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Jody Hadlock

Author of The Lives of Diamond Bessie

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Book Recommendation: Lilac Girls

June 12, 2017 By jody hadlock

Lilac GirlsThe horrors of the Nazi concentration camps are well-known, but until I learned of Martha Hall Kelly’s novel, Lilac Girls, I didn’t know there was one just for women. And I had never heard of Caroline Ferriday, the New York socialite who helped a group of Ravensbruck prisoners, the ones who survived horrific medical experiments.

Lilac Girls is told from the perspectives of three characters: Ferriday; Herta Oberheuser, the only female doctor at Ravensbruck; and a fictional Polish prisoner, Kasia Kuzmerick, based on a composite of some of the women who lived to tell their stories.

Much is known of Josef Mengele, the Nazis’ “Angel of Death” at Auschwitz, who performed unspeakable medical experiments on thousands of twins. But the doctors at Ravensbruck were just as sinister. To Kelly’s credit, she doesn’t portray Oberheuser solely as an evil person but makes her three-dimensional.

The details of the experiments on the women — who became known as the Rabbits because the damage to their legs made them hobble around — are difficult to read, but It’s important to tell these stories. We can never forget the atrocities committed during the Holocaust.

Lilac Girls spans two decades, from the late 1930s to the late 1950s, so it’s not just a “war” story. The book also focuses on the aftermath, when the Ravensbruck survivors went back home. In Poland, they had to deal with communism, and Kelly touches on how the system also restricted their freedom.

I’ll let you read the book to find out how the lives of Ferriday and the Rabbits came together. You won’t be disappointed. In short, Lilac Girls is the perfect blend of history and fiction.

 

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: Caroline Ferriday, Herta Oberheuser, historical fiction, Holocaust, Lilac Girls, Martha Hall Kelly, Ravensbruck

”Communism for Kids” Isn’t Child’s Play

April 25, 2017 By jody hadlock

I debated for a while whether to post something about a new book published by MIT Press, Communism for Kids. It’s not historical fiction, which are the kind of reviews I want to focus on, but I feel strongly enough about this to go ahead and comment on this insanity.

At first I thought the book was a joke. Unfortunately, it’s not. Communism for Kids was written by a German author and first published there – in 2004 – before MIT Press stupidly decided to publish an English translation this year. Dear god, why?

Wikipedia says the author, Bini Adamczak, was born in 1979. So, she was only 10 years old when communism fell in the former USSR and Eastern Europe! In 1989, I was a recent college graduate when the Berlin Wall fell and watched the celebrations around the world. A few years later, as a television news reporter, I had an opportunity to report on Romania’s orphanages and saw firsthand how communism – under the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu – had destroyed that once-thriving country. I heard many stories of the evils of the flawed system from the people who lived it.

Adamczak believes communism can work if implemented correctly. Yeah, heard that one before. How many millions of people must die before this failed idea of utopia is quashed forever? Adamczak conveniently forgets that under any system someone has to be in control (or will fight to be in control in the absence of a leader). Under communism, there’s no separation of powers, no separate governmental branches to provide checks and balances. One unified government, headed by one person, owns and controls EVERYTHING.

The nineteenth century British politician, Lord Acton, knew what he was talking about when he said that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Communism begets despots: Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, and North Korea’s Kim family, just to name a few.

The MIT Press statement, which you can read here, says Adamczak uses fairy tales to decry capitalism and espouse the ideals of communism.

Communism is no fairy tale; it’s a nightmare. Why is MIT Press being complicit in this attempted brainwashing of children? It should be ashamed to publish this garbage. No one should be hoodwinked by Communism for Kids.

 

Filed Under: blog

Orphan Train (review)

April 10, 2017 By jody hadlock

Orphan Train- ReviewRecently, I attended a Dallas Museum of Art “Arts & Letters Live” event featuring author Christina Baker Kline. The event focused on Kline’s newest novel, A Piece of the World, about the relationship between the famous painter, Andrew Wyeth, and his muse, Christina Olson. I haven’t read the book yet (have an entire to-be-read shelf), but I wanted to take the opportunity to say a few words about Kline’s previous bestselling novel, Orphan Train, one of my favorite books over the past couple of years.

Orphan Train is based on a long-forgotten episode in our country’s history. From 1854 to 1929, orphaned or abandoned children were taken by train from the East Coast to the Midwest to be adopted, which usually meant working on a farm or some other form of servitude.

It was a hard life for these children, which Kline illuminates so vividly in her novel. She intertwines the lives of two women: 91-year-old Vivian, an orphan train rider taken to Minnesota in 1929, who eventually retires in Maine, and 17-year-old Molly, a troubled foster child assigned to a community service project with Vivian to avoid juvenile detention.

While the characters are fictional, the events Kline depicts are tragically all too true. More than three million copies of Orphan Train have sold, and it’s easy to see why. Great storytelling attracts readers, but I believe there’s also something else at play.

I agree with Elizabeth Gilbert’s theory, laid out in Big Magic, that ideas are constantly swirling around us “searching for available and willing human partners.”

There are people who have passed on who want their stories told, and whose lives may be bundled up under a major event, like the orphan trains.

Kline stumbled upon this part of America’s history during a family vacation to North Dakota, in a local historical society’s nonfiction book on the subject.

The story was waiting to be told, and fortunately, Kline accepted the invitation to inspiration.

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: Christina Baker Kline, fiction, historical fiction, historical novel, Orphan Train

Queen Mab Dreams

April 1, 2017 By jody hadlock

I wrote a short story based on an excerpt from my novel, Land of Lost Souls. Abe Rothschild has gone back to Cincinnati, thinking he’s gotten away with Bessie’s murder, but she shows up as an earthbound spirit. Enjoy — and please let me know what you think in the comments!

Courtesy www.fromoldbooks.org

February 1877

When my husband finally stumbles into his room well after midnight, I’m waiting for him. He doesn’t undress, just gropes for the massive mahogany bedstead, and quickly falls into a deep slumber.

Abe lives at the Burnet House, a grand brick and stone hotel covering an entire block at the southwest corner of Third and Vine in Cincinnati.

Five stories high, it boasts marble floors and columns and well-appointed rooms. Only presidents and the wealthy stay there. And now also a murderer.

With each life-giving breath my husband draws I grow angrier.

It’s Mardi Gras season, my favorite time of year, but I’m not alive to enjoy it anymore. As a much sought-after demi-mondaine, I attended the Queen Mab ball in New Orleans every year, watching in anticipation as the Order of Merrie Men and guests opened ranks and the queen and her maids of honor proceeded to a platform where her majesty held court from her throne. The orchestra played, and I was among the carefree dancing crowd.

I was one of the ladies in dresses and veils trimmed with ivy, flowers, and glittering stars, a myriad of colors blending and blurring like a turning kaleidoscope as we moved across the dance floor.

I’d first learned of Queen Mab, the mischievous fairies’ midwife who sneaks into men’s dreams and makes them face their worst vices and transgressions, from my Da. At bedtime, as he tucked us into bed snug within our log cabin, he teased, “Dream sweet dreams, lest Queen Mab visit you.”

He was referring to Shakespeare’s portrayal of the fairy in Romeo and Juliet, but we also knew the Celtic legends of Da and Mam’s homeland.

Queen Mab was Queen of the Sidh’e, the magical and mystical fairies. Tiny as my pinkie finger, she was loving but fierce, protective but vengeful. I had never been afraid of Mab creeping into my dreams; I had my Da to protect me. Until he died when I was eight years old.

My protector gone and my mam cocooned in grief, I was vulnerable to the temptations of men. I grew desperate to leave prostitution and become a proper, respectable lady.

Despite Abe’s bad temper and penchant for borrowing money from me for gambling and drinking, I succumbed to his proposals.

But Abe wasn’t as interested in me as in my jewels, just as my madam had warned. He wasn’t about to let my life stand in the way of getting to my diamonds.

As I move toward my husband’s slumbering body, simmering anger sounds in me like a tea kettle’s sharp whistle. I pour my rage into my unwitting husband, tainting his dreams with my fantasies of revenge.

I take Abe’s hand and lead him after Queen Mab, riding a tiny chariot, to a small clearing on the side of a hill in the woods where my body lies. My finery is torn and muddied.

A grotesque bullet hole in my left temple mars my handsome features. As we stand watching, my disfigured corpse rises and transforms into a hag.

The sound of the banshee shrieks on the wind. Abe tries to run, but I hold fast to his hand. As my wailing corpse lets out another blood-curdling plaint, Abe cries out in his sleep and bolts upright.

It’s nearly noon when Abe rouses himself out of bed. Groggy from his fitful sleep, he grabs the pitcher to fill the washbasin and splashes cold water on his face.

As he stands and reaches for a towel he winces at a stabbing pain in his left temple. When it subsides, he looks at the small mirror above the basin and freezes. My face stares back at him alongside his own.

He shakes his head, as if that might make me disappear, then touches the mirror. I let out a sardonic laugh. Abe whips around, but the room is empty. I am inside his head. My dreams become his nightmares, my thoughts his torture.

Abe walks over to the wardrobe where he combs through his shirts and trousers. I whisper murderer and he scans the room again.

He dresses hurriedly, grabs his coat, and rushes out the door, then stops in the hallway and goes back inside. He picks up his gun, an Angel Swamp revolver he carries in case someone to whom he owes a gambling debt catches up with him.

Well-armed, he heads downstairs to the dining room, where he mumbles his order. As he struggles to compose himself I say, you know what you did. Abe stiffens, his face blanches.

By the time his meal arrives, Abe’s appetite has vanished. He eats only a few bites. The waiter offers a pastry, but Abe declines and says, “Do you see that man following me?”

The waiter responds with a puzzled look. Abe scoops a handful of hickory nuts from a bowl and shoves them into his coat pocket as he leaves the restaurant.

My husband heads north on Vine, the center of the city’s debauchery. He stops at one bar after another, thinking he can escape my wrath among the crowds.

But he’s wrong. I siphon his energy as my spirit courses through his body. I make his skin crawl, his head itch, his hands tremble.

He nervously chomps on the hickory nuts. He asks everyone he meets the same question: “Do you see that man following me?” I’m puzzled, but gleeful. I’m accomplishing my mission.

Late afternoon, brimming with whiskey, Abe crosses the bridge over the Miami Canal into Over-the-Rhine. Beer, laughter, and singing flow without ceasing in the German neighborhood. Over-the-Rhine is a place where you set aside your cares.

The Germans call it gemutlichkeit. But Abe can’t leave his cares behind. Wherever he goes I will be there. Like Queen Mab, I’m determined to make him see the errors of his ways.

Abe heads west on Twelfth Street two blocks to Elm, and then north toward the site where a grand music hall is under construction.

Once home to a potter’s field, an orphan asylum, and a hospital for indigents, workers have stumbled onto human remains. They’ve stirred the spirit world with their careless feet and their disrespectful mouths squirting tobacco juice among the decaying bones.

A policeman is stationed ‘round the clock to prevent medical students from stealing skeletons and to keep the crowds watching the disinterring of the dead at bay.

The souls of the young orphans and indigents are displeased at their burial ground being so carelessly stomped upon.

These spirits see my attachment to Abe. Feeling my rage, they swarm around him. His pace slows, he feels chilled and pulls his coat tighter.

When Abe enters a popular beer garden, the other spirits, sensing the vigor of the place, disperse among the patrons.

Abe avoids looking at mirrors, but occasionally he catches a glimpse of my reflection and quickly jerks his head away. I keep whispering inside his mind, reminding him of his horrible deed.

Near midnight Abe stumbles back down Vine to Jake Aug’s Clubhouse, a small tavern a few blocks from the Burnet House.

He doesn’t want to go home. He rightly fears another disturbing night of deplorable creatures roaming his mind, a night of hearing my voice, of my presence in the shadows.

Abe sits at the bar with his friend Dan McCarty, known to everyone as The Turk due to his braveness. I consider Dan an unruly bully, like all of Abe’s associates.

“How’s Bessie?” Dan asks.

Abe throws his head back and laughs, more nervous than jovial. He slugs a gulp of whiskey. “Bessie’s doing just fine.”

My rage grows at his flippant dismissal. He’s stolen everything – my jewels, my beauty, my very life. Yet he shows no remorse.

“Where is she?”

“New Orleans, and probably having a grand time with the Mardi Gras season,” Abe mumbles.

After a moment Abe says to Dan, “Do you see that man following me?”

Dan glances around the room. “What man? I don’t see anyone.”

“He’s following me,” Abe says.

“Who’s following you?”

“I don’t know, but someone is.” Abe’s hand shakes as he sets his glass down. Dan slaps his back and says, “Don’t worry about it.”

When someone else remarks that Abe looks like he’s seen a spook, Abe’s face turns ashen. I realize why Abe says a man is following him: he doesn’t want to admit he’s frightened of me.

Around two-thirty in the morning, Abe bids farewell to his friends. He hunkers down on the pavement outside the bar, a dark, brooding figure against a backdrop of bright lights and jollity. He covers his face with his hands and moans. The moans turn to cries.

“What have I done? What I have done?” he wails repeatedly.

You know what you did, you coward. I spit seething words into his ear like one of Queen Mab’s curses. Abe reaches into his coat, pulls out his revolver. I swirl closer, a tightly coiled snake ready to strike. Softly I whisper on the wind, “Murderer.”

Abe swings the gun up to his temple. “I’m a murderer,” he cries.

And fires.

 

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: Diamond Bessie, fairy tales, murder, Queen Mab, Rothschild, short stories, true crime

The Whale A Love Story

March 23, 2017 By jody hadlock

The Whale A Love StoryBefore I read Mark Beauregard’s novel, The Whale: A Love Story, I knew very little about Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

I had read The Scarlet Letter, but, alas, not Moby Dick. In a way, it may be a good thing that I hadn’t read the tome, because now I can read it with insight I didn’t have before.

I had the good fortune to meet Beauregard recently at a writing workshop in Tucson, Arizona, where he was one of the instructors.

He talked about how understanding the “why” behind the “what” of a book – to know the story behind the story, so to speak – can give the reader a frame of reference about the work.

Melville met Hawthorne while writing Moby Dick, and the relationship greatly affected how he told the tale. Scholars have long known about the romantic feelings the two famous authors had for each other, and now Beauregard brings that relationship to the page.

He spent several years researching the men and their works before writing The Whale: A Love Story, and it shows in how exquisitely he brings the story alive.

You are transported to the Berkshires in western Massachusetts where Melville moved his family – despite being deep in debt – because he wanted to be near Hawthorne.

And you feel the depth of the torment Melville experienced when he couldn’t have what he loved most.

Being in the process of writing a historical novel myself, I can attest to the amount of research involved.

As an author, you feel a huge responsibility to accurately represent the lives of the characters – who were real people, whether famous or not – while also telling a story that readers will find engaging and worthwhile.

What Beauregard has accomplished is quite a feat and worthy of your time.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: Herman Melville, Mark Beauregard, Moby Dick, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, The Whale A Love Story

Have you found your purpose in life?

March 2, 2017 By jody hadlock

Who hasn’t thought about their purpose in life?Who hasn’t thought about their purpose in life?

I thought I had finally found mine, but how do you know when you have? I found confirmation in, of all things, an article in Natural Awakenings, that I picked up at a grocery store. One of the headlines on the cover caught my attention: “Sure Signs That You’ve Found Your Calling.”

The author, Dr. Lissa Rankin, founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute and author of The Anatomy of a Calling, listed these six signs. (I’ve paraphrased what she wrote.)

Dr. Rankin: You realize you’ve been training for this since birth; that all the disappointments, regrets, and screw-ups have been preparation, teaching essential lessons so that you can become who you’re called to be.
Me: Screw-ups, disappointments? I can certainly identify with that! I had never thought of them as building blocks for my calling, but I can see now that they were.

Dr. Rankin: You sense ease.
Me: Hmmm, in each career I’ve had, I’ve never felt entirely comfortable. But ever since I started focusing on writing fiction, I have felt more at ease. That’s not to say it’s become easy, just that I feel this is what I should be doing with my life.

Dr. Rankin: Your health may improve.
Me: I’m 50, so little things are starting to creep up on me, but I do feel better physically overall.

Dr. Rankin: You feel strangely peaceful, despite reasons to be anxious. Even if others think you’re crazy, you’ll be centered in peace, relieved that you finally know what you’re called to do.
Me: Okay, I do have a self-diagnosed anxiety disorder (LOL), but I can honestly say I do feel relief and at peace now that I know my calling. It doesn’t matter where or when I’m published, and I don’t care one whit if anyone thinks I’m wasting my time. I’m enjoying the process.

Dr. Rankin: The universe rolls out the red carpet. Just as you’re ready to give up, something happens – maybe money or something else you need comes in or shows up. You’ll know you’re on track, even if it’s not quite clear what you’re on track to do.
Me: I’m truly blessed to now have the freedom to pursue my writing with all my energy.

Dr. Rankin: People find you. Few of us can fulfill a calling alone. When you’re aligned with your life purpose, the right people will find you, if you’re courageous enough to be vulnerable about what you’re being called to do.
Me: This one really hit home. When I decided to dedicate my heart and soul to writing, I started meeting people – like my fabulous editor, Bridget Boland – who have become my tribe. I now have a wonderful, supportive network, and everything feels… just right.

What about you – have you found your calling? If not, maybe it’s not the right time. I wanted to write a novel earlier in life, but there were things I needed to deal with first (getting past some difficult circumstances, not to mention the mistakes I’ve made on my own). I feel like everything in my life has led up to this moment, and I plan to write as long as I am able.

 

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: a purposeful life, finding purpose, finding your calling, Lissa Rankin, purpose in life

What’s Wrong With “Borrowing” a Culture in Fiction?

February 22, 2017 By Jody Hadlock

When author Lionel Shriver gave her now-notorious speech on cultural appropriation at the Brisbane Writer’s Festival, it caused a firestorm, to put it mildly.

The issue made me think of my own writing. The main character in my historical novel is a nineteenth century prostitute. I’ve never been a prostitute, so does that mean I can’t write from the perspective of one?

I’ve read three autobiographies of late nineteenth/early twentieth century demi-mondaines, so I feel comfortable doing so.

I also recently wrote a short story in which one of the main characters is a Cherokee medicine woman. Do I have the right to do that?

I look more Scandinavian than American Indian with my blonde hair and blue eyes, but I have Native American blood on my paternal grandmother’s side, and I grew up hearing family stories about our heritage.

The contention also made me think of my personal life.

When I was growing up, my grandmother bought a piñata every year for my birthday, which my friends and I happily beat with a stick until the Papier Mache object (it was usually an animal) burst and the candy inside spilled to the ground.

Was I inappropriately appropriating the Mexican culture? I’ve always loved the Hispanic culture – partly because it was introduced in a fun, positive way.

As a writer of historical fiction, I love research, so of course I googled cultural appropriation.

The first result is the Wikipedia entry, which defines it as “the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of another culture.”

The definition goes on to say that “cultural appropriation may be perceived as controversial, even harmful, notably when the cultural property of a minority group is used by members of the dominant culture without the consent of the members of the originating culture.”

Let’s set aside the word consent for the time being.

The other words I find interesting are cultural property. For that definition, Wikipedia cites The Hague’s Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict:

“Cultural property are physical items that are part of the cultural heritage of a group or society. They include such items as historic buildings, works of art, archaeological sites, libraries, and museums.”

That was in 1954. Fast forward to 2005 when Fordham University Law Professor Susan Scafidi’s book, Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law, was published. Scafidi, who is white, defined cultural appropriation as “taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else’s culture without permission.”

In addition to knowledge and expressions, cultural property now also includes “dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, [and] religious symbols.” So now it’s not just buildings and physical items like art and books, but also abstract things like knowledge, expressions, and someone’s style.

I was 13 years old when the movie “10” came out in 1979. I was too young to see it (according to my parents), but like almost everyone my age and older, I’m familiar with the famous scene of Bo Derek running along the beach, her cornrow-beaded hair gently swaying in the ocean breeze.

I don’t remember any sort of outcry over her hairstyle. I do remember that Derek made the hairstyle popular, and I knew, even at 13, that the style was African. Isn’t that a good thing? Today, when celebrities, like Kim Kardashian, wear boxer braids – the new name for cornrows – they’re called racist.

Would I write a novel from the point of view of a black woman? No, because I’m not confident that I could do so convincingly.

But the late novelist, Ernest Tidyman, who was white, wrote the popular Shaft series of detective novels in the 1970s, which featured a badass black detective as the main character.

Instead of an outcry over cultural appropriation, the NAACP gave Tidyman an award. I can’t imagine that happening today.

Back to my short story with the Cherokee medicine woman.

The character is based on someone I know, who also has Cherokee blood, and is a shaman. I did get my friend’s permission to fictionalize some of her experiences because they are specific to her. Which brings me to the “consent” issue.

If an author isn’t accurate in his portrayal of a member of another culture, then he should be called out. But to deny someone the right to write fiction on whatever topic she chooses, is more than insulting.

It’s scary. Who’s going to serve as the culture police? Is someone going to form a gestapo, pointing out every instance of what is perceived to be an inappropriate use of another culture?

Because that’s what it is: someone’s perception. That is what has changed over the years. How else do you go from the NAACP honoring Ernest Tidyman to “people questioning whether it’s appropriate for white people to eat pad Thai,” as Shriver pointed out in her Brisbane speech. I love Thai food!

Why do some people have to automatically think that someone is being disrespectful when copying another culture? Isn’t imitation the sincerest form of flattery? Shouldn’t it be seen as positive?

As far as writing fiction, I agree with Shriver when she argued that “any story you can make yours is yours to tell, and trying to push the boundaries of the author’s personal experience is part of a fiction writer’s job.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

 

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: cultural appropriation, cultural property, culture, identity politics, Kim Kardashian, Lionel Shriver

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