Historical Fiction – Lemuria Books

Category: Historical Fiction (Page 1 of 2)

By John Mort. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (March 8)

Bass Reeves—a real, historical figure—was born a slave on an Arkansas plantation in the 1840s. In Sidney Thompson’s new novel, Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves: The Bass Reeves Trilogy, Book One, Reeves grows up to be a big, agreeable man entirely loyal to his master, the redoubtable Master Reeves. Master Reeves is not cruel. When a black scullery maid has her baby, he gives her one day off, and this is regarded as kind by the scullery maid and everyone else.

Slaves have so adapted to this patriarchal economic system that notions of emancipation and equality don’t occur to them. A kind of freedom exists just a few miles to the west, in Oklahoma Territory, but fleeing—running—is a tough concept. If you were beaten or starved, that would be one thing, but Master Reeves would never beat you or withhold food. You may be a slave, but you can live a life on Master Reeves’s plantation. You can marry. You can have kids.

It develops that Bass is an extraordinary marksman, and Master Reeves takes Bass to a number of turkey shoots in Arkansas and the Territory. Bass always wins, and the Master makes good money betting on him. Bass enjoys himself, and sometimes, he can bring those dead turkeys home for the other slaves.

Ignorance may have seemed like bliss, but Bass is a slave and a slave can be moved about like a horse. Old Master Reeves gives Bass to his son, young Master Reeves, who has a plantation down in Texas. Bass has a difficult time understanding this. He doesn’t know where Texas is, and doesn’t want to leave behind his aging parents. How could Master Reeves treat him like this?

The young Master Reeves is an intellectual with all sorts of theories about slavery. He baits Bass with his endless mind-games, trying to cause his new manservant to reveal his true feelings. In many ways, young Master Reeves inadvertently educates Bass and inculcates in him a desire for freedom. Young Reeves is despicable, but he’s also complicated. He fully understands how intelligent Bass is, and potentially how dangerous.

The Civil War has reached the West, and young Master Reeves wants a manservant who can shoot. Most of the Southern officers bring their manservants to the Battle of Wilson’s Creek (near Springfield, Missouri), a Southern victory of sorts that flows into the Southern defeat at Pea Ridge (near Fayetteville, Arkansas). These battles have been written about by historians and novelists alike, but Thompson’s treatment, portraying the war from a slave’s perspective, is unique.

The man-servant’s job is to reload weapons for their masters (for the most part, repeating rifles are not yet in use). But Bass is such an unerring shot that the young Master Reeves loads for his slave. And Bass kills many a Yankee, aiming for the brass buttons of their coats.

Young Master Reeves and Bass return to a changing Texas. The war isn’t over but everyone knows the South will lose. Throughout Bass’s faithful service, young Master Reeves has promised Bass’s manumission, or freedom; secretly, Bass, who has seen some of the world by now, has begun to contemplate running for his freedom into Oklahoma Territory. Just how to maneuver away from the devious young Master Reeves, and how to take leave of his sweetheart, Jennie, occupies the final pages of the first installment of this epic, three-volume portrait of Bass Reeves, the first black deputy west of the Mississippi.

When you’re gifted with the fine sense of characterization Thompson deploys, even the unsubtle subject of slavery grows subtler. His Young Master Reeves is a sort of Nazi, but he’s drawn masterfully. Thompson, once one of Barry Hannah’s students at University of Mississippi, is a highly entertaining writer, and his Bass Reeves emerges as an intelligent, reluctantly violent, sympathetic young man. Readers will find the compelling recreations of two important Civil War battles to be a kind of bonus.

John Mort is the author of Down Along the Piney: Ozarks Stories among others, and the winner of many awards for his fiction including a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America.

Sidney Thompson will be at Lemuria on Tuesday, March 10, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves.

Author Q & A with Mildred D. Taylor

By Guest Author

On January 5, 2020

In African-American, Historical Fiction, Oz: Middle Grade

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (January 5)

Mildred Taylor wraps up her 10-book series that has followed the lives of the Logan family from slavery to the Civil rights movement with her final addition, All the Days Past, All the Days to Come. With familiar character Cassie Logan at the forefront as her own story evolves along the timeframe of civil rights events, she is supported by familiar family members who provide a constant link to generations past.

Born in Mississippi in 1943 and raised in Toledo, Ohio, Taylor developed a strong attachment to Mississippi as a child, thanks to frequent trips “home” to visit extended family members who were always eager to offer stories of their own childhoods.

She earned a master’s degree in journalism at the University of Toledo in 1965; and went on to write Song of the Trees, the first of the Logan family series, a decade later.

It would be Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, published in 1976, that would become her most recognizable work when it was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1977.

The collection has earned many other awards for Taylor throughout her lengthy career, including an NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature, Buxtehuder Bulle Award, Coretta Scott King Award, Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for fiction, Christopher Award, Jane Addams Book Award, American Library Association’s Best Book for Young Adults, the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and others.

What inspired you to become a writer, and to use this tool as a way to bring to life the real-life struggles of racism, for young people?

Mildred Taylor

From the time I was a child, I was fascinated by the stories my father told about the history of my family and the history of others in his Mississippi community. He was a master storyteller, using dialect of the many characters in a story and sometimes becoming an actor using great motions to tell the story. There were many of us in the family who heard the stories; I was simply the one tapped on the shoulder to write them down. My father passed before Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry was published, but his words and those of others who told the history live on through all my books.

Your new book “All the Days Past, All the Days to Come” is to be the final chapter of the Logan family saga, begun with “Songs of the Trees” in 1975. Looking back to the beginning, did you ever expect that this collection of stories would become so enduring to readers for so many years?

Because I was so very much enthralled by the stories, by the history, it never surprised me that others would be as well. What surprised me was that I could tell the stories well enough so that people around the world would care about the history of my family, and about the lives of people in my family’s Mississippi community.

This final book (as its predecessors) recounts many true historical events along the time frame of each volume. Having lived through many of these events yourself, is it still difficult to look back on those times, and do you believe enough progress has been made today?

I could not get free of the stories and the obligations I had to myself and to the history of my family and the history of so many African Americans whose stories I wanted to tell. As one friend told me: “It is something you have to do. We’re of the last generations who knows–who remembers how it truly was–racism and degradation and what we had to go through to rid ourselves of all that. Younger generations think they know, but they have no idea of what it was truly like.”

Because of the historical timeline I am trying to follow, this final book is my greatest challenge yet. At a time when racism is again at the forefront, I believe it is important to look back at history, to look at how we have evolved since slavery began in our country, what has been sacrificed through a civil war, lynchings, racism, and segregation. Through a personal story told from the point of view of the Logan family of Mississippi, perhaps readers of all ages can grasp what life was like before the Civil Rights Movement and how that Movement helped change the nation, and to understand why we cannot allow racism to overshadow us again.

From slavery to the presidency, this is what the epilogue in All the Days Past, All the Days to Come symbolizes, and the bus is a symbol of that journey. That Cassie is on that bus–the bus, a negative symbol through much of her life–to President Barack Hussein Obama’s inauguration is one of the greatest triumphs for Cassie, her generation, and all African Americans.

Much has changed and much has not. I believe everyone needs to know the history.

The series has granted you many awards since its beginning more than 40 years ago. Has this taken you surprise?

As I said previously, since I was enthralled by the stories, it did not surprise me that
others would be as well. What surprised me was that I could tell the stories well enough that people around the world would respond as I did.

Of course, it was wonderful to win the Coretta Scott King award for four of my books. When The Road to Memphis won the award, I was actually on the dais (platform) with Mrs. Rosa Parks and was able to talk with her. My greatest regret is when I was unable to attend the ceremony to accept the award for The Land and I missed the chance to receive the award from Mrs. King herself.

What would you like to say to young people of all races today about the hope for cooperation (despite the frequent division) in this country? Are you hopeful for the progress that has been made; or do you believe racial equality will ever become the norm in America?

There have always been racial divisions in the United States; however, through the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, hard-fought-for legislation, integrated education, and one-on-one communication among all people, Americans have a much better understanding of each other today than 50 years ago, 100 years ago, all the years past in the United States.

Through continued education, economic opportunities for all, the important one-on-one relationships, there is hope that in time we as Americans can be accepting of each other. At that point, perhaps racial equality will be the norm.

Signed first editions are available for pre-order at Lemuria’s online store. The book’s publication date is Tuesday, January 7.

Author Q & A with Lara Prescott

By Guest Author

On November 17, 2019

In Fiction, Historical Fiction

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (November 17)

Lara Prescott’s fictional account of three young women employed in the CIA’s typing pool who rise to the upper echelons of espionage during the 1950s Cold War is based on the true story of the agency’s undercover plan to smuggle copies of Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago into the USSR.

The Secrets We Kept, Prescott’s debut, has been released to much acclaim that included the possibility of movie rights.

The winner of the 2016 Crazyhorse Fiction Prize for the first chapter of The Secrets We Kept, Prescott’s stories have been published in the Southern Review, The Hudson Review, Crazyhorse, Day One, and Tin House Flash Fridays.

Prescott received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Austin, and today she resides in Austin.

The Secrets We Kept is based on a true but probably little-known slice of Cold War history during the 1950s that saw the American CIA make a strategic push to have Russian author Boris Pasternak’s epic novel Doctor Zhivago published and made available to Soviet readers. The ploy not only resulted in the book’s publication in 1957, but to top it off, it was (much to the embarrassment of Russia’s Communist officials) granted the Nobel Prize for literature the following year. How did this event come to your attention, and what inspired you to base your debut novel on this feat?

Lara Prescott

I first learned about the Doctor Zhivago mission in 2014, after my father sent me a Washington Post article about newly declassified documents that shed light on the CIA’s Cold War-era “Books Program.” With my interest piqued, I devoured the incredible true story behind the publication of Doctor Zhivago. What I discovered was that the CIA had obtained the banned manuscript, covertly printed it, and smuggled it back into the USSR.

The first CIA memos on Doctor Zhivago described the book as “the most heretical literary work by a Soviet author since Stalin’s death,” saying it had “great propaganda value” for its “passive but piercing exposition of the effect of the Soviet system on the life of a sensitive, intelligent citizen.”

And it was seeing the actual memos and so many other declassified documents like them–with all their blacked-out and redacted names and details–that first inspired me to fill in the blanks with fiction.

Explain how art, music, and literature were considered so important to Soviet culture that they could be used to spread the idea of freedom among its citizens during this time.

During the Cold War, both the Soviets and Americans believed in the unmatched power of books. Joseph Stalin once described writers as, “the engineers of the human soul.” And in a 1961 secret report to the U.S. Senate, the CIA’s former chief of covert action described books as, “the most important weapon of strategic propaganda.”

Each side believed the longtail of cultural influence–how people could read a book, view a work of art, or listen to a piece of music and come away from the experience a changed person. In the case of Doctor Zhivago, the CIA wanted Soviet citizens to question why a masterpiece by one of their most famous living writers was kept from them.

Tell me about the main female characters and why they were so well suited for their roles as spies.

The characters of Sally and Irina are very much inspired by early female spies. Elizabeth “Betty” Peet McIntosh’s book Sisterhood of Spies first exposed me to a world of real-life heroines, including Virginia Hall, Julia Child–yes, that Julia Child–and Betty herself. These women got their start in the OSS, which was the precursor to the CIA, during World War II, and, after the war, some transitioned to the CIA, just as Sally does in the novel.

Today, we may have a woman as the head of the CIA, but, back then, most women–even those who had served their country so courageously–were relegated to secretary or clerk positions. The character of Irina is first hired for such a position, but quickly is utilized in the Agency as someone who picks up and delivers classified documents. These were jobs women were suited for, as they’d often go undetected as someone who could possibly be handling secret information.

Considering the different cultural and economic roles of women at the time of the book’s setting–when they were often held back from career success–you portray intelligent, hardworking women who genuinely enjoy their work and are good at it. At what stage was what we now call “feminism” in those days?

I believe the experiences of these hardworking and highly qualified women being held back from advancing in their careers were the seeds of modern-day feminism. During this time period, women were already beginning to question why they were being paid less money than their male counterpoints and why they were not given promotions. This sense of workplace inequality gradually developed into second-wave feminism in the 1960s.

Have you been surprised by the book’s acclaim to this point, beginning even before its publication, and with movie rights already in the works?

Absolutely! It has been an almost surreal experience. I feel so very grateful to have had the opportunity of such a large platform for people to discover and read my debut novel. The greatest joy comes from meeting readers who have been touched by the book in some way.

Lara Prescott will be at Lemuria on Thursday, November 21, at 5:00 p.m. to sign and discuss The Secrets We Kept. Lemuria has chosen The Secrets We Kept as its December 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

The secret is out on ‘The Secrets We Kept’ by Lara Prescott

By Guest Author

On November 12, 2019

In Fiction, Historical Fiction

By Valerie Walley. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (September 29)

The Secrets We Kept is a debut novel by Lara Prescott based on the true events surrounding the 1957 publication of Dr. Zhivago, a 20th century literary masterpiece combining a sweeping love story with intrigue, political hardship, and tragedy, set between the Russian Revolution and WWII. One of the greatest love stories ever written, it was made into the haunting film featuring Julie Christie and Omar Sharif. Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for it, which he was made to turn down by an embarrassed and outraged KGB. It was banned reading there until 1988. But if you haven’t read it, now you’re up to speed, and you can read The Secrets We Kept!

Set in 1957, The Secrets We Kept tells of the CIA’s mission to weaponize a work of art by using this publication against Russia behind the Iron Curtain. The novel is set against the backdrop of the decades long love story between author Boris Pasternak and his muse, Olga (the inspiration for Lara), who spent years in and out of Russian prisons. The stuff of her own life and her relationship with Boris could be a novel in itself. The novel alternates between this story and the stories of two contemporary, unconventional, and mold-breaking women ahead of their time. Sally and Irina are seduced and spurned by the CIA’s typing pool, eventually becoming spies themselves. Their stories, along with a chorus from their co-workers–in some cases first generation college graduates, speakers of multiple languages, and pilots–have now been relegated to the CIA typing pool once the men have returned from WWII. These are the voices telling the story of bringing Dr. Zhivago into print by smuggling it back into Russia. These three women–Olga, Irina, and Sally–do change the course of history through the secrets they keep.

In settings from the Russian countryside, and Pasternak’s own dacha, and on to 50’s Milan and Paris, and grounded back into the reality of an era in which women were trying to find a meaningful workplace in male dominated postwar fifties DC, this is an unputdownable, stylishly plotted and told novel for all.

I urge you to pick up The Secrets We Kept and be swept away into Russia and intrigued by the thrilling story of spy craft. Ultimately, though, it will be each woman’s story that will haunt you for a long time. And while you don’t have to have read or watched Dr. Zhivago, you will probably want to.
Fun fact–Lara Prescott is named after Boris Pasternak’s heroine and as a child often listened to “Lara’s Theme” played by her mother’s jewelry box. You’ll be able to find out more about her obsession with all things Russian, and Dr. Zhivago in particular, when she’s here for a reading at Lemuria on November 21.

This bold and unconventional historical thriller is already a runaway bestseller. Perfect for book clubs, it was also chosen by Reese Witherspoon‘s Hello Sunshine book club.

And along the way you’ll find out how a piece of art changed the world and the course of history in so much a lovelier, more meaningful way than anything social media will ever be able to do.

Valerie Walley is a Ridgeland resident.

Author Q & A with Karl Marlantes

By Guest Author

On August 11, 2019

In Fiction, Historical Fiction

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (August 11)

Karl Marlantes says his penchant for writing long novels comes naturally: he has much to tell through his stories and the undercurrents he masterfully weaves just below the surface.

His latest case in point is his second novel, Deep River, which fills more than 700 pages as it winds its way through the tale of three sibling Finnish immigrants in early 20th century America.

His award-winning debut novel, Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, was a New York Times bestseller that also had much to say, as Marlantes draws on his own experiences as a highly decorated U.S. Marine during that conflict; and his autobiographical What It Is Like to Go to War explores his personal impressions on war.

An Oregon native, Yale graduate and Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, he now lives in rural Washington.

What influenced your interest in history (in general), and the specific time and location of Deep River, set in the Pacific Northwest from 1893 to 1932?

Karl Marlantes

I’ve always loved reading history. It provides great lessons for anyone who cares to think about what has gone on before. One of the quotes in my non-fiction book, What It Is Like to Go to War, is from Otto von Bismarck: “Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” That time period was also interesting to me because it was, in my opinion, the time of most dramatic change. My grandmother went from no electricity, no running water, horses and buggies, to freeways and landing on the moon. The question of how to adapt in a human and loving way to changing technology is still with us, and still inadequately answered.

The book chronicles the saga of two brothers and a sister who are forced to leave their farming life in Finland and migrate to a logging and fishing community in Washington state to escape the harsh Russian occupation of their homeland. The siblings come to America with differing dreams and personalities: there is Aino, the activist who was introduced to socialism at age 13 by her teacher; Ilmari, a blacksmith with dreams of church building; and Matti, the fortune-seeker. Tell us briefly about each of these characters, and their ultimate roles in the novel.

All of us adopt a stance toward life, based on such things as character, aptitude, and what happened to us as we were growing up. Kierkegaard refers to the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. These stances are how we deal with such imponderables as our own death and destiny.

Aino is an atheist–she firmly believes no one is coming to help, so we must build heaven on earth, in her case through communism and then the IWW (International Workers of the World). Her brother Matti learns early that rich people suffer much less than poor people. He is like many Americans who think we can just take out an insurance policy against mortality by driving virtually indestructible SUVs to soccer games. Ilmari is traditionally religious. There is a heaven, and we’ll all get there, but in the meanwhile, there are some serious unanswered questions, like why some children suffer and go to heaven just like the ones who don’t. He moves from traditional Christianity to an amalgam of Christianity and mysticism, which has been my own spiritual journey.

The characters are also highly influenced by their counterparts in The Kalevala. Aino who refuses marriage to an older man through suicide; Matti, hot-headed Lemminkäinen; Ilmari, the powerful blacksmith; Ilmarinen, who forged the magic sampo, the mill that grinds out eternal bounty; and Jouka, who echoes Joukahainen, the celebrated minstrel.

Explain “sisu” and its importance in the lives of the characters in Deep River.

Sisu is what won The Winter War of 1939 against the overwhelming might of the Russian army. As a child, if I fell and hurt myself and even started to whimper, my mother or grandmother would ask, “Where’s your sisu?” I would find it and not whimper. It’s courage, stubbornness, stoicism, many such traits combined and very hard to define.

In the lives of my characters, it is a major force in surviving, getting done what must be done to put food on the table, standing up against odds that any reasonable person would run from. Sisu is not reasonable. And, as Vasutäti points out, it is not always applicable.

Along with your debut book Matterhorn, you are developing a reputation for lengthy, robust narratives that fully develop your characters, their timelines and their settings–and both are packed with historical details and sweeping landscapes. Did you set out to produce epic works (that would rise so quickly to bestseller status), or did your stories just work themselves out to be generous volumes?

I swear I’ll correct that image with my next novel, but then again, stories tend to just keep happening to me while I’m writing. I never set out to write epic works. I do know, however, that among my favorite novels are War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and The Brothers Karamazov, all hefty volumes. As a reader, I like to get into a world, and if the writing is good, feel disappointed when I leave it. So, in that respect, long novels are good. I am also much taken by true epics, the “Táin Bó Cúailnge” of the Irish, the “Song of Roland” of the French, “The Iliad and Odyssey” of the ancient Greeks, “The Aeneid of the Romans,” and “The Kalevala of the Finns.”

Many reviews note that Deep River is, in part, somewhat of a comment on today’s political state in America. Could you address that?

The two major protagonists, Aksel and Aino, are almost allegorical figures for this tension in American political life between the collective and the individual. We seesaw between the two, The Great Society followed by Ronald Reagan. The Roaring Twenties followed by The New Deal.

Aksel and Aino both learn that they need each other to make it through life. It’s called compromise, something we have lost in today’s political scene. There are many parallels between the time of the novel and now, not even remotely allegorical: wars being fought that involved no immediate threat to our own security, opposition to those wars being characterized as unpatriotic, giving up individual privacy and freedom to the Espionage Act of 1917, which was sold to protect us from “bolshevism” and used to crush the IWW in the name of national security, and the Patriot Act of today, which was sold to protect us from terrorists and justified by the same reasoning, horrible income inequality, the struggle to make a living wage, the unconscious destruction of our natural environment, the problems associated with immigration, false stories in biased newspapers, all compounded by a feckless federal government.

Karl Marlantes will be at the Lemuria on Wednesday, August 14, at 5:00 to sign and read from Deep River. Lemuria has selected Deep River as its August 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

* * *

Marlantes will also appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 in coversation with Tom Franklin and Kevin Powers at 12:00 p.m. at State Capitol Room 113.

Such Sweet Sorrow: ‘Lovely War’ by Julie Berry

By Former Lemurians

On March 15, 2019

In Historical Fiction, OZ: Young Adult Fiction

by Trianne Harabedian

The Nightingale. All The Light We Cannot See. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I loved them, you loved them. If we’re being honest, there’s just something about a beautifully written World War II novel, with intrigue and tragedy and a little romance, that’s like literary catnip. We can’t get enough.

So I absolutely have to tell you about another book that you are going to love: Lovely War by Julie Berry. It’s a little different from the others. It’s got the intrigue, the tragedy, and more than a little romance. But… it’s set during World War I. Gasp! How can such a novel exist without Nazis, the brazenness of women in the forties, the preexisting tragedy of a world that had not yet recovered from the Great War? I promise that not only can it work, but it can work so beautifully that you’re not going to be able to put this novel down.

It’s 1942. The goddess Aphrodite is in a hotel room with her lover, Ares, when her husband, Hephaestus ensnares them in a net. As they argue about love, Aphrodite offers to illustrate her points by telling the story of four mortals living during World War I. As she weaves her tale, the other gods help by telling their perspectives on certain events. Aphrodite covers the romance, Apollo the music, Ares the war, and Hades the death.

The story begins with Hazel, a sheltered girl who lives in London and plays piano. On this particular evening, she is playing at a war benefit when she notices a young man standing to the side. Their eyes meet, Aphrodite gives them a nudge, and that’s it. Suddenly they’re sneaking out of their homes to meet for coffee, attending the symphony, and falling in love while knowing James will leave in a week for the war front. Unfortunately, their time is cut short when he is summoned to training a few days early. Their romance continues to blossom via letters, and Hazel decides that she needs to help with the war effort. To her parents’ dismay, she moves to Saint-Nazarie, France, as an entertainment volunteer for the troops.

This is where Aphrodite introduces us to our second couple. Colette is an orphan from Belgium, her life ravaged by the war, who seeks solace in volunteering for others. She and Hazel become fast friends at the YMCA where they are stationed. They bond over their love of music and their frustration over the segregation among the soldiers. The girls are shocked that they are not even allowed to enter the colored camp, as Colette is a foreigner and Hazel comes from a very accepting family. But they soon find a way to get around the rule.

Aubrey is a jazz prodigy who has been dragged into a military band. When he hears Hazel playing piano one evening, he can’t help but sneak into the building, introduce himself, and sit down to play. And when Colette steps out of her room in nothing but a scandalous nightgown, everything is over for Aubrey. He returns night after night, after the girls’ supervisor has gone to bed, to play piano and win Colette’s heart. He has nearly succeeded when, after a horrifying incident with some Americans from another camp, he is forced to unexpectedly go on tour with the band. Because of the incident, he doesn’t feel that he can write to Colette, and she is left aching at his sudden disappearance.

With both couples separated, the novel twists and turns. The mortals are given small tastes of love as Aphrodite schemes to allow them to meet for a few days here and there. But the war breaks them all. No one escapes the pain of violence, racial oppression, and death. No one is left mentally, physically, or emotionally unscathed. But their love for each other, both romantically and as four friends, remains steadfast.

I laughed, I cried, and I read this book far too quickly. Then, for days afterward, I didn’t want to read anything else. It’s the next beautiful war novel that we’re going to recommend to all our friends and talk about for years. It’s the novel I didn’t know I was waiting for.

The Past is Female, Too: ‘Varina’ by Charles Frazier

By Hillary

On April 26, 2018

In Fiction, Historical Fiction, Southern Fiction

varina I know that Charles Frazier is most known for his novel, Cold Mountain, but I must admit…I haven’t read it. So, I’m going into his writing with no preconceived notions of any past greatness to compare it to. When we received advanced copies of Varina and I learned that Frazier would be joining us for a signing and reading at The Eudora Welty House, I figured this would be the best time to start my Charles Frazier reading journey.

Set in the Civil War era with a strong, female protagonist, Frazier’s new novel is mostly narrated by Varina Davis, wife of Jefferson Davis. Married at 17 to a man nearly 20 years her senior, Varina is thrust into political life during the brutality of the Civil War. She suffers the loss of several children and then decides to rescue a black child named Jimmie to raise as her own.

When we first meet Varina, she is much older and reflecting back on her life with the now-grown James (Jimmie) after years apart. Once Lee has surrendered, she is fleeing with her still surviving children, a young black boy named James, and a black woman through an almost lawless land. They find danger on their journey, and narrowly escape a few captures by Federal soldiers while trying to start a new life for themselves. There are a lot of historical figures whom she encounters along the way. Some may find this a bit much, but it turns out (because I did a little research on my own) that Varina was just that connected in her real life. Ultimately, this is a story, written in Frazier’s beautiful prose, of Varina pulling herself together, and those closest to her, after the devastation of the Civil War.

Frazier has done a fantastic job of depicting the damage done to the landscape and people of the south during this time. He has also given us a story of a strong female historical figure, forced to marry young, and shows her feelings of culpability for her actions and the actions of her husband concerning slavery. He has taken someone who is on the “wrong” side and made one feel empathy and sorrow towards their troubles. He has shown the horrors in both the North and the South during the time following the war in great detail. I know this is a historical novel, but Frazier did his research, and as far as I can tell Varina was exactly the woman he has produced in real life; a very intelligent, kind, hard working woman who was able to face anything head on in her life.

I really enjoyed this read. In fact, it reminded me of a non-fiction book, Trials of the Earth, which I read and loved a couple of years ago, about Mary Mann Hamilton and her life in the Mississippi Delta. If you’re looking for tales of strong Southern women surviving in a harsh landscape, these books are are for you.

Charles Frazier will be at the Eudora Welty House today, Thursday, April 26, at 5:00 to sign and read from Varina, Lemuria’s April 2018 selection for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

Author Q & A with Charles Frazier

By Guest Author

On April 24, 2018

In Fiction, Historical Fiction, Southern Fiction

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (April 22)

Amidst a timely controversy about the relevance of Confederate monuments scattered across the South and a national discussion about race, Charles Frazier’s newest novel examines the role of Varina Davis, wife of the Confederacy’s only president, Jefferson Davis, and her influence on history.
In Varina, a work of historical fiction, Frazier places the former first lady of what he refers to as the “imaginary country” at a health resort in Saratoga Springs, New York. The year in 1906, and the story begins just weeks before her death at age 80, when she gets a surprise visit from a middle-aged African-American man she doesn’t recognize.

The stranger turns out to be the young boy she took in off the streets of Richmond 40 years ago, who is searching for clues about his own identity. As she recounts her story of the war years and beyond, he begins to clarify his personal history.

Charles Frazier

Frazier, who won the National Book Award for his internationally bestselling debut novel Cold Mountain in 1997, has said that he believes events of the past few years have left America still searching for a resolution to issues concerning race and slavery.

Frazier’s other novels include Thirteen Moons and Nightwoods. A native of North Carolina, he still makes his home there.

Why did you choose Varina Davis to write about now–was it influenced by the efforts of some today to remove statues of Confederate leaders, including her husband Jefferson David, president of the Confederacy?

varina I was interested in the fact that she left Mississippi shortly after Jefferson Davis died and moved to New York City to become a newspaper writer when she was over 60 years old. I found out that she had lived in London for some time, alone. As she grew older, she stayed engaged with the world around her and her opinions continued to evolve. At a time in life when most people start slowing down, she was digging her heels in, thinking mostly about her work, writing.

The novel is crafted around the conversations of an aging Varina with a man she had apparently rescued as a child–a man she had not seen in 40 years. He has come to her for answers about his own identity, and she provides clues as she tells her story. At the time he visits, she is 80 years old and has been earning her living by writing for publications in New York City. Tell me about their relationship.

It’s not certain that she rescued him. The story that (Varina’s friend) Mary Chesnut told was that Varina was riding through Richmond in a carriage and she witnessed the boy being mistreated and took him in; there is another story that there was a group of boys, including her sons, running around Richmond and they brought him home with them.

The (recorded) history of that child ends in 1865. I elevated him to a grown-up. I wanted it to feel to her like a child had returned. (All four of her sons had died young.) He had always wanted to know his story, so different from hers in that she had benefited from slavery her whole life.

Varina was a remarkably strong and independent woman, well-educated and ahead of her time in her thinking about political and social issues. She married Jefferson Davis when she was 18 and he was 37. How would you describe their marriage relationship, with its many moves, the tumultuous time in the country, and the deaths of their four sons at a young age?

There were lots of separations–sometimes because of his work and sometimes because they were not getting along. They quarreled over his will that left her totally dependent on his brother. There were some rocky periods, for sure, but divorce was out of the question.

When Jefferson Davis learned that he had been appointed president of the Confederacy, he and Varina took the news with a sense of dread. Why was that?

He was appointed and inaugurated (as provisional president) in Montgomery, Alabama (on Feb. 18, 1861), and was inaugurated again in Richmond (on Feb. 22, 1862) after he was actually elected to the post (in November 1861).

Varina had expected him to be named the president and didn’t feel like he had the temperament for the job. She told (her friend) Mary Chesnut that he would be president and that “it will be a disaster.” They had just settled back in at their home at David Bend (near Vicksburg) when word came. Both were depressed about it.

Tell me about Varina’s role as the Confederacy’s only first lady, especially considering that she didn’t agree with her husband on everything politically, and this was a job she never asked for.

Varina Davis

She performed a lot of the conventional duties of a first lady, but was constantly criticized by people in Richmond for being too opinionated, too sharp-witted. Many looked on her as being too Western and crude. Mississippi was still a frontier area when she was growing up there, and it bothered some people who thought that she was not as polished.

Other characters in the book reveal much about Varina. Tell me about Mary Chesnut and her relationship with Varina. Also, who is the mysterious character of Laura, who befriended Varina when they were both guests at the health spa in Saratoga Springs?

Many Chesnut and Varina were friends in the real world. They met in Washington when each was 18 and their husbands were members of Congress.

Mary was from South Carolina. She was well educated in Charleston and was known for being smart and quick-witted. Mary’s husband had important positions in the Confederate government (as an aide to the president and a brigadier general in the Confederate Army). The diaries she wrote during the Civil War were later published and they provided a great deal of firsthand information about that period.

For Laura’s character, I pictured someone with lots of problems whose rich parents sent away to get better. At the end of the book, they are trying expensive new medical treatments for her. Also, Varina had lost so many of her own children, and, in Laura, she finds someone to take care of.

The use of mixing wine with morphine, or taking opium or laudanum seemed to be a common practice as a way to relax and forget life’s problems, and we see Varina using it fairly often. How common was this?

You didn’t need a prescription for laudanum (or tincture of opium)–it was the type of thing you could get at traveling medicine shows. It was used for practically anything, especially for women, from mild depression after childbirth, to husbands saying their wives were too high strung or high-spirited. I don’t know if Varina was a big (user), but I do know Mary Chesnut was. I expect some periods of Varina’s life could be explained by her use of it. For example, the way she suddenly left during her husband’s inauguration in Montgomery, with no explanation.

Please tell me how you hope Varina will address your concerns about some of the unrest about race that we still see lingering in our country, with the removal of Confederate statues and the division we continue to hear in the national rhetoric.

I think of historical fiction as a conversation between the present and the past, and Varina Davis’s life offered me a complex entry point into that dialogue. That war and its cause–the ownership of human beings–live so deep in our nation’s history and identity that we still haven’t found a way to reconcile and move forward. And it’s important to remember that most of those monuments didn’t spring up right after 1865, but are largely a product of the Jim Crow South. Their continued presence indicates how much the issues of the Civil War are like the armature inside a sculpture–baked into the framework of our country and our culture.

Do you have other writings in the works at this time, or ideas for your next project?

I’ve got a couple ideas in the works and will decide which one to pursue this summer.

This interview has also been posted on the Clarion-Ledger’s website.

Charles Frazier will be at the Eudora Welty House on Thursday, April 26, at 5:00 to sign and read from Varina, Lemuria’s April 2018 selection for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

Charles Frazier’s ‘Varina’ is an immersion in the Civil War South

By Guest Author

On April 16, 2018

In Civil War, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Southern Fiction

By Jim Ewing. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (April 15)

As historical fiction, Charles Frazier’s Varina can be seen as an imagined memoir of the widow of Confederate President Jefferson Davis—but only barely.

varina It draws heavily from the verified facts about the former Varina Howell of Natchez, but is seamlessly layered with the insightful thoughts and personality of a woman from an attractive belle to an arch and wise matron in her later years. It’s truly a fascinating journey.

It covers her courtship as a young girl with the then-widowed Davis more than a decade her senior, from living on their plantation at Davis Bend near Vicksburg to moving to Washington, D.C., when he was first a congressman from Mississippi, then a U.S. senator, to being secretary of war, and, finally their days after the Civil War.

Davis himself does not get off lightly in her estimation. For example, she confided to one newspaper reporter after his inauguration as the Confederate leader that sometimes even she wanted to murder him. (Married folk can relate!)

But she speaks fondly of him, too, recalling his young man’s dream of being simply a country lawyer who wrote poetry; much as she wistfully recalled her own dream of being First Lady, not of the South, but residing on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., back when Davis was a U.S. senator and war hero. It seemed a likely prospect at the time.

The tale is told through her words to a black man who tracks her down as she is living out her later years in New York. The man, James Blake (or James Brooks), was known as Jimmie Limber when she and Davis took him in as a child from the streets of Washington and raised him, until they were split apart by the war.

As oddly as it might sound to the uninitiated, the story of a black child being raised side by side with their other children is true—at least, for a short time until the war intervened.

Some of the most gripping of the narrative (a la Gone with the Wind) involves Varina and Blake’s flight for Havana and hoped-for sanctuary in an arduous journey that ended on the Florida-Georgia border as their world came crashing down.

Frazier, known for his masterful work Cold Mountain, draws the reader in with broad strokes of often quite profound observation, along with period details, powerful accounts of the hard life of citizens after Sherman’s march, and thoughtful reflection.

For example, how she came about understanding the complex nature of slavery as a child amazed her, how even slight gradations of skin color could be so determinant. It boiled down to the sense “that a strong line cut through all the people she knew and everybody who existed,” one that “traced divisions clear and precise as the sweeping shadow of a sundial.”

And it was firmly enforced, in society, in public, in private, in homes and churches, a biblical injunction (Luke 12:47): “He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.”

The South and all in it were beaten down by it, wholly, individually, even the land itself “defaced and haunted with countless places where blood … would keep seeping up for generations to come.”

It makes one wonder, have the scars ever healed?

Frazier has produced a time machine where the reader is immersed in the Civil War era, pondering through the eyes of Varina Howell Davis the complexities, mysteries, brutalities and banalities of days long gone.

Jim Ewing, a former writer and editor at the Clarion Ledger, is the author of seven books including his latest, Redefining Manhood: A Guide for Men and Those Who Love Them.

Charles Frazier will be at the Eudora Welty House on Thursday, April 26, to sign and read from Varina, Lemuria’s April 2018 selection for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

‘King Zeno’ is a mesmerizing novel of historic NOLA crime

By Guest Author

On February 5, 2018

In Historical Fiction, Mystery, Southern Fiction

By Jim Ewing. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (January 28)

King Zeno by Nathaniel Rich is a crime novel that transcends the genre to suck the reader into a world long gone.

king zeno It’s a “crime” novel because it swirls around the notorious, real life crimes of an ax murder spree and wave of street robberies that struck 1918 New Orleans.

But it rises above the set piece of police procedurals by enlivening the characters beyond a simple whodunit. Rather, it is an absorbing novel spiced with rich, deep characters in a sweeping foray where the crimes serve as a framework.

The main characters include:

Beatrice Vizzini, the widow of a “Black Hand” (read: mafia) crime figure, who masterminds the “protection” racket of small Italian grocers, while trying to turn legitimate;
Giorgio, her flawed son, a menacing figure she hopes will take over the family business;
Isadore “King” Zero, a talented trumpeter, struggling to survive on the mean streets, including resorting to robbery, to provide for his pregnant wife and disapproving mother-in-law, while pioneering the then-new musical form of jazz;
Police Det. Bill Bastrop, a World War I veteran, who suffers from what today would be called PTSD, tasked with solving a wave of street robberies and a string of ax murders terrorizing the city.

Rising above this miasma of passions, fears and chicanery, the deadly 1918 flu pandemic (that infected 500 million people worldwide, killing up to 40 million) stalks the Crescent City, stirring a rising tide of the sick and the dead.

An allure of Zeno is its ability to act as a time machine, carrying people who love the flavor and lore of NOLA to another time, fleshing out areas of the city such as Storyville, the Garden District, the Irish Channel.

Taking place as the Industrial Channel is being dug, linking Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi River, Zeno is filled with descriptions of a city that still lives under the surface of modernity. The characters are believable, well-crafted, and even with its heft of nearly 400 pages, the book carries the reader briskly forward.

Rich is masterful in mapping the characters’ motivations, often not fully understood by the characters themselves, deftly teasing out a believable plot through their interactions.

His language is, at times, made obscure by the vernacular of the period, but at times crystalline. For example, in explaining Isadore’s attraction to music, he writes that he “had always understood music as a conversation with the Dark Unknown—the dimension of the world that was hidden to the world …. When you played, the conversation went both ways.”

Zeno is a mesmerizing walk through time into a New Orleans that still subtly exists, with prostitution, gambling, street crime, wretched social inequality, and stark racism, overlaid by exquisite music, mindless excess, and licentious celebration. It all adds up to a tantalizing read with astute insights into the human condition.

Jim Ewing, a former writer and editor at The Clarion-Ledger, is the author of seven books including his latest, Redefining Manhood: A Guide for Men and Those Who Love Them.

Category: Historical Fiction (Page 1 of 2)

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Charles Frazier’s ‘Varina’ is an immersion in the Civil War South

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