Collection management librarian, readers' advisor, avid historical fiction reader, NBCC member. Book review editor for the Historical Novels Review and Booklist reviewer. Recipient of ALA's Louis Shores Award for book reviewing (2012). Blogging since 2006.
Comments or questions? My email is sarah @ readingthepast dot com. Please note that this site is closed to unsolicited review and interview requests. See my submission policy for more details.
Welcome to the latest stop on Charles Finch's Whodunnit blog tour, in which the author has been dropping by different sites to write about the who, what, where, when, and why of mystery novels. It's fitting for a historical fiction blog to feature his "When" essay, no? (See the links within this post for the earlier stops.)
Readers in the US also have a chance to win a copy of The Laws of Murder, his latest Charles Lenox mystery set in Victorian London, thanks to Minotaur Books. You can find the entry form at the end of this post. For more information about the series, including a special quiz, see the dedicated landing page at Minotaur. I'll also have a review of the new novel up later this week, and suffice it to say that I thought it was excellent.
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The Whodunnit Tour: "When"
Charles Finch
When did the Victorians drink their tea?
The answer’s not as straightforward as you might think. For one thing, our idea of “high tea” is wrong – a recent innovation, like big modern white weddings. The later you took tea in Victorian England, in fact, the lower the class you belonged to. (In many parts of working-class Britain, the evening meal is still actually called “tea” for that reason.) For the upper classes, it was “afternoon tea,” and until very late in the nineteenth century it was only accompanied by a biscuit or two, something fortifying, rather than the waterfall of cakes and sandwiches and pastries with which we now associate it.
Though, to their credit, the Cornish were drinking their tea with scones, clotted cream, and strawberry jam, the most delicious combination of foodstuffs mankind has yet dreamed up, early in the 1800s. It’s the clotted cream, not the milk in the tea, that gives that west country meal its name, by the way – cream tea.
Then there were laborers, who took tea throughout the day, made as strong as possible (very strong tea in England is still called “builder’s tea”) so that they would stay energetic through the impossibly long hours that Victorian workers were expected to work, fourteen and fifteen hours on end; or on the other end of the spectrum, the ladies of Queen Victoria’s court, who in the morning took a few weak cups of “Grey’s tea,” or what we now call Earl Grey.
author Charles Finch
(credit: Alix Smith)
And coffee! Early in the series of Victorian mystery novels I write, Charles Lenox, the detective, drank tea exclusively. Then, some time around 2009, I started drinking coffee myself, and it began to sneak without my permission into the books – a cup here or there when a character was exhausted. Now it’s here for good, Lenox’s morning drink, though coffee was more common in coffeehouses and in the navy than in private homes, in the 1860s. I guess it’s just that as I drink my own coffee I can’t seem to help myself from giving my characters some. Very generous of me.
As I’ve written the blogs of this “Whodunnit” blog tour – Who, What, Where, and now this one, “When” – I’ve tried to look at some of the big themes and choices that make up a historical mystery. Tea is a decidedly small subject, by contrast; but it’s also what defines, for me, the when of my books. I started writing the series with a book set in 1865, A Beautiful Blue Death, and by the most recent entry, The Laws of Murder, it’s 1876. In that decade a great deal happened in the public sphere. But if you really want to go back and feel the texture of life, you have to think about little things. The joy of writing these books, which are also the type of books I read, is in details, not in big, top-heavy bouts of history. I can’t read biographies. I don’t much like long volumes of history. Those are books about people that assign them the traits of history, not the traits of life. I would trade every treaty Victoria signed for a letter in which she describes one of her dogs. That’s where you’ll find it, for me – the when that can make a novel come so alive that your tea goes cold, forgotten on the table next to you.
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Charles Finch is a graduate of Yale and Oxford. He is the author of the Charles Lenox mysteries. His first novel, A Beautiful Blue Death, was nominated for an Agatha Award and was named one of Library Journal’s Best Books of 2007, one of only five mystery novels on the list. He lives in Chicago.
The following giveaway for a copy of The Laws of Murder is open to US readers. Deadline Monday, November 3rd. One entry per person; void where prohibited. The winner will be announced here on Tuesday 11/4. Good luck!
Update: Congratulations to winner Helen G! I've sent you an email. Hope you'll enjoy the book!
Themes of imperialism, gender restrictions, and loyalty to country and self reverberate through Shamsie’s atmospheric novel, set amid international conflicts of the early twentieth century but with strong echoes of the distant past.
At its center are two people setting aside their old lives and beginning anew. Vivian Rose Spencer—a young Londoner equally entranced by archaeology and her older mentor, Tahsin Bey—returns to England from a Turkish dig after war breaks out in 1914. Hoping to find Tahsin again, she follows a clue in his last letter and travels to British-ruled Peshawar. In a separate tale, Qayyum Gul, a Pashtun soldier injured fighting for Britain, heads home.
Their paths intersect briefly but reunite in 1930, when violence erupts on Peshawar’s streets and they search desperately for a gifted young man important to them both. Interwoven throughout is a story of empire and betrayal from ancient Persia. Emphasizing ideas and setting over plot, the narrative has an epic sensibility and many moments of expressive brilliance, especially when describing the underlying presence of history.
This review first appeared in Booklist's July issue. A God in Every Stone is published by Atavist Books in August in trade pb ($20) and e-book ($9.99). The UK publisher is Bloomsbury. If you're curious to learn more about the novel and the history behind its many settings, you can explore its dedicated website, which I think is gorgeous.
In addition, thanks to the book's publicist, I have a giveaway open for US readers. If you'd like to win a copy of this new literary novel that follows the growth and fall of empires and takes a unique slant on the events of WWI, please fill out the following form. Deadline Friday, August 1st. I'll announce the winner here on this page shortly afterward.
8/2/14: The giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to Linda B! A copy of the novel is on its way to you.
I'm running a special giveaway for blog readers. Up for grabs is a brand new hardcover of Judith Lennox's latest novel One Last Dance (Headline, 2014), open to those in the US. Please fill out the form below for a chance to win.
This is an unusual circumstance because I haven't read the novel myself (yet), but it's described as "for fans of Downton Abbey and My Last Duchess." It tells the story of Esme Reddaway, whose life spans most of the 20th century, as she tries to uncover secrets dating from the WWI years. The plot deals with sibling rivalry, revenge, a failed love affair, and a neglected English house called Rosindell. Some of you may recognize the cover, too. More on Goodreads here.
Obviously, this is all very trendy, but Judith Lennox has been writing this type of multi-generational English saga for decades, long before the Crawleys were even a whisper of an idea.
Here's the story: I've been reading and enjoying her novels for a long time, so when I learned she had a new one out, I pounced right on Amazon and ordered a copy from a UK bookseller. Three weeks and $18 or so later, a brand spanking new trade paperback arrived in the mail.
Then, two days after that, I was out in Columbus, Ohio, for the semiannual meeting of the Great Lakes Historical Novel Society chapter and stopped by a Half Price Books store. And, wouldn't you know it, sitting in the clearance section was a spotless hardcover copy of the same book, priced at $2. It appears to be unread. What were the chances? Anyway, this is the copy I'm giving away. I bought it because it was a rare find in these parts, and because I knew one of you would be able to give it a good home.
Since it's not available for sale in the US and it's a large and heavy book (and with apologies to everyone else), I'm limiting this giveaway to readers in the United States. One entry per person, please. The deadline will be Friday, May 9th. Good luck!
Eight years ago today, this blog first came into being. It started out as a rather chatty site, with random personal observations about historical fiction, notices of publishing deals, a few book reviews here and there, and the occasional cat photo.
Since then, I've been concentrating even more on reviews, as well as guest posts and upcoming title previews, but the overall focus hasn't changed. It's still All Historical Fiction, All the Time. Thanks to all of my readers for hanging around this corner of the online historical fiction universe!
Since I'm celebrating my 8th anniversary in the middle of Small Press Month, I thought I'd offer a giveaway similar to last year. Up for grabs is your choice of any novel mentioned in a post here during March 2014.
The month isn't yet over, so no need to name your prize now... I'll draw the winner(s) a week from now and ask them for the name of the book they'd like to win. I'll give away one book for every 50 entries received. (One entry per person, please.)
Fill out the form below for a chance to win. Deadline March 31, 2014; open internationally. If you have any thoughts for future features on the blog, too, I'd love to hear them.
I'm so pleased to bring you this interview with internationally bestselling author Ann Chamberlin. Ann's historical novels span a wide range of settings, from ancient Israel to medieval France to the harems of the 16th- and 17th-century Ottoman Empire. Her latest book, The Woman at the Well, is an epic literary work that will introduce most readers to a new and unfamiliar place: 7th-century Arabia during the first years of Islam and the time slightly before.
The novel opens at the house of the turpentine sellers in Tadmor, Syria, in the year 643 AD. A blue-eyed orphan named Rayah studies her Koran while simultaneously feeling the first glimmerings of the power she inherited from her female ancestors, strong women who worshipped the goddess of the evening star, Al-Uzza, and led their tribes through the Arabian desert.
This is also the story of Rayah's mother, Sitt Sameh, who has hidden her true identity for too long; her grandmother, Bint Zura, a young woman who finds a sacred camel; and her great-grandmother, Umm Taghlib, who is cast out of her tribe for being a kahinah, or witch. Many of the era's women bear the names of their male relations, though they also have hidden names of their own. The male viewpoint is introduced via the tale of Khalid ibn al-Walid, the Prophet Muhammad's most famous general, who reveals his past history to a eunuch scribe and searches for a connection to his long-lost daughter, Sitt Sameh.
The Woman at the Well is a deep and involving multi-generational novel about a fascinating land in the midst of religious and cultural transformation. From the Kirkus review: "Chamberlin beautifully captures the depth of Rayah's awakening to her heritage, emotionally and spiritually... impeccable research and haunting, poetic language create a lush tale to be lingered over and savored."
The Woman at the Well was published in July by Epigraph Press at $27.00 in hardcover, $16.95 in trade paperback, or $9.99 as an e-book (378pp). Please read to the end for a giveaway opportunity, too.
You write that you spent thirty years working on The Woman at the Well. Why did you feel this was a story that needed to be told? How did the novel deepen or transform over this time?
Thirty years ago, no one had heard of Salman Rushdie. Kamran Pasha and Sherry Jones had not written their books about the women of early Islam. In fact, no one seemed to have Islam, the religion of close to a quarter of the world's population, on their radar screen. I have a rejection note (a yellow Post-It) I keep pinned above my computer that says, "Dear Ann, Why Islam? Thanks but no thanks." I did not think this ignorance was a good thing. I still don't.
After 9/11, my son got me to take Arabic classes with him at a local Muslim school. This is how I deal with crisis, with ignorance. I educate myself through my stories, and I wanted my question answered, "What were people thinking at the time of the Prophet Muhammad?" Not that I'm suggesting they were simple-minded people or anything. I never think people in the past were stupider than we are. Usually I think the opposite, when I get to know them. It's just that, such world-changing events cannot help but have affected people at that time to their very core. Like events to do with Islam have done in our time.
Recent events have deepened my story. So has the suggestion someone gave me "to tell the women's stories." Hard as it may be to believe, first drafts only had Khalid's version of the tale. I guess I thought there wasn't enough of women in the history even to reconstruct a tale. My astute critiquer was right, especially since that has been the course of my writing, to tell women's stories that are usually ignored. And there's plenty to work with, for a novelist.
If it's true that winners write the history, as Sitt Sameh tells Rayah (with gentle sarcasm, I felt) in the novel, how were you able to look beyond long-held traditions to learn the hidden stories of people from pre-Islamic Arabia?
There's quite a lot of interest in pre-Islamic Arabia among Arab historians, even though many would call it the Time of Ignorance and dismiss it. Like some young Americans would dismiss time before the computer as irrelevant. Victorians Brits who were trying to rule the place also had an interest. Especially since the publication in the 1970's of Patricia Crone and Michael Cook's radical rewriting called Hagarism, there's been a resurgence of interest in the West. Where did Muhammad come from, this time called Ignorance? All these historians were trying to answer that.
I had a very powerful experience during ten days I camped with the Bedouin in the Sinai (also during the 70s). I fell in love with these people and the way they deal with one of the most inhospitable environments on earth. When what we know of pre-Islamic history failed me, I fell back on the anthropology of the Bedouin.
I should also mention that the University of Utah Dr. Aziz Atiya Middle East Library, where I work part time, is one of the most important collections in the world, especially of early Islamic papyrus. I get to rub shoulders with scholars in this field every day, and I am indebted to them.
In the opening scene, Rayah discovers her power when she brings her young cousin back to life. This isn't your first instance of crossing historical fiction with elements of the fantastic. Why was it important for you to start the book this way? What can fantasy bring to historical fiction?
Rayah's arc is a struggle to decide what to do with her own power which goes back to her mothers in a world where the new religion is trying to supplant everything that went before, where Muhammad was the Seal of the Prophets and his successors are trying to pull an ever-increasing empire in by the hearts and minds. This has always been a pivotal question for me having grown up in a Mormon world where the words haunting a young woman's mind were condemned as evil if they countered the words of a living prophet.
To my mind, a historical novelist fails to capture the period if that period believed in magic, jinn, fairies or whatever and this sort of stuff doesn't happen or couldn't happen to her characters. Passages in the Quran concerning jinn would indicate you couldn't be a good Muslim if you didn't believe in these beings of fire. Like the reader of certain passages in the Torah couldn't believe that book if he didn't believe in witches, and that they shouldn't be allowed to live.
Besides, I don't think you can sit around a campfire in a desert night or see a mirage shimmering across the horizon and not believe in powerful spirits.
Much of your fiction writing centers on the Middle East. How did your interest in this place develop?
My Mormon upbringing, again. I found I couldn't deal with our own prophets, patriarchy, polygamy and deserts. I was too close, my fiction "too bitter" as one critique said. Trying to understand my surroundings, I studied Hebrew. My first trip to the Holy Land full of pious zeal ran into those ten days in the Sinai, into Arabic and another far-from-perfect world built on idealism. So one book led to another as I stumbled into one fascinating corner after another on one trip after another.
The Woman at the Well has many memorable characters, both historical and fictional. Khalid ibn al-Walid will be the best known, yet for many Western readers, your novel may be the first introduction to him. How did you address this issue as you developed his character?
The ever-present struggle against the data dump. Clavell's Shogun remains a great example of how to introduce the modern reader to a strange world—drop a very modern, or at least more familiar, character into your strange world. Everything has to be explained to the stranger in a strange land. Without resorting to a time machine as part of the plot, I couldn't do that. Even a 7th-century Roman would have a world too strange and in need of explanation in need of explanation to my reader. Personally, I like the first-person narrative, and I like this bit I stumbled on where Khalid tells his tale to a scribe not of his world. And then the scribe gets to tell it to Rayah and her mother and her mother Sitt Sameh gets to put her own spin on it. So there are multiple chances to sneak in explanations.
The novel has several examples of parents and children who have lost their connections with one another - it's not your usual type of family story. Why did you choose this as one of your themes?
One of my tropes is that Islam—like most new religions (early Christianity, Protestantism, Mormonism) even non-religious movements like Marxism for example—began first as an attempt to pry apart the existing power structure—which meant a strong clan system. If you believe, you have a great excuse, even commandment, to leave your stifling family ties for this new community in the making. Islam went on to depend on government by trained slaves in the Mamluk and Ottoman empires, men ripped from all family. Khalid attempted this, but finds in old age his attempts are futile. He wishes for the family he neglected, and Islam in the form of his cousin Omar ibn al-Khattub the caliph and new/old strictures on women really hasn't escaped. The United States continues to have this tension between wanting a free individual, but then expecting family values unsupported by government to raise children, care for the sick and elderly, etc.
Besides, the novel is the narrative form for the individual alienated from the world, the hero on a quest away from home and family.
The scenario of a man meeting a woman at a well can be found in both the Old and New Testaments. What about this theme resonated with you?
Returning to sources of spiritual enlightenment. Every day. Like a woman has to go for water every day. And wells are few and far between in the desert. Knowledge of where they are and how to approach them is a matter of life and death.
Where did you first come across pre-Islamic poetry, and why has it captured your attention to such a degree?
Poetry still has a big place in Middle Eastern society, from Rumi on. A generally illiterate society that condemns representational art and which is so focused on the Holy Word would naturally resort to this art form. Early Muslim historians themselves took quite an interest in recording this poetry. Once they got over the beginning concerns that poets and poetry detracted from the Quran, they were interested in gleaning these snippets especially when they clarified the language of the Quran or Islam's rise. Any attempt to recreate pre-Islamic Arabia is dependent on these verses, and I found them early in my research. I want to cite several collections I depended on: AJ Arberry's Seven Odes, Charles Lyall's Translations of Ancient Arabic Poetry, and Michael Sells' Desert Tracings.
I've had people shrug and tell me, "Well, something must have been lost in translation," but to me the images evoke the world of the desert so powerfully. And the poet's usual format—we usually have only male poets' verses, although there are some women poets recorded—was to begin by evoking a lost love.
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And for your chance to win a copy...
I'd like to thank Ann for taking the time to answer my questions in such depth. We have three copies of The Woman at the Well available for giveaway. To enter the contest, please leave a comment on this post (include your email if it's not in your profile or on your blog). This giveaway is open to all blog readers worldwide; deadline Friday, December 2nd.
Thanks to author Michelle Black, I have a new giveaway for readers of the blog. She will be offering a signed hardcover copy of Séance in Sepia, which I reviewed here on Sunday, to a randomly selected blog visitor.
To enter, please leave a comment on this blog post, or on the associated post on this site's Facebook page if you prefer. Deadline is Friday, November 4th. This giveaway is open to all.
Thanks to the Crown Publishing Group, I have the opportunity to offer a giveaway of Rebecca Johns' The Countess, biographical fiction about Erzsébet Báthory. It's newly out in trade paperback from Broadway ($15, 304pp).
The Countess was a surprise hit for me when I read and reviewed it here last November. Erzsébet Báthory was the 16th-century Hungarian noblewoman for whom the term "bloodbath" could have been coined—rumors had it that she killed hundreds of her female servants and bathed in their blood—but Johns' novel is more of a creepy exploration of her psyche than a gory recounting of her supposed exploits. Read it and see how much you believe of her first-person story.
One copy is up for grabs. Please leave a comment on this post to enter; deadline Monday, October 17th, so that you should hopefully have it in time for Halloween. This giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents. Good luck to all!
Hello blog readers -- today I have a unique giveaway to offer you. As you know, I haven't been doing many contests, but this one caught my attention because the book and film appeal to me personally. Literature in translation + historical setting + a story about women on an international journey... who can beat that?
"Bride Flight" is a brand new historical film that's based on Marieke van der Pol's recent novel of the same name. It opens in US cities starting on Friday, June 10th, then expands across the country through July. I'll be looking to see if it comes to Champaign-Urbana.
Music Box Films, a major distributor of non-English language feature films in the United States, is sponsoring a giveaway of three copies of Marieke van der Pol's novel Bride Flight. As a bonus, a pair of movie passes will be provided to the three winners, for a Mon-Thurs screening at a participating theater in their area. (Winners would provide the theater name if this is of interest... see the film's website and click on Screenings at the top to see participating theaters and dates.)
More about the film:
* * * IN THEATERS BEGINNING FRIDAY, JUNE 10TH * * *
“BRIDE FLIGHT”
Only love and regret last forever
“Fascinating, beautifully acted and magnificently photographed.” -- Rex Reed, NY Observer
BRIDE FLIGHT is a lavish romantic drama inspired by the true story of the 1953 KLM flight that won the “Last Great Air Race” from London to Christchurch. The flight was dubbed “Bride Flight” by the international press, because of its special passengers -- young women with wedding dresses in their suitcases, traveling to join their fiancés who had already emigrated to New Zealand.
Leaving behind the gloom and scarcity of post-WWII Europe, shy but sensual farm girl Ada, dogmatic Marjorie, and Jewish fashion designer Esther are filled with hope for a future of love and freedom. Each takes a very different journey in their strange new land, but together with handsome bachelor Frank, their paths continue to cross with chance meetings resulting in adultery, betrayal and near tragedy leading up to a reunion fifty years later.
Honored with Audience Awards at film festivals across the country, BRIDE FLIGHT evokes a time of slim choices and desperate optimism, with sweeping views of the New Zealand countryside, stunning period dresses, and the faint smell of Pinot Noir from the thriving vineyard Frank establishes in New Zealand. (A Music Box Films release.)
Directed by Ben Sombogaart. Stars Waldemar Torenstra, Karina Smulders, Anna Drijver, Elise Schaap, Rutger Hauer, Pleuni Touw.
The original novel was published by Portobello Books (UK) in paperback earlier this year. It was translated from the Dutch by Colleen Higgins. I have a copy in hand for myself and will be reviewing it here sometime soon.
Because this contest is for the film's US release, this offer is limited to US residents only. Deadline is Sunday, June 19th, after which I'll be randomly selecting and contacting the winners. Good luck to all entrants!
(Note: form removed when contest expired)
The title of Deborah Swift's eloquent debut novel refers to two things: a beautiful orchid all too rarely found in England, and the delicate embroidered footwear worn by Alice Ibbetson when she sneaks out at night to uproot it from her neighbor’s lands. The losses of both prove to have fateful consequences.
The year is 1660, in the old county of Westmorland in northern England. Although the Civil War is over, and Charles II is restored to his throne, animosity continues to rankle between the country's Royalist and Puritan factions. Mistress Alice, a young wife from the village of Netherbarrow still in mourning for her younger sister, spends her days growing plants in her summerhouse and capturing their beauty in art.
When Richard Wheeler first shows Alice the lady's slipper, growing in an isolated wood on his property, she feels she must remove it for its own protection and paint it before the flower fades. Richard, a former officer in Cromwell's army who found peace among the Quakers, knows she has taken the orchid but can't prove it. As Alice continues to deny the theft, Ella, the Ibbetsons’ crafty maidservant, finds Alice’s discarded slippers, ruined after her late-night expedition, and steals them for herself.
Two others are drawn to the orchid: Sir Geoffrey Fisk, the hard-nosed local squire, who hopes its roots will cure his skin condition, and Margaret Poulter, a pagan wise-woman. "There was an odd scent about it, as if it was half in this world and half in some other darker world," thinks Margaret, knowing Alice’s obsession with the plant will bring her more than she intends.
The plot moves along smoothly as it speaks to universal themes such as honor, redemption, and finding a place to belong in a land marked by class inequities and religious intolerance. In a work that displays such a strong love for its regional setting, perhaps it's no mistake that the most sympathetic and rounded characters are those with their eyes open to nature’s wonders and mysteries. Their surroundings, both outdoors and in, are described with remarkable clarity of detail.
It takes talent to write about characters' spiritual beliefs without sounding preachy. Alice is a skillful creation, and her troubled path to understanding is realistic and heartfelt, but Richard's inner conflicts concerning his faith ring especially true to the time. Those who might be tempted to dismiss this as a women's novel should reconsider, for the novel shifts easily between male and female viewpoints. Only one brief scene towards the end seems oddly out of place.
A dark and gripping tale deeply rooted in rural English history, The Lady's Slipper reads at times like a 17th-century folk ballad come to life. Though neither bawdy nor ostentatious, as novels of the Restoration court in distant London can sometimes be, it stands well on its own merits, a novel as rich and haunting as the setting it evokes.
--- The Lady's Slipper was published in late November in the US by St. Martin's Griffin (trade pb, $14.99, 464pp; photo at very top). My copy, which I'd preordered from Book Depository long before I knew a US edition would be available (this happens a lot), was published by Macmillan New Writing in June in hardcover at £12.99. St. Martin's has generously provided me two copies for a giveaway. For a chance to win, leave a comment on this post by the end of the day Friday, December 10th. International entrants welcome. Good luck!
I'm late in announcing the winner of Kaki Warner's Pieces of Sky following the author's enjoyable guest post on the 17th. My apologies! Between editing reviews and classes to teach at work, I've been buried. But without further ado, the winner is... Carol W. Congratulations, Carol, and I hope you enjoy the novel!
It's come to my attention, pretty obviously really, that my desk has become overcrowded with books. The shelves are full, and my scanner is... somewhere around here. I have books to send to reviewers, books I've bought, books sent by publishers that I need to read and review... and among them are many duplicate copies. Namely these:
So, as a way of celebrating Reading the Past's 4th blogiversary, I thought I'd host a giveaway to share the wealth with my fellow bloggers and blog readers. Most of these are ARCs, with the exception of the English and McMahon. All are brand new and unread.
To enter the contest, leave a comment on this post letting me know which book(s) you're interested in winning ("any of them" is an acceptable answer), as well as your response to one of the following questions:
(1) What's the best historical novel you've read over the past four years?
OR...
(2) What's been your favorite post on this blog over the past four years?
Include your email address so I can contact you if you win.
Deadline is this coming Sunday, April 4th. I'll draw the six winners' names on Monday the 5th. Good luck to all entrants!
I'm glad to welcome Frances Hunter to the blog today. When I approached the authors about possibly doing a guest post, they asked if there was any aspect of The Fairest Portion of the Globe I was interested in reading more about. Fanny Clark O'Fallon, the younger sister of George Rogers Clark and William Clark, immediately came to mind; she was a particularly fascinating character who hadn't been well known to me before reading their novel. Happily, they agreed. I hope you enjoy their essay! There's also a giveaway opportunity at the very end.
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First off, I want to thank Sarah for reviewing our book and inviting us to do a guest post on this terrific blog. We’re honored to be among the historical fiction authors spotlighted on Reading the Past!
Like many readers of this blog, our mom was the one who got us started reading historical fiction. She loved multi-generational family sagas, and her favorite characters were fiery, tempestuous heroines who lived life on an epic scale, complete with pulse-pounding romance and lots and lots of suffering. Frances Eleanor Clark, the lead female character of our new book, The Fairest Portion of the Globe, could have stepped straight from the pages of one of Mom’s dog-eared old sagas. In our book, we meet Fanny during her tortured first marriage. In her later life, the real-life Fanny packed enough adventure and tragedy into her 52 years to star in a rip-roaring novel of her own.
Fanny was the youngest of ten children—six boys and four girls—born to John and Ann Clark. Born in Virginia in 1773, the little black-eyed beauty was close to her brother William, just three years older, who became the famous “Clark” of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. As might be expected, the lives of Fanny’s brothers are much better documented than those of Fanny and her sisters. Most of what we know of Fanny’s life comes from fascinating family stories, some of which are contradictory.
Fanny was just a child when the family was engulfed by the shocking consequences of the Revolutionary War. Three of Fanny’s brothers were held as prisoners of war on British hell ships. All of them survived the ordeal, but one came home only to cough his lungs out from tuberculosis. Another brother disappeared on a scouting run in the western wilderness and was never found.
Even the great battlefield victories of Fanny’s older brother George Rogers Clark, a bona-fide hero in the Revolution, were soon overshadowed by the ingratitude with which he was treated by the nation he helped to save. Fanny was 11 when the Clarks pulled up stakes and moved west to the new settlement of Louisville, Kentucky. George had founded the town, and the Clarks soon vaulted into the ranks of the frontier elite. But all too publicly, George’s life started to fall apart. Bankrupted by his wartime debts, George was desperate to regain the pride and success that he had once known. It was in George’s cause that Fanny would be propelled into her first great crisis.
A willowy, sensitive beauty, Fanny was a prize among the Louisville belles. She fell in love with a young Army officer named Charles Thruston, but when Thruston failed to write during a trip back to the east, young Fanny became convinced he had forgotten her. And that was when James O’Fallon made his move.
Burly and well over six feet, O’Fallon was an Irish physician and rabble-rouser who had arrived in the United States just before the Revolution. During the war, he served as a senior surgeon for the Continental Army and broke Tories’ skulls in his spare time. After the war, O’Fallon took the lead in one of the many land schemes that shaped the destiny of the early frontier. He proposed to found an Irish Catholic colony in Spain’s Yazoo Country (present-day Mississippi), alternately fawning, cajoling, and threatening the Spanish with a hostile takeover of the Yazoo land by a horde of Kentucky wild men—led by one General George Rogers Clark.
How O’Fallon and George met is not known; the turbulent doctor may have helped Clark deal with the alcoholism which was beginning to afflict his life. Even after the Yazoo scheme collapsed, George was convinced that together, he and O’Fallon could get an adventure going in the wild west that would restore his fortunes. Somehow, he and O’Fallon persuaded Fanny and her parents that it would be a good idea to cement the partnership by marrying 17-year-old Fanny off to the 42-year-old “divine physical.”
Unfortunately for Fanny, O’Fallon’s bold and aggressive manner, which at first seemed so exciting and attractive, masked the fact that he was nothing but a con man and a bully. Following the pattern of a classic abuser, he first isolated Fanny from her family, then began to he beat her every time she “stepped out of line.” Like many battered wives, Fanny concealed the abuse from George, William, and her parents, not wanting to ruin her brother’s chances for a comeback. But as it so often does, the abuse worsened. While pregnant with her second child, Fanny suffered a mental breakdown in which she heard tormenting voices telling her to kill herself. There was no longer any way to conceal the truth from her family.
There are rumors—perhaps true, perhaps not—of an epic fistfight between George Rogers Clark and his abusive brother-in-law. The next time the historical record speaks of the not-so-good doctor, is the courts were settling his estate. O’Fallon’s fate and resting place is unknown, but it is impossible not to wonder if he may have met Fanny’s brothers on a dark night on an isolated country lane.
Now a 20-year-old widow with two children, Fanny did not stay on the market for long. Her Army officer, Charles Thruston, had been distraught ever since Fanny had married O’Fallon. He was now free to make up for his mistake in not writing. He and Fanny were married in 1793. Fanny and Charles loved each other, but the marriage was not without its heartbreaks. For whatever reason, Thruston did not want to raise the O’Fallon boys, John and Benjamin.
Her estrangement from her older sons must have been painful for all concerned; it appears to have caused some permanent family bitterness. Charles did not relent even after Fanny’s parents died, nor after she bore him son Charles and daughter Ann.
In 1800, Fanny became a widow again under shocking circumstances. Charles had butted heads with a young family slave named Luke. Chronically in trouble, Luke ran away to avoid being punished for his latest infraction, stealing a leg of lamb. When Charles tracked him down to his hiding place in a corn shock, Luke snapped, springing out and stabbing his master to death. Luke was soon hanged for his crime.
Devastated, Fanny turned back to her brothers for help and companionship. She moved out to Point of Rocks, a rustic cabin on the Indiana side of the Falls of the Ohio, where George and William were living to avoid George’s creditors. For all three of the siblings, life must have seemed a long way from the days of fox hunts in Virginia, wartime glory against the British, or dances as the “black-eyed beauty of Louisville.” But Fanny was reunited with her older sons at last. The little family group remained close until 1803, when William left for the opportunity of a lifetime, exploring the West with his old Army friend, Captain Meriwether Lewis.
(It should be noted that William did not forget Fanny while he was away. Not only did he collect natural history specimens for her, but he named a beautiful island in the Columbia River “Fanny’s Island” (today’s Crims Island) and the nearby flood plain “Fanny’s Bottom.” No word on whether Fanny clubbed her brother over the head with the sheephorn over this honor.)
William was still away on the Expedition in 1805, when 32-year-old Fanny married for the last time. Dennis Fitzhugh, a cousin of the Clark family, was five years younger than Fanny and co-owned a dry-goods store called Fitzhugh & Rose. Fanny and Dennis lived above the store at 5th and Main in downtown Louisville. Fanny had two more children with Dennis, a boy named Clark and a girl named Lucy.
In 1809, Fanny’s beloved brother George, now a frail shadow of the dashing hero he once was, fell in his cabin at Point of Rocks and severely burned his leg. He was brought to Fanny and Dennis’s house for treatment, and there his leg was amputated, without anesthesia, while a military band played outside in the street. Fanny’s daughter Ann recalled how her mother paced outside her brother’s room in agony as the operation took place. In spite of the fact that George had grown notoriously grouchy, drunken, and hard to get along with, Fanny volunteered to take him into her home and was heartbroken when the family decided that another sister with a large fine home could make a better place for the old general.
Dennis died in a cholera epidemic that swept through Louisville in 1822. By then almost 50, Fanny moved to St. Louis to live near her daughter Ann and brother William. If she found any peace, it was brief. Fanny died in 1825 at the age of 52.
Details on the illustrations above (in order):
1 - No portraits of Fanny Clark are known to exist. We were inspired by this unknown woman by an anonymous artist of the period. From the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 2 - The Falls of the Ohio River at Louisville. The falls were submerged when the river was dammed in the 1920s. 3 - This horn from a bighorn sheep was collected by explorer William Clark and given to Fanny as a gift. Today it resides in the Filson Museum in Louisville, the only verified animal specimen from the Lewis & Clark Expedition.
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Thanks very much, Frances, for an entertaining and educational post! I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about Fanny; she was a heroine who'd clearly been through a lot in her short life, and I couldn't help but root for her.
The authors will be happy to respond to any questions left in the comments. Also, they've graciously offered to provide a giveaway for blog readers. Up for grabs is a copy of The Fairest Portion of the Globe, to be awarded to a randomly selected reader. To enter, leave a comment on this blog post in response to the question: Who is your favorite female character from your country's history? Please provide your email address as well.
Deadline is Thursday, March 11th. Good luck to all entrants!
This is going to be my one and only giveaway in celebration of Book Blogger Appreciation Week, but it's a big one (literally). I've just finished mailing off 35 books to the winners and participants of the Title Game challenge, but couldn't resist doing just one more of these. (I'm doing my part to keep the post office in business, so that Saturday mail delivery doesn't go away.)
This time, the book I'm offering up is my own. One of my author copies of Historical Fiction II: A Guide to the Genre will be mailed out to a randomly selected blog visitor. Headless cover art below.
Within the book's 750-plus pages, you'll find detailed summaries and complete publication information for over 2700 recent and classic historical novels, all eagerly waiting to be added to your TBR piles! The chapter introductions discuss the history of the field, current trends, and benchmark titles, and a Resource section lists historical fiction publishers, book review sources, websites, bibliographies, and more. It's exhaustively indexed by author, title, series, subject, historical character, and place/time. Here's the publisher's description:
Historical fiction has surged in popularity in recent years, with new subgenres emerging (e.g. Viking romance, religious thrillers) and reader interest showing no signs of slowing down. This follow-up to Johnson's critically acclaimed guide published in 2005 covers new territory by focusing on English-language historical novels for adults published between mid-2004 and mid-2008, in particular those commonly found in American public library collections. The author's unique approach involves classifying titles by subgenres, rather than strictly by geography and chronology; thereby grouping read-alikes together. It gives users a deeper understanding of the genre, an update on new titles, and an easy way to identify read-alikes and book club selections. More than 2,700 historical fiction titles, about 2,000 new to this volume, are organized and described.
Historical Fiction II came out in hardcover this past March; it's been getting some nicereviews. Should you be the winner, I'll even sign this copy for you if you want.
To enter the drawing, leave a comment on this post mentioning the novel that first got you interested in reading historical fiction. Whether you're a new historical fiction fan or a longtime devotee, I'm curious to hear what book or books first got you started! Please include your email address as well. Deadline is 11:59pm CST, Friday, September 18th. The winner will be announced on Saturday.
Okay, I have a lot of duplicate historical novels on hand and no room on my shelves. They need to find good homes, so I thought I'd share the wealth.
To do this, I've come up with a little game that will not only test your historical fiction knowledge but hopefully be fun to participate in, too.
This is the grid you'll have to work with:
Your mission is to find as many historical novel titles as you can.
The rules:
(1) The words have to be used in the order given (left to right).
(2) You don't have to use something from every column, as long as the words are in the correct order. For example, if there were historical novels called The Italian Bastard or The Shoe Garden (as far as I know, neither exists), they would count.
(3) Forthcoming titles count. Out-of-print titles count. As long as it's a historical novel that will be or has been published, it counts.
(4) You need to provide both the titles and the authors. (Hint: there are some titles that work for more than one author.)
(5) If you're an author who discovers title possibilities within the grid, you're more than welcome to use them for your next book!
The prizes:
There are 20 books in the pile above. All are unread and in pristine shape, a mix of new books, ARCs, and older titles I've had sitting around for a while. Most were published in summer 2009.
The person who sends the longest list of titles, per the rules above, will win 6 books or his/her choice from the pile. The second-place winner will get to choose 5 books from what remains, the third-place winner will get 4 books... after that, randomly selected entrants will get to choose two apiece from the remaining books until they're all gone.
How to enter:
Email your completed lists to me at readingthepast@hotmail.com with the subject "Title Game." The deadline is Friday, September 4th. One entry per person. International entrants welcome. Please don't leave your contest entries in the comments; if you do, your fellow readers will see your answers and will have every right to use them :)
I'll post the top 3 winners' names and their lists on Saturday, September 5th, and I'll be in touch about the prizes shortly thereafter.
Thanks to McBooks Press, I have five ARCs of Invasion, the 10th novel in Julian Stockwin's Kydd series, to offer to Reading the Past visitors. The series, based on real events from history, is the story of Thomas Paine Kydd's journey from pressed man to Admiral in the Great Age of Fighting Sail.
Readers new to the series will find that each volume stands on its own merits, while those familiar with Kydd should enjoy reading about his new adventures. A plot synopsis follows:
In the tenth book of the popular series, rumors fly of Napoleon's planned invasion of England, and British naval commander Thomas Kydd is sent to liaise with American inventor, Robert Fulton. The American has created "infernal machines" that can kill from a distance. Fulton believes that his inventions--the submarine and torpedo--will win the day for the power that possesses them, and Kydd must help him develop the devices. Despite his own scruples, believing that standing man-to-man is the only honorable way to fight, Kydd agrees to take part in the crucial testing of these weapons of mass destruction. In the end, their fire power just may decide the fate of England.
These five copies are galleys... not in the nautical sense, mind you, but pre-publication Advanced Reading Copies (paperbacks). Invasion will be published in October 2009, so this is your chance to read it early. The McBooks site as a whole, I might add, is worth checking out if you're into historical fiction at all, especially thrillers and multi-volume historical adventures.
To enter the drawing for Invasion, all you need to do is leave a comment on this blog post, briefly mentioning why you'd like to receive a copy. Deadline is Saturday, August 1st, and the five winners will be selected randomly (and announced) the following day. Good luck to all the entrants!
I'm still mired in indexing, so more informative content will have to wait another week, but for now I have a special contest for blog readers.
Last September, in my "reviews of obscure books" series, I covered Brigid Knight's The Cloister and the Citadel, a little-known novel about Charlotte de Bourbon-Montpensier, a little-known Renaissance princess. While surveying my shelves last week, I was very surprised to come across a 2nd copy of the book. This happens more often than I want to admit.
So, rather than tease with another review of a novel you're unable to find, I thought it fitting to offer this duplicate copy as a giveaway. It's in excellent shape for a 50-year old novel, a 1st edition hardcover with a clean, undamaged dustjacket only slightly browning with age. The original list price was 15 shillings.
To enter, leave a comment on this post, or email me (address on left sidebar) with the subject line "Cloister giveaway," by the end of the day next Friday, January 23rd. Good luck!
Would you like to help me with my overflowing bookshelves? I have six historical novels up for grabs this week. I recommend them all. They're duplicates from my collection, and I'd just as soon see them go to readers who want them - and maybe get the authors a little extra publicity at the same time.
They are as follows:
Karen Maitland, Company of Liars (ARC) Michelle Moran, Nefertiti (ARC) Sharon Kay Penman, Devil's Brood (ARC, part 3 in Plantagenet trilogy; all can stand alone) Sharon Kay Penman, Time and Chance (new pb, part 2 in Plantagenet trilogy) Sharon Kay Penman, When Christ and His Saints Slept (new pb, part 1 in Plantagenet trilogy) M.J. Rose, The Memorist (ARC)
A couple of the ARCs are pre-read (by me), but I've treated them well! I will mail them anywhere. To enter - leave a comment on this post by 5pm on Friday 10/17 telling me which ones you're interested in, or email me at sljohnson2@eiu.edu with the same information. I'll do a random drawing on Friday night and determine the winners. If by chance someone comes up the winner for more than one book, I'll email you and ask which one you prefer, then move on to a runner-up for the other.
Patricia O'Brien's Harriet and Isabella (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, Jan. 2008, $25.00) dramatizes a sex scandal that preoccupied the nation in the late 19th century. It begins in Brooklyn Heights in 1887, as Henry Ward Beecher, a charismatic preacher known for his oratorical skill, lies on his deathbed. As reporters gathered around his brownstone begin their vigil, two of his sisters, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Isabella Beecher Hooker, are forced to revisit the cause of their long estrangement. Twelve years earlier, Henry had been put on trial for adultery with Elizabeth Tilton, one of his parishioners. While Harriet stood by him, striving to present the Beechers as a strong family unit, Isabella publicly urged him to admit his guilt.
Flashbacks lead readers back to the days of the trial, in 1875, and to earlier moments in both sisters' lives. As Harriet slowly comes to terms with the fame and responsibility that writing Uncle Tom's Cabin has laid at her feet, Isabella forges her own path away from her stiflingly close-knit family, becoming an ardent supporter for women's suffrage. The novel is a dramatic account of how one famous American family's private conflicts played out in a very public sphere, posing questions on the importance of loyalty versus truth. It also provides insight into women's lives, the role of slavery, and the nature of celebrity in the post-Civil War years. (As a sidenote, as a native of the Hartford suburbs, I particularly enjoyed "visiting" with the former residents of Hartford's Nook Farm, a neighborhood I'd often seen on grade school field trips!)
I hope you enjoy the following interview with Patricia O'Brien. Also, in Reading the Past's first giveaway, Simon and Schuster will be sending copies of Harriet and Isabella to three randomly selected readers; details are at the end of the post.
How did your interest in the social and political history of 19th-century America originally develop?
Before starting to write historical fiction, much of the 19th century seemed like dusty history to me. When I began exploring the lives of Louisa May Alcott and Clara Barton for my earlier novel, The Glory Cloak, I quickly became immersed in the history of the Civil War. And when I began reading the letters and diaries of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher for Harriet and Isabella, I was drawn even deeper into the color and tumult of the late 19th century. I guess you could say I was led there by the people I was writing about. I hated leaving, even after finishing my book.
Do you have a special interest in illuminating women’s lives from the period?
Yes. The Beecher women, for example, were complex and passionate human beings who lived extraordinary lives, given the strictures of their time. In that period, there were many smart women in long dresses – with rich lives for a novelist to explore.
Despite their feud and their very different personalities, I found myself sympathizing with both protagonists and their dilemmas as I read. When you first began your research, did you identify more strongly with either Harriet or Isabella? How did your feelings change as you learned more about both sisters, or did they?
I identified with Isabella first. She took such a hit from her family when she tried to stand up for her values. I sympathized with her yearnings for achievement and her feelings of being left in the shadow of her famous brother and sisters.
Harriet intimidated me somewhat at the beginning. She felt brisk and unapproachable. But the emotion that poured out in her anguished letters after the death of her child drew me to her. I came to see her as an oh-so-human mix of bravery and timidity, with a generous as well as judgmental nature.
Henry’s deathbed scene, in Brooklyn Heights in 1887, frames the novel.Other major sections look back to the trial itself, and there are shorter flashbacks to earlier periods in the sisters’ lives. Despite the number of time-shifts, I never had trouble figuring out where I was. You must have put an immense amount of effort into structuring the novel so that everything read clearly; how did you accomplish this?
It was tricky. I wanted my characters to be looking back on the past, to evaluate themselves, deal with their thoughts and regrets, but I also wanted the immediacy of the early years that shaped them and the immediacy of the trial. Once I framed it around the time of Henry's dying, the rest seemed to flow. A key decision was to use the present tense for the events in 1887, and past tense for all other time frames.
How did your previous career as a newspaper reporter affect your approach to the story, in terms of the research techniques you used and/or the subject matter itself?
I went after original material, just the way I went after original interviews when I was a reporter. This time, I had the luxury of spending much longer on my research than I ever could with a daily deadline. But I felt right at home doing some of the basic research in the archives of the Brooklyn Eagle, which covered at length every day of the trial. I tried to imagine being the reporters writing those stories, and how the voracious national appetite for detail affected the tone of their coverage.
To me, Victoria Woodhull was one of the most compelling secondary characters; she seems almost larger than life, yet before reading the novel, I hadn’t known about her role in the Beecher adultery trial. How did you approach creating her character?
I wanted to show her contradictions, from her reckless sexuality to her visionary skills that made her – for a short while – the heroine of the suffragist movement. I also wanted to be careful not to let her take the reins and gallop away in a direction I didn’t want to go. Victoria had a powerful and colorful personality, and was, in many ways, a woman before her time.
Along with the galley copy of Harriet and Isabella I received at BEA, you’d provided a sheet detailing a self-guided walking tour of Brooklyn Heights. From the descriptions there, I got the impression that you’d walked this route yourself, and imagined scenes as you stopped at important points along the way. How important do you feel it is for historical novelists to physically visit the places where their characters lived and interacted?
Very important, if at all possible. I particularly remember walking the streets of Brooklyn Heights one night right after a snowfall, when it was easy to imagine horse-drawn carriages maneuvering through the snow and gaslight flickering behind the windows of the brownstone mansions. I could imagine Henry striding these same streets, waving to people in these same houses… it cut the distance between past and present almost to nothing.
I felt the same way when I was allowed into the newly-discovered Civil War office of Clara Barton in Washington while writing The Glory Cloak. I could run my hands over the faded wallpaper and bring it into my story, knowing Clara had sat in that same room and gazed at that same wallpaper as she worked.
Were there any historical tidbits you turned up in your research that you would have liked to use in the novel, but were unable to?
I like this question. Yes, indeed there were. One of the challenges of writing historical fiction is not to let historical detail – no matter how fascinating – divert you from your story. For example, Harriet’s husband, Calvin Stowe, had an imaginary friend (into adulthood) whom he named Harvey. This brought to mind the play and 1950 film in which Jimmy Stewart had an imaginary best friend – a six-foot tall rabbit, also named Harvey. Was Calvin’s pal the inspiration? Hmmmm… couldn’t go anywhere with that.
Another small tidbit I tried to place but finally rejected was a newspaper account describing an older man who showed up almost every day at Henry’s trial with a fine wood cane topped with a polished brass knob. He would sit through the testimony, holding his cane in front of him – and chew on the knob. I couldn’t go anywhere with that either unless I gave him some fleshing out; some identity and reason for being there, which would have been a diversion. But I loved the image.
Thank you, Patricia, for taking the time to answer questions for this interview.
Also, thanks to Simon & Schuster, we have three new hardcover copies of Harriet and Isabella to give away to readers. To enter, either leave a comment on this post, or send an email to me at sljohnson2@eiu.edu with "Harriet and Isabella" as the subject. Three entries will be selected randomly at the end of the day Friday, February 8th, after which I'll contact you for your mailing addresses. Good luck!
(Added, in response to a question - this drawing is open to everyone, not only those readers in the USA.)
The answer’s not as straightforward as you might think. For one thing, our idea of “high tea” is wrong – a recent innovation, like big modern white weddings. The later you took tea in Victorian England, in fact, the lower the class you belonged to. (In many parts of working-class Britain, the evening meal is still actually called “tea” for that reason.) For the upper classes, it was “afternoon tea,” and until very late in the nineteenth century it was only accompanied by a biscuit or two, something fortifying, rather than the waterfall of cakes and sandwiches and pastries with which we now associate it.
