AMERICAN HISTORICAL NOVELS discussion
DAYS OF HOPE, Fred Dickey
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AUTHOR INTERVIEW - DAY 3
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We are definitely "downsizing" this Thanksgiving. Just us and a little turkey breast. No grandma (92) and no grandson (3). We will miss them this year. How about you? Anyone traveling? What is it like in the airports and on the roads?
Oxen pulled most of the wagons (and most of the people actually walked the whole way!)The first historical fiction book I read that I can remember is Gone With the Wind. The latest one is Another Woman's Husband.
Linda wrote: "Oxen pulled most of the wagons (and most of the people actually walked the whole way!)The first historical fiction book I read that I can remember is Gone With the Wind. The latest one is Another..."
Yes! Many paintings and reenactments reflecting that time show horses and mules pulling the wagons, but that is not true. Horses need grain; mules to a lesser degree. They are fine for short trips but not long ones like this. Oxen can live on about anything that grows.
Great book choices. You might try Kenneth Roberts. I like his work. Also Vardis Fisher's "Mountain Man."
Pumpkin pie is baking..smells so good! What are you having tomorrow?
We are trying a new pumpkin dip this year. It feels like 2020 needs a new treat.
I actually read an early book about the Oregon called Amanda. Wonder why? But probably the first historical anything I read was the Little House on the Prairie books.
Amanda wrote: "We are trying a new pumpkin dip this year. It feels like 2020 needs a new treat."Kathy is making Stuffin' Muffins. That will be new.
Amanda wrote: "I actually read an early book about the Oregon called Amanda. Wonder why? But probably the first historical anything I read was the Little House on the Prairie books."Maybe Amanda was the lead character? Liked the Little House TV show.
Just got a real nice review on Amazon, from someone named Leroy in Washington. Eight 5-Star reviews so far. Nice, but need more reviews."What a surprise to me to stumble upon so many books about the great wagon trains migration of the last half of the nineteenth century. The half dozen or so that I read followed similar plot lines.
“Days of Hope.....”. is different. Different in that there was so much more emphasis on the day to day interactions between members of the train. And different in the tasks and trials and struggles and dangers along the trail. The author certainly made me realize these folks did this for FIVE months. Mosquitoes my gosh!
For some reason the earlier books I first read ended when the wagons reached Oregon. These folks, on the other hand went left for California. A very different picture was made of Captain Sutter than I had seen before. As they might say, “Very interesting”.
Not so much a book about unicorns and rainbows but of the difficult trip and the hard work required of these adventurers. "
Definitely makes it sound like this is a good read!
oxen.Can't remember first.
reading a few around the holocaust.
Books about the holocaust really upset me.
Mod
We are continuing the interview with Fred Dickey, who recently released an American historical novel, DAYS OF HOPE, MILES OF MISERY – LOVE AND LOSS ON THE OREGON TRAIL.
**There is a Goodreads Giveaway going on right now for 50 Kindle (ebook) copies of this book. It ends Dec. 15. Go to: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...
**Also, those who comment or ask questions on this forum will qualify for a chance for a signed print book.
Rebecca: What was the first historical novel you read?
Fred: WAR AND PEACE as a high school freshman. Don’t ask me why.
Rebecca: What is the last historical novel you read?
Fred: I write historical novels, but I don’t too often read them. For shame. I read mainly histories and biographies, often for research for my next book. Oh, how about PILLARS OF THE EARTH, which I liked, and COLD MOUNTAIN, which I didn’t. I’m looking forward to reading Tonya Mitchell’s new book, A FEIGNED MADNESS, which I just got in the mail. As a former journalist, I have always been fascinated by Nellie Bly.
Rebecca: What appeals to you most about your chosen genre?
Fred: The 19th century is perhaps the most fascinating period in our history. It had everything an observer could want. Name something, and the 19th century had it. It was fresh in the modern era. It fascinates me, I suppose, from my childhood when old folks in the family would tell me stories of their lives in the last part of the 19th century.
Rebecca: What was the most difficult scene to write?
Fred: The burial of a young child, as below:
Many of Penney’s company at Fort Laramie worked at chores. Others wandered among various trains to chat, inquire, and look for rumors and gossip to carry back as morsels to share.
Abruptly, a strange thing happened. The sounds of tools hammering became successively muted in the distance. The silence was like a fog rolling in. People grew silent on a slow wave that flowed toward Hannah. It accompanied a small crowd following a couple carrying a rolled-up carpet.
Hannah’s curiosity was answered by a woman in a hushed voice. She said a small girl had died, and the procession was for her burial.
Hannah’s interest reflexively turned to the question of contagion, so she asked the woman the cause of the child’s death.
The woman shrugged. Like so many on this journey, she just died.
The fresh grave on the edge of the fort grounds was reached, and the people moved into a circle around it. There were several burial mounds nearby in a haphazard graveyard.
The father lay down the rug and opened it to reveal a girl of about three. Her eyes were closed, and her cherubic face and tiny hands were bone white and in repose, as though asleep. Her light brown hair was neatly combed. She wore her white church dress. On her feet were tiny buttoned shoes. On her chest lay a rag doll tucked into her crossed arms. Hannah’s mind formed images of her laughing at her daddy’s gentle tease, crawling into bed next to mama to escape a bad dream, and jumping in glee at a sugar treat.
After the mother leaned down to give a final kiss, the father carefully wrapped the rug around the girl. When her face was covered, the mother screamed, and two women friends reached out to comfort her. Two men gently placed the small bundle in the grave. The father stood back and put his arm around his wife who buried her face in his shoulder. Her sobs were the outpouring of a broken heart. The father’s face had a gray, sick look, and his gaze went from the grave to the horizon. The same horizon that had beguiled him to chance bringing his family into the wilderness.
The emigrants who had gathered looked on with an ill-at-ease sorrow. Mothers had dread on their faces as they thought of their own children.
Together, mother and father would share guilt for taking this innocent child from her safe home into a valley of death: He for insisting on the journey; she for not fighting harder to resist it. Together, they would be haunted by visions of this barren plain, and the small body left beneath it.
The father said, in a broken voice, “Does anybody know some words?”
Preacher stepped forward with his Bible underarm and raised a hand as he prayed for the soul of the little girl and that her parents be comforted by her salvation. He then led them in a ragged, half-hearted singing of the Wesleyan hymn, “Love Divine, All Love Excelling” because he thought it would be familiar to most. Not to unchurched Ned Brister who followed along on his concertina as best he could. It was sung mainly off-key and without the usual verve. Stepping to the head of the grave, Preacher’s sermon was a brief and predictable, “Suffer the little children to come unto me…”
Hannah could not see through her flooded eyes that others were crying, too, crying for the child now beneath them, and fear for what lay ahead. No one wept harder than Millie Plum, as her heart was full of thoughts of her own baby in a lonely, unmarked grave located in nowhere.
In moments, the people moved on, abandoning the grave to the emptiness of an indifferent, arid prairie. The mother stood and watched as men shoveled dirt on the covering of the girl’s body. The mother’s lips trembled, and her eyes were wide with disbelief. They were burying her baby. She fingered a weather-faded shawl pulled tight around her shoulders.
There would be no flowers or visitations for this little girl. Her marker was a cross made of spare boards nailed together. It said, “Emily Pierce, age 3. Asleep in Jesus.” Soon, the marker would blow away or be used for firewood by some freezing emigrant. That this mama’s darling with the ragdoll ever existed would, in the course of time, be forgotten.
Answer to yesterday’s question:
Lanceford W. Hastings. He wrote a book about a better "cuttoff" to California, a route he had not actually taken himself. That idea resulted in the horror of the Donner Party in 1846. He is a minor character in this book.
Here's a question for all of you about the Oregon Trail. Check back later or on Friday for my answer.
Q – which animals pulled most of the wagons the 2000 miles to Oregon or California?
Also: Q – what was the first historical novel YOU read? And..what was the last historical novel you read?
Have a Happy Thanksgiving! We will take tomorrow off. No interview.
On Friday I will answer more questions from Rebecca and have a last question for you.
We will also have the print book giveaway.
Hope to hear from you in the comments below.