Remembering History

When, a cou­ple of years ago, my book, The But­ton War was pub­lished, a num­ber of read­ers were puz­zled about the con­text, that it takes place dur­ing World War One. 

My sense of things is that all nations have selec­tive mem­o­ries about their his­to­ry. And the his­to­ry that is remem­bered is often told to empha­sis cer­tain ideals, myths, and aspi­ra­tions. The “bad stuff” is for­got­ten, denied, even hid­den. That knowl­edge of “The war to end all wars,” as the con­flict was called, has fad­ed, does not real­ly sur­prise me. Even as my wife and I went to the film 1917, she turned to me and said, “Can you explain to me what the war was about and how it happened?”

I did my best. It is a com­plex story.

That said, the suc­cess­ful film, 1917, seems to have brought a remem­brance of World War One back into pub­lic consciousness.

As a writer of his­tor­i­cal fic­tion, I’m often asked “How did you ever find out about that?” (What­ev­er the that is.)

The answer is, I am aware of his­to­ry and read it.

Catch You Lat­er, Trai­tor deals with the “red scare” of the 1950’s. As a kid I lived through that.

The End of the World and Beyond treats of the way 18th Cen­tu­ry Eng­land dealt with felons: Send­ing many thou­sands of them to North Amer­i­can for forced labor. Thomas Jef­fer­son, for one, said it nev­er hap­pened.  I first learned of this by read­ing Dick­ens’ Great Expec­ta­tions, all be it’s set­ting in 19th cen­tu­ry England.

Night Jour­neys tells a sto­ry about a colo­nial boy who comes across a cou­ple of those felons, who have escaped. I was inter­est­ed in Amer­i­can Quak­ers and how they dealt with oppres­sive government.

“Who Was That Masked Man Any­way?” is a tale about kids who are obsessed with the adven­ture radio shows of the 1940’s. I was one of those.

The about to be pub­lished Gold Rush Girl is set in boom­ing San Fran­cis­co right after Cal­i­for­nia gold was dis­cov­ered. I saw a pic­ture of the hun­dreds of aban­doned ships that brought gold-seek­ers to the West Coast. I won­dered about those ships, found out why they were left to rot, and went on to write a nov­el about them.

The Play­er King treats of a 15th cen­tu­ry boy—no one knows where he came from—who was crowned king of Eng­land (in Ire­land!) and was king for a few months. He was giv­en an army to bring down the Tudors. Didn’t work.

I am not an his­to­ri­an. But I am a great believ­er that to under­stand the present (and the future) you need to know about the past. One of the best com­pli­ments for my work I ever had came about when a par­ent told me about her daugh­ter. The girl had read Crispin: The Cross of Lead. She brought the book to her moth­er, held it up, and said, “Ma, did peo­ple real­ly think this way?”

They did. We just forget.

I hope my books let peo­ple remember.