History – Page 5 – Finding My Wings

In ‘Epitaph’ a century-old story has very modern overtones

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Epitaph by Mary Doria Russell (Ecco, 2015) audiobook narrated by Hillary Huber (HarperAudio)
In 40 words or less: Masterful research brings the history and people of the legendary gunfight at the O.K. Corral to life. Vivid descriptions and dialog fill out the political and social history. It will change any assumptions you may have of the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday.
Genre: Historical fiction
Locale: Arizona Territory
Time: Primarily 1880-1882
Read this for a well-written story and a better understanding of the human stories and political dynamics of the Arizona Territory. Today’s Republicans and Democrats have nothing on them.

Only a fool would try to pigeon-hole Mary Doria Russell’s writing style. Her first novel, The Sparrow, captured numerous science fiction awards. A Thread of Grace, a historical novel of the Italian Resistance and the Holocaust was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Epitaph is her second novel about two of the West’s most celebrated figures – Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. I’ve been a fan for more than a decade and was not disappointed with Epitaph.

Tombstone, Arizona Territory in the early 1880’s was a bustling town with more than 10,000 people, two newspapers and all the standard businesses of the period. All sides in Post-Civil War politics were well-represented in the Territory, vying for the power to determine the future of its evolving government.

Local politics were very fractious in the counties in the Territory. Winning the position of Sheriff was financially very lucrative, receiving often 10% of taxes collected. And since there often were alliances with assessors, mudslinging and shady deals were not uncommon. Cowboys were a synonym for rustlers and stagecoaches were often targets for robberies. Lawmen often had more than one boss, truly a gun for hire. As Russell lays out the complicated circumstances that led up to the shootout, the politics and shifting business loyalties often put lawmen directly in the line of fire.

Medical science was brought out through Doc Holliday’s ongoing battle with tuberculosis and the slow and painful death of President Garfield, due to infection, after he was shot by Charles Giteau. In the aftermath of the shootout, Holliday, a dentist by training, insisted over their objections that the doctors use hygienic practices to treat the Earps’ wounds. Alcoholism and laudanum dependence mirror today’s substance abuse issues. At every step, Russell enriches the understanding of life at that time.

Many stories about the West give women minor roles. Josie (Sadie) Marcus’ left a privileged life in San Francisco’s Jewish community to seek fame and fortune with a theater company, like her idol Sarah Bernhardt. Achieving minor success, she hitches her star to a political aspirant and moves with him to Tombstone. There she develops a friendship with Doc Holliday and he keeps an eye out for her, recognizing she is in an unhealthy relationship. Josie leaves the unscrupulous philanderer, prostituting herself to make ends meet. Only after many missteps does Wyatt’s and Josie’s decades-long love story begin. Each of the Earp brothers brought a woman with him when they left Kansas for Arizona. Russell deftly brings out their different interests and temperaments, as she does with each of the brothers.

At every turn, another aspect of the complexity of life at this time is revealed in Epitaph. Interested in the role of gambling or immigrant issues? It’s there. Border and political issues with the Mexican government are there, too. The local papers are controlled by competing political groups. Epitaph provides a striking reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

A very able narrator, Hillary Huber, read the audiobook as I traveled from Florida back home to the DC area. While her skill and careful differentiation of characters through tone and accent added an extra dimension to the novel, it is Mary Doria Russell’s words and storytelling that carry the day however the book is “read.” In this political crazy season, Epitaph is a perfect book to carry you away while reminding you that change will happen again and again and again.

Reading offers perspective when terror strikes

November 13, the day that Paris exploded, was my birthday. And shortly after the early news reports confirmed the extent of the terror, I turned off the television. Most of the weekend was spent reading. Living in the DC area, staying on top of the news is as much a part of life as ridiculous traffic.

I can no longer spend endless hours glued to the repetition of the same information. While the terrorists attacked the lives and livelihoods of the citizens of Brussels, the ripples of their actions wound everyone seeing the reports.

Daily news reports talk of isolationism, interventionists, refugee crises and political intractability. Reading Erik Larson’s Dead Wake about the last voyage of the Lusitania and Churchhill’s calculated effort to bring the US into WWI brings to mind President Wilson’s policy of isolation which only changed after many American lives were lost in the sinking of the ship. This echoes some of today’s political rhetoric.

In Epitaph, Mary Doria Russell’s compelling historical novel about the circumstances leading up to the shootout at the OK Corral, the Republicans and Democrats have vastly different approaches to border issues between Mexico and the Arizona territory. Some of the politicians turn a blind eye to the incursions of rustling cowboys and the killing parties across the border. The lack of cooperation among the parties and the border economic and political issues are all too familiar.

George Santayana is credited with saying, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” Whether I am reading fiction or narrative nonfiction, I remain alert to the lessons shared. If anything, my reading gives me a much better perspective on the extraordinary domestic and foreign policy challenges we face as Americans.

As the day that changed Belgium forever ends, I watch the late news because information is power. And then there are the rare stories of people reaching out to help strangers, a reminder that when we treat each other with kindness rather than hate good can and will happen.

‘Year of Wonders’ – a timely story from a 350 year old reality

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Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (Viking Press, 2001)
In 40 words or less: Based on Eyam, England which cut itself off from the world in the hope of saving its people from the plague.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Locale: England
Time: 1665
Read this book if individual stories bring you a new understanding of history.

Geraldine Brooks’ ‘Year of Wonders’ has long been one of my favorite novels. It is particularly appropriate that I am finishing this review after almost a week of hunkering down due to winter storm Jonas. Her debut novel, written in 2001, is based on the actual English village of Eyam which in 1665 chose total isolation from neighboring villages in the hope of mitigating bubonic plague. The outbreak was in the early days of the Protestant Reformation, a time of religious and social friction. Anna Firth was created by Brooks to tell the community’s story.

Anna is a still a teenager when her husband dies mining lead. Left with two small children, she works in the rectory for Reverend Mompellion and his wife, Elinor. To augment her wages, Anna takes in a tailor who has come to town. He becomes the first victim of the plague, likely infected from fleas in cloth he received. Fortunate to have been taught to read, Anna is hungry for knowledge and Elinor sees in her a kindred spirit. While Reverend Mompellion sees to the religious needs of many in the community, Elinor and Anna work together to keep the community fed and restore their health.

In a community barely subsisting, the toll of isolation and deprivation is high. Through Anna’s eyes the reader sees the best and the worst behaviors. Beyond the stark religious differences within the Protestants, there is a household of women herbalists and healers who some consider witches. These women are increasingly called upon to help those who have fallen ill from a variety of ailments. They, however, are often not treated with like kindness. The harshness of daily life and lengths people go to survive can be chilling.

Over the course of the year, Brook peels back the layers of life – birth and death, cruelty and kindness, love and hatred. It is astonishing how many aspects of the book ring true 350 years later. This is a book to read, re-read and share.

‘The Muralist’: Historical Fiction and Art Appreciation in One Package

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The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro (Algonquin Books, November 2015)
In 40 words or less: At the cusp of WWII, a young French-American artist pursues her art as her family tries to escape Europe. Seventy-five years later, her great-niece works to solve the mystery of her disappearance and secure her place in the art world.
Genre: Historical Fiction
Locale: New York and France
Time: 1939/40 and 2015
Read this for a gripping story filled with insights into the world of art and the machinations of the US government as the Jews of France sought to escape Nazi Europe.

RELEASE DATE – Tuesday, November 3. The Muralist, B.A. Shapiro’s second novel, brings together a young French-American artist with the luminaries of the fledgling Abstract Expressionist movement. In 1939, when the story begins, many soon-to-be-famous artists were working for the US government as part of the WPA project which commissioned realistic paintings and murals depicting life during the Depression. Alizée Benoit was born in America, leaving to live with relatives in France after the death of her parents when she was twelve. Seven years later she returns to advance her art career, aware that the situation in France for her Jewish family is becoming perilous. Her goal is to find a way to bring them all to the US, whatever it takes.

Alizée’s day job is drawing and painting murals intended for libraries, post offices and other civic buildings in a huge warehouse along with Lee Krasner and other artists. Their free hours are spent painting, drinking and arguing art and politics with Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and others in their group. Separated from his wife, Rothko takes particular interest in Alizée, both personally and professionally. Barely subsisting, the artists are often consumed by self-doubt, alcohol and depression, creating at times a toxic mix.

Seventy-five years later, Danielle Abrams is recasting her life assessing art work for a major auction house. Inspired by brief stories of her great-aunt, Alizée, and the two paintings of hers that survived, Danielle had been a painter before her divorce and held out hope she could solve Alizée’s disappearance in late 1940. When a group of paintings by the likes of Rothko and Pollock appear at work for evaluation with small related squares secreted on the back, Danielle sees hints of Alizée’s style and sets out to find out more.

As Alizée struggles to acquire visas for her family she runs up against nativism and isolationism as typified by Lindbergh and Kennedy, and anti-Semitic and obstructionist policies in the State Department spearheaded by Breckinridge Long. Eleanor Roosevelt’s genuine interest in the WPA art projects serves to bring Alizée a patron and ally. Throughout The Muralist, Alizée is receiving evermore frightening letters from her relatives in France describing the roundups and tightening restrictions on the Jews. Alizée keeps from her artist friends her activities to circumvent US visa restrictions and take down Breckinridge Long.

Danielle comes into her own as she works to establish the hidden squares as Alizée’s. As with many Holocaust survivors, her grandfather chose not to discuss his experiences before resettling in America. In pursuit of her quest, Danielle comes to terms with her family’s experience in France.

Shapiro is emphatic in the afternote that is this a work of fiction weaving in historical figures and situations consistent with the times, taking liberties to serve the story. It doesn’t purport to be a telling of history with fictional characters added.

The beauty of modern historical fiction is the research that authors put into framing the story. While historical accuracy may be sacrificed for the plot, one of the great benefits of these books is whetting the reader’s appetite to discover aspects of history or art which may be relatively unfamiliar. Having read The Muralist I learned that the Abstract Expressionist movement emerged from artists involved in the WPA artist project. (see http://www.theartstory.org/org-wpa.htm) Similarly, while it is now fairly well-known that tens of thousands of visas were unused annually during WWII, the name Breckinridge Long was unfamiliar. Two clicks on the web and his role becomes all too clear.

With this second novel, B.A. Shapiro is setting a high bar for others seeking to inform the reader about art world while telling a complex and well-structured story. It is refreshing to see strong women artists as protagonists, well-drawn and wrestling with their imperfections and moral choices as they pursue their art in a male-dominated field. Her inclusion of historical events and figures moves the plot along and her clear acknowledgement of the liberties she takes with history are most welcome. The Muralist is a fine novel to share with a friend or in a group. Note: The Muralist tops the Indie Next List for November.

‘The Girl You Left Behind’ captures the evocative power of art

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The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes (Penguin Books, 2012)
In 40 words or less: A portrait ties together two young women and their absent husbands. A thought-provoking story of love, art, ownership and restitution.
Genre: Fiction
Locale: France and London
Time: 1916 and Present
Read this for a classic story interwoven with contemporary issues of ownership, morality and the transformative power of art.

Jojo Moyes first made a splash on the US book scene in 2012 with her novel Me Before You. With a longstanding reputation in Great Britain, two additional titles were released here later in 2012, The Girl You Left Behind and its prequel novella, Honeymoon in Paris. Were it not for a book group requesting a discussion on The Girl You Left Behind, I might have missed it. I’m glad I didn’t.

Moyes immediately immerses the reader in the life of Sophie Lefèvre, a young woman struggling with her sister and brother to get by while the Germans occupy their French village in October 1916. Sophie, strong and independent, had lived in Paris, meeting her artist husband, Edouard, there while she was a shopgirl. When he left for the Army, she returned to the village to help her sister whose husband was goners well. The Germans commandeered almost everything, leaving the residents with little to eat and few possessions. The sisters’ inn, stripped of almost all furniture, was required to prepare and serve meals to the troops billeted in the town. While charged with preparing the food, the family, which included a baby and the daughter of a woman taken by the Germans, had to account for every morsel of food served.

The only item of value left in the home was a painting of Sophie by Edouard, an Impressionist. The portrait was imbued with all the love Edouard felt for his wife and served as a promise of their future together. The Kommandant was taken by the painting and was prepared to go to great lengths in the hope of acquiring it. And Sophie would put herself in great peril for the chance to reunite with Edouard.

The story shifts to present-day London where Liv Halston is a young widow, living in the Glass House designed by her late husband David, a renowned architect. Liv is frozen in her grief, the only softness in her life is the portrait David purchased for her while they honeymooned in Paris. A chance meeting with an ex-pat American involved in art restitution sets off a chain of events upending both their lives and demanding that the fate of the Lefèvres be known.

Don’t for a minute think this is merely a story of time-linked romances. Moyes presents the legal and emotional issues associated with art restitution, carefully making the Holocaust a minor player. By doing so the visceral attachment people have to art, as contrasted with its possible market value, is elevated. Moyes is acutely aware that most restitution claims arise from German confiscation of art owned by Jews and brings that into the story as a means of bringing moral gravitas to the debate about ownership and redress.

With carefully constructed plot twists, The Girl You Left Behind held my interest to final page. Moyes’s deft hand in tackling fundamental issues rises well above many popular novels.

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