes the boeken1veekgeschenk (book week gift), a work which book stores give away for free when someone buys another book in D utch. Hella Haasse is the only author to have been so honoured three times In 2009, her 1948 novella Oeroeg was the book for ederland Leest (The ether lands reads), the fourth book chosen for this national effort. This story of the relationship between a D utch boy growing up with his Indonesian friend has captured the imaginations of D utch readers since its publication, and it is as assigned to D utch secondary students in much the same way that To Kill a Mockingbird is in the United States.

Even Haasse's novels in relatively co n temporary settings have something to say about historical novels. In Huurders and Onderhuurders (' Renters an d Subletters'), A n tonia Graving is writing a novel about the suppression of the Bacchanalia in 186 BC, a story that can be found in Livy. Her diary mixes p lans for an historical novel and events in the building around her, and you can see how present-day events infl u ence her story.

Originally Madame Bentinck appeared

as two separate works : Onverenigbaarheid van Karakter ('Inconsistency of Character') and De Groten der Arde ('The Greatness of Soul'). The novel tells the story of the ill-fated marriage of Duchess Sophie von Aldenburg (1715-1800) and Willem Bentinck, a member of a prominent Anglo-Dutch family and a close associate of the House of Orange. Early in the marriage, Charlotte began a passionate affair with the husband of her foster sister. Charlotte separated from her husband to lead a vagabond life where she met and corresponded with figures like Voltaire and Frederick the Great. In that period, it was customary for people to draw self-portraits, and Haasse has reproduced them here. The novel was created by combining letters, legal documents and diaries, the material from which history is often made Haasse arranges them artfully in what she calls a collage, and she fills in the spaces between with narrative.

Another historical novel that makes use of archival material is Heren van de Thee (now available in English from Portobello Books as The Tea Lords) about a Dutch family that established a tea plantation and an export business in Indonesia thanks to their agricultural experimentation and understanding of the Chinese market. Some of the exotic flavor comes from Sudanese words mixed in the Dutch original, with a glossary in the back The family business highlights the differences between the colonists who live in Batavia, the commercial centre, and those who are out where the tea is grown . The natural wonder of Java's mountains and free-flowing streams contrast startlingly with the etherlands and

its land reclaimed from the sea. The last date in this book is February 1, 1918, the day before Haasse was born

The Scarlet Ci!J (De Sharlaken Stad) features Giovanni Borgia, the mysterious enfans romanus whose parentage seems to include one or more Borgias. The famous Borgias have all died, and Giovanni struggles

as a papal secretary in Rome during the time leading up to the sack of 1527. The novel employs multiple points of view, including those of Machiavelli and Michelangelo, as well as the supremely elegant courtesan Tullia d'Aragona. Each character is highly individualised and artfully drawn.

The Roman Empire in the fifth century AD is the setting for Threshold of Fire (Een 1euwer Testament), the book Haasse has called her personal favourite. Clau-

dius Claudianus, the hero, wrote verses in praise of Stilicho when that general was the power behind the Roman throne. Haasse begins her novel in the period after the poet had disappeared from history. Using details of his life found in his poetry, Haasse represents him as a pagan accused of animal sacrifice in an aggressively Christian emp1re.

In "Wijsheid Uit Egypte," Haasse's essay on the composition of Threshold of Fire, Haasse recounts how she first read of the poet in middle school, and his name appeared in a short story by the Dutch writer Louis Couperus, himself an important figure in the development of the historical novel. She elucidates her formula for creating historical fiction: "Curiosity, imagination and deep thought are always the basic elements of the creative process."

Haasse did as much research on the poet's life as she could, and then used his poetry "to deepen the handful of known facts about his life " Claudianus was raised in Egypt, and one of his poems expresses wonder at seeing ice, something he had never before encountered. His wonder was something Haasse could understand, having had the same experience the first time she left Indonesia to visit the etherlands, and saw ice hanging from the trees.

In A Dark Wood Wandering (Het Woud der Verwachting) tells the life of the fifteenth-century poet Charles d'Orleans. The emotional range of his poetry makes him an accessible protagonist, a medieval mind that we have at least some material to understand. His life was

central to one of the most debated and dramatic periods of French history - he was nephew to Charles VI, known to history as Charles the Mad - but his involvement was always at the periphery, someone acted upon by history rather than making it. This perspective - of the 'observer' in history - is one that most historical novels can only achieve with invented characters.

The rich ceremony of a royal baptism for Charles opens the novel. The king, unable to recognize his wife, is nonetheless very attentive to his brother's wife, Valentine Visconti. The power vacuum caused by the king's disability eventually leads to the murder of d'Orleans's father by the villainous Duke of Burgundy. Valentine makes all her sons take the oath of vengeance, including her husband's bastard son, whom she treats at first as the equal of her own sons and eventually as her favorite. Still in his teens, Charles does not have the experience or the ability to lead an army, so he turns to a mercenary captain named Bernard d'Armagnac, described vividly:

He did not care abo11t his appearance or his behavior: his thick grC!) hair hung to his shoulders; he 111ore a stained leather jacket, 111or11-out boots, a coat of mail on 111hich the lions of Armagnac 111ere alreac!J faded. Around him hovered an acnd odor of hqy, dogs and horses, of smoke and s111eat.

Charles is already a widower: his wife, Isabella of France, formerly the child Queen of England until Richard II was deposed and murdered, had died from complications in childbirth, so Armagnac suggests that Charles marry his daughter Bonne.

After years of civil war, Charles is called upon to help defend France

against an invasion by Henry V and his band of brothers Charles fights bravely, but ineffectively, and is captured at Agincourt, beginning a captivity in England of twenty-five years. While he is in England, Charles begins to write poems, most of them to Bonne, the surprisingly sweet woman he married for military reasons His poems express a longing for his wife and his home in France. (The American translation offers the poems in English as

well as in their French originals; the original version only gives a D utc h translation.) Boone's death, while Charles is helpless in prison, is particularly poignant, as his poetry mourns what could have been a happy marriage but for his exile.

While waiting to be ransomed, Charles only hears of events in France through occasional letters, sometimes smuggled in. For example, he hears the extraordinary tale of Jeanne d'Arc, who has vowed to free him, only to learn of her infamous death in a letter from his half-brother, the Bastard of Orleans. In 1440, he is finally freed with the expectation that he can

help make peace. His ransom is arranged by Burgundians, and he marries a young niece from the family of his former enemies. The difficult truth that time has passed Charles by is brought into somewhat wicked relief by the mad king's successor, Louis XI, tells him, "I have always found you an extremely stupid old fellow." Charles retreats into his home, where his frivolous and flirtatious new wife, Marie of Cleves, gives him children in whom he rejoices. Many enthusiasts of French history will know that Charles's eldest son, prophesied to become King of France, became Louis XII in 1498.

Haasse has called her most famous novel "romanticized," and she has said that she does not consider it a great accomplishment. Having previously paid respect to her understanding of the historical novel, I must now contradict myself. No other novel captures the Middle Ages as vividly or as intelligently as this book, first published in 1949, when Ms . Haasse was just over thirty. Robert Graves never considered the Claudius novels to be a major achievement, and he was as wrong about his masterpiece as Haasse is about hers.

Haasse should be recognized as one of the giants of historical fiction, and one hopes that more of her works will be translated into English soon . More information on her life and work is available online at the richly illustrated Hella Haasse Museum website ( ) , though sadly as yet only available in Dutch.

James Ha111king has contributed to S ofander since the first issue in 1997 111hen he 111rote an article entitled ''Roman History through a Hundred ovels'~ 111hich mentioned He/fa Haasse.

D PENCIL

CINDY VALLAR analyzes the work behindfinished manuscripts.

In this issue, she profiles

MICHELL E

CAMERON'S The Fruit of Their Hand s .

In 1996 Twentieth Century Fox released William Shakespeare~ Romeo + Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Although nominated for an Oscar and other awards, the film never worked for me, because it took place not in the past, but in modern times.' The setting didn't fit my conception of the story, especially since the star-crossed lovers on whom the play was based actually died in Verona during medieval times. Setting is a crucial element in historical fiction. It aids the reader in visualizing the time and place, which in turn allows the story to blossom into a tale that is both realistic and believable.

Michelle Cameron's The Fruit of Her Hands recounts the story of Shira of Ashkenaz, a rabbi's daughter who, unlike most girls of the thirteenth century, sometimes studies the Talmud alongside her father's male students. Although she learns a woman's proper place in society and within the Jewish community, her education and close relationship with her father bring her into contact with two men. One is icholas Donin, a student with radical views that eventually lead

to his excommunication; he converts to Catholicism, then as a priest seeks vengeance against Jews by charging them with heresy. The other man is Rabbi Meir ben Baruch, a muchsought-after Talmudic scholar who becomes Shira's husband Their love grows and together they cope with historic events and Jewish persecution in France, Germany, and England.

One segment of the book takes place in Paris, the location chosen because of an incident in Meir's life. Michelle explains: "[A]s a 26-yearold student, he witnessed the burning of the Talmud and wrote an elegy that clearly conveyed his despair. Jews still include this elegy when they recite laments during the yearly Tisha B'av service, mourning the great tragedies of the Jewish people So it was always obvious that a major part of my story would need

to take place in Paris."

When asked during an interview what she would ask Rabbi Meir if she could, Michelle responded, ''What was it like to stand there in that Paris market square and watch the burning of the

Talmud?" 2 Left only with her imagination, she wrote the scene "with tears pouring down my face." To recreate that event, first she had to "rebuild" a Paris that no longer exists - the medieval city during 1234 through 1242. Unable to visit France, she found "[b]ooks about artwork from the period particularly helpful. So were online descriptions of tours for medieval Paris, which gave me a sense of what it would be like to walk the streets. One particular website talked about the Paris of PhillipeAuguste 3 including details of the city and everyday life. This gave me a glimmer of insight into such aspects as the markets, the walls, and the construction of streets and houses. While this online source only touches upon many of these matters, it gave me the background I needed to be able to research further."

The reader's first introduction to medieval Paris comes from Shira's perspective. An early draft of this scene follows:

The city of Paris was much larger and more crowded than mrywhere else on earth. At least, that's what I told my father as the two of us drove through the crenellated stone guard towers at Port de Buci to enter the city on a humid summer's dqy in 4994 - or, as the Christians count theyears, 1234. We bumped mercilessfy d01vn the narrow streets on the small donkey cart packed high with the contents of my dowry. But my father, who had spent much of his youth traveling from city to city as a scholar, just laughed.

''It is certain that Paris will be a great city some dqy, songbird." he said, slipping naturalfy into his schoolteacher manner with me, making me sad to think that this would be one of the last times I would be instructed f!Y him. 'Think of the immense walled enclosure we just passed through - added f!Y His Mqjesty Phillipe-Auguste - or of his fortress of the Louvre, located just around the bend of the wall over there to our left. The Palais du Ru is directfy ahead of us. And bryond our line of sight, the towers of the enormous Notre Dame cathedral rise on

an island in the Seine River. Consider also the new center of learning, the University, on the Left Bank. All these grand edifices make it afar more civilized city than when I studied here in my youth, when it was more swamp than civilization, and there were more frogs and toads than people. ... Paris seems large to you because you 're a little country bird, used to peckingyour worms in the quiet shelter of our small country town. Hmmm?"

It 1vould not have been right for me to contradict my father, but, looking around at the close-packed, half-timbered stone edifices leaning against one another, crowding over the cobbled streets, I could not imagine how a city could contain more buildings or more people. The smell risingfrom the streets was nauseating, a mix of dung, fetid sewers, and rotting garbage. As we halted, waiting far several passers-ry to sidle past, our donkey shied and brqyed, raising its hoofs as if in pain or fear. Looking down, I saw we had stepped into a nest of small rodents, which, apparentfy indignant and not a bit intimidated f!Y our donkry's size or girth, retaliated ry biting its legs before fleeing to a more secluded spot.

We crossed the bridge to Ile du Cite at Petit Point, and turned into rue de la Colombe - Dove Street - located near the newfy completed cathedral. We 111ould reside here far several nights until the wedding, at the home of one of Papa's old students. The houses along the street were all new, rebuilt, we were told, cifter a flood had submerged the neighborhood some ten years back. It was then, my father's student, Itzik ben Ya 'acov, explained, that the street had received its name. Two doves had nested in a windo1vsill of a house owned ry an old mason who was creating sculptures far Notre Dame. The rising waters had caused the house to cave in, and one of the doves was trapped. But the other remained lqyal to its mate, bringing it seeds and water in its beak far a weary time until the waters receded and the mason could free the bird and restore his home To commemorate such a charming tale of devotion, the street was renamed and the mason chiseled stone medallions into delighiful dove shapes far each of his neighbors, who mounted them on their

exterior walls as part of the rebuilding. While this draft provides some clues as to what Paris looked like, the medieval city remains one-dimensional at this point. Michelle admits that "writing description comes hard to me . As a reader, I tend to skip over long sections of description, even while I admire the skill of any author who can make me feel that I'm there In my own writing, I'm most absorbed by character development and motivation, and in constructing the plot. So, just as when I'm reading, I tend to skimp on description ." Her editor, however, noted this sparse description, so Michelle added significant details to "help round out the picture of what Shira, a newcomer to the city, would observe as she entered the gates. I particularly wanted to give a sense of how much larger the city was in comparison to her small town - and the added details of what the people were doing as she traveled the narrow streets helped to do that." Another addition to the description concerned otre Dame, which only received brief mention in the draft

The city of Paris was much larger and more crowded than at!Jwhere else on earth At least, that's what I told my father as the two of us drove through the Benedictine Abbry of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, a fortified church with tal4 grqy towers built centuries ago. We saw monks directing 1vorkmen near the sluggish Seine River, constructing buildings to be used ry students of the newfy founded University of Paris. We rode through the crenellated stone guard towers at Porte de Buci to enter the city. It was a humid summer's dqy in 4994- or, as the Chnstians count the years, 1234. I was nineteen years old. We bumped down the narrow streets on the small donkry cart packed high with the contents of my dowry

''Paris will be a great city somedqy, songbird," Papa said, slipping naturalfy into hzs schoolteacher manner, making me sad thzs would be one of the last times he would instruct me. 'Think of the immense walled

enclos11re we j11st passed through - added f?y 011r king} granc!father, Phillipe Aug11ste - or of the Louvre, the great fortress j11st around the bend to our left. Le Palais ~al is direct!J ahead. B9ond 011r line of sight, the t01vers of Notre-Dame rise on an island in the Seine River. When I was last in Pans, the cathedral 1valls were still being constmcted and now the work is near!J complete. With these grand edifices Paris seems more civziized than when I studied here in my youth. Back then it 1vas more s1vamp than civilization and more frogs and toads lived here than people

... Paris seems large to yo11 because you re a little co11ntry bird, 11sed to peckingyour worms in the quiet shelter of our small country town. Hmmm?"

My 11pbringing would not let me contradict "!Y father, but, looking around at the close-packed, half timbered stone buildings leaning against one another, crowding over the cobbled streets, I could not imagine a ciry with more buildings or more people We passed immense stone churches and monasteries where men and even some women shut themselves up to prcry their lives awcry. I could hear the chanting of Latin prcryers dnftingfrom arched windows as we drove f?y O11t on the bttstling streets, people were everywhere - lottnging in doonvcrys, arg11ing at the market stalls, drinking companionab!J at small tables set 011! 11nder cloth awnings 11pwind of the stench. When you caught a whiff, the smell rising from the streets was a nauseating mix of dung,Jetid sewers, and rottinggarbage. Our cart stopped as our donk9 shied, raising its hoofs as if in pain or fear. Looking down, I saw he had stepped into a nest of small rodents. ot intimidated f?y our donk9} size or girth, th9 retaliated f?y biting its legs before fleeing to a more seclttded spot.

We crossed the bndge to Ile du Cite at Petit Point, and turned into rtte de la Colombe

- Dove S tree! - located near the new!J completed cathedral. I caught nry breath as the immense walls of the Cathedrale de Notre-Dame rose in front of me I had never seen a church as large or as beatttijul, with its seemingly delicate stonework tracing exquisite patterns on its outside walls. An amry of workmen was bury there, some

working on strange stone creatures in a courryard while a master craftsman chipped awcry at a marble stone, creating a sternfaced Madonna who would eventual!J be brought to farm one of the figures in the portal of the cloisters. The laborers were busiest around the nave, where th~ were building a series of small chapels. Still others were working with pieces of colored glass that I would recognize in lateryears as part of the huge rose stained-glass window.

Papa and I had been invited to be guests

at the home of one of his farmer students, Yitzik ben Ya'aco~ until the wedding took place. The houses along rue de la Colombe were all new, rebuilt after the neighborhood had been flooded ten years earlier. It was then, Yitzik explained to us on the first evening after our arrival, that the street had received its name Two doves had nested in a windowsill of a house owned f?y a mason who worked at otreDame. The rising ivaters caused the house to cave in, trapping one of the doves. But the second remained lqyal to its mate, bringing it seeds and water in its beak 1111til the waters receded and the mason cotddfree the bird and restore his home. The street was renamed to commemorate this cham1ing tale of devotion. The mason chiseled stone medallions into delightful dove shapes far each of his neighbors, who motmted them in the walls of their new homes.

She added more information about the cathedral because her editor "pointed out that all of my readers, Jews and non-Jews alike, would be familiar with Notre-Dame, and that speaking of the church would help them feel that they were, in fact, entering the medieval city of Paris. So much has been written about otre- D ame's construction that it was easy to find telling details, such as the 'stern-faced Madonna,' which was an image I fell ill love with . Who knows what the stonecutter was feeling that [day] as he chipped away at this particular Iadonna's face?"

As for the story of the doves, I asked if this was an imaginary tale. Michelle wrote, "I stumbled across this charming story when I was researching the architecture of Paris, hoping to find some photos of medieval buildings. The legend appeared in an article written by Arthur Gillette in an online tourist publication, Paris

Tower Eiffel News, 'Where and What Is the Oldest House in Paris.' 4 As the author was careful to categorize the tale as a 'legend,' its authenticity is suspect. But I thought it was a perfect story for Shira to hear right before her wedding, with its overtones of love and loyalty."

The first time I read this section, I hadn't taken much notice of how much emphasis Michelle placed on the Christian elements of Paris, perhaps because I was unaware of the events that would happen there. When I compared the early draft to the published version of the scene, however, I became aware of these components. Michelle told me, "I wish I could say something deep, like it's a metaphor for Shira and Meir's impending encounter with the Christian clergy and nobles of Paris. But truth be told, it's because most references to Paris in the 1200s center around Christian life, and this includes the most vivid descriptions I could find. During this time period, the Jews lived side by side with their Gentile neighbors - they would not be separated behind ghetto walls for at least two centuries. So Shira would have walked through the streets of a largely Christian Paris, witnessing such sights on a regular basis.''

Her research and the rewriting accomplished what the early draft lacked. Paris was no longer one-dimensional. These changes brought the city to life, and Michelle made certain that in recreating this Paris, she remained true to history.

I didn't become aware of The Fruit of H er Hands until I read an e-mail on the HNS list It intrigued me enough to visit Michelle's website to learn more 5 Then I borrowed the book from my library I became captivated by Shira's story, but never realized she was a fictional character until I read the Author's Note at the end of

the story. I asked Michelle how she went about portraying Shira so convincingly.

The medieval historical record, ivith a few notable exceptions, is silent on the suiject of women . Despite Meirs copious writings - I have a two-volume 1vork that collected all the fragments of his letters - he said virtual/y nothing about his fami/y Ciear/y he had a ivife - every Jewish man of that era had the duty to marry and have childrenand he wrote about his daughters and their husbands at one point, when speaking of his flight from Rothenberg.

But this was a period when 1vomen weren't even listed in fami/y trees. In fact, when 1/Jriting about women in his letters, Meir often fallo1/Jed the convention of calling the woman "Rachel" or "Leah" - using those names as a kind of ano1!Jmous stand-in far every1/Joman.

So if I 1/Jas going to 1vrite from the perspective of fuibbi Meirs Mje, I had to create the character. Frank/y, this gave me a lot more freedom than if I had to adhere to historical accounts about her. I did careful/y consider whose daughter she would be (herfather, Sir Morel was a real-life character, as are all of the rabbis in the book), particular/y because of the imagined love triangle between Shira, Meir, and Nicholas Donin. Donin would name four rabbis to defend the Talmud before the rqyal court, and Sir Morel was one of them. Since much of what Donin did 1/Jas prompted by his need for revenge, it would make sense that he would have once been a student of Sir Morels.

Shiras personality and her pronounced love for learning were somewhat of a conceit. As I delved into Meirs philosopby toward women, there were maf!Y aspects that seemed particufar/y medievaL This 1/Jas especial/y true regarding his approach to1/Jard women and worship. I felt I needed a strong-ivilled 1/Joman to debate these points ivith him. But I also did not 1vant Shira to become a protofeminist- it was important that she remain true to her age So while Shira would argue ivith her husband, she 1von very jeJlJ of

these disputes She had to make her peace ivith a secondary role in life, ivith her mqjor responsibilities being her husband and fami/y. I think this struggle makes her a more realistic character.

Like many writers, Michelle works full-time as a creative director and account manager for a digital agency. She rises every morning at 4:30 to write, and has recently finished "a novel about the Babylonian exile of the Judean people." For those in the United States, she maintains a list of her upcoming appearances at her website. She loves to meet readers and fellow HNS members.

1 • Romeo and Juliet is based on a historical event that took place in 1303, and Shakespeare's play was performed for the first time around 1595.

2 • Johanna Ginsberg's "If Rabbi Meir's wife had a voice" appeared in the February 24, 2010 issue of the Ne1/J Jersry Jewish News.

3·Readerscanvisitthiswebsiteathttp:/ / www philippe-auguste . com/uk/.

• The article can be found at http:/ /www.paris-eiffel-tower-news . com/ paris-s torie s / paris-s tory-olde st-house. h tm.

5 • Michelle's website can be found at http:/ /www.rnichelle-cameron.com.

A special note to authors: lf you have a published or soon-to-be-published historical novel you'd like to see spotlighted in 'The Red Pencil "please contact me at cinqy@ cinqyval/ar. com and I YI send you the particulars. Keep in mind you must have an ear/y dreft of your manuscript available.

Cinqy Vallar is a freelance editor, an associate editorfar So lander, and the author of The Scottish Thistle (www.cinqyvallar. com/ scottishthistle.htmJ. A retired librarian, she also writes about pirates, presents workshops, and reviews books.

INSIDE THE HNS COMMUNITY

50 LAND E_R

talks to historical novelist and HNS member ARTHUR PINDLE

Your career has spanned physics and philosophy. Have you also always been interested in historical fiction? Can you also tell us how you discovered the Society?

depicted in fiction, and I thought it was an interesting phenomenon which would make a good context for fiction. I knew of no work which covered this subject so I why?

For the most part I like reading about nineteenth-century Europe and twentieth-century Europe and America. These works tend to

cover topics which match I have enjoyed reading a variety of work including historical fiction. Although most of my reading is contemporary, I especially like the work of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. I also relished reading Quo Vadis, Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights.

My publisher suggested that I use the internet to help promote the book, so I discovered the Society online.

What prompted you to write a historical novel?

my interest in contemporary philosophy.

Could you tell us a little more about your first novel? Writing historical fiction involves extensive research. Can you tell us about any particularly exciting discoveries you made while working on the book?

I had never been to New Orleans, so when I decided to write Bayou St. john I moved there. New I read Time on the Cross: Orleans is very proud of The Economics of Ameri- its history and there are can Slavery by Stanley

many sources ofinformaEngerman and Robert Fogel, tion for historical research where I learned of the entrepre- decided to write it myself. there. There was so much interestneurial slaves of New Orleans. ing history that I found difficulty This was very different from the What periods/countries do you choosing the best setting. I inikind of slave experience usually moS t enjoy reading about, and tially thought of a young boy im-

~THUR PINDLE, continued. ..

mediately after the Battle of New Orleans, but as I learned more of the history I felt this was not the best time period for my idea. Then I chose 1825 as the best time for my story and I created Jacques and Pierre as the central characters.

As I was doing my research I found that most people in New Orleans today are not aware of the entrepreneurial slaves. I was especially excited about what I learned concerning the Underground Railroad. I thought that it operated primarily in the east - in the Carolinas and Georgia. I discovered that the Underground Rail-

road operated as far west as Louisiana and slaves in New Orleans used it to escape. I did use this in Bayou St.John.

Could you tell us a little more about your next project?

I have written a science fiction screenplay and I am currently working on a novel about a man on a spiritual quest in fifteenth-centuryTimbuktu.

What books are currently on your bedside table?

I am now reading Jazz by Toni Morrison.

If you were given the chance, and if

Hthe laws ofphysics permitted time travel, whom would you most like to talk to and why?

If I could I would like to talk to Myshkin from Dostoevsky's 7he Idiot. I would like to know what is going on in his mind. He sometimes seems like a Taoist sage.

7he website far Arthur Pindle's novel Bayou St. Tohn is: http://www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/ BayouStJohn.html

THE SETTINGS OF HISTOllY

Marvellous in our Eyes:

A]ourney to Hatfield House

THE FIR.ST IN A SERJES OF 50LANDEJZ FEATUR.ES

PR_OFILING HISTOR_IC SITES AND THEIR_ PLACE IN HISTOR_ICAL FICTION

Getting to Hatfield House is a pilgrimage. Well, a pilgrimage for someone in high-heeled boots carrying a mostly-useless umbrella. It looks like it's right across from Hatfield Station, but once you cross the road, you have to walk, and walk, and walk. Shut the cars out, and it's easy to travel back to 1554, when the canny Princess Elizabeth , later Queen Elizabeth I, could make a trip from Hatfield to Whitehall - some twenty-three miles - last eleven days.

Even when I

turned into the drive proper I couldn't see the house - nor, for that matter, the

There are a couple of variations on the story of this meadow. Some say Princess Elizabeth was sitting under an oak; some say she was walking, or reading a book, or eating an apple. Some say that she staged herself there, knowing what was going to happen , and some peg out and say the story's apocryphal.

heavenward and quoted from the Psalms: Domino factum est, istud hoc est mirab i le in oculis nostris .

This is the Lord's doing; it IS marvellous m our eyes.

It is a rare, grand thing , to have one ,s imagination in plain sight.

The Old Palace and Gardens at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire

far larger and imposing Salisbury House, built by Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, in 1611. What I saw instead - and I saw it as though it had leapt into three dimensions from my imagination, from legend - was a meadow full of oak trees .

But seeing that meadow, I saw her pacing up and down beneath the bare branches of a great oak. I believed that a score of lords approached her - maybe even surprising her - on November 17, 1558, to tell her that she was Queen of England That she turned her face

Owned by the Earls (later Marquesses) of Salisbury since the seventeenth century, Hatfield, nestled deep in Hertfordshire, is home to a dozen-odd oaks , some of them very gnarly and angrylooking indeed In case some ver-

sion Elizabeth's story is true, all the oaks are maintained. It is November now, four hundred and fiftytwo years after that day, and still we tell this story. Whether true or not, Elizabeth under the oak tree is one of the great reasons that historical fiction exists, and a powerful argument for why we need it.

Historical novelists have used this place for scores of years. Jean Plaidy and Rosalind Miles saw Elizabeth standing before her oak tree. The meadow and grounds emerge fully formed in the novels of Philippa Gregory, Karen Harper, Margaret Irwin, and Susan Kay. Glenda Jackson, playing Elizabeth in the 1971 BBC miniseries Elizabeth R, recreated this scene: red hair streaming

in the wind under a French hood, she laughed out loud and raised her face to the sun for joy. There is magic here, memory travelling through the roots beneath my feet.

But what if it's apocryphal after all? What if Elizabeth staged the whole thing, or - worse yet - was somewhere else when she learned that she was Queen? Well. This is the

wonderful thing about apocryphal stories: they come from somewhere. Who made it up? Was it Elizabeth herself? Was it John Foxe, who presented Elizabeth with his legendary Book of Martyrs at her accession? Was it William Camden, the first chronicler of the Elizabethan age?

As historical novelists know, history and fiction often braid to-

Salisbury House, historic residence of the Earls and Marquesses of Salisbury

One of the famous oak trees in the meadow at Hatfield House

gether to astounding effect. Does it matter whether the story is true or not? I say no. It jolts the imagination, and that's enough.

Of course, Elizabeth is only the most famed of the inhabitants of Hatfield. Built during King John's reign in the thirteenth century, it was originally the residence of the Bishops of Ely, lavishly redecorated by contemporary office-holder John Morton in 1480. Henry VIII, contrary to popular belief, did not seize Hatfield during the dissolution of the monasteries; rather - and we could expect nothing lesshe put it to the crown's use because he liked it. It was not official crown property until 1538, by which point Henry had been putting it to one whimsical purpose or another for almost a decade.

Walking through the grounds at Hatfield now, the Old Palace, as the original Hatfield House is now known, looks like little more than a stable set against Salisbury House, which alters the skyline with its grandness. In fact, only the Great Hall is truly left of the house that the Bishops of Ely and Princess Elizabeth so happily called their own. Now that Hall is rented out for weddings and other festivities. On such days, the din of feasting and celebration can be heard throughout the gardens.

No one now inhabits the Old Palace; what remains of Elizabeth there - letters, silk stockings, books, portraits - is behind glass. Still the Hall itself feels curiously lived in; one listens for the whisper of a gown across the floor, for bells, for the

clatter of wheels on cobblestones beyond the great double doors.

What used to be the stables is now - for lack of any better term -a strip mall. The facade of stables remains: the gift shop sells what gift shops sell, but happily, there is no indication of this from the outside. Besides, there's also a jeweller's,

The Rainbow Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, held at Hatfield House

a book shop, a gardening shop, and an antiques shop, which sells Georgian furniture at prices akin to those for small - and sometimes large - cars. And why, afrer all, would anyone buy a hatchback when, for the same price, they could have a Georgian writing desk?

Perhaps the best part of visiting Hatfield today is how easily one can forget the museum aspect of it.

There is no sense of the dusty fragility which inhabits some historic houses. Nor is the experience anything like the garish, rather horrid assault on the senses that is a day spent at places like the Tower of London or Hampton Court Palace. Hatfield may be a tourist attraction during the summer months, but it doesn't feel like one. The original kitchens, for example, have recently been restored at Salisbury House, and they are - thankfully - quite free of plastic mutton steaks and pies.

Of course, the current Marquess and Marchioness of Salisbury live in Salisbury House. One can still see the Duke of Wellington's pen and countless other curios under glass throughout the first-floor corridor, but the instinctive reaction to the house - for all that the dining room table is bigger than my flat - is that a family lives there. As to the outside, in an interview on Hatfield's gardens for the website Hertfordshire Life, Lady Salisbury nods briefly to the history of the grounds, but elaborates in far greater detail regarding her own, deliberately modern gardening plans. I cringe momentarily for the work of John Tradescant, Robert Cecil's gardener in the early seventeenth century, but in the end I'm warmed by Lady Salisbury's plans. This place, such a vivid touchstone for the historical imagination, remains a home.

Hatfield House is open to the public April through September.

Continuedfrom HIDE

I couldn't do it. The wind was stiffening now, and the man's bare skin prickled with goose flesh. As did mine.

I refused to touch him. Tears coursing down my cheeks, I begged for salvation, implored my father to release me. He slapped me again, with real venom this time, voice gone rough with emotion. "You do what I tell you, lad, you hear me? There's a lesson to be learned here, and you're going to learn it. That much better be clear."

I felt myself sink into the deepest despair of my young life. "Yes, s-sir," I snuffled.

Sick with revulsion, I laid my hand on the dying man's chest. His skin was warm to the touch despite the cold, but clammy with it.

"What do you feel?"

I thought about it as calmly and rationally as I could. "Scared," I said.

"I didn't mean on the inside."

I regarded my splayed hand. "His skin," I whispered, "I can feel his skin. It isn't as cold as it looks."

My father grimaced in frustration. "That's the fever. What else?"

Throughout the course of our exchange, the dying man gazed at me without a trace of fear or rancour. He knew the end was near, and seemed to accept it with

dignity. He closed his eyes and laid his own hand over mine.

Finally the answer presented itself. It rippled up through the fevered flesh in a rhythm that was irregular, alarmingly faint, and all too real. Its presence made me cry harder, all the more because I hadn't expected it. My father and the man he had come to kill waited on me in silence.

"His heart," I finally managed to sob. "I can feel his heart."

"Say it again."

"His heart."

"Again."

I said it.

"Good." My father sighed, a sound loaded with the profoundest sadness and regret. ''You just remember that the next time Bobby Wootton tells you these people have horns. ow look at me "

Filled with shame and self-loathing, I peered up at my father, expecting to see the sneer of disapproval I had heard in his voice. But the expression he wore was one of weariness and naked grief. Holding my eye, he turned the gun over in his hand and passed it to me stockfust.

"Give him this," he said.

Eyes bulging, I did as I was told. Had I been right after all? Was I to be executed by a Shawnee for disrespecting his people? I should have known better.

The dying man, who barely had the

strength to take what was offered, thanked me with his eyes. Then he did the same for my father, who placed his canteen on the ground before turning to leave.

"Let's get back to those horses," he said, and laid a hand on my shoulder. We were saddled up and approaching the valley floor when the dry crack of a gunshot rent the torpid elson County air. either of us looked back. or did we ever speak of that day again. Somehow we didn't need to

Continuedfrom

SARAH WATERS

story style of MR James or Oliver Onions: I saw him as a middle-class friend of the family, the baffled, impotent chronicler of its decline. Then it occurred to me to try complicating his background I turned him into a working-class boy made good, a man cut off from his modest roots yet not quite at ease as a middle-class professional; a man drawn to the glamour of Hundreds even while bearing an atavistic resentment towards it. At once, his transparency began to cloud, and soon his very opaqueness appealed to me: I saw in it wonderful possibilities of unreliability, something I had never explored with a narrator before.

"Almost as soon as the book was published it became obvious to me that, for some readers, this was a challenge I had not met. Since then, I have grown used to hearing Dr Faraday abused as dull, annoying, frustrating. I also receive a steady stream of emails asking me to 'explain' the novel's ending, to settle a dispute between friends, or

between the members of a book group, about who or what it is that Caroline recognises when she calls out 'You!' in the moments before her death. My usual response is to say that I deliberately left the resolution open; that I wanted to do justice to the essential strangeness of the supernatural; that I am very happy for readers to make up their own minds.

''All this is true - sort of. The fact is, I worked hard to spike the novel with clues as to where, exactly, the 'bundle of projected repressions' which consumes Hundreds Hall at its roots; the spikiest of these is the book's last line. When these clues do snag their reader, I experience a glow of writerly satisfaction and feel I pitched things just right. When they don't - well, The Little Stranger is about conflict and waste; I never wanted its effect to be tidy. No other novel of mine has inspired such a range of responses in its audience, and that's been a fascinating experience."

Reading Sarah Waters is certainly never dull, and never tidy. Whatever she tackles next - more Victorian "romps", or even something contemporary - is bound to be both an entertaining and thoughtful read.

1 Those Rude Victorians. Solander, vol. 6, no. 1, May 2002.

2 Tipping the Velvet 1999, Affinity 2000, Fingersmith 2002. All published by Virago Press.

3 Published in 2006 by Virago Press.

4 www.sarahwaters.com

5 Ibid.

6 (follow the links to Sarah Waters.)

7 Ibid

8 Published in 2009 by Virago Press.

Continuedfrom MARLENA de BIASI

born an American. This man chided that surely she would have used her abandonment and the subsequent events as calling cards, excuses for all manner of ehavior. I found that interesting.

What is your current project and when do you expect it to be published?

MdB: The working title of the current narrative is Lavinia and Her Daughters. A many-textured story, a treatise on the vanishing Italian culture, it is about four generations of Tuscan women from the same family. A major question the narrative explores is how Tuscans feel about - really feel and sincerely viewthe ever-increasing onslaught of foreigners seeking to settle down, to 'play house in Italy', as Lavinia puts it.

Note: All of Marlena de Blasi's books - A Thousand Days in Venice, A Thousand Days in Tuscany, That Summer in Sicily, The Lady of the Palazzo and Amandine - are in print and available in maf!)I .foreign languages.

Roni Coates is a retired librarian and current/y serves on the Board of the 4th North American HNS Confer-

ence scheduled far San Diego in 2011. She has just completed a historical novel set in Napoleonic France, and can be contacted at

THE EDITOR'S LAST WOR.D

This issue of So/ander is shot through with a particular wanderlust. If we had pursued expatriation, uprooting, and new definitions of "home" as a theme for the issue, I'm not sure we could have done better.

Hella Haasse, profiled by James Hawking, spent part of her childhood in what is now Indonesia, moved to the etherlands as a girl, and went on to take up writing historical novels set in England and France.

Davin Ireland, a native of the south of England, moves us with his uniquely powerful short story Hide, set in rural Kentucky.

Marlena de Blasi - possibly the world's first multi-published author who "has yet to revise a text" -grewupin ewYorkandmoved to Italy for love, finding literary success in sharing her experiences as an expatriate. In this issue, she talks to Roni Coates about moving from memoir to fiction, and interestingly enough, her novel Amandine features a protagonist who is Polish by birth, but grows up in France.

All in all, this issue features a remarkable pastiche of international talent, a trend we hope to continue and expand in the future.

This issue also heralds two won-

derful additions to So/ander. First, I'd like to welcome Esther Alcaide, a professional graphic designer who is now lending her bounty of talents as So/anders first art consultant. Esther grew up near Barcelona and moved to London ten years ago, working as a designer for Cobra Beer before moving on to Marks & Spencer last year This issue shows only a glimmer of her gift, as she trusted her design tips to my feeble hands. In other words, all innovations are hers; all atrocities are mine. Soon, Esther will be taking the reins with both hands, so we should all get our popcorn and look forward to So/anders aesthetic evolution in corrung issues.

Second, Profiles Editor Lucinda Byatt and I put our heads together and came up with a new regular feature for S o/ander. exploring historical settings. I took the flagship piece in this issue with a profile of one of my favourite haunts, Hatfield House. Look forward to features on settings for historical fiction all over the world in coming issues - from libraries to shrines, from Tuscany to New Orleans. We're excited about this new addition to our "In Every Issue" section, and are eager to hear what you think.

Finally, I have an apology to make. It's because of me that

S o/ander is coming to you now, when it should have been brighterung your ovember. In this issue, Marlena de Blasi describes the . creative process as "often painful, always lovely " And so it is. Most of my jobs are creative ones. I write novels, I'm finishing a doctorate degree, and I edit this magazine It smacks of particular ingratitude to buckle under the weight of such wonderful and rewarding vocations, but like London this winter, I came up against a perfect storm a couple of months back. Drafts due, revisions due, students with emergencies, and more bad hair days than I care to count. I'm deeply sorry for keeping you all waiting. If anyone needs me, I'll be against the target practice wall, waiting an onslaught of tomatoes.

Happy holidays, H S memberswe'll be back after the thaw with more hosannas to history and imagination.

Sarah Ke!!J is the Managing Editor ef Solander, and can be reached at <sek40@cam.ac. uk>.