Total Immersion Research

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Why write historical fiction? This is a question that, for me, goes back a way. The 1980’s, when I first started writing, was a low point for the genre. I remember querying ever so many agents and getting replies which said “only a small market for historical fiction.” That was discouraging enough, but not so much that I stopped working on those novels, driven by the writing demons as I was.   

Like everyone else who will reply to this question, I started young reading historical fiction, following the books my mother took out of the library. She was a voracious reader of both history and science fiction, and I became one as well. I began early, and remember writing a short story about the Princes in the Tower back in 8^th grade that got an “A.” (My story successfully creeped-out  the class, too, which was even better.)

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I could say that my love of history happened because I’ve often lived in old houses—several with disturbances of the kind that are often labelled “ghost.” I could talk about the love of my important elders for history, their familiarity with the past, and the way the past was always present in discussions about politics, or about how trips were taken to view gravestones, battlefields, Indian mounds, and museums. 

I could dwell on the lit professor grandpa that I adored. His study fairly breathed old books, tweed, leather, pipe smoke and things past. A large oil painting of the Canterbury Pilgrims overlooked his desk, a beautiful obsidian spear point that had emerged during the spring plowing at the family farm in upstate NY sat beside his typewriter. All of these objects had stories, and he shared them with his children and grandchildren. At home, that wonderful quote of William Faulkner’s “The Past is never gone. It’s not even past,” was a reality. 

The truth is that I’ve never felt truly comfortable with the noisy, gasoline era into which I was born. Cars were something to get around in, but not by me, as a class of objects, beloved. Every time a tree falls in the creation of a road or a new development, I feel a terrible sense of loss.

I’ve often spoken of what I write as a kind of time travel, because for me that’s what it is—a way to be present in another place and time, to smell and taste that world, to deal with the hardships and the inevitable dirt and sweat, the blood and the loss, that is the genuine past.  The “romance” died quite early for me because I read and read and read, ever deeper into my chosen subjects. 

Living inside another time and place, and/or inside another culture, is truly an immersive experience; I love the scuba sense of diving in and swimming around inside the deep waters of history. Originally, I wrote from my own European-American perspective, and my books were set in 18th Century Europe or England or the colonial US.  The time shift alone caused me to change my perspective. I sometimes get nasty reviews because the 18th Century characters about whom I write do not behave up to the highest standards of the 21st Century. I always want to reply to these folks that I don't write these stories to make them comfortable. I write to show them as much as I can of what I've learned about what was--the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth--to the best of my ability.

Maybe I'd be richer if I sugar-coated, but taking the trip into the past and taking my readers along with me is always far more important than whatever is currently P.C. If you want to read about the 18th Century people, expect to meet  men who have "patriarchy" firmly entrenched in their heads and women who have no other recourse than to accept or attempt to circumvent whatever their menfolk, their churches and their society dish

out. Englishwomen, as every reader of Jane Austen ought to know, could not inherit property until quite recently.

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In Genesee, and, later, to a far greater extent, in Fly Away Snow Goose, I had another experience. To write Snow Goose, I had to shed the Euro-based colonizer culture into which I was born so that I could inhabit (as far as I was able) a life-way with a totally different outlook. The Tlicho tribe in Fly Away Snow Goose were historically a nomadic, communal people, living in small groups that, for survival reasons, became even smaller in winter--who shared food with one another. They disapproved the kind of willful ignorance of their environment, the braggadocio and "me-first-ism" that is  rampant in the capital-driven European cultures which almost overwhelmed them. 

Instead of "conquerors of nature," the Tlicho strove to always to be in "right relationship" with the earth and her creatures, to eat and/or to make use of every piece of any animal they killed. They saw the spirits in the sky and in the earth and water all across the enormous terrain they traversed every year, as they followed the caribou migration. The land under their feet was holy. Everyone had to pull together, or the group would not survive the extreme winters where starvation was a very real threat. 

Telling this story, and the experience of immersion in the words and stories of my "subjects", has changed my outlook on the day-to-day world around me in a fundamental way.  This time, the research worked a sea-change. After studying the Tlicho, I've got on an entirely new pair of spectacles.  

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~~Juliet Waldron
www.julietwaldron.com

Another Journey down I-70.

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Antioch College, Yellow Springs, OH

Old Main, built in the 1870's

I don’t do much long distance driving these days, except to western Ohio to visit my 90 year old Aunt J. She was the youngest of the 3 girls born to my grandparents. Paradoxically, she was the one always in ill health. She had trichinosis in her 1930’s childhood and barely survived. She had spinal fusion during the 60’s—not an optimum decade for surgical tinkering with the skeleton. Though she’s weak as a kitten—between busted spine and unused muscles—here she still is in 2018—breathing and talking, as full of opinions and stories as she ever was. A  perfect descripton for her would be Shakespeare’s: “though she be but little, she is fierce.”

Aunt Juliet and me, Summer 1945

ALL my female relatives were spacey in one sense or another, so I come by it naturally, but with my aunt, I am just beginning to note a faint slippage between her past and future selves. Aging is such a bitch, as it takes place on many levels, body and brain. Read a Thurber story, one like “The Night the Ghost Got in” and you’ll have a better understanding of what the women in my family are like. 

I’ve done a lot of traveling on I-70 over the last thirty years, always making the “home place” pilgrimage. My arrival brings mixed messages. Yellow Springs is nothing less than an fable I tell myself. Aged nine, I chronicled the tears when I departed, written in a journal while on my way home from Grandma and Grandpa’s house. 

In those days, I was little, cute, and good. The college was prospering; the town was eccentric, but still sleepy.

Camping with my grandparents

Physics—or, a driving story 

A long side by side train of vehicles emerging in a long snake as we go west out of Columbus. Construction, construction, on I-70 and on I-71, as well as I-270, causes a pinch point of driver’s stress.  The semis are rolling; FDX with pups, Crete, Hunt, England, and they are not the only ones, the heavy equipment long bed, except for some big chains, want to run back for the next load at 75, and a whole bunch of what I am told are called by the professionals “Roller Skates” are out there, driving like fools, a few potential dotards beside me. I--like 70% of us, I think I recently read--imagine ourselves to be "above-average"drivers. I know I'm a pretty good one, especially at defensive driving--after all, I learned to drive in Massachusetts...

 Other than the truckers, the rest are “kids” which is now, in my book, anyone under 50. Of course, the real kids, the backwards hat twenty-somethings—both male and female—can be a real problem. A couple of them in a beat up black Japanese something or other—maybe a ten year old Civic—decided that the tiny crack between a semi and the aforesaid heavy equipment long bed would be a good spot to wedge themseleves into . 

Maybe they were playing automobile roulette, or maybe they thought they were still in the video game they’d been playing earlier, the one which automatically resets the players at “start” after you die. I, at 73, have much less faith in this kind of magical thinking, so, instinctively—I was two cars back but traveling the inside lane so I had a sight line—well, I tapped my breaks, just to tune up the guys behind me. People always follow too close. A second later, the following truck hit his. 

I don’t know if the trucker screamed at the dopes who’d just asked him to perform a stock car racing kind of miracle in order to keep them alive—this, while he was just out there at 9:30 a.m. on a Monday, trying to have a decent day in the office. I prayed we all would have a decent day, and cast an eye to the road's shoulder.

 Fortunately, around Columbus is flat as a pancake, even beside the sculpted vandalism of an interstate. Flat, no big trees, no immediate barbed wire—good! To my great relief—and I don’t think I was the only one—though, nothing happened. The truck slowed, the Civic squeezed into the spot, no one touched anyone--and a good thing, too, at 75 mph.  We and the backwards hats were spared one of those hard, mean life-changing lessons about PHYSICS. 

Yellow Springs Bumper Sticker: 1.9 square miles surrounded by Reality.

Mr. Eko

The Sixties landed and never took off from this town (my hometown) in a sometimes less than pleasant way. Some things delight me, the glittery, slight sinister pipe, t-shirt & poster shops, the book store—the fabulous Dark Star--the import and antique/junk/clothing shops, the deli, little restaurants, and Tom’s small, yet incredible grocery store, full of local, organic free-range everything.

It’s the attitude of the visitors, and of many of downtown folks that grates. Some towns have drunks, and YS has always had a few. Over the years, the town also acquired the tattooed/pierced owners of lunging Akitas, the gray-disreputable chronic cafe table hogs, all of them scattering cigarette butts and dog poop indiscriminately.  I mean, you can be tattooed and pierced and have green or orange hair—no problem —just be polite and keep your butts in your pocket if you can't find an ashtray. Smile and say hello! After all, isn’t engagement the whole point of the sidewalk café sitter? And don’t let your Akita or Pitty bite me in the leg –or more to the point—the leg of my aged aunt -- as we pass by.

There’s the 21^st Century too, to contend with. The cell phone users who blindly crowd others off the sidewalk, or insist that everyone needs to listen to their very important conversation, those texting behind the wheel who can barely operate the vehicle because they are busy talking, the jay walking scofflaws--there are a plethora-- who don’t use the many well-marked crosswalks.

The big semis  who are forced to drive through on State Route 68, must really, really hate this once unremarkable small midwest town.  

~~Juliet Waldron

Fly Away Snow Goose, in the Canadian Historical Brides series

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Bringing in the May--in PA

A Love Story for Spring

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May Day is on her way—in fact, as this post goes live, I’ll be in the hills of PA at camp bringing in the day with fellow congregants.

This is the first big get-together for those of us who are just visitors to the site, the some-time pilgrims. Of course, there are folks who live at the sanctuary year round, serving the organization with hard work, both sweat and detail and are sworn to poverty. They alone witness the white sleep, the deep mud, and the green rebirth, the dry leaves, the storms and rushing waters of the Everything She Touches She Changes Creek, the focal site of the camp.  The wards of the church live with the privileges and hardships of the place, which are entangled.

Some of the pilgrims to the place are old. Some are young. 

The kids are all right! They have cool shoes that light up and neat costumes to wear and know all about Harry the Young Wizard or Gimli the Dwarf as well as Spiderman and Black Panther and Ponies.  Sometimes they have two mommies or two daddies or just a single weary parent, trying to keep up with them. The small ones will cry, grumble and yell inside the bunk house after the old and decrepit are already in bed, wrapped in sleeping bags on futons and concentrating on their muscle aches, or curled up tight hoping to warm their feet. Eventually, all the fresh air and camp excitement, the chill of the night and exhaustion from running through the long grass (kites, sparklers, noisy drones) overcomes them, and the small “replacements” will also pass into unconsciousness.

At night there will always be motion here and there, or a ritual which requires fires, flowers, smokes, and rum. Flames bloom and crackle at new-created campsites, headlamps jiggle through the dark, potty doors bang, bats twitter in the twilight. At night there is some wandering, romance for those so inclined, long philosophical discussions in a tent under party lights with cold cups of coffee or other, more Dionysian beverages at hand. 

You may take a long lonely walk through the hilltop labyrinth and then watch the sky. There are also 2 a.m. trips to the outhouse through the dew laden grass made by the elders. These latter are hoping not to trip and fall, but they are also known for pausing in order to gratefully survey the dark-dark night sky and rejoice at the sight of blazing stars that have been invisible in their light polluted home towns for decades. 

In the morning the women braid wreaths from tubs of donated flowers. Maidens and children will wear them too, as well as the May Queen. Already the ribbons and flowers have been plaited into the great wreath, the one which will be ceremonially raised to the top of the pole. A little sympathetic magic never hurt anyone, especially on behalf of our poor beleaguered planet. 

The dance, an ancient practice from another continent, will take place in the afternoon, when, usually, to our great delight, the chary spring sun comes through clouds and warms us. Shirts and shoes will come off in the humid meadow and the celebrants will enact the rite of pole and wreath, and the young men will struggle (laughter, jokes) with the rising. At last the dance of under-over-under-over will begin, braiding the bright ribbons.  Everyone in that circle will soon be sweating and breathless, dizzy from glancing up at the pole, at the swaying wreath and ribbons. 

Around us this year, the trees will be barely leafed, and the blue sky will come and go through low clouds.  Drumming will provoke showers. Elders will look on, visiting, and congratulating one another because they are still witnesses to life—Winter has “spared them over for another year.”  

~Juliet Waldron

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Magic in Deline, NWT

Our author posts this month, both for the  Books We Love Canadian Historical Brides’ blog and for this, are supposed to have a Halloween theme. I dug around and found ghost stories here and there in the NWT, but didn’t find them particularly interesting. I’ve had a few encounters with strangeness over the years myself, but thought that for this blog, too, I’d take a pass on the ghosts.

The 1^st Nation’s people of NWT/Nunavut have their own burial customs--from air burial to various strategies devised to handle permafrost—as well as tales of restless, unhappy dead. However, for me, the religious aspect of the old holiday is more  interesting. Now, in the NWT, the spirits of nature still manifest powerfully in the minds and hearts of the inhabitants, so here I’ll retell a pair of stories which are more spiritual rather than “ghostly.”

Some of the most inspirational and deeply moving stories I've encountered are told in Deline. Near a  town of about 600 souls, is Great Bear Lake, a body of water still so pure that you can drink straight from it. (That, to me, is MAGIC on our ever-more polluted planet!)

Deline has occasional UFOs, which were said to be buzzing around during the mid-1990’s, but I'd rather talk about a local hero/prophet. This man died in 1940, but left a monumental legacy behind. His name was Eht’se Ayah and he possessed traditional Shamanic powers. As one instance, he could “see” people coming to visit days before they arrived in town. He was, more importantly,  a brilliant religious teacher, affirming the generosity, charity and spiritual inter-connectedness with all life which abounds in the Athabascan belief system and marrying it to the best of the dominant culture's Christianity.  

Shrine to Prophet Ayah, Photo by Angela Gzowski for UpHere magazine

                              http://uphere.ca/articles/visions-deline


It is upon his alarming prophetic vision that  recent actions to preserve Great Bear Lake were founded. He dreamed that Great Bear would be the last source of freshwater in the world, and that "people from the south" would come in desperate hoards to fish and drink during the planetary destruction of the end times.  The power of this vision was the historic catalyst for the concerted action which culminated in the setting up of Tsá Tué Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO biosphere Reserve.

According to the New York Times writer,  PETER KUJAWINSK's FEB. 7, 2017 article:

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“It is the first time that an aboriginal government in Canada will represent everyone in the community, aboriginal and non-aboriginal alike. Taken together, the UNESCO and self-government announcements reinforce Deline’s ability to control what happens to Great Bear Lake.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/travel/great-bear-lake-arctic-unesco-biosphere-canada.html

Okay—but where’s the "magic" in conservation? Stay with me! The people of Deline are Sahtuto’ine, meaning Bear Lake People, or, commonly, North Slavey. They have a sacred story from the days long before Eht’se Ayah, told by the Sahtuto'ine forever, and one which the Prophet surely would have heard as a child.

 Once, very long ago, there was a fisherman who was also a shaman. One day, a fish bit a hook from his line but then broke free. In those days, each hook was very valuable, so he wanted to retrieve it. Because of his shamanic connection to the prey animal upon which his life depended, he was able to transform himself into a Burbot and swim down deep into the lake in order to search for the missing hook.

When he arrived at the bottom, he discovered a miraculous secret: a huge beating heart lay at the bottom of Great Bear Lake! Around the heart, a throng of fish of every kind--the Inconnu, Pike, Walleye, Lake Trout and Grayling--were gathered. The fish rejoiced and thanked this unsuspected, holy presence. 

This enormous heart, the fisherman realized, was the living source of all the freshwater in the world. And to this day, upon the continued beating of this heart, all life, everywhere on our planet, depends. 

~~Juliet Waldron

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A Master Passion--From the Cutting Room Floor

I wrote and rewrote A Master Passion for a period of fifteen years, ending with a novel well over a 1000 pages long. Some scenes, especially those in the beginning which dealt with the far less well-known Elizabeth Schuyler, were cut. This scene, telling us more about the future Mrs. Hamilton, was among the ones that fell by the wayside.

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Tench Tilghman had come north, an emissary from the Continental Congress, to attend a parley with the Indians.  General Schuyler and the Americans wished to obtain assurances of neutrality before a war with Britain broke out. 

            Today, though, as if there was no great war threatening, Tilghman and a group of young Albany gentry were on a picnic to the falls at Cohoes, which he had been told was "one of the notable sights of the region."  The Colonel accompanied Betsy in a climb to get a close look at the falls.

             The path Miss Schuyler elected was surprisingly bad. There were rocks to scramble over and around and briar patches to negotiate, but she seemed to enjoy this sort of rough ramble. At first he had wondered if this was one of these female ploys which would end with her leaning on his arm.

            Pray God I will not have to reveal my wretched state to another coquette in search of a husband.

          However, he soon learned that this dainty young lady could more than kept pace with him. Their way was almost vertical, frequently necessitating an undignified down-on-all-fours attack.  The way she'd brought him up, agile and uncomplaining as a boy, demonstrated that she'd made the climb many times.  

          Her stockings flashed, revealing the outline of pretty calves as she scaled the last rock.  Tilghman, following her, had the insouciant thought that the "best view" might possibly be from exactly where he was. 

          At the breathless top, they paused, panting,  and admired the view. Tilghman experienced an unexpected rush of pleasure. The young woman's easy manner almost made him feel he was in male company--almost.

           

          "Come, Colonel Tilghman!" Betsy shouted over the noise of falling water.  "Here's the place I spoke of."

            When he reached the height, he found himself a bare arm's length from enormous quantities of green water hurtling over a narrow lip of stone.  Falling, it became a spectacular white veil.  The ground beneath his feet shook alarmingly.

            Beside him on that rocky shelf, Betsy dropped to her knees, then stretched out on her stomach to get as close as possible to the roaring water. 

           "Do come!"

            Thunder vibrated beneath them.  The quick climb, vertigo from the height, the sight of a lady young stretched at full length on the ground--and suddenly, he felt giddy.

           The wind shifted and spray blew into their faces.   Betsy turned and smiled, a dazzling flash against her nut-brown skin.

            

            Later, they withdrew to a less precarious and quieter spot, a rock farther away, but one with a good view.  Tilghman shaded his eyes and gazed west.  Forest stretched away on the other side, an endless pine blanket.

            Below, on the other side, their horses were in clear view.  Secrets, concealed from those below, appeared plainly.  A kissing couple, concealed from the others, attracted their gaze.

            "Oh, wonderful!" Betsy laughed and then covered her smile with one hand.  Tilghman had hitherto imagined such behavior to be the prerogative of the male.  “They were made for one another, but," she added, suddenly serious, "we ought not to spy."

            Tilghman nodded, something at a loss for words. In the south, young ladies would pretend to see nothing of the indiscretion taking place below.  

            "They're both Greens." 
             Tilghman didn't understand what this meant exactly, but he realized that what they witnessed, far from being a charming indiscretion, was the outcome of some long-laid Albanian dynastic plan.  Nevertheless, it was yet another jarring moment, as stimulating as anything he'd felt during his recent visit to the Oneida camp. 

            These Northerners--both red and white—were so--frank! 

           "The sky west is marvelous." Betsy led his gaze away by pointing at the towering clouds of summer, now parading slowly overhead.             

           And it is always a lady's prerogative to change the subject...

            "Yes, indeed, although I fear from the look of those we’ll soon have rain."

            "Later today, certainly.” Betsy smiled up at him. "We shall have to start back soon." Then this charming daughter of the north solemnly posed one of the most amazing questions Mr. Tilghman had ever been asked by a proper young lady.

             "Why is it, Colonel, that you don't try to kiss me?"

               Tilghman felt the sting in the question, yet he could see that it was asked  dispassionately.

            Would any Maryland girl, or any sophisticated Philadelphia flirt, say that?  In Baltimore, in Philadelphia, such a line would be delivered behind a fan, the girl’s eyes snapping with mischief and daring him to come on.

            In her tone he detected only curiosity and a certain melancholy. There was not a hint of flirtatiousness.

            "Well, certainly, I want to—ah kiss you.” He struggled after a chivalrous answer.  "As much as any man wants to kiss a lovely lady."

            Betsy sighed as he bent over her hand.  Apparently the sight of her two Green cousins kissing had put her in a confidential mood.

            "Don't tell tales, Mr. Tilghman.  My sisters are lovely. I'm just 'good-tempered Betsy'.  That's what all my cousins say.  They skate with me, they dance with me and play hide and seek, but they don't pull me behind the curtains at parties.  Or, if they do, it's just to ask whether Angelica fancies them."

            Tilghman did have blood in his veins, so, at the sight of her pensive face, he caught her close and kissed her.  What he received in return was very sweet, so sweet, in fact, that it was far  harder to break off than he had anticipated.

            "You, Sir Marylander, you kiss exactly like my cousins."  Miss Schuyler stunned him again. She bobbed to pick a tiny red and gold spray of Indian paint brush which she then carefully tucked into a buttonhole of his blue jacket.

            Before the astonished Tilghman--he'd never before endured a critique--could find a reply, the astonishing young lady added, "I heard you were pretty warm with those Oneida girls after the pow‑wow."

            Then, before he could collect his wits, Tilghman watched a flash of green and white calico whirling away. 

            "Miss Schuyler! Wait!"

            He soon caught up with her.  The girl's big black eyes--curiously like those of the Oneida girls--were bright with tears.

            Tilghman knew his face was scarlet.  As discreet as he'd thought he’d been, somehow this little northern lady knew what he'd done.  Worse--and again, absolutely unlike her southern sisters--she'd actually dared to remark upon it!

            "Never mind, sir." Betsy lifted her chin proudly. "Most of the men around here had an Indian wife in their trading days.  Even my Papa."

            Tilghman's sensibilities reeled.  Such plain speaking! His throat closed, and suddenly he had to cough and fumble for his handkerchief.

            "Please excuse me, Colonel." Betsy now too seemed embarrassed, "You must think I am--"

            "Not at all.” With a great effort, he managed to reply with only the slightest smile.  "You are simply candid, Miss.  I must say, however, that hypocrisy is more the fashion in my country."

            

~~Juliet Waldron

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