Beth Kanell's Blog, page 29

History Detectives: Sorting the Evidence

The Rev. Joshua YoungFinding a bloody handkerchief next to a murder victim is very different from finding one in the rest room of a travel stop, where someone might have paused to deal with a bloody nose.

In the same way, evidence in the files of Underground Railroad history has to be checked against its surroundings, and against other nearby evidence. A perfect example comes from mentions of the Rev. Joshua Young, who became a minister at the Unitarian church in Burlington, Vermont, in 1852. Noted for his anti-slavery views, he is quoted as having said that "every sea-port was a station" for the Underground Railroad in New England -- and that may reflect most of all his experience BEFORE coming to Burlington, when he served in Boston (ordained there in 1849; the New York Times mentioned this date in Young's 1904 obituary). In Vermont, he had a "troubled ministry, and the controversy over his views on slavery compelled him to resign," says the current history of Burlington's Unitarian Universalist church. But before he did so, he became famous in 1859 as the minister who presided over the funeral of African American rebel John Brown, after Brown was hanged for leading a raid at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. No wonder people connected him then, and connect him still, with abolitionist groups and the Underground Railroad!

But how often, in Burlington, Vermont, did this minister shelter fugitives? Recorded numbers of African Americans passing through the area are relatively small. The most quoted source for Vermont Underground Railroad statistics, the work of Joseph Siebert, has been largely discredited. And Jane Williamson, director of Rokeby, Vermont's Underground Railroad museum and former home of the Robinson family, suggests that the politics of Burlington at the time -- heavily dominated by South-favoring "Democrats" (the political parties were different then!) -- would have made the town a less likely area for active assistance to fugitives.

One letter quoted by the North Country Underground Railroad Historical Association, written by a Rhode Island Quaker, Elizabeth Buffum Chace, includes her recollections as she looked back in the year 1891, and she mentioned the Rev. Young as being part of the "Vermont road" for fugitives.

How old was she when she wrote that letter? Could she have mixed up the Rev. Young's Boston role with his Vermont role? Could she be thinking of one fugitive, rather than a pattern of fugitives?

A good challenge for history detectives: Find out everything possible about Mrs. Chace and about Burlington in the 1850s and weight the evidence, as Shawna and Thea do for "North Upton" in the book The Secret Room. Do the same for your own town -- I'm especially interested in hearing about any place where Quakers were known to live in the 1800s. Let me know what you find out, would you please?

On the Road Again: Fun in Flood Season, and Schools Are on My Mind

One of my best adventures for March was a visit two weeks ago to Hawthorne, New Jersey, during flood season. My sister-in-law Cheryl warned me bluntly, "There are roads closed everywhere, but I have no idea which ones. You'll have to find your way."

Luckily, the roads I needed to arrive at Hawthorne's Well Read Bookstore (seen above) were relatively dry, and aside from two or three traffic jams, the routes functioned as planned. Good thing, because I was eager to meet the Science Fiction Society of Northern New Jersey -- a lively group of about twenty people on March 12, gathered for a panel on "Diversity in Fiction." Flood season also turned out to be flu season, and I was the lone author for the three-woman panel. But that turned out to be lots of fun, as I rattled off some of the Vermont stories (some scandalous!) behind The Darkness Under the Water and merged into a great discussion with people like Todd, Aurelia, Remiler, Beverly, and Chris, about what the risks are in crafting fiction that extends into the secrets and guarded truths of history.

That may sound a bit too focused on the past for a group dedicated to visions of the future -- but we all recognized that the futures we're crafting depend on how we understand what's already happened. I loved every minute of it, and even aired a page and a half of a novel of "speculative fiction" (placed about 15 years forward from now) that I've started writing, Bear-Shadow. Thanks, SFSNNJ and Well Read hosts, for a grand time.

I came home after the rapid road trip and collapsed into two weeks of bronchitis, so it's good to be breathing-without-coughing at last; this week included a couple of visits to St. Johnsbury (Vermont) Academy to talk about revision and to learn from translators Alexander O. Smith and Elye Alexander, who brought The Devotion of Suspect X  by Keiko Higashino into English (as they have for many a video game and RPG).

Coming in April:  Catching up with readers at the Lisbon (NH) Regional School. And lining up summer conversations about The Darkness Under the Water and autumn ones (Sept./Oct. in Vermont; Nov. in NJ) for The Secret Room. There's a Skype author visit in the future for Bellows Free Academy in St. Albans, VT, too.

More about that, later!
 

Details, Details ... It's all in the details!

I'm excited that my 2010 writing project, a murder mystery called Cold Midnight, is being read by a few people who might choose to escort it into print. The writing process may be long ... but the publishing process is often even longer!

Cold Midnight takes place in 1921, a year of exciting developments like fast cars and short skirts. In Vermont, change often arrives a bit later, but there's no question that downtown St. Johnsbury hosted the local equivalent of the speakeasy, as well as flappers, barnstormers, and ... whatever else of national culture could arrive on the train.

Working out the "back story" to the novel involved me in a lot of details I hadn't considered before. For instance, I know what a 1921 kitchen looked like -- some are still more or less intact here! -- but had no clue about bathrooms. Not every novel involves a  bathroom, but at one point in Cold Midnight, the second most important character in the book, Ben Riley, needs to clean up, in order to keep his mother from worrying about why he's been out at night. He lives in the grandest house in town, but he's the son of the cook/housekeeper. Would he use the fancy facilities that the owners enjoyed? I thought probably not ... but although "outhouses" (outdoor bathrooms) still existed around here then, I also though the mansion owner would provide something a bit better for the "help." Here are the two images of bathrooms that I worked with, one fancy, one plain.

Oh, you might ask, who's the most important character in the book? That would be Claire -- Claire Benedict. She's got her reasons for being out at night, too. Heaven help her, if her mother ever knew.

Hmm: Not June, but September, Instead ...

One of the reasons I don't want to be my own publisher is that there are so many complications that require dedicated attention -- and I'd rather put that attention into my writing! Neil Raphel and Janis Reye, the publishing team in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, bringing The Secret Room into pages, took a hard look at the schedule right after announcing the book publication date for June, and said: "Nope, it will have to be September." So that's the new date, and I appreciate their hard work very much! Anyone wanting to review the book before then, though, will have an opportunity to do so through "Voyage" (the imprint); details later on that.

Meanwhile ... here we go! Have I mentioned that September is my favorite month?

On Our Way! Draft Cover ... and June Publication ...

"When I Find My Real Parents, Then I'm Going to ..."

I've heard that lots of people imagine at some point that they've been adopted, or kidnapped, or some other reason that could end up meaning that their "real parents" aren't the ones who are raising them, scolding them, feeding them, loving them. A classic twist is that the vanished parents are rich, or royal, and all that good stuff will arrive as soon as the mystery is solved.

In The Secret Room (that's my 2011 book coming out from Voyage in June), there's no reason to suspect such a situation in Shawna Lee's life. Sure, her dad died when she was little, but her mother married a nice guy and Shawna likes him.  Until the moment her new neighbor, Thea Warwick, works on a math problem with her, Shawna hasn't expected mysteries in her life at all.

Neither did two people that I've known very closely as adults, who accidentally found out that the families they'd been living in weren't who and what they seemed. Truth can be stranger than fiction -- or it can be the inspiration for a novel.

Don't ask me how the Underground Railroad got tied up in all this. I only know that the puzzle pieces in front of me included a "hiding place" in an old house in the town where I used to live.

And that's how a story begins.

The Long Line of Research

Last week I read In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick. Grippingly told and heavily supported by research, the book explores the final trip of a Nantucket whaling ship -- struck in the Pacific Ocean by a belligerent whale, so that the crew had to try to survive literally months on the ocean in small, leaking boats, starving. I could hardly put it down.

And that's a tiny fragment of the research that will go into a novel that I probably won't start writing until 2013 or so! The main character will be a young woman unexpectedly widowed in Provincetown, while pregnant with her second child; her husband was a sailor on a whaleboat. She was my five-greats grandmother, and I have her portrait. I imagine her life, and it becomes part of a story.

Much closer to home, and sooner to be written, is a novel that involves a string of downtown fires in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. I've drafted a chapter in order to have a starting place -- and I know that the person looking at the fires is named Addie. She's scrambling to keep up with what the local newspaper expects from her. "Anyone" can take photos of fires today, but digging into the stories behind them takes courage and persistence. Addie's a good candidate for that! Too bad that one result of her digging is the appearance of ... well, it looks like a ghost to her. The book title is THE FIRE CURSE and I'm hoping to get it rolling in February.

At the same time, I'm outlining two others: BEAR-SHADOW (I am learning a lot about weather, and just got a great book on crystals to help with this one), and OPHELIA OF THE NORTH (don't ask, I can't talk about this one much yet; the characters are talking in my other ear and it confuses the conversation!).

So that's how the research strands continue: I'm still filing materials that fill in the gaps behind The Darkness Under the Water (published by Candlewick in 2008) and polishing the text of The Secret Room, which should be available in late summer this year. But meanwhile, everything else has to stay rolling, with information, images, and more. By the way, the photo here is of a recent downtown fire in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, about five miles from here -- Dave and I were able to see the light of the fire in the sky that night.

Home. Really.

It's a magical day. Neil Raphel and Janis Raye of Brigantine Media agreed today to publish my YA adventure, THE HUNGRY PLACE. The contract is signed.

But way more important than the contract is this: We three sat at Neil and Janis's table and for the first time in the life of this book, I heard someone other than me and my thoughts say, "Shawna is so cool, and here's what I want to know about Thea."

After living for two years with Shawna and Thea and their families and neighbors in my life, only my life,  it's like opening a door into a room where you've never been, and finding that the person on the other side of the door knows -- knows really, really well -- your sister or your brother or your best friend. You're home, in a new place, and the smile in front of you touches your heart.

Photo here: Old North Church in winter, not far from where Shawna and Thea "live" in North Danville, Vermont. With luck and hard work, you'll all get to "meet" these feisty teens in 2011. Watch for news, as Neil and Janis and editor Adrienne and I move "the girls" toward publication. Hurrah!

To Every Thing There Is a Season ...

After completing COLD MIDNIGHT last month, I'm taking a break for poetry, walks in the woods, and of course family and friends during the holidays.  In January, I'll start writing THE FIRE CURSE -- and meanwhile I've pinned lots of related material onto my work walls.

Temperatures are plunging, now that we have snow on the ground. Here's a related poem from my collection Mud Season at the Castle.

Ten-Below-Zero Morning

Even inside the windows, the frost
glares back at me in the early morning --
this is the try-your-souls cold weather
striking the house with stiffness that groans
like a car engine far too depressed
to spark into life.

God's gift to the morning must be coffee.
Clutching a steaming mug, blowing
my breath on the frosted window, I clear
a space -- a hole to look through
and eye the thermometer's short red line
squatting at ten below zero.
My knees ache in sympathy.
Oh coffee, warm me and wake me slowly
spread heat in my belly, let courage
rise to my eyes.

Bitter arctic weather with wind:
long johns and turtleneck, sweater and corduroys
thick fuzzy socks and fleece-lined boots.
I wrap myself in simple comforts
gaze at the bright blue sunstruck sky
and try to hold breath and heat and life
inside my woolly garments.

These days when the sun is low and lukewarm
these days when the wind steals the fire's delight
are days when I call you to hear your voice
for heat in my heart and a sort of leap
like coffee waking the courage
into my eyes.

Streetcars in Boston, 1921

I've finished writing Cold Midnight and the manuscript, which half a dozen generous readers absorbed chapter by chapter over the past year, is now in the hands of my agent -- the first person to read the book from start to finish all at once.

One of my chapter-at-a-time readers e-mailed me earlier today, asking about a moment when Claire Benedict, one of the two teens featured in the novel, is barefoot in winter in 1921. The consequences for Claire's feet are extreme, but ... well, the end of the book gives some idea of how her recovery may be going. If you've ever walked in snow in bare feet, you have an idea of what's at stake! I have a bit of experience in this -- my sons and I had to walk one-third of a mile in our socks in a snow-covered landscape in the middle of the night once, at twenty-three degrees below zero. Later that week, the skin on our feet peeled from the frostbite.

Shown here is a photo that I was glad to find online, as it gave me some confirmation of what the streetcars in Boston in 1921 could have been like. This photo is from another city, but the year is right, and it's a clearer shot than the ones I found that were from "Beantown." Every detail matters ...

And just in case you wonder what it feels like to have finished the book: Actually, it feels very quiet inside. Neither Claire nor Ben is pushing me to tell what happens next in their story. For the moment, at least, I can hear only my own voice in my thoughts.

You know, it's a little bit too quiet. I might have to start the next book later this week.