Jon Nappa Imagines the Life of Longfellow

When I was writing my historical novel Brookhaven, I almost stumbled into using the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as a literary device. I had recently read three of his epic poems – The Song of Hiawatha, Evangeline, and The Courtship of Miles Standish. As I child, like virtually every other schoolchild of my generation, I had memorized “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.”  

After reading and writing about the three epic poems, I read Cross of Snow, the 2020 biography of Longfellow by Nicholas Basbanes. Two years later, I saw the movie “I Heard the Bells,” the story behind Longfellow’s poem that eventually became a popular Christmas carol. And all this while, I kept looking for something that will help me unify a theme for this as-yet-unnamed novel. 

 

The movie might have been the clincher. And I thought, what about Longfellow’s poetry? If I had searched more or better than I did, I might have found the 2017 novel What Longfellow Heard by Jon Nappa. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Late summer – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

The Nesting Ground – poem by Rachel Lyn Aldreick at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

The Pershing Hotel – poem by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell at Every Day Poems.

 

Discover Your Favorite: 15 Poems Every Kid Should Know – Jody Lee Collins.

 

Howard’s Trees – poem by Benjamin Myers.

Sara Barkat Takes Us into “Otherside”

Until the late 1970s, my reading of science fiction was limited to the stories and novels of Ray Bradbury, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein, and The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. I didn’t have any inherent bias against science fiction; it was more my reading interests were in other directions. 

For some reason, I picked up a paperback edition of Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg. Then I went to the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov (published in the 1950s, it may explain American politics of the last decade). Then the novels of Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven. And Arthur C. Clarke, whose Rendezvous with Rama and Childhood’s Endremain among my favorite books. But as much as I loved the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, even then I knew how much it was changing science fiction. Fantasy was taking over. 

 

Years passed. Reading interests changed. And then the old memories stirred when I read The Shivering Ground by Sara Barkat. The wonderful graphic version she did of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space, was another reminder, even though it’s usually called a horror story. And now she has a new novel, Otherside, which is about as close as you can get to mainstream science fiction as you can.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

For the Road to Santiago – poem by David Whyte.

 

The Wordless Rose: Ruchard Wilbur’s ‘Advice to a Prophet’ – Alexander Fayne.

 

Veshicular – poem by Franco Amati at Garbage Notes.

 

Poetry in Prose – Where Love is Born – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Lives upon Lives – poem by Baruch November at Evey Day Poems.

 

“Requiem,” poem by Robert Louis Stevenson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

A Trailer for "Brookhaven"

I was surprised today - the nice, wonderful kind of surprise. TS Poetry Press, the publisher of my historical novel "Brookhaven," created a trailer for the novel. It is (no bias here, of course) spot on. It describes the novel perfectly and communicates the "feel" that I intended with the novel. You can see it here:

Two Reviews of "Brookhaven"

One day, I'll figure out how Amazon works. Here are two reviews of Brookhaven, both dated December of 2024 (the month it was published), but which didn't show up until the last week. Still, I thank both reviewers for their kind comments.

From Dec. 26, 2024:

 Immensely Satisfying

A quick admission, I usually have to be drug kicking and screaming to read new novels. So, when this book was placed into my hands, I’m now glad my tantrum was brief and that I settled in to both read and enjoy Brookhaven. The novel is lovely, sad, joyful, redemptive, and all around a thoroughly satisfying example of entertaining storytelling. Without giving away the plot, the author artfully weaves in the awful complexity of the Civil War, along with its immediate aftermath, into the lives of the generations that came after, and all with a most satisfying conclusion.

And from Dec. 31, 2024:

 "Brookhaven" kept me up late wondering what would happen next!

“Brookhaven” is a retrospective novel set amidst the grim realities of the American Civil (and often not-so-civil) War and its aftermath. While Young’s descriptions of the war feel so authentic and in the moment, it is his love story—one of romantic love and, even more, love of a place and its people—that drew me in. Young’s writing is clear and concise, and he weaves together a complicated tale that is engaging, endearing, and enlightening. I don't have a lot of time to read, but the book managed to keep me up late at night wondering what would happen next. I expect it will do the same for many other readers.

“A Month in the Country” by J.L. Carr

In 1980, British writer J.L. Carr (1912-1994) published a short novel. It was one of eight he would publish during his life. And it turned out to be the one that became something of a classic. Even today, it’s considered a “perfect novel.” 

The novel is A Month in the Country. It has the kind of plot that wouldn’t lead you to believe it would become as famous as it has. A veteran of World War I, who specialized in art restoration before the war, has been hired to uncover a mural in a small chapel in Yorkshire, one dating to early Anglo-Saxon times. At some point in the past, perhaps during the dissolution of the monasteries and raiding of the churches by Henry VIII, the mural has been covered over. 

 

Now the church authorities want it restored, if possible. Thomas Birkin, the veteran is still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (called something else back then), largely manifested by a nervous tic in his face that he can’t control. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Timothy – Brian Miller at Notes from an East Tennessee Farmer.

 

The War on Knowledge – Dan Lerman at Three Press.

 

You Become What You Read – Clinton Manley at Desiring God.

 

What Happens If No One Reads? – Spencer Klavan at The Free Press.

"Foster" by Claire Keegan

Irish writer Claire Keegan writes stories like Johannes Vermeer painted paintings: interior scenes, perfectly drawn, with far more going on than what first meets the eye. Whether you’re reading a Keegan novel or standing before “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” when you finish and walk away you simply say, “Yes.” 

I discovered this when I read Keegan’s Small Things Like These, the story of a coal hauler doing his regular delivery at a convent when he discovers a young girl shivering outside and discovers he has walked into something else entirely. Keegan moves comfortably into her characters’ skins, and the reader becomes almost one with the story.

 

In Keegan’s short novel Foster, a young girl doesn’t entirely understand what is happening when her father brings her to the home of an older couple, Mr. and Mrs. Kinsella. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

My Ántonia, More Than a Century Later – Bradley Birzer at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Ancient Wisdom: Why I Dug into My Family’s Past – Nicholas Lemann at The Free Press.

 

Why My Sons and I Take the Train – Christopher Rufo at The Free Press.

“Remembering: A Novel” by Wendell Berry

It’s the mid-1970s. Andy Catlett is in San Francisco, a writer attending a modern agricultural conference. His family in Kentucky is likely relieved that he’s away; Andy had become very difficult to live with. 

The reason: some time before, Andy and a few others were helping a neighbor on his farm. Andy was operating machinery, and almost without realizing what had happened, he lost his hand. The quick actions by the other men likely save his life; he could have bled to death.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Two Men. A Morgan, and a Martyr – Dwight Longenecker at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

They Became Symbols for Gazan Starvation. But All 12 Suffer from Other Health Problems – Olivia Reingold and Tanya Lukyanova at The Free Press.

 

The History of the Orient Express – Sulari Gentill at CrimeReads.

“The Palace at the End of the Sea” by Simon Tolkien

Theo Sterling is a boy who feels caught between his ambitious father, who manufactures women’s fashions, and his religiously devout mother, who escaped revolutionary Mexico after seeing her parents murdered by partisans. Theo’s father is desperately trying to leave his Jewish roots (and parents) behind, while his mother seems desperately trying to find hers in her Catholic faith. 

It's the late 1920s, and what Theo himself wants to do more than anything is run track, in which he excels at in school and is encouraged by his coach. His father is determined that Theo will quit school at 14 and join him in the business, which is what happens until the Great Depression intervenes.

 

His father’s business is failing with the times, until a strike essentially finishes it. It becomes something of a mortal blow for Theo’s father, and the boy and his mother are left destitute, until rescued by a former friend of his mother’s, a rescue that includes marriage and a move to England. Theo has known middle-class respectability, lower-class poverty, and now upper-class wealth and privilege. His stepfather has both ancestors and property in Spain, and Theo will soon be introduced to a new kind of conflict – the rumblings of the Spanish Civil War.

 

Simon Tolkien

The Palace at the End of the Sea by Simon Tolkien is part coming-oof-age novel, part historical novel, and completely an enthralling story set in the late 1920s and 1930s. Through the life of an American boy and teen, Tolkien tells several stories – the New York garment trade, the Great Depression, upper-class Britain with its famous schools and emphasis upon sports, and Spain spinning towards the brink of chaos and war. Theo Sterling must learn to navigate all of it.

 

It should be noted that this is Part 1 of Theo’s story. Part 2, The Room of Lost Steps, will be published in September.

 

Tolkien previously published five novels: No Man’s Land, Orders from Berlin, The King of Diamonds, The Inheritance, and Final Witness. A graduate in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, he worked as a barrister London, specializing in criminal defense. A grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien, he’s a director of the Tolkien Estate and served as a series consultant for the Amazon TV series “The Rings of Power.” He lives with his family in southern California.

The Palace at the End of the Sea is a thoroughly engaging story. Tolkien captures the bewilderment, disappointment, anger, and maturing of a teenaged boy exactly right. And telling that boy’s story against the dramatic backdrop of the 1930s heightens and deepens both the boy’s experience and that of the times.  

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Britain: MPs should not have to declare their religious beliefs – James Bundy at The Critic Magazine.

 

Hick’s Hall: The Original Middlesex Sessions House – A London Inheritance.

 

Great Moments in Maine Real Estate: Harrington Edition – Sippican Cottage.

 

What You’re Really Hungry For – Spencer Klavan at The Free Press on Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.

 

Zen and the Art of Bear Spotting – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

A Novel in Verse: "Eugene Nadelman" by Michael Weingard

If you came of age in the 1980s, certain cultural icons and events are likely imprinted in your brain. Like MTV. And Nintendo, Sega, and Game Boy. The Bourne Identity. Michael Jackson. Yuppies. Back to the Future. Madonna. The Apple II. Pop and Hip-Hop. The Color Purple. The IBM PC. Reaganomics. Indiana Jones. Prince. St. Elmo’s Fire. The space shuttle. Fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. Bonfire of the Vanities.  

Eugene Nadelman is a novel of coming of age in the 1980s. It’s the story of a young teen, Eugene Nadelman, growing up in Philadelphia. The story begins with the celebration for Eugene’s bar mitzvah. He falls in love and has his first kiss. The romance continues until he goes to summer camp. He gets involved in an online game that turns into something of a duel. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

“The Rapture,” poem by Thomas Traherne – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Poet Laura: Fables and Foxy Chickens – Sandra Fox Murphy at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

“John Barleycorn,” poem by Robert Burns – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Hiawatha (excerpt) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

In the Margins of Time: James Agee and Weldon Kees - Morton Hoi Jensen at Nimrod.

"The Memory of Old Jack" by Wendell Berry

Old Jack is what we once called “a character.” You didn’t find characters in large cities; you found them in small towns. Everyone knew them; they might be funny or odd or irascible or curmudgeonly. But they were part of the fabric of the place, part of its history and memory.  

Old Jack is 92. Born in 1860, the year before the Civil War, he has lived in the Port William area for his entire life. He’s connected to other families by kinship and relationship. He farmed for as far back as he can remember, but his farming days are behind him. He lives in what passes for Port William’s hotel, really just a boarding house with other elderly residents. But none are as old as he; he can remember some of them as children.

 

Old Jack can feel the end of his long life approaching. He knows this as well as he knows anything. He finds himself moving almost effortlessly between what was and what is. He recalls his childhood, his courtship of Rose and their doomed marriage, the births and the deaths, his estrangement from his only surviving child, the cost he paid for taking on the farmer who didn’t revere the land like Jack did. He remembers of deaths of friends; but he can rouse himself to engage the present, like seeing young Andy Catlett off to college, knowing it’s the last time he’ll see the boy of whom he’s especially fond.

 

Wendell Berry

The Memory of Old Jack is the second-to-last of the Port William novels by Wendell Berry. Set in 1952, it is a requiem for the kind of small-town and farming life that slowly vanished after World Wat II. It’s about the land and the people who farmed it, and the lives they lived. It’s not a rose-colored-glasses look backward; not everything was wonderful and simple. But it’s a story that only Wendell Berry could write, I think.

 

Berry is a poet, novelist, essayist, environmentalist, and social critic. His fiction, both novels and stories, are centered in the area he calls Port William, Kentucky, on the Ohio River. He’s won a rather astounding number of awards, prizes, fellowships, and recognitions. He lives on a farm in Kentucky.

 

If such a thing as purpose to a novel exists, then the purpose of The Memory of Old Jack is to remind us that this way of life existed, it was important, and when it passed, we lost something worth keeping. This may be my favorite of all the Port William novels,

 

Related:

My review of Berry’s That Distant Land.

Wendell Berry and the Land.

My review of Berry’s Jayber Crow.

Wendell Berry and This Day: Poems at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Wendell Berry and Terrapin: Poems at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Wendell Berry’s Our Only World.

The Art of the Commonplace by Wendell Berry.

Nathan Coulter by Wendell Berry.

Andy Catlett: Early Travels by Wendell Berry.

A World Lost by Wendell Berry.

A Place on Earth by Wendell Berry.

Some Monday Readings

 

The Intellectual Virtues of the Small Magazine – Jeff Reimer at Comment Magazine.

 

The Darktown Strutters Ball – Debra Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Message from Pope Francis: Read a Novel – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

The Fantastic Imagination – George Macdonald at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

St. James’s Square and the Growth of Stuart London – A London Inheritance.

“Nightwatch” by John Leax

From 1968 to 2009, John Leax (1943-2024) was an English professor and poet-in-residence at Houghton College in New York. He was a poet, an essayist, and the author of one novel. He writes in his Grace Is Where I Live: Writing as a Christian Vocation that for years he had wanted to be a novelist, not a poet, but it took him a long time to learn (from writers like Flannery O’Connor, who said it directly) that fiction wasn’t about writing about ideas but about people and story. 

Leax’s one novel was written for young adults. Nightwatch (1989) is the story of Mark Baker, a boy growing up in a small town. It’s told in disconnected segments – Mark as a young boy, at age 11 or 12, and as a teen. His parents are both people of faith, but Mark is wayward, falling in with friends who tend to lead him further away. But all of Mark’s experiences across the years are leading him directly (and sometimes indirectly) into the arms of God. And he fights it the entire time, until he can no longer fight.

 

John Leax

It may sound like a familiar story, but Nightwatch isn’t that at all. It contains an edge, a jaggedness that you wouldn’t expect in a young adult novel or a Christian young adult novel. But Leax had taken O’Connor’s advice to heart, and he told a story about people as opposed to ideas. And he let his characters, and especially the character of Mark, to go where they might go.

 

Leax’s poetry collections include Reaching into Silence, The Task of Adam, Sonnets and Songs, and Country Labors. His non-fiction writing and essay collections include Grace Is Where I Live, In Season and Out, Standing Ground: A Personal Story of Faith and Environmentalism, 120 Significant Things Men Should Know…but Never Ask About, and Out Walking: Reflections on Our Place in the Natural World. 

 

In some ways, Nightwatch is difficult to read (thus my comment about jaggedness). But it reads like a real story about a real boy, a boy capable of stupidity and hurting others, a boy who’s running as fast as he can away from God but (very) slowly comes to realize he’s not getting away. 

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Writing in the Middle of Things – Andrew Roycroft at The Sounding Board.

 

The disappeared and the damned: A reflection on Roger Scruton’s neglected “grooming gangs” novel – Henry George at The Critic Magazine.

 

The Bridges of Old London – Spitalfields Life.

 

Shrouded Veterans: Honoring the Highest-Ranking Jewish Officer Killed in Action – Frank Jastrzembski at Emerging Civil War.

 

Richard Weaver: The Conservatism of Piety – John East at The Imaginative Conservative.

Two More Reviews for "Brookhaven"

Two additional reviews of Brookhaven have been published on Amazon. 

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written. Impossible to put down.

 

This wonder of a Civil War novel captivated me from the first page. Set ostensibly in 1915 when the only female reporter for the NEW YORK WORLD is sent south to learn details about a mysterious Confederate spy, author Glynn Young spins a family saga that details the heartache and loss not only of the war specifically but the broken relationships and twisted lives that came out of those devastating years.

What begins as a mystery to solve quickly evolves into an elderly man’s own story of the nation’s worst war. Set primarily in the town of Brookhaven, Mississippi, and the homes of a family still caught in the grasp of the war's aftermath, the story moves back and forth between 1915 and the 1860s, taking readers on a personal tour of troop movement in the eastern border states, battles of Gettysburg and Wilderness, General Lee’s surrender, and ultimately, a very satisfying finale.

As I read, the book and its characters felt very real. Not my ancestors, certainly, but people I learned to cheer for and care about as the ways of war and the world had their effect. That turned out to be not too surprising, as the author wrote an end-of-the-book note that BROOKHAVEN was inspired by tales he heard from his own family as he was growing up.

Finally, marvel of marvels for people like me who always “want to know more” after I’ve finished a historical novel, author Young provides readers with a comprehensive bibliography at the end of the book that ranges from general Civil War books, to books about the war in Mississippi, to letters and memoirs that offer personal insights into those years.

 

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully told, fascinating in historical detail

 

Glynn Young has crafted a beautiful, engrossing story that shines with historical details. I've always loved historical fiction and Brookhaven does not disappoint. The many twists and turns in the story made this one a page-turner for me. The author's note at the end of the book relates how the book was inspired by an old family story, which I found to be so interesting. I could tell by the way the author handled the characters with such integrity that this story holds a special place in his heart. This book kept me company over the holidays and through a winter snowstorm. It was a very good companion.

 

7 Tips for the Novice Historical Novel Writer - Learned the Hard Way

Writing one historical novel does not make one an expert in the genre. I have written exactly one historical novel, Brookhaven, a romance set in the Civil War era and in 1915. 

To write Brookhaven, I didn’t turn to how-to works by historical novelists, historians, or romance writers, or read articles on the subject on web sites. In fact, I never intended to write a historical novel at all. Because I had the time, I began to pursue a lifelong interest in the Civil War, with a side-interest in the role of my great-grandfather.

 

At some point, I told myself, “This is a story worth telling.” And I began to write. 

 

I also continue to do research, because writing this kind of story demands it. What did people wear? What did they eat? How would they send a letter when railroads and the mail service weren’t functioning? What were prisons like for captured soldiers? How does a society function when social order breaks down?

 

I learned some lessons along the way. Each was hard-learned and hard-earned. I stopped counting the times I had to go back and revise something, sometimes extending to almost everything I’d previously written.

 

If you’re thinking about writing a historical novel, I have seven suggestions for how to do it and not do it. 

To continue reading, please see me post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Top photograph: A page from the 1850 census, listing the members of the Franklin Young family in Pike County, Mississippi. 

Some Thursday Readings

 

The 1811 Slave Revolt and Destrehan Plantation – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Civil War.

 

The Parable of Anna Akhmatova – Ted Gioia at The Honest Broker.

 

Edge – poem and artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Poet Laura: A January Pilgrimage – Sandra Fox Murphy at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Three Reviews for "Brookhaven"

An author is always thrilled to receive a review – and doubly thrilled when it’s a positive one. My new historical novel / romance Brookhaven has (so far) three five-star reviews on Amazon; here they are. 

Immensely satisfying

 

A quick admission, I usually have to be drug kicking and screaming to read new novels. So, when this book was placed into my hands, I’m now glad my tantrum was brief and that I settled into both read and enjoy Brookhaven. The novel is lovely, sad, joyful, redemptive, and all around a thoroughly satisfying example of entertaining storytelling. Without giving away the plot, the author artfully weaves in the awful complexity of the Civil War, along with its immediate aftermath, into the lives of the generations that came after, and all with a most satisfying conclusion.

 

 "Brookhaven" kept me up late wondering what would happen next!

 

“Brookhaven” is a retrospective novel set amidst the grim realities of the American Civil (and often not-so-civil) War and its aftermath. While Young’s descriptions of the war feel so authentic and in the moment, it is his love story—one of romantic love and, even more, love of a place and its people—that drew me in. Young’s writing is clear and concise, and he weaves together a complicated tale that is engaging, endearing, and enlightening. I don't have a lot of time to read, but the book managed to keep me up late at night wondering what would happen next. I expect it will do the same for many other readers.

 

I couldn’t put it down.

 

I’m by no means an avid reader and I rarely read a book in a couple of days, but I couldn’t put this book down. It is very well written and the time period of the Civil War was obviously researched very well. The book will keep the reader engaged from beginning to end.

 

Some Thursday Readings

 

For the New Year – poem by Annie Lighthart at Every Day Poems.

 

“Ring Our Wild Bells,” poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The White-Tailed Deer – poem by David Yezzi at Literary Matters.

"Once Upon a Wardrobe" by Patti Callahan

Once upon a wardrobe, not very long ago and not very far away… 

That phrase, which sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale, is the centering theme of Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan. It’s a wonderful story, about legend and myth, about fairy tales, about C.S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia. And it’s about story, and the role story plays in our lives. 

 

It’s 1950. Margaret “Megs” Devonshire is studying mathematics at Somerville College at Oxford. She’s into everything logical, precise, and measurable, because that’s how she makes sense of the world.

 

She has a brother, George, 10 years her junior, a brother she loves dearly and who is not likely to see his next birthday. He’s seriously ill with what sounds like a worsening heart condition. When she visits home, she learns that George has been reading a just published book called The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by Oxford’s own C.S. Lewis. And George wants to know if she’s met Lewis or talked with him, because he has an important question: where did Narnia come from?

 

Because she loves her brother, Megs is determined to find out. She starts by making an unannounced visit to The Kilns, the house where Lewis and his brother Warnie live. Warnie finds her in the garden and invites her to have tea.

 

Patti Callahan

That invitation will send Megs on a journey into fairy tales, legends, myths, and stories. After each meeting with the Lewis brothers, and she has several, they will explain where Narnia came from – by not explaining any such thing. “Here is the thing, Miss Devonshire,” Lewis says, “you must not believe all that authors tell you about how they write their stories. When the story is finished, he has forgotten a good deal of what writing it was like.”

 

(Speaking from my own experience, that is absolutely true.)

 

Megs’ journey into the imagination will lead her to romance – and to an unexpected journey for her and George.

 

Patti Callahan Henry is the bestselling author of 17 novels, including Becoming Mrs. Lewis, the story of Lewis’s wife Joy Davidman. She’s also published in numerous anthologies and short story collections. She is the co-host and co-creator of the weekly podcast Friends and Fiction. She received degrees from Auburn University and Georgia State University. Trained as a pediatric clinical nurse, she now writes full-time. Callahan lives in Alabama. 

 

Once Upon a Wardrobe will have you nodding at its wisdom, smiling, laughing, and often in tears. Not every story has a happy ending, but the true stories have the right ending. And Once Upon a Wardrobe is a true story.

 

(And a big hat tip to my wife Janet, who recommended I read it.)

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Why the Progress Debate Goes Nowhere – Samuel Matlock at The New Atlantis. 

 

Tyson Foods cut contracts with Missouri farmers and is working to silence their legal fight – Egan Ward at Missouri Independent.

 

Winter Apple – poem by David Whyte.

 

Royal slush – Gary Saul Morson at The New Criterion on The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa,

"Brookhaven" is Published!

It’s always a milestone in a life when a new book is published. Brookhaven, a historical novel about the Civil War and what happened after, has made its appearance in the world. 

It’s not a novel about battles and military strategy. Instead, it’s about the people who were involved, some directly and some indirectly (and virtually every American alive at the time was affected). 

 

This is the summary:

 

“In 1915, young reporter Elizabeth Putnam of the New York World is assigned a story on the Gray Wisp. New information has come to light about this Confederate spy in the Civil War, a figure of legend, myth, and wildly competing claims. What no knows is the man’s identity. The reporter follows leads which eventually bring her to the small Mississippi town of Brookhaven. He agrees to tell his story, a tale of North and South, loss in wartime, narrow escapes from death in battles, family survival, the poetry of Longfellow, and love. And Elizabeth soon finds her own story has forever become part of the Gray Wisp’s.”

 

Brookhaven is essentially two stories – that of Sam McClure, who enlisted young and finds himself enrolled as a spy, and that of Elizabeth Putnam, a young reporter trying to make her way and her name in what was a very male world of journalism.

 

The book includes a character list (my wife insisted I include one) and a bibliography (I read more books and did more research than I can remember). 

 

I’ll write more about the inspiration for the book (a movie I saw in 1959 and a family story that turned out to be more legend than fact. For now, it’s feelings of relief, satisfaction, and no-small amount of joy I’m experiencing. And if you want more information, just ask.

 

Brookhaven is available here on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions. 

 

Related:

 

A note from T.S. Poetry Press on the release of Brookhaven (including the author’s note).

 

“Christmas Oranges,” a short story – Cultivating Oaks Press.