Gold for The General's Women! This week, Foreword Reviews announced the winners of its 2017 Indie competition. The General's Women, my historical novel about the WW2 love affair of Kay Summersby and Dwight Eisenhower. won a gold medal.
One of the delights of writing historical fiction is the real-world understanding and experience that comes with it. The research for this book was like taking a grad seminar in WW2 history. It broadened and deepened my understanding of events that took place when I was still a child. And I continue to enjoy the people connections the book brought with it: to Kay's biographer, Kieron Wood, to Kay's nephew, Michael Morrogh, and to the actress who is currently playing Kay in "Pressure," a London stage production.
Another of the delights that comes with every historical project--for me--is the pleasure of "what if." A biographer is stuck with the literal truth of a person's life. A novelist is permitted to explore the emotional truths, which are much deeper, richer, and more ambiguous. I love imagining what's behind the facts of people's lives and finding new dimensions there. Who knew that Ike had a heart? Or that a courageous Irishwoman could help shape the course of the war--and then be airbrushed out of the historical record? Or that a 70-year-old romance and its subsequent cover-up could be currently relevant?
A reviewer wrote that The General's Women is "sympathetic, satisfying, and heartbreaking." Heartbreaking. I can't imagine a higher praise.
Reading note. The thing that most attracts me to historical fiction is taking the factual record as far as it is known, using that as scaffolding, and then letting imagination build the structure that fills in those things we can never find out for sure.--Geraldine Brooks