I’ve got a new book out. Have you noticed? And now it’s available in paperback too, which is exciting, at least as far as I’m concerned.
Thank you to everybody who has bought it or reviewed it or just given me enormous support in real life or on social media. It really is appreciated.
This launch experience has also made me feel a lot happier about this blog. Every so often you may have noticed me writing stuff saying that producing a blog can be very lonely. You send it out and the statistics say that quite a lot of people read it every month. (I get around 3,000 visitors, which is hardly viral, but I find quite satisfying.) Not that many people comment on here, though, and I know that a lot of my visitors are bots.
(I know some writers who are convinced that the number of visits they get from Russia reflects the popularity of their books there, but I have my doubts.) So I do sometimes wonder if you are all real and really care at all about my books. And this month you have put my doubts to rest.
This is the first proper book launch I’ve had since I started this blog. (I know: it’s been too long. There will be more very soon.) And I have had more visitors this month than ever before! And (and this is the brilliant bit) so many of you have actually visited to read the news about my book. In fact, the original post about it (which came out at the end of October) is my third most-read post ever and some people have even taken the trouble to comment on it, which is always nice. I don’t think the bots can recognise my excitement and home in on this one, so this does suggest real human beings read it. *Waves *
Anyway, that’s all I have to say this week. Thank you so much and, if you haven’t yet, please buy the book (just £1.99 on Kindle). Next week you’re getting a proper blog post with lots of history in it, thanks to the wonderful Jennifer Ash. Happy reading until then.
I’ve been very enthusiastic about Frank Prem’s first two books of poems, so he kindly sent me a copy of his latest, The New Asylum.
I’ve taken a while to read it and I’m finding it quite a difficult book to review. When I was at university I spent one summer vacation working in a psychiatric hospital. It says a lot about the period that the official name of the hospital was the – Hospital for the Mentally Subnormal and Severely Subnormal. I doubt it’s still called that these days, although the cruel bluntness of its name was at least honest, unlike the weaselly ‘learning difficulties’ of today. I was on a ward for ‘psychotic and disturbed’ patients. Daily life could include violent attacks, trying to reassure a paranoid patient that the others didn’t all hate her, and dealing with random chaos. A tutor at university said that I described behaviour that was already unusual as the increased availability of effective drug treatment meant that patients seldom exhibited such florid symptoms. Perhaps part of the problem was that we had only limited access to drugs that could be used for acute interventions because they had to be administered by a qualified doctor and there was only one on duty in the whole hospital. By the time he got round to our ward in response to an urgent phone call we usually had the patient in a straitjacket (yes, we still used them) and the immediate crisis was over. Despite all this, though, it was a happy summer. I won’t say I made firm friends, but I did go back to visit patients I remembered with affection. There was the woman who was being prepared for a half-way hostel. “What do you want to do when you get out?” “I want to rob gas meters, Tom.” I wished her luck. She was a pleasant person and it’s good to have a goal in life. And the lady who thought she was the Pope always tried to be nice. “Do you want to hear a dirty joke, Tom?” “Go on then.” (It was always the same joke.) “A white horse down a coal mine.”
Why am I telling the story of my summer instead of reviewing Prem’s book? Because his poems took me back to that summer, which I haven’t really thought about for decades and it has aroused emotions I had forgotten. The hospital, by today’s standards was (like Prem’s) a dreadful place. And (like Prem) I had no idea what I was doing. The nurses had little formal training and relied on experience and instinct. They were wonderful and, like Prem, I am amazed at how they just kept on dealing with the blood and the mess and the violence and, despite everything, created a safe and, astonishingly, kind place for the people who lived there. The doctors (noticeably absent in Prem’s poems too) were never around, leaving the nurses and the nursing assistants (that would be me) to cope, and we despised them. But we got along and nobody died. (Given that we had actual murderers on the wards, this wasn’t something you could take for granted.)
Take it away, Frank:
today they’re okay on this day at the start of october I’m proud
this crew of mine a random ragtag of workers has pulled together to make it through the shift
it wasn’t without drama sickness left our numbers down experience was light on the ground and there was madness in the air
…
but today the shift held up they worked for each other for the people they’re here for and it went okay
I feel proud
A good poem can touch the heart and take you to places you may have lost and it can bring back the sad things and the happy. These are good poems. I found them difficult to read, but I’m glad I did. They may not have as much effect on you as on me, but I hope you read them. Frank has things to say and it would be good to hear them.
in aftermath it seems so clear
there are few mental-health happy endings
and there are no simple cures
there’s just the risk of cynicism among repeat offenders with bad habits
and minds that won’t take the time to learn
there’s only so much before enough of trying to change worlds
enough of listening catching flak and shouldering tears
of bearing other people’s burdens
there is no room no role for heroes
there is only mental health and all it requires is you and I to be its creatures
My new book, Dark
Magic, features two troupes of magicians. One is using black magic in their
act, but the other is made up of regular stage magicians and many of the tricks
described are often featured in the magic shows that many of you may have seen.
There is a mention of Fay Presto’s “bottle through
table” trick. Fay is a real person and a stalwart of the British (and,
increasingly, international) magic scene. “Bottle through table” is
one of her two signature tricks, the other being pinning a chosen card to the
ceiling. The card trick is truly remarkable. A member of the audience selects a
card, it is shuffled into the pack, and then Fay throws the pack and a thumb-tack
at the ceiling. All the cards fall to the ground except one which is pinned to
the ceiling. She doesn’t perform it often these days as fewer ceilings are made
of the sort of tiles that it’s easy to pin things to and which burn so prettily
when the place catches fire. She also claims that she no longer has quite the
strength in her wrist needed to make a success of the trick. But in clubs in
London and around the country you may still see playing cards pinned to the
ceiling, proof that Fay once visited and nobody could be bothered to find a
ladder long enough to recover the card.
Table magic
Fay is very much in the old tradition of magic. The
bread-and-butter of her work is performing in clubs and private parties, mainly
doing close-up magic or “table magic”, so-called because the tricks are
worked at restaurant tables where most (if not all) of the magician’s income
comes from tips. Unless you have affluent friends or enjoy expensive clubs,
it’s likely that you have never seen top-quality table magic, which is a shame.
It’s probably the most demanding kind of magic there is. Big stage illusions can
be practically self-working and, in any case, are carried out, as the name
implies, on a stage where you have control of the lighting and, more
importantly, the angle at which the audience sees the trick. The audience too, having
paid good money to see you, desperately wants to be impressed. Table magicians,
on the other hand, are working really close to an audience who may shuffle and
move around or peer over from adjoining tables, meaning that the magician is
never quite sure of their audience’s sightlines. Somebody at the table may not
like magicians, somebody may be drunk – the table magician has to win them
over. And the audience hasn’t paid for a ticket and, indeed, may be quite keen
to convince themselves they haven’t seen anything worthy of a tip. Watching the
likes of Fay Presto not only performing seriously high-end prestidigitation
(she is often described by fellow professionals as one of the best close-up
magicians in the world) but doing all this while quietly controlling the drunk,
winning over the sceptic, and charming everybody else into generous payment for
her act, is a pleasure.
Fay performed at my son’s wedding. He’s not rich, but he’s a
good friend of hers and this was a generous gift. She’s about to pour a glass
of wine into that newspaper and when the paper is torn up, not a drop of wine
will be seen – and she’s doing this with people watching from behind her!
Photo by Ben Morse
Fay, like a lot of magicians, has
been seeing something of a career revival of late. Perhaps it’s a response to
the grim reality around us these days that more and more people want to escape
into a world of magic. Whatever the reason, it’s good news for the likes of Fay
Presto and for those of us who appreciate the special wonder of an evening with
people like her.
I hope that there is a touch of magic in my book as well.
Fay has weekly residencies at Langan’s Brasserie and The Ned in London. Other performances and contact information can be found at FayPresto.com
Terry Tyler’s move into dystopian novels has led her into
increasingly political territory and Hope
is a straightforwardly political book. It foresees a world where a right-wing
government uses draconian powers to round up the economically inactive and,
effectively, imprison them in camps where they are fed contraceptives with the
intention being that the unemployed will eventually die out. There are
sideswipes at lots of other things as well: the surveillance society; state
initiatives to make people live healthier lives; the ubiquity of social media;
the elimination of independent shops by huge chains; the increasing power
exercised by the USA over Britain’s affairs.
Terry Tyler makes a good case that this could happen here, but whether or not
you are convinced probably depends on your political opinions. It’s not a book
you want to give to that aunt of yours who is a stalwart of the local Conservative
party
Like a lot of agitprop (and that’s a word we’ve heard a lot
less of since the 1990s), characterisation is very definitely in second place
to plot. Reading this has made me revisit 1984
and it’s clear that the slightly sketchy drawing of all but the main character
is in a long tradition of books like this, and if we don’t hold it against
George Orwell, we shouldn’t hold it against Terry Tyler. But is her story up there
with Orwell’s classic?
Probably not. Tyler is a talented writer and her prose kept
me going but her opening (an email providing the background to the plot) is
hardly, “It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking
thirteen.” Orwell captures the misery of life in 1984 with acute observation of
detail. Here he suggests that the food available is inadequate.
By leaving the Ministry at this time of day he had sacrificed his lunch in the canteen, and he was aware that there was no food in the kitchen except a hunk of dark-coloured bread which had got to be saved for tomorrow’s breakfast.
Terry Tyler is more specific but somehow fails to capture
the sheer misery of the situation quite as well.
Our induction means we’re late, and there’s not much left. I eat pasta with a vaguely tomato tasting sauce, with a few things in it that might be courgettes.
The world Terry Tyler describes is not quite as grim as in 1984. The possibility of escape exists
and the ending (slight spoiler) is not as remorselessly negative, although I
was pleased that Tyler had resisted the temptation to provide a
straightforwardly happy ending either.
Hope has a lot to say and it says it well. I’ve found myself reviewing it by comparing it with what must surely be one of the most influential novels of the 20th century and that suggests that Tyler must be doing something right. Hope is not 1984, but it is worth reading and thinking about. It ends with the country waiting for the results of a general election. Try to finish it before 12 December.
I’d like to thank Tom Williams for inviting me onto his blog today, to talk about the joys and challenges of writing about real people from the past. As an author of historical fiction, it seems to me that there are distinct sub-divisions within the genre.
Some authors take historical
characters and fictionalise their lives. Sharon Kay Penman is an excellent
example of this; the main characters of her books are people like Simon de
Montfort or Richard the Third, and she does a brilliant job of turning the story
of their lives into vivid and believable fiction. Other authors choose to create an entirely
fictional world, populated by people they have created, and do not introduce
any actual historical characters. They may research settings, costume and society
to form an accurate backdrop but their people are not real.
Both Tom and I fall into a third category, which seeks to use actual historical events, with real people and then create fictional characters who move among them, blending in as if they belonged there. The central characters of both my Peninsular War Saga and the associated Manxman series are wholly fictional, and I have created a fictional regiment and warship but they fight and die alongside real officers and men. This weaving of history and fiction presents a number of challenges, one of which is to give life to often well-known historical people in a way that my readers will find both entertaining and believable. I’ve chosen two men to illustrate this, one from each series.
Most people will have heard of
Lord Wellington, who commanded the armies in the Peninsula and then at Waterloo
before going on to have a political career including two short terms as Prime
Minister. The second Earl of Chatham is less well known, his military career
having been sacrificed to the interests of his brilliant younger brother,
William Pitt who first became Prime Minister at the age of twenty-four. Chatham
returned to military service after Pitt’s death and commanded the army during
the disastrous Walcheren campaign of 1809, while still holding office as Master
General of the Ordnance.
As the central characters of my books are fictional, I don’t write from the point of view of either Chatham or Wellington, but both are significant secondary characters. Wellington appears in every one of the Peninsular books and makes a guest appearance in the first of the Manxman books, as commander of the reserve in Copenhagen. Chatham appears in person in This Blighted Expedition, but he plays a small but significant role off-stage in An Unwilling Alliance. The importance of both these men is in their relationship with my heroes.
Paul van Daan first encounters
General Arthur Wellesley in India, as a young officer and Wellesley takes a
liking to him. Their relationship develops over the years into a genuine
friendship, punctuated by exasperation and a few spectacular arguments. It is
not, and can never be, a friendship of equals, there is a gulf of both rank and
social status between them, but mutual respect and liking can and does exist.
Wellington was not an easy man to
like. His contemporaries described him as cold, reserved and haughty and he did
not have the capacity to inspire personal devotion and liking in most of his
officers. He was quick to anger, with a biting tongue, and his letters drip
with sarcasm when he talks about any officer who was not up to scratch. He
found it hard to delegate, and was openly mistrustful of his senior officers,
repeatedly stating that nothing would be done properly unless he did it
himself. His letters reveal a degree of micro-management almost unbelievable in
a commander-in-chief. At times, the challenge of writing Wellington is to turn
him into a sympathetic character at all.
And yet, there are endearing aspects to the private Wellington, which are very well highlighted in Rory Muir’s spectacular two volume biography of him. I read a lot of books about Wellington, but my character is based on the man Muir describes. Wellington’s harsh strictures on his officers and his difficulty in allowing his generals to make their own decisions makes an interesting contrast to the man who wept at the death of a friend, kept a watercolour of his sons pasted to the inside of his dressing case and exchanged banter about embarrassing injuries with Alava, his Spanish liaison officer.
I don’t know Chatham as well as Wellington, and my portrayal of him comes largely from the excellent biography of him by Dr Jacqueline Reiter, who has also written a very good historical novel about Chatham’s younger days. Chatham was known, during his time as First Lord of the Admiralty, as “the Late Lord” due to his inability to be on time for anything at all. In cannot have been easy being the son of that impressive statesman, the first Earl and the brother of the brilliant Prime Minister, William Pitt. History has not been kind to Chatham, whose political and military career never recovered from the disgrace of Walcheren, where the campaign failed to achieve its objective of destroying the French dockyards in Antwerp and where the army was destroyed by the dreaded Walcheren fever.
Chatham was an aristocrat, who
moved in court circles, and shared with Wellington an inability to inspire
devotion in his troops. He did, however, have the ability to inspire enormous
loyalty and affection in those close to him. While Wellington’s staff
complained of his sarcasm, occasional bullying and ingratitude for devoted
service, Chatham’s aides had nothing but praise for him. His military secretary
at Walcheren, Thomas Carey, wrote that “the more I see of him, the more I am
convinced that in understanding few equal him, & in Honor or Integrity He
cannot be excelled.” Men like Andrew Francis Barnard, who later went on to
serve with such distinction in the Peninsula under Wellington, wrote
affectionate letters to Chatham throughout their service.
Both men were married, but while
Wellington’s relationship with Kitty deteriorated very quickly into irritated
intolerance, Chatham’s devotion to his wife Mary, who suffered from both
physical and mental health problems for long spells of their married life, was
extraordinary. Wellington had two sons; Chatham had no children. At the time I
write, Chatham’s political career had recently collapsed in disgrace, while
Wellington’s was largely in the future.
The two men did not like each
other and it does not surprise me. Chatham served as First Lord of the
Admiralty and then Master General of the Ordnance and there were one or two
acknowledged disputes over military and public issues, but I suspect there was
also a real personality clash between Wellington’s aggressive energy and
Chatham’s languid indolence. In my books, neither of them wants to hear any
good about the other, and it is Paul van Daan, who has met both, who provides
the bridge between the two series and the two characters.
While Wellington’s character is
seen largely through the eyes of Paul van Daan and later his wife Anne, Chatham
is seen through the eyes of First Lieutenant Alfred Durrell, Hugh Kelly’s young
first officer on HMS Iris. The Pitt
family were patrons to Durrell’s father and both Durrell and his elder brother
Henry have benefited from their influence. Durrell has known Chatham since he
was a boy. First through the eyes of his father, and then with his own
clear-sighted observation, Durrell knows Chatham very well. He views his faults
with exasperated affection and is able to work around them in a way that I
suspect would be very familiar to Chatham’s real staff.
Writing Wellington and Chatham
presented different challenges. Many readers of Napoleonic fiction already have
a clear picture of Wellington, either from biographies and histories of the war
or from established portrayals in fiction or on screen. I don’t deviate
entirely from that character, but my Wellington is human, showing weakness and
uncertainty at times, and definite vulnerability when it comes to the
well-being of the few people he cares about.
In contrast, very few readers
know anything at all about Chatham, and those that do will probably have heard
of him as the bungling general who proved so ineffectual at Walcheren. That
would have been a very easy caricature to write, but it would have been very
boring. Instead, I have tried to portray an intelligent, interesting man who
loved his wife and would have been an excellent dinner guest but was not the
man to be in charge of a military campaign going wrong.
Above all, I write about people,
and both Lord Wellington and Lord Chatham are very human. Wellington is
definitely the man I’d want in charge in a crisis, but after getting to know
him over the past year, I’d probably much rather work for Chatham and I’ve
become very attached to both of them.
The Peninsular War Saga is
available on Amazon kindle and will be available in paperback in December.
The Manxman series is available
on kindle and in paperback.
About the Author
Lynn Bryant was born
and raised in London’s East End. She studied History at University and had
dreams of being a writer from a young age. Since this was clearly not something
a working class girl made good could aspire to, she had a variety of careers
including a librarian, NHS administrator, relationship counsellor and manager
of an art gallery before realising that most of these were just as unlikely as
being a writer and took the step of publishing her first book. She is the
author of eleven historical novels. An
Unwilling Alliance, the first book in the Manxman series was shortlisted for the Society for Army Historical
Research fiction prize in 2019.
Lynn and me at Malvern last year
She now lives in the Isle of Man and is married to a man who understands technology, which saves her a job, and has two grown up children and two Labradors. History is still a passion, with a particular enthusiasm for the Napoleonic era and the sixteenth century. When not writing she walks her dogs, reads anything that’s put in front of her and makes periodic and unsuccessful attempts to keep a tidy house.
Image at top of post shows Middelburg Abbey, Chatham’s headquarters during the Walcheran campaign. He liked his comforts, did Chatham. Photo by Richard Dawson.
Links in text take you to Amazon pages for the books.
