The Lying Art of Historical Fiction

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Historical fiction is a dangerous genre for writers.  

Some readers despise the way that facts and outright mistruths can be ground into a story like so much hamburger and then fed back to the reader as a comfortable and completely inaccurate story or timeline. The main character in the movie Braveheart, William Wallace born in 1312, was said to be the child of a man who died in 1305 and a woman who would have been nine when he was born. Blatant ignorance of facts ruins a work like that for many people.  

On the flip side, readers love the way that historical situations and settings can come to life by way of a writer’s focus on the likely thoughts and emotions of historical figures in real settings from the past. Two of my favorite authors, Stephen Harrigan and Elizabeth Crook, have mastered the balance of historical accuracy and emotional leverage in a way that few have been able to establish. Crook’s calendar of tiny, penciled notes kept her on track with historical details, including the weather, for her writing of Promised Lands.[1]    

Having written work myself with hundreds of footnotes, which I call the root canal of writing, I’ve pined for a work that would absent them entirely and let me make some stuff up. It is not that easy, yet I still peck away at an outline for a work of historical fiction and play the scenes in my head like a movie. Emotion is a habit for which there is no 12-step program – thankfully. As readers, we crave it.  

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In the past few months, I’ve run across a couple of works of historical fiction focused on the time and place of my primary interest, pre-Republic East Texas. I rather accidentally discovered a decent little book of historical fiction with a terrible title, Gunpowder Wind. This 1988 paperback is by a couple of authors who did a series of books for a “Best of the West” collection of a trade press, Dan Parkinson and David Hicks.  

Despite what I think is a ridiculous title and cover photo, this story is not half bad to read. It is about the Battle of Nacogdoches in 1832 and calls forth some of the key characters of the region. Frost Thorn, William Goyens, Alexander Horton, and Colonel Jose de las Piedras figure in the story. Chief Diwali and The Egg of the Texas Cherokee are mentioned as well.   I found it first through interlibrary loan (the best invention of modern libraries), but now have my own ragged paperback via Amazon. As a fictionalized account it does a decent job with the circumstances of the uprising, but I really just enjoyed running across any story of early East Texas. If reading it would help resolve some of the under-appreciation of East Texas history, then I recommend it. Just put a piece of tape over the title and occasional over-the-top factual embellishments and read on.  

Shirley Seifert, Schlesinger Library.

Shirley Seifert, Schlesinger Library.

A better example of how this genre can engage readers was a novel I discovered only a couple of weeks ago. At the King’s Command, a 1962 novel by Shirley Seifert (1888–1971), dramatizes the expulsion of Spanish subjects from Los Adaes, the former capital of Texas, just west of Natchitoches, Louisiana. I’ve been unable to find this book anywhere except interlibrary loan. The story of Antonio Gil Ibarvo and the Adeseños as they are forced to leave their homes and finally started the permanent settlement of Nacogdoches in 1779 is compelling and engaging. Seifert was a skilled writer with over 20 historical romances and a Pulitzer Prize nomination in her resume. She was one of the six founders of the St. Louis Writers Guild in 1920.[2] Her sisters, Elizabeth and Adele, were writers as well.  

Kirkus Reviews called it an “able reconstruction,” the kind of almost-a-compliment that would cause many writers to grit their teeth. They report that “a historical incident is filled in with details of Antonio's long struggle, of Spanish policy in the new land, of the incidents in the lives of the uprooted people, and the temper of the times comes alive.”[3]  That was my own assessment as well. I very much enjoyed the stories yet know enough about the timelines and personal histories to wrinkle my nose at occasional abuse of known facts. In the end, good writing wins and I felt I knew the characters more fully, even if not fully factual.  

I am currently researching that particular event, along with many others, during a period in East Texas from the mid-1700s until the time when filibustering revolts like the Gutièrrez-Magee expedition began to flare up around 1812. The interplay of cultures, nations, commerce, and struggle are unlike any other period in Texas history. The pivotal nature of events in East Texas and our Spanish history in general are sorely overlooked in the bigger picture.  

Though fabrications must not be offered to the point of readers accepting them as fact, there is value in a constructive filling-in-of-the-gaps with the emotions likely stirred for the people involved. An article by The Guardian titled “The Lying Art of Historical Fiction” pointed to none other than Shakespeare as a guide.  

“He knowingly conflated historical characters in historical plays. He deliberately misnamed others. Sometimes he gave them attributes that were the very opposite of their real characters. And yet he made the drama of their lives meaningful for us so that we remember who they are.”[4]  

It is in remembering who the characters of history were as people where we find a place for engagement. That is how we pay history forward.