Is The Cannon Thing True?
In Book of Shadows, which is free to read online, Sepha wonders about a cannon:
She stared at the tank in front of her. An M-4 Sherman. She thought. But she wasn’t sure. The parks of New England were full of such things, tanks and cannons and who knew what else. She’d read a story awhile before about a cannon that had been sitting in one park since the Civil War, all that time loaded with a live round. City workers had dutifully filled the muzzle with concrete, not bothering to check the breech. Thus creating, she supposed, the potential for some terrifying shrapnel. Another way to die, that she was missing out on.
She’s sitting in a place called, also somewhat unbelievably, Patton Park. Not because the vaunted general is from here (he, like Sepha, originally hailed from California) but because he moved here after he retired. He…and his tank. The Patton family farm, Green Meadows, has each of its fields named after different soldiers who died under the younger Patton’s command command in Vietnam.
History is interesting.
And the history behind Book of Shadows is all…well, real. There might be no vampires that we know of (yet), but Hamilton is certainly a real place. And Alex’s backstory is the result of a great deal of research. But those who’ve been with me for awhile know I’m fascinated by the 1857 mutiny and, indeed, based a section of another book on it. In researching for this book, though, I spent a great deal of time not only reading but also driving around, and hiking around, and getting to know my surroundings. It was one thing to know them as a resident; quite another to discover them, all over again, as an author.
Reading is helpful, but no amount of reading can really replace getting out there. This is the second book I’ve set in the so-called “real” world, but it’s the first I’ve set in my own backyard and one of the reasons behind that is that there is so much going on here. I, personally, find the area’s history (from the Salem Witch Trials to the China Trade, the whaling trade, and everything in between) fascinating. There’s still a dark stain, here; which I think is part of what H.P. Lovecraft must have picked up on.
There’s only one element–aside from, arguably, Alex–that’s a bit fanciful, which is that I renamed an inn in Marblehead for the purposes of one dinner and added a restaurant. Fans of the town’s history will know that there was once a restaurant there and fans of the broader Commonwealth’s history will recognize features of the Wayside Inn in Sudbury (which is, indeed, America’s oldest continuously operating inn). But all the really stupid stuff–from weapons to country club rivalries–is true.
What’s your favorite unfortunate bit of history?
