The Importance of Time and Place in Strange Gods by Annamaria Alfieri

Annamaria Bragging on Monday

This Sunday morning just as I was leafing through my list of possible blog topics, I learned that the following article had just been published in the Journal of the Historical Novel Society, under the title above.  Its author, Marilyn Pemberton had interviewed me a few weeks ago.  I did not know that this would be the result.  I am, of course, delighted. First let me introduce the author of the article. (It seems to me that, like the founder of the Historical Novel Society, she is British. Can you see the evidence for that below?)

Marilyn Pemberton has a passion for fairy tales that subvert and challenge social mores. Victorian fairy-tale writer Mary De Morgan was the subject first of a biography, then a fictionalised life in The Jewel Garden. Her historical trilogy, Grandmother’s Footsteps, will be complemented by a fourth book, A Bearer of Tales, due to be published later in 2024.

 

 

 

After the publication of her third historical novel set in South America, Annamaria Alfieri’s agent and editor thought it was time for her to write a series. With this challenge set before her, Alfieri knew that she would have to find a place and a time that would allow her to write many stories.

“I had taken a couple of trips to Africa by then and had fallen in love with being there,’ she relates. ‘As with my other books, once I had an interesting place, I looked for the most dramatic time in its history. Once my imagination landed in that place at that time, I knew that there was enough grist for the story mill to last through a series.’

Alfieri has decided to write a ten-book series, based on a theme inspired by her late father. She remembers that, ‘Among his possessions, I found a leather bookmark inscribed with the Ten Commandments,’ she remembers. ‘It was like a message from Dad—to base a book on each of the commandments. So, for each book, one theme is the sin of the commandment. Another is a different evil that has no commandment, and I have the audacity to suggest it should have one.’

Strange Gods (Stonesong, 2023), the first book in the series, is set in the former British East Africa and based on the first commandment, which forbids worship of any but the one true God. ‘This brings up the clash of cultures between what the Europeans believe and what the Africans believe,’ Alfieri says. ‘The sin that has no commandment is the audacity of the colonizers, who move in and take over the territory where the indigenous people have lived for millennia.’

Each of the ten books will be set in sequential years of a decade, starting in 1911, a time frame Alfieri chose after ‘doing TONS! of research.’ She says that ‘All of the good ideas I get for my stories come right out of my research. The best sources for me are always the writings of people who had feet on the ground at the time. Also, there were books written about life in the Protectorate of British East Africa that were meant to attract settlers to the place. I have a copy of one, thanks to reprints by the University of Michigan Library. What a treasure trove! It even has the railway schedule, so that when my characters travel by train, I know what time the train is supposed to come and what time it’s supposed to get to their destination. All my research is aimed at helping me to feel as if I am there. Research is my time machine. Once I am there in my imagination, I can hang out with my characters, hear what they say, and I write down what they do.

Alfieri chose the 1910s in particular because it ‘brings readers to a time fraught with conflict. Colonialism was just really getting going. Missionaries from Britain had been moving into the area for about 20 years. The British government had taken control over the previous 15 years and even built a railroad from the coast to the shores of Lake Victoria and the center of the continent. And the British government had begun a campaign of recruiting settlers who were beginning to move in and establishing farms along that railroad. Also, the tribal people who had lived there for centuries were often in conflict with one another.’

This conflict, she explains, was evident from the outset, when ‘the missionaries and the King’s faithful empire builders of the administration were at odds over how the indigenous people should be treated. The arriving settlers were largely British aristocrats, often second sons, who were no longer guaranteed a cushy life back home and looking to find a place where the cost of living luxuriously was cheaper. Being of the upper class, they looked down upon both the “tin-god” administrators and the “shopkeepers’ sons” among the clergy. With all this conflict, there would be—in that place and time—lots of drama and many reasons for people to want to kill each other.’

There are three main storytellers in Strange Gods, each one representing different groups, and it is their stories that Alfieri tells in this first book. ‘Vera McIntosh is the daughter of Scottish missionaries. She was born and grew up in British East Africa, and her playmates were Kikuyu children. Because of this, she has a foot in two worlds. She knows her parents’ culture and its requirements, but she also knows the world as well as the language of her playmates.

‘Justin Tolliver is the second son of an earl. But his family has no money to bankroll an upper-class lifestyle for him. Like most second sons, he is serving in the British military. His regiment was posted to South Africa in the aftermath of the Boer War. While there, he visited British East Africa and has fallen in love with its beauty. He wants to stay there, but without financial support from his family, he cannot afford to do what people of his class did – take a farm. In order to stay, he takes the drastic step of joining the police force. So, Justin too has a foot in two worlds.

‘Kwai Libazo,’ – arguably the most interesting character in the book – ‘is an askari, a police constable, who is half-Maasai and half-Kikuyu. Growing up, neither tribe accepted him. He is a young man who belongs nowhere. Then, serving in the police force, he meets and begins to work for Justin Tolliver, who holds justice as their goal as policemen. Kwai is now working for the white people, but he is not one of them. Having been rejected by the tribal people, he attaches himself to the idea of justice. Kwai too inhabits the liminal space between two worlds.’

Alfieri would like readers of Strange Gods to ‘feel as if they are there. I want my books to be their time machine that takes them to that fascinating time and place, where they learn what life was like and especially how wondrous, how beautiful is the place that is, after all, the cradle of humanity. Thirty-two of the thirty-three known remains of our hominid ancestors were found in the Rift Valley. To me, when I am in the Kenyan wilderness, on a cellular level, I feel as if I am home. Hopefully, armchair travelers who read my stories will join in and experience vicariously the majesty, the wonder of our ancestral birthplace.’

Historical Novel Society Conference Report

Annamaria on Monday

This past week, the Historical Novel Society of North America staged its biennial conference, virtually.  Unlike the mystery conferences most of us are used to, this one is organized along the lines of an academic symposium.  Those who want to present submit proposals, which require a rigorous amount of information.  As with our mystery conference, decisions are made behind the scenes, using undisclosed criteria.

At mystery conferences, authors pretty much always get a chance to be on a panel, so we all get a crack at hawking our wares,  But the topic and the panel-mates are pot luck.  With HNS, a group may jump through the many hoops to submit a complete proposal and still be turned down.  (One consolation here is that one does not have to buy a ticket to the event until after that acceptance decision is published.)  The big advantage with HNS is that authors get to pick their own topic, the questions they want to answer, most important who will be presenting with them.

This year, I was very pleased to present with three of my very favorite historical novelists.  HNS also provided us with a moderator, Mary Tod and  a tech support volunteer, Jodi McMaster, both of whom made top-notch contributions and allowed us to shine.

Regular MIE readers will recognize my fellow panelists from their previous visits to these precincts.  Here they are in alphabetical order, along with the bios we submitted with our conference proposal.  I am also including snippets of reviews of some of my favorites of their books.  The reviews all come from the Historical Novel Society Journal. 

 James R. Benn is the Dilys and Barry award nominated author of the popular Billy Boyle WWII mystery series—fifteen books to date—as well as two stand-alone books. His novel The Blind Goddess was long listed for the 2015 Dublin IMPAC Literary Award, and his works have garnered numerous starred reviews from major review publications. Benn is a graduate of the University of Connecticut and has a Master’s in Library Science degree from Southern Connecticut State University. He worked in the library and information technology fields for over thirty-five years before leaving to write full-time. 

"If you love a good mystery that’s full of facts about WWII history, you can’t go wrong with a Billy Boyle book. A Blind Goddess takes place in 1944 in Hungerford, just outside of London. Capt. Boyle is called in on a MI5 case in which a local was found dead outside of his boardinghouse. He boards with a German couple who had fled to England and is told by his superiors not to question them regarding the murder. An estranged friend from Boston also has asked Billy to look into the murder of another local, a constable, who was found on top of his father’s grave with his head smashed in. Tree is part of the colored tank crew stationed nearby, and his comrade is being accused by the Army of this murder because he was dating the deceased man’s sister, and also because he is black. This is only part of the injustice and prejudice shown to our black American soldiers by their own while the locals welcome the soldiers into their businesses and homes. When a young girl disappears, racial tensions rise between the black and white troops as the detectives try to discover if there is any connection to the murders.

I really enjoyed this book; the mystery drew me in and kept me on my toes. Billy Boyle is a believable and likable guy, and his friends who work with him on cases add another level of mystery to the novel.”

Nancy Bilyeau is the author of five published historical novels: the Joanna Stafford series set in Tudor England titled The Crown, The Chalice and The Tapestry, published by Simon & Schuster; an 18^th century thriller set in Europe’s art and porcelain world titled The Blue, published in 2018; and an early 20^th century mystery set in Coney Island titled Dreamland, published in 2020. Publishers Weekly gave Dreamland a starred review, saying, “This fascinating portrait of the end of the Gilded Age deserves a wide audience.” She is now writing a sequel to The Blue, scheduled for publication in 2022.

 

A former magazine editor with staff positions at Rolling Stone and InStyle, Nancy is currently the deputy editor of The Crime Report at the Center on Media, Crime and Justice at John Jay College. She lives with her family in Woodstock New York.

"Bilyeau takes us on a rollercoaster ride through the history of porcelain making and through the world of 18th-century French and British espionage. On that ride, we meet Madame Pompadour at Versailles, walk the halls of the British Museum, and stroll the streets of 18th-century London. On that journey, too, Bilyeau introduces us to a memorable cast: Genevieve, who is faced with seemingly impossible choices which test her resolve and her faith; slick and despicable Courtenay; Sturbridge, clever, funny and always with something up his sleeve. Bilyeau’s research is impeccable, taking what might have been a dreary industrial novel and making it into a living, breathing drama. Kudos and highly recommended!"

 Michael Cooper arrived in Jerusalem in 1966, lived in Israel for eleven years, studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and graduated from Tel Aviv University Medical School. Now a pediatric cardiologist in Northern California he volunteers for medical missions twice a year serving Palestinian children who lack access to care. Foxes in the Vineyard, set in 1948 Jerusalem, won the 2011 Indie Publishing Contest grand prize. The Rabbi’s Knight, finalist for the 2014 Chaucer Award for historical fiction is set in the Holy Land in 1290. Soon to be published, Sins of the Fathers, is set in Jerusalem during WWI.

"Cooper does a masterful job of building suspense and telling a riveting story. While there is a great deal here of historical significance—the fall of Acre, the role of the Templars, the warring Moslem factions—the conjoining of St. Clair and Samuel, two such disparate souls is, in and of itself, worth the read. Not coincidentally, it is Samuel and his Moslem “brother,” al-Hasani—again, so dramatically different in their religions, approaches and beliefs—who decipher the inscription. The message beyond this wonderful story is clear: with a common goal, all people of good faith can work together to find solutions."

Historical Novel Society Conference 2019

Annamaria on Monday

The biennial Historical Novel Society Conference was held this past weekend at National Harbor, Maryland, a complex of shorefront restaurants and stores.  It also includes the Gaylord  Resort and Convention Center, a building roughly the size of San Francisco International Airport.

That's the hotel and conference center in the distance.
It's so big that 1. It looks close in this picture, and
2. It is impossible to photograph the whole thing.

The evidence of its size: In every elevator bank there is
this sign, offering a navigation app to lost guests.

Unlike the mystery conventions that we MIErs are used to, authors cannot just sign up for this event and expect to be put on a panel.  With HNS, a few authors working together or a single individual must submit a detailed proposal on what they want to present.  A jury decides whether or not to accept.  I have teamed up with other mystery writers in the past and not made the cut, but this year four of us made it onto the crowded schedule.

Sujata, Michael Cooper (who has guest blogged here a few times), and I teamed up to talk about colonialism, with mystery/thriller writer Nancy Bilyeau was our moderator.  Here is what our proposal said:

   A panel of mystery/thriller authors with novels set in India, Africa, and the Middle East—where imperial powers dislocated indigenous life. Some of the most dramatic and compelling stories of history take place at the intersection of these forces. This panel will have wide appeal to historical novel readers interested in settings outside of Europe or the US, settings at the flashpoints of empire and intrigue, the crossroads of history. And novelists at all stages of their careers will be intrigued by the notion that their books can find an audience outside the crowded fields of Tudor and Victorian England and Renaissance Italy.

A happy crew who've just finished their presentation

It was a privilege to be part of the discussion, which was lively and elicited a bunch of good questions--always a sign of successful presentation.


Lunches and one dinner are included for conference attendees, and they are communal, giving us multiple opportunities to sit together at table and meet up with new people.

Our dining room during the final banquet.  There were about 400 in attendance.

Book signings were scheduled all at once on Saturday afternoon.  Fans were invited to come free for the signing.  There was music.  People dressed as historic figures of the local area.  It was a bit of a carnival, but in terms of sales - for me any way - was not that much different than signing at Malice or Left Coast Crime.  It was festive, which was nice.

HNS separates signing authors into what period they write
 about, because fans usually have a time in history that interests them.

This and Victorian are by far the largest categories.

Your reporter was at the end of this table.  I think it was where they put the
writers an ordinary person would call "miscellaneous," or "obscure."

The fans waiting to come in.  Most of them headed straight for the Tudor
and Victorian tables.

 As with the Left Coast Crime conference this past March in Vancouver, the location offered some benefits most conferences do not.  It was delightful to be able to walk out and, in five minutes, find sights worth seeing along the water and and good places to eat.

What a delightful design for a playground.

So cute!

Veracity in Historical Fiction Redux

In a few weeks I will be attending the Historical Novel Society 

Conference in London.  Without a doubt, the conferees will take up the question of how strictly the historical novelist must cleave to the truth of a story’s historical background.  There will be next to no agreement on this point.

Some people at the conference will say that a novelist must never stray from the truth; not even, for instance, to write a scene under the full moon, if there was only a half-moon on the specified date 1567.  I was once on a panel with a woman who began her story with a fourteen-page explanation of just how the story she was about to tell departed from even the minutest facts of the case.  These purists look down their noses upon any writer who takes any liberties whatsoever with what the history books say.

On the other end of the spectrum, are those who take whatever liberties they like.  Some even write alternate histories from the ones we all know.  Books and movies that posit a world where the Nazis won World War II or the South won the American Civil War.  Writers like these, as you can imagine, also feel no compunction whatsoever about completely changing the characters and deeds of historical figures.

 

I fall somewhere in between on this continuum.  Actually, I don’t see myself as a historical novelist, per se.  I am a mystery writer who sets her stories in historical backgrounds.  I know this because I feel at home, among my own tribe, when I am with mystery writers.   This is not necessarily the case when I am with historical novelists.   At HNS conferences, people walk up and ask, “What period do you write?”  “Tudor England” or “Regency England” or “Renaissance Florence” would all be good answers.  My truthful answer: “I don’t write only one time and place” draws frowns, at best, usually annoyance—both from other writers and from readers.

Being a mystery writer at heart, what is most important to me is the story.  If the story requires a night scene under a full moon, it gets it regardless of the planetary alignments at that moment, shocking as that may be to some.

History’s enigmas are what most appeal to me.   No one actually knows what happened to the Alcalde of Potosi’s vast fortune in silver that he stashed away during the King’s investigation of counterfeiting, in 1649.  Nor what happened to the national treasure of Paraguay during the War of the Triple Alliance in 1868.   City of Silver and Invisible Country offer plausible answers to both, but the stories are whodunit’s.  I knew full well while writing them that the average American would have no idea that those treasures were ever lost, much less never found.

Historians are still arguing over what role Evita played in Peron’s return to power during the most dramatic week in Argentine history.   Some say she did nothing because she was powerless until that time.  Others say she did everything, and offer as proof all the power she wielded after the fact.  I love this sort of thing and made a sideline to my story portraying her as a powerless woman who nevertheless found a way to turn the tide in Peron’s favor.

Which brings us to what people think are the rules for introducing real people into historical novels.  There are no real rules, of course.  The writer decides.  But some critics and readers will reject a work if it does not conform to what “history says” about the person.  My problem is whose history are we reading and when?  If you are over forty, you have seen the assessment of historical figures change in your lifetime.  Jimmy Carter.  Richard Nixon.  Need I say more?

I will give the last word on this to the great writer I quoted at length here a couple of weeks ago—John Fowles.  Here is a paragraph that comes a little after what I quoted then.  It answers the question about how novelists should deal with historical figures:

From The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Chapter Thirteen—

“But this is preposterous?  A character is either “real” or “imaginary”?  If you think that, hypocrite lecteur, I can only smile.  You do not even think of your own past as quite real; you dress sit up, you gild it or blacken it, censor it, tinker with it. . . fictionalize it, in a word, and put it away on a shelf—your book, your romanced autobiography.  We are in flight from the real reality.  That is a basic definition of Homo sapiens.”

  The defense rests.

Annamaria – Monday

PS: I will be traveling over the next three Mondays, much of it in areas where I may not have reliable Internet access.  I will do my best to keep up with postings here.