Our multicultural family history, a guest post by Alix Christie, author of “The Shining Mountains”

I'm very happy to have Alix Christie here on the blog with her essay about the family history behind her latest book, a family saga set in the Rocky Mountain West. Her debut, Gutenberg's Apprentice, was one of my favorite novels of 2014, and her second, The Shining Mountains, was just released in paperback by the High Road Books of the University of New Mexico Press. For additional information, please visit her website.

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Our Multicultural Family History

Alix Christie

From an early age I was fascinated by the stories my Canadian grandmother told of her Scottish forbears in the Pacific Northwest, particularly one 19th century fur trader, Archibald McDonald, who married an alleged “princess” of the Chinook tribe. Decades later I would understand how offensive this fantasy depiction of Native wives of white men could be, and how common it unfortunately was. Yet as a child I was enraptured enough to draw a detailed family tree, showing that Archibald had indeed married Raven, a daughter of Chief Comcomly of the Chinook tribe. There the matter would have rested, if my younger brother, a historian and professor of literature, hadn’t turned up one day a decade ago with a boxful of books. He’d just written a scholarly paper on another distant relative, Duncan McDonald, and was gifting me his research. “For your next novel,” he said.

A quick count of the “Cast of Characters” of the book that eventually resulted adds up to more than fifty names. They include those Scots Highlanders, French missionaries, British bosses, American trappers, Norwegian, German and English immigrants, and Native Americans from five different tribes across the Rocky Mountain West. Though my research began with that one man — Duncan McDonald, son of our Scots great-great-great-uncle Angus and his Nez Perce wife Catherine—the story I discovered reached back several generations and across a vast expanse of the West, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. It all came together when I flew to Montana to meet my many cousins on the Flathead Reservation, all enrolled tribal members descended from Angus and Catherine.

Angus McDonald, 1860s, at the new international boundary between the U.S. and Canada

Catherine McDonald (Kitalah—Eagle Rising Up, Nez Perce), studio portrait, 1860s Montana

Growing up in California public schools I had not the slightest idea of the deep pre-American history of our land. The story we were taught was one of pilgrims and triumph; the mechanics of “Manifest Destiny” and westward colonial expansion were not so much glossed over as ignored. Meeting for the first time Native Americans with whom I shared some drops of Scottish blood was therefore an extraordinary introduction to their history, both painful and proud. The five years I spent learning about their lives has been one of the richest experiences of my life. The Montana McDonalds welcomed me, offering advice and support; only with their generous help and a long and careful consultation with tribal authorities, was I able to breathe life into their family story as a novel.

The Shining Mountains recounts the life and times of this mixed-race family—half Scots Highlander, half Nez Perce, Mohawk and French—who were prominent in the last years of the fur trade between 1840 and 1860 in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. Angus McDonald was the last Chief Trader for the Hudson’s Bay Company in the vast chunk of territory that would become the northwestern United States. But it wasn’t his prominence that most amazed me. What struck me with even greater force was how incredibly multicultural was the mid-19th century world within which he and his family moved. We Americans have traditionally called our country a “melting pot” but on its western edge it was less melted than bubbling with many diverse peoples, all intermarrying and hunting and farming and trading together, Norwegian and Salish and Scottish and Yakama, French and Russian and yes—American. It was a Babel as well: many Native tribes communicated with one another through sign language, while the traders who bought furs from them used a pidgin they called “Chinook-wawa”.

Two of Angus and Catherine's children, Angus P. and Maggie McDonald,
in full Scottish regalia, 1870s Montana

Angus and Catherine's son Duncan McDonald, with his wife
Louise “Quil-see” Shumtah (Salish),
in Native dress with American flag, 1870s Montana

This novel is about the love between two people of radically different backgrounds, yet sharing, paradoxically, a common culture of hunting and tight-knit family clans: Highlanders, too, were considered “savages” by the English who colonized Scotland. In North America families like theirs were put under incredible stress by the waves of Anglo migration that displaced Native people and forced them onto reservations. Yet against the odds they survived, to maintain their cultures and deep connection to their homelands. The “old Scotsman,” ancestor of many tribal members on the Flathead Reservation, remains a great source of pride. I was deeply moved when his great-grandson, the late Joe McDonald, the founder of Salish Kootenai College, and a great supporter of this project, described the book I wrote about Angus’ and Catherine’s life as “brilliant and invaluable.”

The author with the late Dr. Joe McDonald, Angus & Catherine’s great-grandson,
at the family cemetery at Post Creek, Montana (2016)

When I think now of the history of this country, I think of Joe, and of his cousin Maggie, the head of McDonald Ranch, and the rest of those descendants five and six generations later, every possible blend of indigenous and immigrant. America has always been a multicultural place, a mixing and mingling of different peoples and cultures. It’s a vital thing, today, to keep in mind.

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The Shining Mountains (High Road Books/University of New Mexico Press) appeared in paperback in early March 2025. Also in e-book, audiobook and hardback wherever books are sold.

Lauren Willig's The Girl from Greenwich Street looks behind the history of America's first recorded murder trial

On the evening of December 22, 1799, Elma Sands, a young woman of illegitimate birth, donned her best calico gown and left her cousin Caty’s boardinghouse on New York City’s Greenwich Street, planning to elope with her wealthy intended. Twelve days later, her body was found in a well, and her purported fiancé, Levi Weeks, was put on trial.

For those new to this real-life incident, a noted murder case from early America, Lauren Willig’s latest book reads as an edge-of-your-seat crime novel, with sharp, panoramic characterizations and twists seemingly too fantastic to be true. For others familiar with the history, it resounds as a well-thought-out dramatization, capped by a long, satisfying author’s note.

The evidence against Levi is circumstantial, so the prosecution, led by assistant attorney general Cadwallader Colden, has an uphill battle. Already smarting from a recent loss, Colden knows his professional reputation hinges on success.

And on the defense team are Brockholst Livingston, Aaron Burr, and Alexander Hamilton, an unlikely alliance of men with past entanglements, future political aspirations, and conflicting approaches. The atmosphere is tight with suspense as it becomes clear only Alexander seeks the truth as well as justice for Elma. Can he possibly win?

Guided by primary sources and careful analysis, Willig (who holds a law degree herself) brilliantly steers through events with Elma at the center, looking back to her position as a poor relation in her Quaker family, her relationships with cousins Hope and Caty, and Caty’s complicated role as major breadwinner in her marriage, which irritates her husband, Elias.

The story has impressive stage-dressing full of details on household life and customs. Alexander, while a bit naïve and prone to verbosity, has a quick legal mind, and watching him and Aaron each try to out-maneuver the other makes for riveting fiction.

Lauren Willig's The Girl from Greenwich Street was published this week by William Morrow/ HarperCollins. What a story! I'd known nothing about the trial before reading the book, and if the same's true for you, please avoid googling the history in advance. This is a must-read for anyone who loves courtroom dramas and early American history, as well as Hamilton fans. 

Resistant Women: Imagining Voices Inside a Nineteenth-Century Asylum, an essay by Stephanie Carpenter, author of Moral Treatment

Thanks to author Stephanie Carpenter for contributing a post about crafting characters within the setting for her debut novel.  Her essay makes for a good start to both Women's History Month as well as Small Press Month this March (and look for more small press-focused posts in the coming weeks). Moral Treatment was published by Central Michigan University Press on February 25.

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Resistant Women: Imagining Voices Inside a Nineteenth-Century Asylum

By Stephanie Carpenter

My novel Moral Treatment was inspired by the former Northern Michigan Asylum, a psychiatric hospital that operated from 1885-1988 in my hometown of Traverse City. When I was a kid, the hospital’s huge, Victorian buildings were vacant and untended. What little I knew about the place came from relatives who’d worked there—and from my own impressions, formed while roaming the grounds and peeking through dusty windows. I think it was inevitable that I would someday write fiction about this setting.

I didn’t know what stories would suggest themselves when I began researching the hospital’s history, but I quickly became fascinated by the ideologies associated with its crumbling architecture. The moral treatment of the nineteenth century aimed to provide humane care to people experiencing mental illnesses. Its chief therapeutic tools were wholesome food, sanitary surroundings, access to medical care, and exposure to positive influences. Few drugs were in use in this era, and the punitive tools employed by previous generations of doctors were abandoned. But this compassionate approach yielded few "cures," and across the U.S., hospitals like the Northern Michigan Asylum expanded steadily. I wondered about the experiences of doctors and patients inside those walls.

Moral Treatment imagines life in a fictional hospital in 1889, five years after its founding. The novel alternates between the perspectives of the hospital’s medical superintendent—referred to throughout as “the doctor,” to emphasize that his identity is inseparable from his work—and seventeen-year-old Amy Underwood, a newly-admitted patient diagnosed with “pubescent insanity.” Amy’s reckless behaviors led her parents to commit her, and I wanted to depict her experience as both deeply distressing and, in some ways, liberating: at the hospital, she’s exempt from societal expectations for young women. But how could she grow in a space where she’s constantly monitored and diagnosed? Drawing from research, I developed the women characters around Amy as points of resistance to repressive forces both inside and outside the hospital.

One of the most outspoken of these characters is Mrs. Lovelace, a deeply-devout patient known as “the Walking Skeleton of Charlevoix,” who I based on the “fasting girls” of this period. The wife of a minister, Mrs. Lovelace is disgusted by her husband’s superficial piety. She presents herself as an exemplar of true Christianity, sustained on faith alone; her emaciation and fervent preaching challenged her husband, leading to her institutionalization. The doctors see Mrs. Lovelace as a case of religious delusion and anorexia nervosa; she sees them as charlatans, leading witless sheep. Mrs. Lovelace’s righteous defiance impresses Amy deeply.

Another vocal challenger of the hospital’s authority is Bertha Chapman of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Visiting Amy’s ward, Miss Chapman is troubled to learn that not all patients—Amy included—have letter-writing “privileges.” The policy is presented as protective, but Miss Chapman recognizes it as repressive, arguing that the women all deserve voices. Mocked and maligned, temperance reformers fought to raise awareness of the impacts of rampant alcohol abuse, focusing on the suffering of women and children. The WCTU also took progressive stands on a variety of other issues, and it made sense to me that Miss Chapman would advocate for institutionalized women. Amy recognizes Miss Chapman—an unmarried woman, uncowed by the doctors, working for social reforms—as an iconoclast and ally.

author Stephanie Carpenter
(credit: Adam Johnson, brockit inc.)

Amy’s closest friend, Letitia Olsen, is a young, chronic patient who embodies women’s vulnerability and persistence. She’s been abused at other hospitals; her scars, including from a hysterectomy, illustrate gendered biases about mental health. A ward of the state, she’s now attracted the attention of the hospital’s most “modern” doctor, who sees her as a good subject for an experimental surgery. But charismatic Letitia thwarts the doctors’ attempts to quell her, constantly calling their motives into question and seeding doubts among the other women. Letitia always authors her own story, but Amy worries that her friend’s story-telling sometimes veers into self-delusion; Letitia’s unprotected situation pushes Amy to plan for both of their futures.

Finally, I crafted the doctor’s wife, Diana, as a bridge between her husband’s clinical perspective and the patients’ lived experiences. Diana met her husband as his patient at a health resort; though her “nervous complaints” make her seem like a Victorian stereotype, her arc challenges ideas about women’s frailty and docility. Having lived on-site at asylums throughout her marriage, Diana makes meaningful roles for herself: socializing with the patients, planning entertainments, and documenting the hospital through photography. Though her husband still sees her as his patient, Diana is increasingly concerned about his health; at fifty-one to his sixty-five years old, she recognizes that his commitment to the hospital is unsustainable. Her perceptiveness extends to the patients. By sharing her interest in photography, Diana expands Amy’s narrow view of the world.

Moral Treatment doesn’t attempt to tell the stories of actual people who lived, loved, and suffered at the Northern Michigan Asylum or hospitals like it. Those stories aren’t mine to tell. Instead, I hope that my fictional characters, rooted in historical research, help to animate the institutions that still linger around us—and I hope my novel illustrates that power may be complex, but it is never absolute.

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Stephanie Carpenter’s debut novel, Moral Treatment, is the inaugural winner of the Summit Series Prize from Central Michigan University Press. Her collection of stories, Missing Persons, won the 2017 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction. A native of northern Michigan, Stephanie holds degrees from Williams College, Syracuse University, and the University of Missouri. She is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Michigan Tech University. Learn more at stephanie-carpenter.com.

Instagram: @scarpent9
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Which promotional blurbs matter the most to historical fiction readers?

The literary world has been having a long-overdue conversation about the practice of blurbing, that is, writers providing promotional endorsements for each other’s books. This was spurred by Sean Manning, publisher at Simon & Schuster’s imprint of the same name, who wrote an essay for Publishers Weekly explaining why they’d no longer expect their writers to obtain blurbs. “Trying to get blurbs is not a good use of anyone’s time,” he writes, among many other good points. “Instead, authors who are soliciting them could be writing their next book… worse, this kind of favor trading creates an incestuous and unmeritocratic literary ecosystem that often rewards connections over talent.”

 Others in the industry have shared their own takes:

From NPR Books' newsletter: Hey, would you mind blurbing my book? 

From Elisabeth Egan in the New York Times: What are book blurbs, and how much do they matter in publishing? (gift article) 

Publicist Kathleen Schmidt, from her Substack: Let's Talk About Blurbs... Again

Author Rebecca Makkai: Blurb No More - written before Sean Manning's essay came out.

Blurbs, blurbs, and more blurbs

Blurbs from peers can provide encouragement for authors, especially debuts, and contribute to a sense of belonging in the literary sphere. But since presumably the goal of all involved – publishers, authors, and agents – is to sell books, it should matter if readers find blurbs useful or not. And the consensus is that they don’t – or, at best, “we don’t know.”

As a book critic and avid reader, blurbs come across my desk and inbox all the time but usually don't, in themselves, encourage me to take a closer look. Blurbs are good at demonstrating their writers’ connections in the industry: fellow authors within the same category (like historical women’s fiction); authors who share the same publisher or literary agent; or writers and faculty from the same MFA program.

Some novels include a voluminous list of blurbs that go on for pages. Why so many? Nobody's going to read them all, and all I can think is how many total hours were spent on that exercise. It's not easy to provide a nice précis while extolling the book’s appeal in an original way. Just like reviewing, blurbing takes time and skill.

I know this personally, since I’ve been on the receiving end of blurb requests a handful of times. I was pleased to be asked and enjoyed the books but have decided to stick with reviewing. Also, several instances after I spent time reading a book and crafting a blurb, the author’s publisher decided it wasn’t valuable enough to use (the unspoken message is that I lack name recognition!). This wasn’t the author’s fault, but it was discouraging.

Blurbs' strongest asset is their ability to provide clues, in a readers’ advisory sense, about what type of book you'll be getting. This only works if readers recognize the names of the authors providing the quotes, and are familiar with what they write.

Some blurbs can be confusing if not outright detrimental, with regard to helping a book find its audience. I’ve seen works of commercial historical fiction arrive with blurbs by authors of literary short story anthologies – a big disconnect. I’ve also seen blurbs for historical novels written by professionals in unrelated fields who may have been personal friends. Best to skip soliciting those.

Here are specific instances when, as a reader and reviewer, blurbs have piqued my interest:

- Novels by new-to-me writers, especially those with small or indie presses, blurbed by well-known authors whose works I admire.

Some examples. I had recently seen the Publishers Marketplace deal for Esperanza Hope Snyder’s Orange Wine and made a mental note to watch for it, since it’s set in early 20th-century Colombia and had an intriguing plot. It appeared on NetGalley last week with a blurb from Margot Livesey, whose The Road from Belhaven I loved. I put in a request for it. For another: C. F. Dunn’s Wheel of Fortune has a cover endorsement from Elizabeth Chadwick, who calls it “the best Wars of the Roses novel I have ever read.” This doesn’t guarantee I’ll love either book, but were these blurbs effective? Yes. 

- When a major author in the genre praises any book. The late Hilary Mantel was known for her generosity towards other writers, as well as her discernment. If she praised a book, I paid attention.  Her comments were always brilliantly phrased, too.

The book cover, and a close-up.
What do you think... is this blurb persuasive?

- Novels in which the author’s moving to a new genre or subgenre and seeking to expand their audience. If the blurbers and blurbs don’t match this new direction, it sends a mixed message.

-  Recommendations from representatives of historical societies, well-known academics, or others with a personal relationship with the novel’s subject. These are uncommon and totally not necessary for fictional works, but when done appropriately, they stand out. While this isn’t a blurb per se, the endorsement that Nedra Farwell Brown, great-granddaughter of the subject of Kathleen Grissom’s Crow Mary, provided for the book via her foreword is noteworthy. How do I know this? Because so many reviewers mentioned it in their reviews. I dare say her words carried even more weight because Grissom was writing outside her culture.

The absence of these or any other blurbs isn’t meaningful to me, however, and it’s the rare endorsement that would persuade me to read a book I didn't already want to read.

I would be interested in hearing from other readers about whether blurbs/endorsements encouraged you to pick up a book.

Competition and sisterhood in Elyse Durham's Maya & Natasha, set in the world of ballet in Cold War Russia

What do people owe a repressive government that originally nurtured them? Durham offers an attention-grabbing debut about the closeness and rivalry between twin sisters in Cold War Russia as they navigate their individual ambitions alongside the pressures of the Soviet state.

Orphaned as newborns during the Siege of Leningrad, thoughtful Maya and the more dynamic Natasha grow up with their fellow students at the Vaganova academy, undergoing rigorous training and hoping for a career with the prestigious Kirov Ballet. However, per a new Kremlin law, only one of them can join the company, which spurs intense competition and the first of several high-stakes plot twists.

The insider view of the dancer’s life is enthralling, and even non-balletomanes will be pulled along by the women’s stories, which include an international tour, love affairs, choreography, and acting. The omniscient perspective creates a truly cinematic experience as it swoops among the sisters and many fictional and historical characters, including filmmaker Sergei Bondarchuk and even Khrushchev, in this riveting novel about sisterhood and the purpose of art.

Elyse Durham's Maya & Natasha was published by Mariner this week; I wrote this review for the February issue of Booklist.  I definitely recommend this one! I learned a lot about the technical aspects of ballet, and the author draws readers closely into the characters' specialized world.

The Great Depression on the Farm, a guest post by Charlotte Whitney, author of A Tiny Piece of Blue

Today I'm welcoming author Charlotte Whitney, who has a guest essay about the historical background to her new novel, A Tiny Piece of Blue.

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The Great Depression on the Farm

Charlotte Whitney

At its best historical fiction is totally immersive. Readers become so involved in the story that they feel they are right there in the same room with the characters, mentally encouraging them to take a certain path or, conversely, discouraging flawed characters from decisions with disastrous consequences. My readers expect this from me, and I attempt to delight  as well as educate readers regarding a particular period of history.

However, I mentioned the reader being in the same “room” with the characters. Many of the settings in my books are not rooms but a variety of farm locations. A section or chapter might take place in a barn, field, silo, chicken house,  milk house, or hay loft--or a one-room country school, barn dance, or the midway of a county fair. All of these locations have been settings in one or another of my novels which are set in the rural farmland of south-central Michigan during the Great Depression. 

A Tiny Piece of Blue, February 2025

Many readers enjoy the familiarity of the dust storms of the Great Depression touchingly depicted by John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath (1939) and more recently by Kristin Hannah in The Four Winds (2021). These are amazing books, and I encourage you to read them. However, because the devastating dust storms didn’t hit southern Michigan with the same ferocity of other plains states, readers tend to be less familiar with my settings. Nevertheless, Michigan was not immune from the vagaries of weather and economics during the depression. Droughts, along with plummeting dairy, beef, pork, and egg prices caused many farm foreclosures. Farmers found themselves homeless and unless they had family willing to take them in, they joined the minions setting out for a better life, often California-bound.

My Childhood Family Farm with Red Barns

I grew up on a farm in Calhoun County, Michigan as did my parents, and both sets of grandparents. Before them were immigrants from England, Ireland, and Germany who all had dreams of a better life. Calhoun County encompasses Battle Creek, Marshall, Albion and some smaller towns and villages. But it was farmland when the immigrants settled, and all my grandparents and great-grandparents were indigent family farmers. My mother remembered the log cabin that was originally the family homestead, long since replaced not once, but subsequently by two houses on the same site. The family stories are rich with both fact and emotion. However, not all stories were passed down, particularly those of failure and heartbreak. No letters were kept, save the missives home from two great-great uncles who were Union soldiers in the Civil War. Nevertheless, when starting my research, I chose to start with those stories closest to my heart—those of my family.

My mother Mary Whitney with her sister and her pet lamb

When a child, my mother had a pet lamb that she loved. It was soft, cuddly and tagged along with her wherever she went. Ironically, my mother’s name was Mary. However, one year during the Depression my grandparents struggled to have enough to eat, and my mom’s precious lamb was slaughtered. From that day on my mother would eat anything that was on the table—some days squirrel, rabbit, or wild boar, but she NEVER ever ate lamb.

Photos of Calhoun County Fair in the 1930s
(courtesy of the Calhoun County Agricultural and Industrial Society)

A Tiny Piece of Blue contains several dramatic scenes from the 1935 Calhoun County Fair. Vernon passes by members of the Pottawatomi tribe selling quill baskets at the entrance to the fair and experiences a wave of regret he never purchased one for Edna. Similarly thirteen-year-old Silstice finds herself at the top of the Ferris Wheel and looks down to see her two younger brothers held hostage and struggling to pull free from their captors. Likewise Vernon observes families picnicking at Fair Lake, formerly named The Duck Pond. The places are authentic and make colorful, dramatic settings.

In one scene of A Tiny Piece of Blue Vernon surprises Silstice and her sister Alberta with a Saturday night barn dance. He mentions that barn dances only happen in June when haylofts are cleared out and before they are filled up again at hay-baling time, usually around the 4th of July. This, of course, is true for Calhoun County, Michigan. The hay season farther south would be earlier and farther north would be later.

I’ve heard from a great number of older Midwestern readers who comment on the “authentic” nature of my historical novels. I strive for that plus a superb story which keeps the reader turning pages, desperate to reach the end, yet never wanting the book to ever end. That paradox remains my goal.

~   

Charlotte Whitney’s next book, A Tiny Piece of Blue, will be released February 18, 2025. It can be pre-ordered here: https://charlottewhitney.com/pre-order

A tangled web of mysteries in Candace Robb's medieval-set A Snake in the Barley

Tom Merchet, brewer of some of the finest ale in York in 1377, has failed to return home for days, and his beloved wife, Bess, can’t hide her concern. Tom’s disappearance is out of character for the kindly taverner, but he had been acting perturbed for weeks beforehand. He spoke little about his life before his marriage, even to Bess herself, and she wasn’t one to pry.

A Snake in the Barley, 15th of Robb’s Owen Archer books, delves into the troubled history of this recurrent series figure, exploring where he came from and how it shaped him, especially now that it seems shady characters from his past have resurfaced.

Owen Archer—the captain of the City of York and spy for Joan of Kent, widow of King Edward’s eldest son—is determined to find what happened to his close friend. Owen’s first lead has him investigating the real identity of the “Widow Cobb,” a disabled woman living in a tenement that Tom had been seen entering. It’s unlikely Tom would have been unfaithful, but what was she to him? Owen also receives visits from two of the Duke of Lancaster’s men who traveled north to find two men who incited violence in London.

The atmosphere is tense and dark, the plot complicated and winding, with every solution opening up more mysteries. The loving relationship between Owen and wife Lucie, and the interactions among their children and friends, warms up the otherwise somber tone of this well-researched medieval crime novel, which offers vivid scenes across York and the nearby sanctuary town of Beverley. One caveat: readers who haven’t followed this series in order may feel like outsiders looking in on the many characters and their relationships, since some of the plot builds on backstory from earlier volumes.

Candace Robb's A Snake in the Barley appeared from Severn House in December (I reviewed it for the Historical Novels Review originally). The first in the Owen Archer series, The Apothecary Rose, was first published by St. Martin's Press in 1993, which is when I read it. Midway through the series, it moved over to a new publisher, Severn House, which republished all the earlier volumes with beautiful new covers in 2024.  Having twice visited York, I highly recommend a trip there, in either contemporary or medieval times via this series (preferably both!).