{"id":9224,"date":"2021-09-08T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9224"},"modified":"2021-09-09T08:10:48","modified_gmt":"2021-09-09T12:10:48","slug":"9224","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9224","title":{"rendered":"Historical Mysteries II"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"reading\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The journal of Mystery Readers Internationa<\/a>l, which includes essays on various authors\u2019 response to a theme, compiled by Janet Rudolph, are consistent interesting and insightful. I reviewed part 1 of a pair of issues on historical mysteries a few months ago<\/a>. The second one was released not long ago. The writers represent multiple points of view and provide lots to think about for other writers as well as readers looking to discover new authors they may like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that last category, I\u2019m itching to read some of the work of Joe Gores after Catherine Accardi\u2019s tempting essay in the summer 2021 issue. Similarly, David Clark opens the door on a fascinating period when he discusses Michael Russell\u2019s Stefan Gillespie novels set in the nascent nation of Ireland in the 1930s and 40s, when the politics were rough and convoluted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the benefits a well written historical novel can bestow is to bring the murky events and people of past decades into sharp relief enabling readers to see their choices and, one hopes, learn from them (without getting preached at!). As Harald Gilbers writes in the current issue, \u201cThe fact that a society with a high cultural level can descend into barbarism is a warning example and I think it is important to tell people how this could happen.\u201d Similarly, Rebecca Cantrell writes about her World War II novels, \u201cPeople always ask me how ordinary Germans could have allowed this to happen. How democracy could have been so fragile. How hatred and violence could have triumphed over truth and reason. How a civilized country could run to its own destruction.\u201d Good questions worth thinking about. Then the kicker: \u201cNo one asks me that now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cShould I tinker with the facts?\u201d Jim Fusilli describes the tension between absolute accuracy and storytelling, when in one of his novels, reversing the timing of two events would enable a stronger narrative. \u201cBut doing so would make the story seem less real to me, making it more a work of speculative fiction.\u201d When he wrote this, he was still deciding how to handle this dilemma. Gilbers, by contrast, has made his choice. \u201cI am not allowed to change history for the sake of my narrative.\u201d He see his challenge as recreating a world for his characters that nearly exactly matches what people at the time faced .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What these diverse authors and their stories have in common, is something all historical mystery writers face. As Clare Whitfield put it so well, \u201cThe events might be far away, but the people are much closer than you think.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The journal of Mystery Readers International, which includes essays on various authors\u2019 response to a theme, compiled by Janet Rudolph, are consistent interesting and insightful. I reviewed part 1 of a pair of issues on historical mysteries a few months … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"How authors handle history--there's not just one way!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[174,266,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-draft-blog","category-history","category-mystery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2NkiT-9224","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9224"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9227,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9224\/revisions\/9227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}