Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 163

August 1-2, 2020: July 2020 Recap

[A Recap of the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

June 29: Patriotism’s Contested Histories: Ben and William Franklin: A July 4thseries inspired by my upcoming book kicks off with it does and doesn’t make sense to define Revolutionary Loyalists as American patriots.

June 30: Patriotism’s Contested Histories: Francis Scott Key’s Anthem: The series continues with a context and predecessor that add interesting layers to our troubling national anthem.

July 1: Patriotism’s Contested Histories: “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”: Three patriotic elements to Julia Ward Howe’s Civil War anthem, as the series rolls on.

July 2: Patriotism’s Contested Histories: The Espionage and Sedition Acts: Three telling moments from the histories of the extreme, all too salient 1917 and 1918 laws.

July 3: Patriotism’s Contested Histories: Vietnam, Spitting Protesters, and Jane Fonda: The series concludes with a few paragraphs from my book’s 1960s chapter.

July 4-5: Patriotism’s Contested Histories: Update on Of Thee I Sing!: And speaking of that book, an update on where it stands here in July 2020—check out the first blurb on the website!

July 6: Presidential Medals of Freedom: 1963 Recipients: On the anniversary of Kennedy’s creation of the honor, a Medals of Freedom series kicks off with the different categories represented by those initial 30 recipients.

July 7: Presidential Medals of Freedom: Walt Disney and T.S. Eliot: The series continues with a striking, telling pair of 1964 honorees.

July 8: Presidential Medals of Freedom: Jesse Owens and Joe DiMaggio: The diverging American stories of the first two athletes to receive medals, as the series rolls on.

July 9: Presidential Medals of Freedom: Jacques Cousteau and Chuck Yeager: Two 1985 recipients who embody two distinct visions of scientific progress.

July 10: Presidential Medals of Freedom: Springsteen and Elvis: Two recent nominees who reflect the medal’s roles as unifying occasion or partisan instrument.

July 11-12: Presidential Medals of Freedom: Rush Limbaugh: The series concludes with the more obvious and more subtle ways that the most recent recognition broke tradition.

July 13: AmericanStudying Watchmen: Tulsa: A series on last year’s best TV show kicks off with the show’s stunning opening sequence.

July 14: AmericanStudying Watchmen: Hooded Justice: The series continues with the adaptation choice that changes everything, and why it makes perfect sense.

July 15: AmericanStudying Watchmen: Rorschach and Looking Glass: How both the new show and a new character challenge a fan favorite, as the series binges on.

July 16: AmericanStudying Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan: Two ways the show humanizes the graphic novel’s most (literally) fantastic character.

July 17: AmericanStudying Watchmen: White Supremacy and America: The series concludes with one overarching choice I love, and one I’m still thinking about.

July 18-19: AmericanStudying Watchmen: Student Perspectives: A special post sharing a handful of student responses to both the graphic novel and show!

July 20: Historical Fictions: An Overview: Inspired by my summer grad class, a historical fiction series kicks off with how I’d define the genre, and how it differs from period fiction.

July 21: Historical Fictions: Kindred: The series continues with its first highlighted novel, Octavia Butler’s stunning speculative historical fiction.

July 22: Historical Fictions: Cloudsplitter: The next highlight is Russell Banks’ historical novel of John Brown through his son’s eyes, as the series reads on.

July 23: Historical Fictions: James Michener and Hawaii: James Michener’s mammoth, sweeping, deeply research historical novels are the week’s next highlight.

July 24: Historical Fictions: Five More Novels: From Doctorow to Eugenides, five more historical novel highlights round off the week’s series.

July 25-26: Crowd-sourced Historical Fictions: But wait, there’s more! A lot more, in one of the most full and multi-vocal crowd-sourced posts in my blog’s 9.5 year history.

July 27: Great Movie Speeches: Remember the Titans: A series on great film speeches kicks off with the sports speech that shouldn’t work, and why it does.

July 28: Great Movie Speeches: Wall Street: The series continues with the truth at the heart of a famous 80s speech, and how it frustratingly foreshadows the age of Trump nonetheless.

July 29: Great Movie Speeches: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: The speech that illustrates why the concept of “Capra-esque” misses much of the director’s vision, as the series orates on.

July 30: Great Movie Speeches: Jaws: The reason for the week’s series, the 75thanniversary of the U.S.S. Indianapolissinking and the stunning speech through which I learned about that history.

July 31: Great Movie Speeches: The American President: The series concludes with three of the many great lines from one of our best political speeches (even though it’s fictional!).

Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Topics you’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!

July 31, 2020: Great Movie Speeches: The American President

[On July 30th, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine on its way back from delivering the components of the atomic bombs. That wartime tragedy became the basis for one of the great speeches in American film history, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy that monologue and four other knockout cinematic orations!]On three of the many phenomenal lines from one of the most inspiring, AmericanStudying movie speeches of all time:
1)      “You cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and hand guns. I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I'm gonna convince Americans that I'm right, and I'm gonna get the guns”: My feelings about both guns and their Constitutionality are well documented, so mainly I just wanted to add here that I would really, really love to hear a president put it this succinctly and potently. We did get rid of assault weapons for a while, and it worked in precisely this way; doing so again would at least be a significant step in the right direction.
2)      “That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle age, middle class, middle income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family, and American values and character, and you wave an old photo of the President's girlfriend and you scream about patriotism”: Make America Great Again, anybody? Perhaps my only revision to this whole speech would be to add the word “imagined” before “easier,” because that time being conjured up never existed. That why I call this form of patriotism, one of the four in my forthcoming book, mythic.
3)      “America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, ‘You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.’ You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free”: And speaking of my patriotism book (which is also named for a line in one of our anthem songs, Of Thee I Sing), I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a clearer vision of what I call (there and elsewhere) critical patriotism than the final lines of this quote. Word, President Andrew Shepherd. Word. July Recap this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Other movie speeches you’d highlight?

July 30, 2020: Great Movie Speeches: Jaws

[On July 30th, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine on its way back from delivering the components of the atomic bombs. That wartime tragedy became the basis for one of the great speeches in American film history, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy that monologue and four other knockout cinematic orations!]On two ways Quint’s iconic speech captures a historic horror.As I wrote in this prior post on Jaws (1975), Steven Spielberg’s groundbreaking summer blockbuster is really a tale of two films: the Amity-setfirst half, which is as much about the community on that resort island as the unseen killer shark terrorizing it; and the ocean-bound second half, which is as much about the three men aboard the Orca as about the now-seen killer shark terrorizing them (well, technically they’re hunting it, but we all know how that goes). All three of those men are compelling characters given multi-layered life by the very talented actors playing them, but there’s no doubt that it is Robert Shaw’s Captain Quint who stands out and from whom the audience can’t look away. That’s true from the moment he enters the film until the (far more gruesome) moment he leaves it, but it’s never more true than in the scene where both the audience and his two companions finally learn a bit more about what has made Quint the way he is, both when it comes to sharks and overall: his experience aboard the doomed USS Indianapolis.  That speech is interestingly inaccurate on a basic detail about that historic horror (Quint says in the speech’s closing lines that the Indianapoliswent down on “June the 29th, 1945,” perhaps because that date flows more poetically than “July the 30th” would have, perhaps because he just got it wrong but had done such a beautiful long take that Spielberg didn’t want to re-film), but to my mind captures perfectly two sides to the event in the intimate and affecting ways that the best historical fiction can. The more obvious, but certainly crucial, side is the many stages of fear through which Quint’s masterful storytelling takes his audience, from the most graphic (that “high-pitched scream” when a shark attacks) to the more mundane (the look of a shark’s eyes, “like doll’s eyes”) to that ironic final fear as the men wait to be rescued. History and humanity are not always easy to keep in mind at the same time, and the numbers associated with the Indianapolis (which is considered the single most fatal sinking in US naval history) are a good example: Quint highlights those staggering numbers of both overall sailors and sailors lost in his closing lines too, but to my mind they don’t and can’t capture the event’s horrors and tragedies as well as the speech’s exploration of how it all felt for just one of those men.How it all felt and, in the case of a surviving veteran like Quint, how it all continues to feel. To my mind, the single best and most important line in Quint’s speech is another one from that closing section, directly following the line about the time he was most frightened (while waiting to be rescued): “I’ll never put on a life jacket again.” 316 of the ship’s 1195 total crew survived the ordeal, and it’s fair to say that all of them likely suffered from some form or another of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But PTSD (especially in large cohorts of veterans) is another of those overarching categories that can at times be difficult to think about in its most individual, intimate realities. And in this one line, both the words themselves and how he delivers them, Robert Shaw captures that human side to the traumas of war and their lingering effects; indeed, both the line and the speech as a whole force us to rethink the character in every way, including his seemingly obsessive and certainly self-destructive pursuit of the film’s titular shark. That’s a pretty darn good film speech!Last movie speech tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other movie speeches you’d highlight?

July 29, 2020: Great Movie Speeches: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

[On July 30th, 1945, the USS Indianapoliswas sunk by a Japanese submarine on its way back from delivering the components of the atomic bombs. That wartime tragedy became the basis for one of the great speeches in American film history, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy that monologue and four other knockout cinematic orations!]On what the concept of “Capra-esque” misses, and how an iconic speech embodies the director’s genuine vision.It seems to me that one central reason why a great many AmericanStudiers and scholars embrace filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, and the Coen Brothers—all directors of whom I’m not always the biggest fan, as I highlight in those hyperlinked posts—is that their visions of America and the world are consistently dark and violent (to be clear, another reason is that they’re all talented filmmakers and storytellers). [For whatever reason, Francis Ford Coppola’s darknesses work better for this AmericanStudier.] If that’s the case, it would help explain the frequent dismissal and even disdain implied by the adjective “Capra-esque,” a description often used to convey in shorthand the idea that a film or filmmaker is overly saccharine, creating a fairy tale vision of society that fails to grapple sufficiently with its darker realities and truths. Exhibit A for that definition of Frank Capra’s works would likely be It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), not just because of its feel-good title and its unquestionably happy ending, but also because of its idealized depiction of small-town Bedford Falls (as opposed to the—gasp—night clubs and other horrors of Pottersville).As a critical optimist, I’ll admit to being a sucker for happy endings, and as I wrote in this post I find the ending of Wonderful Life quite moving and profound. But I would also connect that ending to my overarching concept of “hard-won hope,” as for much of the film Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey has been anything but happy and life has seemed anything but wonderful (a storytelling choice Capra apparently made in part because he saw the darker side of Stewart that the actor’s World War II experiences, like Capra’s own, had brought out). As with so many of the happy endings in great American stories, that is, the conclusion of It’s a Wonderful Life not only doesn’t erase the darknesses which the story has consistently featured and explored, but it depends precisely on such engagement with those darker sides of life for it to have any meaning and power. From what I can tell, that dynamic far more accurately reflects Capra’s films and perspective—and thus what we might mean if we call a story “Capra-esque”—than does a simplistically saccharine tone.The same can be said for the most famous Capra speech (and another classic Jimmy Stewart moment and character), Senator Jefferson Smith’s filibuster in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). Yes, Smith concludes his marathon speech by emphasizing another idealized concept, contained in what he calls a “plain, simple rule: ‘Love thy neighbor.’” But he recognizes full well that his fight for that rule might well be “a lost cause,” which are (quoting another Senator and Smith’s icon who has turned his back on the idea) “they are the only causes worth fighting for.” The ending of this speech and scene is just as fraught and dark as those middle sections of Wonderful Life, as reflected by the transcript: “I’m going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause, even if this room gets filled with lies like these…Somebody will listen to me. Some—[Smith collapses].” As Smith has noted, a person can “even die for” lost causes, and it seems quite possible in this moment that he has given his own life in service of this one. If that’s an ideal (and it is), it’s one with a painful and dark side, which, as Frank Capra consistently depicts, is how we always find our ideals, in Washington or in Bedford Falls.Next movie speech tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other movie speeches you’d highlight?

July 28, 2020: Great Movie Speeches: Wall Street

[On July 30th, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine on its way back from delivering the components of the atomic bombs. That wartime tragedy became the basis for one of the great speeches in American film history, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy that monologue and four other knockout cinematic orations!]On a multi-layered speech that sandwiches a compelling point within an all-too-familiar mythmaking frame.The opening lines of Gordon Bekko’s “Greed is good” speech, the most famous moment in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (1987), sound eerily similar to the June 2015 speech with which Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign. Trump’s speech opens with, “Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don’t have them”; while Gekko begins, “we're not here to indulge in fantasy, but in political and economic reality. America has become a second-rate power. Its trade deficit and its fiscal deficit are at nightmare proportions.” Gekko was apparently based in large part on the prominent New York financier Ivan Boesky, who argued in a 1986 business school commencement address that “Greed is all right, by the way”; but Trump and Boesky ran in similar circles, and it seems far from coincidental that Stone puts “Make America Great Again” ideas in this character’s perspective. Like Gekko, after all (and Boesky, who not long after his speech was indicted for his role in an insider trading scandal), Trump uses this ostensible critique of our communal failings in order to advance his own agenda and wealth. Stone and Michael Douglas manage to make the deeply despicable Gekko a charismatic and at times even sympathetic character, though, and the middle of this speech illustrates one key way in which they do so: by having him make a fair amount of sense. Gekko critiques the failing Teldar Paper company this way: “Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents, each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can't figure it out. One thing I do know is that our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and I'll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents.” While 33 seems like a hyperbolic number, in keeping with the movie’s overall, over-sized satirical feel, I have to admit that Gekko’s point here feels eerily prescient of our current age of administrative bloat within my own field of higher education. As I’ve argued elsewhere, by far the #1 reason for public higher ed’s financial struggles is defunding; but even if our proliferation of VPs and Deans and other administrators are not as central a cause as Gekko argues about these VPs, it remains deeply frustrating to learn of admin salaries that double or triple faculty compensation, all in an era of budget cuts and crises. In the middle of this speech, anyway, Gekko’s got me.But in the speech’s final section, Gekko returns to and amplifies his opening MAGA-esque frame. The closing is best known for its “Greed—for lack of a better word—is good” line, but it also includes two parallel and even more problematic ideas. One is an implied embrace of the eugenicist theories known as Social Darwinism: “The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest…Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.” And the other is captured in Gekko’s culminating phrase: “And greed—you mark my words—will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.” Few recent political ideas have been more pernicious and destructive than the notion that the government is akin to and should be run like a business, and here Gekko goes one significant step further still: defining the nation itself as a corporation. I’m fine with the idea that all Americans are stakeholders in our society, but that’s not at all Gekko’s emphasis here—his repeated celebration of greed makes clear that it’s the corporate prioritizing of profit which he’s highlighting. Profit also seems clearly to be what President Trump has meant by “winning”—and just like Gordon Gekko before him, Trump means profit for himself and his friends, not (indeed, at the expense of) the rest of us stakeholders. Next movie speech tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other movie speeches you’d highlight?

July 27, 2020: Great Movie Speeches: Remember the Titans

[On July 30th, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine on its way back from delivering the components of the atomic bombs. That wartime tragedy became the basis for one of the great speeches in American film history, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy that monologue and four other knockout cinematic orations!]On the over-the-top scene and speech that really shouldn’t work, but somehow do.About midway through Remember the Titans (2000), Denzel Washington’s Coach Herman Boone takes the players on his newly integrated Virginia high school football team (who have gone to Pennsylvania for training camp) on a midnight jog. The team ends up, to their and the audience’s surprise, on the grounds of Gettsyburg National Military Park, where Boone gives a speech on the Civil War battle and both its continuing resonances in and potential lessons for the team’s and its community’s struggles with racial discord and division. The speech and scene ends with Boone’s fervent hope that perhaps, if the players and team can learn the lessons that the battle’s dead soldiers have to offer, they can “learn to play this game like men.”For anybody who has any sense of the horrific awfulness that was Gettysburg, or just the horrific awfulness that was the Civil War in general (and I’m not necessarily disagreeing with Ta-Nehisi Coates when he argues that the war wasn’t tragic, but it sure was bloody and awful in any case, and never more so that on days like Gettysburg’s), this evocation of the battle’s dead for a football team’s lessons feels a bit ridiculous. For that matter, if we think about the most famous speech delivered at the battlefield, in tribute to those honored dead and in an effort to hallow that ground (a phrase that Boone overtly echoes in his own closing thoughts), the filmmakers’ choice to put Boone’s speech in the same spot (and I don’t know whether the Gettysburg speech took place in the real-life histories on which the film is based, but it seems from this article as if it didn’t and it’s a choice in the film in any case) feels even more slight and silly in comparison to that transcendent historical moment.So the scene and speech really shouldn’t work, not for this AmericanStudier at least—but I have to admit that they did when I saw the movie, and did again when I watched the scene to write this post. Partly that’s due to the performances—Denzel is always Denzel, and the main kids are uniformly great as well (including a young Wood Harris, later Avon Barksdale on The Wire). Partly it’s because great sports films are particularly good at taking what is by definition cliché and making it feel new and powerful in spite of that familiarity. And partly, ironically given those Gettysburg contrasts, it’s because of the history—because this football team and its story does connect to America’s tortured and far too often tragic legacy of racial division and discrimination, and because the story and thus the film represents one of those moments when we transcended that legacy and reached a more perfect union. When sports, sports films, and sports film inspiring speeches are at their best, they have that potential, which is one main reason why we keep going back to them.Next movie speech tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other movie speeches you’d highlight?

July 25-26, 2020: Crowd-sourced Historical Fictions

[Earlier this month, I began teaching my graduate American Historical Fiction: Practice and Theory class for the fifth time, this time entirely online. So this week I’ve briefly highlighted (busy with teaching and all) a handful of exemplary historical fictions and related contexts. Leading up to this crowd-sourced post featuring the responses and nominations of fellow HistoricalFictionStudiers—add yours in comments, please!]Following up Tuesday’s Kindred post, Kaitlynn Chase writes, “The graphic novel of Kindredby Damien Duffy and John Jennings is also stunning, an extremely powerful take on Octavia Butler’s phenomenal work!” She adds, “Also, Pauline Hopkins.”Following up Thursday’s Hawaiipost, Donna Moody shares, “It was one of my favorite Michener novels...really illuminated the hypocrisy of the colonizers.”In response to the same post, Rick Kosan writes, “I’ve read Hawaii, Alaska and Space. Bought Iberia a long time ago but still haven’t tackled it. ‘Deeply researched’ may be the king of Twitter understatements. In Space, for an example, IIRC, Cape Canaveral/Cocoa Beach, FL, isn’t even mentioned until well over 500 pages in.” He also highlights the works of Leon Uris, “especially Mila 18, Trinity, and QB VII. Exodus is his most famous book and is also worthy of study.”Responding to Friday’s post, Glenna Matthews tweets, “Alias Graceis a fave. Stunning imagination at work in conjuring up the humiliations of being a servant in that time and place.”Other historical fiction nominees:Carol DeGrasse nominates "Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad . Hands down. But also The Nickel Boys . So hard to choose just one."Joe Fruscione seconds those, and adds Melville’s Benito Cereno .Hannah Murrayagrees on Whitehead, and adds Hernan Diaz’s In the Distance . Kent Rose concurs on Whitehead, and adds Wiley Cash’s The Last Ballad . Lara Schwartz agrees that “Underground Railroad is heart-stoppingly beautiful,” and also writes, “Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel are gripping and exciting.”Summer Lopezresponds, “I think I said Wolf Halllast year! Would also flag A Place of Greater Safety , her French Revolution book, which is *maybe* even better.”Kate Kostelnik agrees on Underground Railroad, and adds, “George Saunders’ most recent novel about Lincoln is historical/fantastical (made that category up myself, I think).”Lisa Moison nominates Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth .Michele Townes goes with Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War and the sequel War and Remembrance . She adds, “ Some Sing, Some Cry by Ntozake Shange and Ifa Bayeza (‘reading’ it on Audible with narration is amazing with all the dialects).”Jenny Fielding shares, “Alison Weir. She is a prolific historical biographer and so her historical fiction is full of spot on details. Amor Towles has an impeccable eye for the feel of a period. The Name of the Rose by Eco. Isabel Allende. Colson Whitehead. Possessionby A.S. Byatt.”AnneMarie Donahue nominates, “For Whom the Bell Tolls (I know that makes me sooooo pretentious, but Hemingway man!), White Queen (all that Phillipa Gregory shit really), World War Z (I know it doesn't count I don't care), Dread Nation (again probably doesn't count don't care was nice to read a book where almost all the characters were POC), oh and most of the history books I read in junior high and high school, very creative revision of brutality.” She adds Raymond A. Villareal’s A People’s History of the Vampire Uprising . writes, “Going back a bit, but I've always been a fan of Arthur Conan Doyle's historical fiction (which he preferred to his Sherlock Holmes stories), both the short stories (stand-alone ones, such as the ones in the Tales of Long Ago collection, as well as the Brigadier Gerard series) and the novels ( The White Company and its prequel Sir Nigel are my two favorites).”Justin Mason goes with “ The Killer Angels for sure. I would actually like to read The Devil in the White City and Killers of the Flower Moon as well at some point.”Lydia Currie writes, “I dare you to recommend Outlander to your blog audience.” [BEN: Dare accepted!]Paige Wallace agrees, “Outlanderforever and always.” She adds, “ A Transcontinental Affair by Jodi Daynard was lovely.”Sarah Chinn tweets, “ The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman is amazing.”Sarah West nominates, “ Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. Amazing scope and fantastic writing.” She adds, “Also, A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. Fantastical and amazing.”Catherine Wiley seconds the Tale for the Time Being love, and adds, “Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum is one of my favorite books of all time. One of those follow-a-family-through-generations type things, but brilliant. And very vivid re the lived experience of two world wars.”Amy Johnson highlights The Lost Girls of Paris . Gabrielle Crowley nominates The Nightingale . Tim McCaffrey writes, “Just finished the Aubrey-Maturin series—very good if you like light reading about early 19th century English navy stuff.”Derek Tang highlights Tom Clancy, especially his early works.Veronica Hendrick shares, “Sally Gunning’s Bound is good. I haven’t read her other works, but a friend loves them all.”Andrew DaSilva nominates, “ Two Brothers by Ben Elton, 11/22/63 by Stephen King and The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien though I am unsure if the last one counts it's very loosely a historical fiction...” [BEN: It all counts!]Olivia Lucier writes, “When I was a kid I loved those Dear America books. Diaries about girls throughout history. Recently boys and then more historical figures. Loved them because I was exposed to historical events that I didn’t know much about: a girl living in a Tory family during the Revolution, Native American tribes, an Irish mill girl, an escaped slave, etc. enjoyed reading them again and again!”Christina Proenza-Coles highlights The Known World by Edward P. Jones. Betsy Cazdenwrites, “The novel that more than any other got me interested in history (and Quakers) was The Witch of Blackbird Pond . It's historically accurate and superb writing.”Matthew Teutsch goes with Frank Yerby (for more on whom see his new collection), especially “The Foxes of Harrow, The Vixens, and Benton's Row for American, and “The Saracen Blade (13th century Italy) and Goat Song (ancient Sparta and Athens) for wide historical.” He adds, “The Dahomean is important, and its follow up A Darkness at Ingraham's Crest, because the first is set in Africa and the second in Antebellum South, and they trace the same character.”Gabriella Friedman nominates “Toni Morrison's A Mercy (really any Morrison novel, but A Mercyis an under-rated one that is a really interesting take on colonial New England).” She adds, “Blake Hausman's Riding the Trail of Tears (set in the present but features a VR ride where tourists experience the Trail of Tears),” and “some others: Gerald Vizenor's "Custer on the Slipstream," Stephen Graham Jones's Ledfeather , Louise Erdrich's The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse .”Bruce Simonwrites, “Morrison's Beloved for the way it links middle passage, slavery, Reconstruction, and post-Reconstruction lives and deaths! I wrote on Gayl Jones's Corregidora a few decades back in Race Consciousness (ed. Fossett + Tucker). Submitted an early draft to Morrison when applying to be a teaching assistant for her Studies in American Africanism course, not knowing she edited Jones's manuscript. Got the job. In a totally different direction, Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt is both an alternate history novel and a meditation on the writing of history. For totally made up worlds that also feature meditations on history and the writing of it, you can't beat Steven Brust and N.K. Jemisin. Spread out over series, but Dragaera (esp. Khaavren romances) and Broken Earth are amazing experiments in both worldbuilding and literary form.”Shirley Samuels, who wrote about 19th century historical fiction in her wonderful Romances of the Republic , highlights James Fenimore Cooper’s The Spy . She adds, “It’s easy to forget that Last of the Mohicans is historical fiction...”Donna Campbellnominates “Gore Vidal, Burr . Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence & Old New York . Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage .”Kate Wells writes, “I like pretty much all of Edward Rutherfurd's novels. Also, The Alienistby Caleb Carr; The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon; The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco; Belovedby Toni Morrison; The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich.Summer Lopez asks, “Has anyone said Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan? She's the president of my org, so I'm biased (because she's also a lovely human), but it's such a meticulously researched, evocatively detailed, gorgeously written book.”And Ezekiel Healy writes, “Ever heard of Tipping the Velvet (1998) by Sarah Waters? It’s a lesbian, coming of age, romance, and more novel, set mostly in London around the turn of the century. Recommended!” Now that’s what the crowd-sourced posts are all about—a book I’ve never heard of and can’t wait to read, shared by a childhood friend who is part of my (clearly) amazing circle of online connections! Next series starts Monday,BenPS. Other historical fictions or authors you’d highlight?

July 24, 2020: Historical Fictions: Five More Novels

[Earlier this month, I began teaching my graduate American Historical Fiction: Practice and Theory class for the fifth time, this time entirely online. So this week I’ll briefly highlight (busy with teaching and all) a handful of exemplary historical fictions and related contexts. Share your own favorite historical fictions or authors for a boundary-blurring crowd-sourced weekend post, please!]For the fifth post, quick hits on five more nominees for amazing American (or, in one case, Canadian—but I’m a hemispheric AmericanStudier, after all!) historical novels:1)      E.L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel (1971)2)      Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels (1974)3)      David Bradley’s The Chaneysville Incident (1981)4)      Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace (1996)5)      Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex (2002)Crowd-sourced post this weekend,BenPS. So one more time: what do you think? Other historical fictions or authors you’d highlight?

July 23, 2020: Historical Fictions: James Michener and Hawaii

[Earlier this month, I began teaching my graduate American Historical Fiction: Practice and Theory class for the fifth time, this time entirely online. So this week I’ll briefly highlight (busy with teaching and all) a handful of exemplary historical fictions and related contexts. Share your own favorite historical fictions or authors for a boundary-blurring crowd-sourced weekend post, please!]Today’s nominee for an amazing American historical novel is James Michener’s Hawaii (1959).It’s fair to say, using the categories for which I argued in Monday’s post, that Michener’s best-selling historical epics are more period fiction than historical fiction—he’s certainly most interested in human experiences and relationships, rather than in thorny questions of American history per se. But on the other hand, his novels are multi­-period, tracing centuries of community and identity in each of his focal places, and that makes them both unique and in and of themselves historically grounded (and researched) in every effective ways. Most any of those epics could have been my focus here, but Hawaii was really his first in this category, and exemplifies his talents and successes for sure.Last historical fiction tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other historical fictions or authors you’d highlight?

July 22, 2020: Historical Fictions: Cloudsplitter

[Earlier this month, I began teaching my graduate American Historical Fiction: Practice and Theory class for the fifth time, this time entirely online. So this week I’ll briefly highlight (busy with teaching and all) a handful of exemplary historical fictions and related contexts. Share your own favorite historical fictions or authors for a boundary-blurring crowd-sourced weekend post, please!]Today’s nominee for an amazing American historical novel is Russell Banks’s Cloudsplitter (1998). I’ll admit it, for a long time I hated Banks’ novel; not because of anything really about it, but because my fallback plan had always been to write a historical novel about John Brown from the point of view of one of his sons, and then Banks went ahead and did that and did it amazingly well. But you can only hold onto your hate for so long before you realize that an amazing historical novel about fathers and sons, family and nation, violence and spirituality, the coming of the Civil War, and heroism and villainy in American identity is worth celebrating. Even if it did crush your dreams a bit.Next historical fiction tomorrow,BencPS. What do you think? Other historical fictions or authors you’d highlight?