Richard’s Comments (group member since Jun 12, 2012)

Richard’s comments from the Q&A with Richard Sharp group.

Thank you, Rick and JR --

Some may disagree with my calling a novel that extends into the present "historical fiction," but at least that conveys more to the potential reader than "literary fiction," which only says to most people that the writer has a large ego. In my defense, I did try to make my saga of some fifty years as historically accurate as possible in terms of events and settings. In today's rapidly changing world that requires a bit of research, even if you lived through it!

J wrote: "Thank you Richard for the invite.I enjoy reading about History and your novel sounds very interesting.
Thank you, J.R.Ortiz"

Personal information. I am a member of the "Silent Generation," the subject of "The Duke Don't Dance." Born in the 1940s into a farming family who had migrated to rural Colorado from Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl, I traveled east as a young adult to receive degrees from Harvard and Princeton Universities. My writing is enriched from career experiences across America and in some four dozen countries, spanning the Vietnam War era through the present. Following years in the Washington, DC area, with assignments mainly in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the former Soviet Union (many providing scenes for "The Duke..."), I now reside with my wife in Charlotte, North Carolina.

As noted in my introduction, I consider The Duke Don't Danceto be a historical novel, even though it continues into the present. It actually followed my writing of two undoubtedly historical novels ("Jacob's Cellar" and "Time is the Oven"), previously unpublished due to the press of my professional career. The first concerns the slow and difficult assimilation of a non-English speaking immigrant family into American culture over the hundred years culminating in the Civil War. The second is a kind of "Anti-Western" take on Missouri in the tumultuous years from the close of the Civil War through the turn of the century. Jacob's Cellar was released in November 2012 and Time Is the Oven was released in late December 2012.

"The Duke" and the author's two unpublished historical novels projected for fall 2012 release were partly inspired by Isabel Allende's works capturing eras and social mileau not extensively treated in popular literature. My novels similarly concern the passage of time, how the protagonists do and do not change over the years and the spirit of times and places gradually being lost to history.

"The Duke," specifically, is influenced by the songs and poetry of Jim Morrison, the humor of Joseph Heller, the dramatic physicality of Bertolt Brecht and the music and popular culture of the Silent Generation. The novel seeks to give authenticity to wholly fictional characters by placing them in situations that are accurate in fine detail, so that, for example, if you were actually present at the Beach Boys 1981 concert on the National Mall you would think "my god, that episode could have happened just like that during the playing of 'Don't Worry Baby'." The hope is those little touches also can transport a reader born in, say, 1990, back to that time; not just appeal to the nostalgia of a fading generation.

The Duke Don't Dance's protagonists are highly fallible and resolutely unprepentent, not wasting time on "what could have been," not dwelling on regrets. They are defiantly themselves, learning from the past or laughing at it, accepting its permanence, enjoying the moment and perhaps the future. I hope that is contagious to the reader.

I welcome any comments in influences and writing process.

This Q&A is about the writing of Richard Sharp, author of the novel,Crystal Ships, an epic of the Sixties released 22 November 2013, The Duke Don't Dance, and two 19th Century American historical novels, Jacob's Cellarand Time Is the Oven.