Posts Tagged historical novels
‘Rubble-strewn streets and lost souls’ – SD Mayes
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on October 7, 2018
Hello! It’s been a while since I’ve had an Undercover Soundtrack guest, but that doesn’t mean it’s muted forever. I’ve been writing, and the soundtrack collection for my own book is almost as tall as its namesake (Everest). Meanwhile, I’ve bumped into a few people who would be perfect guests and this week you’ll meet the first of them – SD Mayes. Her novel is called Letters To The Pianist, which you’ll probably agree makes her the perfect first act for the second act of this series. Letters To The Pianist is set in the London of World War II and draws heavily on the author’s own family history. Music was a route map for the key emotions of the characters – from fantasy escape, feelings of teenage inadequacy and the feelings of wild abandon that come from communion with an instrument. Drop by on Wednesday to hear more.
The Undercover Soundtrack – Nicole Evelina
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on February 14, 2017
The Undercover Soundtrack is a series where I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative environment – perhaps to connect with a character, populate a mysterious place, or hold a moment still to explore its depths. This week my guest is award-winning historical fiction and contemporary romantic novelist Nicole Evelina @nicoleevelina
Soundtrack by Sting, Fever Ray, The Civil Wars, Black Veil Brides
Every one of my books has a theme song/album – music without which the book never would have been written.
Capturing the essence of a legend
The theme song to the Guinevere’s Tale trilogy is “ Thousand Years by Sting. This song came out just weeks after I began writing Daughter of Destiny, the first book in the series. There is something about the cyclical sound of the melody that calls to mind reincarnation, the thousands of versions and re-tellings Arthurian legend has gone through over the ages. It also evokes to me the changing nature of the characters as artists reinvent them to fit their time. In the prologue to the book, Guinevere explains that not a single version you’ve heard has been right; she is going to set the record straight in the trilogy by telling the true story of her life. In so doing she can reclaim her name and her dignity from years of slander and abuse.
Plunging into the mind of a killer
The sequel, Camelot’s Queen, has one of the longest playlists of any of my books, most songs aligning with or inspiriting certain scenes. But the most influential album was the soundtrack to the movie Red Riding Hood, specifically the songs by Fever Ray, The Wolf and Keep the Streets Empty for Me. I listened to that soundtrack over and over while I wrote the section of the book dealing with Guinevere’s kidnapping by Malegant – one of the most detailed and longest parts of the book, and also my favorite. There is something feral about this music – wild, dangerous and dark – that fit perfectly with evil in Malegant’s soul. For Guinevere, the experience was the ultimate nightmare, not just for any woman, but especially for a priestess and queen. By his vile actions, Malegant stripped her of her power and her dignity, and unknowingly changed the course of her life – and that of all of Camelot. Scenes of such dark subject matter and import need equally powerful music. It doesn’t hurt that these songs could well have been used for a Samhain ritual, the event during which Guinevere’s torment begins.
Longing for an unknown love
My contemporary romantic comedy, Been Searching for You, actually came about because of a song. In November 2012, my best friend introduced me to the song To Whom it May Concern by The Civil Wars. Knowing I’m a die-hard romantic still looking for my soul mate, she thought I’d be able to relate to the lyrics about missing and waiting for someone you’ve never met, but you are certain is out there. Oh boy, did I. That song is actually why Annabeth writes letters to her soul mate on her birthday each year in the book.
As I got to know more of The Civil Wars’ music, I fell in love with a second song, Dust to Dust. It feels to me very much like a bookend to To Whom it May Concern. To me, it’s the song for when the two lovers who hadn’t met yet in To Whom It May Concern have gotten together, overcome their struggles and realised they finally found one another. So I challenged myself to write a story that began with the words ‘To whom it may concern’ and ended with the words ‘dust to dust’. That book is Been Searching for You.
Remembering a forgotten historical heroine
Not many people would put a metal song and a feministic manifesto at the top of their influences for writing biographical historical fiction about the first woman to run for President in the United States in 1872 – but I think we’ve already established I’m not normal. In the End by Black Veil Brides is my song explaining the urgency I felt to write Madame Presidentess, the story of Victoria Woodhull, a nearly forgotten, but crucial, figure of the American suffrage movement. There’s a line that asks who will tell the story of a person’s life. I was that person for Victoria. I also loved the theme of not being afraid to die and leaving something behind for future generations, both of which Victoria would very much be in agreement with. As a spiritualist, for her death and life were one, and I have a feeling she’s still not done doing her work here on earth – or at least not until her name is in the history books where it belongs.
Victoria’s theme song is Woman (Oh Mama) by Joy Williams (formerly of The Civil Wars). It chronicles woman’s roles throughout history – caregiver, life bringer, helpmeet and victim – how she has been seen by men – from Madonna to whore and back again – and the identities she has reclaimed to be her own – goddess and fabric of the universe. Victoria was a very strong woman, who by her own admission was years beyond her time, so I know she would proudly sing this song and declare herself strong and free.
Nicole Evelina is a multi-award winning historical fiction and contemporary romantic comedy author from St. Louis, Missouri. Her debut novel, Daughter of Destiny, was named Book of the Year by Chanticleer reviews. She’s now at work on her first non-fiction book, tracing the evolution of Guinevere over the last 1,000 years of literature, and is also finishing the final book in her Guinevere’s Tale trilogy, Mistress of Legend, which will be published later this year. Learn more about her at nicoleevelina.com or follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest.
‘Music for writing the 12th century’ – Mark Richard Beaulieu
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on August 3, 2015
My guest this week has an epic sequence of novels, and an epic musical background for them. They span the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine – but if you were expecting a purely medieval soundtrack, think again. There are, of course, some historically appropriate pieces, but also a host of unusual tracks from Chris Isaak, Jon Hassell, Ennio Morricone and Peter Gabriel. This post is a musical epic all of its own, and listening to the choices brought me many new gems. One of them, CocoRosie’s Smokey Taboo, I liked so much that I found an excuse to shoehorn it into my radio show (here, in case you’re interested, though that episode is currently in production). Anyway, the author is Mark Richard Beaulieu, and he’ll be here on Wednesday with his Undercover Soundtrack. Bring a packed lunch.
‘Unending feelings of loss and loneliness’ – Chrissie Parker
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on April 7, 2015
My guest this week has a historical novel with two timelines, each of them full of loss and turmoil. Music by Portishead, Jem and The Moxy defined the characters and their dilemmas, hurling her into their lives and channeling their emotions as she wrote. Modern Greek music by Elena Paprizou and Glykeria inspired the setting – the island of Zakynthos. She also writes short stories and poems and performed at the 100 poems by 100 women event at the Bath International Literary Festival 2013. She is Chrissie Parker and she’ll be here on Wednesday with her Undercover Soundtrack.
The Undercover Soundtrack – Anjali Mitter Duva
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on October 8, 2014
‘A hushed, whispered jingle mimicking a drizzle of rain’
Once a week I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative environment – perhaps to connect with a character, populate a mysterious place, or hold a moment still to explore its depths. This week my guest is historical novelist Anjali Mitter Duva @AnjaliMDuva
Soundtrack by George Ruckert, L Subramaniam, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Chopin
Music is at the heart of Faint Promise of Rain. The setting for the story — 16th century Rajasthan in Northwest India — had already been laid down by multiple visits to that stunning part of the world, where temples and fortresses rise up from golden sand, where textiles are jewel-toned, and the sky is devastatingly blue. The next story layer came in a very different shape: a class in kathak dance, a classical storytelling art from North India.
I’d decided to try out kathak, and stepped timidly into the dance center where a class happened to be offered just down the street from my home. As I climbed the three stories of steps to the kathak studio, the sound of ankle bells grew louder. Then I discerned the slap, stomp and drumming of dozens of feet, and the glorious sound of voices singing in unison. In kathak, the dancer becomes an instrument. In addition to studying dance technique and compositions, the dancer must become intimately familiar with the cycles in which Indian classical music is structured—the 16 beat cycle (tintal), the 14 beat (dhammar), the 10 beat (jhaptal) and many others—and develop an awareness at all times of where in the cycle she finds herself. In addition, dancers memorise their compositions and recite them in a series of mesmerising syllables that roll off the tongue: kita taka tun tun na tete dha dha dhin dha kita dha dhin dha. The hundreds of small brass bells around their ankles lend music to every step, a hushed, whispered jingle mimicking a drizzle of rain, a deafening jangle indicating an exploding storm. And then there are the sounds of the feet, sharp slaps of entire soles coming down hard on the floor, deep drumming of heels, soft pats of tapping toes.
As I delved deeper into the dance, I learned of its early history, first among wandering minstrels bringing the Hindu epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, from village to village, then as a devotional dance practiced in Hindu temples by devadasis, girls who were wedded to the temple’s deity and served it through dance, while also serving wealthy patrons as sexual companions. Soon, it all began to coalesce into a story—the setting, the history, the dance itself.
Music and rhythm in writing
From the moment I started writing the book, I was aware of the power of rhythm in writing. Word choice, sentence length, the sounds of the syllables on the tongue all contribute to the experience of absorbing a story. When it came time, in the manuscript, to convey through words a moment of dance, I found myself dancing the piece in my dining room, or in my head if I was writing in a cafe, willing the feeling of the music and movement to flow out of my body through my finger tips and into the keyboard. I tried to hear the musicality in the raindrops of the city’s first rain in five years, in the beat of hooves as a horse galloped over searing sand.
Music to transport me
I wrote the book in New England. There are some hot days, and many cold ones. Bundled up in a wool sweater as a Nor’easter rages outside, dumping two feet of snow and closing schools, it’s hard to imagine being in the Thar desert of Rajasthan. So I often turned to music to pull me back to the right place. One of my favorites for this is L Subramaniam playing his violin, especially in Raga Kalyani. The strains of the Indian violin are haunting, rich and emotionally charged. They always give me goosebumps, and conjure up images of India right away. L. Subramaniam is from South India, and plays in a Carnatic style that is not the one found in Rajasthan, but his music is all I need to feel back in India. I get memories of playing among the rocks on the coast of the Arabian Sea in Mumbai with my friends while the sun set smoggily and the air filled with the smoky smell of kerosene fires. I see myself standing wrapped in a shawl on the ramparts of the fort in Jaisalmer, looking out over the grey-blue desert as the sun rises and colors it with warmth. I think of sitting on an elephant, plodding through foliage dripping with the night’s condensation, listening for tigers at the break of day.
Music to elicit moods
Once in an India frame of mind, I have some favorites that I put on while writing to elicit a certain mood, or to help with inhabiting a character’s mind. For scenes depicting dancers and musicians, I love the creative and melodious music of George Ruckert, sarod player/composer and longtime disciple of the late Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, a true maestro. George Ruckert is the husband of my dance teacher, a professor, a mentor and a friend. His dedication to his art is inspiring, and so is having his music playing as I write. (He is also on the book trailer.) For energetic scenes, I enjoy the dynamic, celebratory qawwali (Sufi devotional) singing of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. It’s hard to feel down when he sings. And for getting into the writing mood on a rainy day, I diverge to Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturnes. The simple beauty of the piano playing, stripped of any distractions, is meditative, and reminds me of the necessity of getting to the essence of the story and the characters.
The daughter of an Indian father and an American mother, Anjali Mitter Duva grew up in Paris, France. After completing graduate studies in urban studies and civil engineering at MIT and launching a career in infrastructure planning, she found the call of storytelling too great to resist. A switch to freelance writing and project management allowed her more time for her own creative pursuits. Additionally, she is a co-founder of Chhandika, an organization that teaches and presents India’s classical storytelling kathak dance. In delving into the dance’s history, Anjali found in it, and in the dance itself, the seeds of a quartet of novels. Faint Promise of Rain is the first. Find Anjali on her website, Facebook, and on Twitter @AnjaliMDuva
‘A hushed, whispered jingle mimicking a drizzle of rain’ Anjali Mitter Duva
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on October 7, 2014
Music is at the heart of my guest’s story this week. The setting is 16th century Rajasthan in Northwest India, a landscape of temples and fortresses, jewel-toned textiles, blue skies and golden sand. It’s also the land of kathak, a stamping, rhythmic, hypnotic devotional form of dance practised in Hindu temples by girls who were wedded to the temple’s deity – and wealthy patrons who looked for companions. My guest wrote her story in New England, and listened to the rhythms of the traditional dance to conjure up her novel’s parched, colourful landscape and people, a place where rain was so rare that children would view it with terror. She is Anjali Mitter Duva and she’ll be here on Wednesday with her Undercover Soundtrack.
The Undercover Soundtrack – Erika Robuck
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on October 3, 2012
‘Dark bars, blazing sun and volatile people’
Once a week I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative process – perhaps to open a secret channel to understand a character, populate a mysterious place, or explore the depths in a pivotal moment. This week’s guest is historical novelist Erika Robuck @ErikaRobuck
Soundtrack by Manuel Ponce, Cole Porter
I don’t know who once said that art begets art, but that has always been true for me in my creative process. There’s nothing like a particularly evocative painting or piece of music to inspire scenes, mood, or even character in my writing.
My latest novel, Hemingway’s Girl, is set in Key West in 1935, when a half-Cuban woman goes to work for Ernest Hemingway to support her widowed mother and sisters, and save money to start her own charter fishing boat business. Soon after she becomes Hemingway’s housekeeper, she finds herself torn between the writer and a WWI veteran and boxer working on the Overseas Highway.
Like the other novels I’ve written, music was integral to my creation of this work, particularly in the areas of temperature, time, and theme.
Heat
In Hemingway’s Girl, the characters and the time period are warm, passionate, and colorful. From the Spanish-speaking Cuban mother, to the dark bars and boxing matches in town, to boating under the blazing sun on the Gulf of Mexico, Hemingway’s Girl simmers with tropical heat.
Nothing captures that simmering intensity for me better than Spanish classical guitar music, specifically by Manuel Ponce and David Russell. Both composers’ blends of sultry guitar riffs, moody reflective measures, and sudden bursts of sound and scale matched my characters and their volatility.
One of my characters is an amputee from WWI, and he plays Ponce’s Suite in A Minor on his guitar to convey his emotions associated with his passionate love of life and pain over his loss, just as my protagonist’s widowed mother plays the song on her gramophone. I named the song in the text as a frame of reference for the reader with the hopes of sending my audience searching for the music that inspired me, and to convey the heat I felt while writing it.
Time period
Writing historical fiction while living in the present day, with three sons running around the house, is a special challenge. When I step into the writing zone, I put down a sippy cup and pick up a metaphorical long, pearly cigarette holder. I don’t actually smoke, but the act of turning from my life to the past happens more seamlessly in the context of prop and music.
While writing Hemingway’s Girl, one of the songs that grounded me in the thirties was All Through the Night by Cole Porter. It came on a Pandora mix one night while I was writing, and inspired a scene where my protagonist first danced with the boxer. The song is so intimate and filled with longing that I was able to get lost in a moment where two people began to understand the depth of their feelings for each other. The music opened up a new avenue for me in the story because, until hearing it, I couldn’t figure out how to transition their relationship from casual friendship to the beginnings of love. It was the music that made the scene.
Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway once said that he used words the way that Bach used notes. He said that he studied Cezanne until he could paint a landscape with words the way the artist could with his brush. Hemingway felt the connection between art forms and recognized their power. It is my hope that the music in the creation and product of my novel enhances the themes in the story.
Erika Robuck is a guest blogger at Writer Unboxed and has her own historical fiction blog called Muse. Her novel, Hemingway’s Girl, was published in September 2012 by NAL/Penguin, and will be followed by Call Me Zelda in 2013. Connect on her website, www.erikarobuck.com, Twitter @ErikaRobuck, or on Facebook.
GIVEAWAY Erika is giving away one signed copy of Hemingway’s Girl to a commenter here… so be sure to say hello!
The Undercover Soundtrack – Leslie Wilson
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on April 3, 2012
‘The last days of Nazi Germany did not play out to Wagner, but sentimental hits about love and hope’
Once a week I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative process – perhaps to tap into a character, populate a mysterious place, or explore the depths in a pivotal moment. This week’s post is by multi-award-winning historical novelist Leslie Wilson
Soundtrack by Django Reinhardt, Louis Armstrong, Barnabas Von Geczy & His Orchestra et al, Lilian Harvey and Willi Fritsch
The dying days of Nazi Germany played out, not to the music of Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods, but mainly to sentimental hits about love and hope, especially – as I first heard from my German mother -one called Es geht Alles Vorüber (Everything passes). She said she couldn’t get it out of her head even in the thick of an air-raid.
Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister, disliked these songs, finding them too ‘soft’ for an era which he had dedicated to Total War – but he knew better than to ban them; they boosted morale.
A theme for every novel
I don’t often write to music, but I listen to it when I drive and cook and get up in the morning, and every novel has its theme tunes. For Last Train from Kummersdorf, my first novel about Nazi Germany, with a jazz-obsessed heroine, I listened to Django Reinhardt and Louis Armstrong; for Saving Rafael, which tells the story of a German girl who hides her Jewish boyfriend from the Nazi authorities, I found a CD called Berlin by Night; a compilation of German-language hits from the ’30s.
It’s expensive to get permissions from song copyright-holders, so when I want lyrics I usually write my own, after listening to a lot of contemporary songs. On this CD I found a song that inspired my lyric: schmaltzy and yet it expressed just what the characters are feeling.
Jenny, my heroine, has met Rafael at the Café Kranzler, the poshest café in Berlin – a place he’s forbidden by law to enter, but his blond hair and blue eyes (think of Paul Newman) help him to blag his way through Berlin and meet Jenny – also forbidden, by this time. He even manages to pay the bill – he’s found a lost wallet with a Nazi Party high-up’s ID card in it, so he has no scruples about removing the money.
Jenny, who’s fifteen, has put on her new best dress; the grown-up one she’s managed to persuade her reluctant mother to make her. Only Rafael doesn’t seem to want to look at her, though she’s dressed up specially for him. She doesn’t understand that he’s just shy; she’s miserable, convinced everything’s going wrong – till the singer launches into this song.
I’m dancing in your arms
Forgetting grief and harm
When I look deep into your eyes
My heart flies off to paradise –
Rafael reaches out, takes her hand, and begins stroking her fingers. Later, when Jenny’s convinced he’s stopped loving her, she hears the song, and suffers – and later still it plays another really important part in the story.
Frankly, it makes me giggle
The original song was called Ich Tanze mit Dir in den Himmel Hinein, (I’m dancing to heaven with you) – and frankly, it makes me giggle, with its long-drawn-out phrases and languishing violin flourishes – but it was a major hit in its time; the vocalists are Lilian Harvey – an actress born in London’s Muswell Hill, and Willi Fritsch – and it occurs in a film made by the UFA studios and released in 1937.
Some of the words are similar to the lyric of Ich Tanze mit Dir – like the heart flying off to paradise – but my second line, with ‘grief and harm’ derives from my grandmother’s favourite German Christmas carol. However, the German translators seem to have recognised the inspiration, and it’s the lyrics to Ich Tanze mit Dir that appear in the German version. (Nicht Ohne Dich, Boje Verlag)
A lyric in a novel is quite different, of course, from the lyric to a song. In the latter, the music’s most important, but in a novel – and I think this is true even if one’s using a song whose music is well-known – the words have to do all the work. Using clichéd and schlocky language to underline feeling may sound odd, when otherwise one works so hard to to find fresh ways to put those feelings – but Graham Greene did it, and I’m not ashamed to follow in his footsteps.
Leslie Wilson is the author of four critically acclaimed historical novels, two for adults, Malefice and The Mountain of Immoderate Desires (which won the Southern Arts Prize) and two for young adults, Last Train from Kummersdorf (shortlisted for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize) and Saving Rafael (nominated for the Carnegie Medal, Highly Commended for the Southern Schools Book Award, shortlisted for the Lancashire Book of the Year Award and longlisted for the Wirral Paperback of the Year Award). She has lived in England, Germany, and Hong Kong. She lives in Berkshire with a husband and a dog, and has two daughters and three grandsons. Find her at her website
The Undercover Soundtrack – Sanjida O’Connell
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in Undercover Soundtrack on March 13, 2012
‘Blues took me to the swamps of the deep south, and the heart-rending misery Emily encounters’
Once a week I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative process – perhaps to tap into a character, populate a mysterious place, or explore the depths in a pivotal moment. This week’s post is by Sanjida O’Connell @sanjidaoconnell
Soundtrack by: Jace Everett, Brad Paisley, Alison Krauss, Moby
In my fourth novel, Sugar Island, Emily Harris is a glamorous young English actress who arrives in America in 1859, determined to make enough money to save her father’s theatre company. But while she’s there, her father dies, leaving her alone and, in her vulnerable state, a charming Southern gentleman, Charles Earl Brook, sweeps her off her feet and into matrimony. It’s during their honeymoon that she discovers his terrible secret: he owns a plantation in Savannah, Georgia, run by seven hundred slaves.
Darkness, danger and charm
Like many writers, I rarely listen to music whilst I work but I found that soul-haunting and edgy blues tracks, such as Down to the River to Pray by Alison Krauss and Natural Blues by Moby, helped me write about this naïve British woman who suddenly finds herself into the lush swamps of the Deep South, and of the heart-rending misery that she encounters. I played Jace Everett’s Bad Things endlessly. It has the darkness and the dangerous charm that is at the core of Charles’s appeal to Emily, as well as an evocation of the south’s decadent glamour.
Emily glimpses St Simons Island, where her husband’s plantation is, for the first time:
‘…the marsh appeared to close in, the reeds brushing past the edge of the boat. The overriding smells were rotting fresh seawater, seaweed, fish on the edge of decomposition. To her right lay an island of dense deep green tangled jungle; the dark grey sky pressed in on them. She’d spent the whole journey trying to dissect her emotions and now she realized that at the heart of all her arguments was one very simple thing: she felt as if she were slowly being pushed into a trap.’
This is when Emily encounters slaves for the first time. A group of them row her, her husband and her husband’s brother, Emmanuel, to the plantation. As they do so, they sing:
‘Mother, master gone to sell we tomorrow?
Yes, yes, yes,
Oh, watch and pray.
Gone to sell we in Georgia?
Yes, yes, yes,
Oh, watch and pray.’
Emmanuel uses the song as a way of telling Emily about their slaves, which he does with relish.
‘That’s why they are so pleased that you are about to have a child,’ said Emmanuel quietly, leaning towards her, ‘It means our family – your child – will continue to own them in the future and their families won’t be split up by being sold at auction.’
‘Mother don’t grieve after me,
No, no, no,
Oh, watch and pray.’
Slave songs
I found this slave song on www.negrospirituals.com and then altered the words slightly to keep them in the dialect I used for the St Simons slaves. Originally, I was so taken with some of these lyrics, their poignancy and their way of expressing the emotions of the slaves in a way they could not, I used them frequently. My editor at John Murray quite rightly said that less is more.
Emily does her best to help the slaves, from pleading with Charles to make their lives less miserable, to cutting down a young girl who’s been strung up by her thumbs and whipped, to teaching one slave to read, which at the time was illegal. Ultimately, Charles will no longer sanction her actions and makes her choose between her freedom and her daughter.
The only other slave song now remaining is right at the end of the novel but it might give away too much of the plot to quote that one.
Once I’ve finished writing for the day, I tend to go for a run and listen to some completely head-banging, heart-pulsing music to blast me out of the Deep South, Emily’s horrific quandary and the chilling plight to the slaves – songs such as I Fought the Law by The Clash, Mr Brightside by The Killers, All My Life by the Foo Fighters and Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day.
Dr Sanjida O’Connell is a writer based in Bristol in the UK. She’s had four works of non-fiction and four novels published: Theory of Mind, Angel Bird (by Black Swan), The Naked Name of Love and Sugar Island (John Murray). She is on Twitter as @sanjidaoconnell
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