Two Stories In One?
Dear Readers,
I'm hoping you can help.
I'm in the initial stages of writing a new book proposal. Or more accurately, I'm in the initial stages of writing three book proposals springing from the same big topic in an effort to decide which one works best.* The structure of two of the proposals is straightforward, but the third is problematic: parallel events that occurred in very different times and places.
I'm looking for models of historical works that have successfully used two stories, either combining them in a single narrative or linking two separate narratives.
The first example I looked at is Simon Schama's Dead Certainties (Unwarranted Speculations). The book is beautifully written, but I found it perplexing until the end--not necessarily a condition I want to inflict on readers. The first section, "The Many Deaths of General Wolfe" looks at the death of General Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham in 1759 from several different vantage points, including that of nineteenth century historian Francis Parkman. The second section, "Death of a Harvard Man" tells the story of the murder of Dr. George Parkman in Boston in 1849. For most of the book, the two are linked by a single reference in the first section to "Uncle George Parkman" and the general theme of death. Schama finally shares the element that joins the two stories together on page 320 of the 327 page book: "Both the stories offered here play with the teasing gap separating a lived event and its subsequent narration…These are stories, then, of broken bodies, uncertain ends, indeterminate consequences." It's all very clever,** but the connection comes so late in the book that it's not very satisfying as narrative. Kind of like a murder mystery where the author holds back a vital clue so the reader has no hope of solving the puzzle.
Eric Larsen's Devil In The White City is the obvious next choice, but it seems to be in one of the boxes we have not yet unpacked.
Any suggestions of other possible models I could read while I dig through the boxes?
Many thanks.
*Not very efficient, but sometimes the only way I can find out what I think/know/believe is to write my way through.
**Just for the record, I'm not being sarcastic. It's a lovely and illuminating piece of deconstruction.
Victorian City
In The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London,* social historian Judith Flanders (The Invention of Murder) reminds us Charles Dickens was a journalist before he was a novelist. The London that stands at the hearts of his novels--so vibrant that it's almost a character in its own right--is not only a work of the imagination but the reportage of a great observer. From his first works to his last, Dickens recorded and reinvented the people of London's streets and the world they inhabited. His earliest readers recognized the jokes behind his often-sly accuracy; today, the lines between imagination and observation are less clear.
Using both Dickens's novels and a wide range of other contemporary accounts, Flanders attempts to look at the streets of London as they existed from 1812 to 1870, a period of tremendous transformation and growth. (The title The Victorian City is a conscious misnomer. As Flanders points out, the great recorder of Victorian London spent almost half his life under the rule of Victoria's uncles.) Beginning with workers making their way through the city in the early morning and ending with the seedy side of Victorian nightlife, Flanders provides a detailed picture of both familiar and unfamiliar aspects of life in 19th-century London: markets, prisons, gin palaces, brothels, slums (known as "rookeries"), the mail stage and hackney cabs, and the health problems caused by overflowing cemeteries and overflowing cesspools. The Victorian City, filled with squalor, social injustice, larger-than-life characters and expansive prose, is Dickensian in every sense of the word.
The Victorian City is an engaging exploration of the city and social conditions that inspired Dickens's novels.
* Not to be confused with Asa Brigg's classic Victorian Cities. also well worth a read.
Most of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers.
In Which I Stop Reading And Start Writing
Yesterday I reached that undefinable moment in my current project when it is time to stop reading and start writing.
For smaller projects, the moment when I'm ready to make the leap is obvious. Sometimes I reach the point where I'm not learning anything new about my subject. Other times I reach the less satisfactory* point where I've read everything I can find to read and hope I can spackle over the holes in my knowledge as I go. Either way, it's time to plunge in.
With larger projects, the line between research and writing is fuzzier. I've never found a way to measure "enough". I certainly never reach the point where I've read everything there is to read. In fact, I regularly suffer from heart-pounding moments of panic when I realize that my source lists have spiraled out of control--again.**
And yet, that magic moment comes when I know it is time to make the leap. I can see the shape of the book. I've identified dramatic scenes or engaging details with which to catch a reader's imagination. The pile of books as yet unread suddenly feels burdensome rather than exciting. I am restless, fidgety, eager to start. ***
I definitely don't know enough yet to write the book. I probably don't know everything I need to write the book proposal. I don't even know what I don't know. I will find holes, write past them until there is more hole than narrative, pause to search for answers, and write again.
Today I start.
When do you know it's time to put down the book and pick up the pen start typing?
*i.e, absolutely terrifying.
**The seductive voice of the research demon can a terrible thing. I once identified 24 academic books as sources for a 250 word article before I caught myself.
***Okay, I'll admit it. I'm always fidgety.
Image courtesy of The Wellcome Library