Lifescapes

Telegraph Cottage: Ike's Hideaway

For me, the setting of a book is always one of its most important elements. Setting--particularly real, historic setting--embodies characters. It shows us how characters like to live, the furnishings and things they surround themselves with, the odd bits and pieces of life.

When I was writing The General's Women, I was especially fascinated by Telegraph Cottage, Eisenhower's countryside retreat during the wartime months he spent in England. Here are some of the things I learned about this lovely place.

In September, 1942, when Ike was planning the North African campaign, he got tired of living in the Dorchester Hotel in London and asked Kay Summersby (his driver) and Harry Butcher (his aide) to find a cottage where he and his staff could get some R&R. Kay (an Irishwoman) had lived in England for 15+ years and knew the lay of the land. With the help of the British billeting office, she found a cottage she thought Ike would like.

A century before, Telegraph Cottage had been a station on the telegraph line that linked London and Portsmouth. (The telegraph succeeded the semaphore chain that allowed Whitehall to communicate with the naval base on the south coast.) Not far from Ike's war offices in London and later, in Bushy Park, the cottage was a small Tudor-style slate-roofed house at the end of a winding drive, with plenty of privacy. A path at the back led to the thirteenth green of the Little Coombe golf course—ideal for Ike, who liked to hit a few golf balls. He liked to ride, too, and he and Kay would often go riding at nearby Richmond Park. Ike thought the cottage was ideal, although he said the rent ($32 a week) was “pretty damned steep.” The British generals, accustomed to their own grand estates, were appalled that the Allied Commander in Chief was going to ground in a “rabbit hole,” as General Sir Alan Brooke put it. Winston Churchill liked the place, but insisted on having a bomb shelter dug in the garden.

The house itself was comfortable, cozy, and about as warm as an English cottage heated only by one fireplace is likely to be. Ike's Irish orderly, Mickey McKeogh and a couple of black privates, managed the place. Ike, no gourmet, occasionally did the cooking: beef stew was his specialty. In the dining room, a round oak table seated six for a comfortable meal (ten if they were chummy), and a sideboard doubled as a regularly-frequented bar. French doors opened out onto a flagstone terrace and the rose garden, and a steep, narrow stair led up to five tiny bedrooms. The only telephone, a direct line to headquarters, was installed in Ike's bedroom by the Signal Corps. The place was definitely off-limits and out of reach.

The cottage quickly became home to Ike's full staff, and they spent nights and weekends there whenever they could, both during the 1942 run-up to Operation Torch and Overlord (1943-44, the Normandy invasion). Evenings were spent playing bridge or listening to records: "Beer Barrel Polka" was a favorite of Ike, who also liked to read Westerns. According to Harry Butcher,  the staff code-named the place Dah-di-dah, Morse code for the letter K, in recognition of Kay's "special relationship" to Ike. Also at home in the cottage was Telek, a birthday present from his staff in October, 1942. He is said to have named his much-loved Scotty for two things close to his heart: Telegraph Cottage and Kay. Later, Telek was joined by Shaef the cat (named for Ike's European command, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force). Shaef did something Telek couldn't. She cleared the cottage of mice.

When Ike took up painting at the encouragement of Winston Churchill, he painted the cottage, perhaps as a reminder of the happy months he had spent there. (No offense, but he was a better general than an artist.)



Eisenhower's occupation of Telegraph Cottage ended in the summer of 1945, a few months after V-E Day. Sadly, it burned in 1987. Ike's painting, along with his leather jacket and other memorabilia, was recently sold at auction. It was expected to bring around $160,000--50 times more than the $3200 the Army spent to billet him there during the war.

 

In bloom this week: Indian paintbrush

The paintbrush are splashing color across the green meadows this week, waiting for the arrival of the first hummingbirds. The "flower" of this lovely native plant is really a cluster of colored bracts, specialized stiff, hairy leaves that conceal a tiny flower. There's no convenient place to perch, so the flowers can only be fertilized by a hovering insect or bird. And because the true flowers are deep inside the attractive bracts, the pollinator needs a long "sipper." That's where the hummingbirds come in, with their long beaks and tongues.

Interesting paintbrush lore. The blossom cluster is said to be sweet, and were eaten by Indians. The Chippewa used a decoction of the plant as a shampoo, and other tribes used it to treat venereal diseases, rheumatism, kidney ailments, and even as a contraceptive. (For more on that subject, see this Quora post.) However, the plants concentrate selenium and can be toxic, especially when they're growing in alkaline soil. Another interesting note: the plant is hemiparasitic: that is, it has specialized roots called haustoria that invade a host (usually a grass) and suck out water and nutrients. (Mistletoe is another hemiparasitic plant, but it grows in trees, rather than in the ground.) 

Book report. Last week, I reported that Loving Eleanor has been shortlisted for the Ben Franklin award. This week, the book has two more award nominations: the Lammy and Foreword Indies. Hick, ER, and I are hoping to bring home some gold, so keep your fingers crossed, please. The Ben Franklin will be announced early in April, the Lammy and Foreword Indies in June.

Meanwhile, the Dahlias are off to another 1930s adventure. This one takes place in October, 1934--the Darling economy is looking up, but too many people are too entranced with that huckster, Huey P. Long, who is promising to make "every man a king" and fix what ails the country. Sound familiar? The parallels between that period and this continue to astonish me. The signature plant for this book: clover. I'm still tinkering with the title.

Queen Anne's Lace goes off to my editor next week, along with proposals for more books in that series. We'll see how that works out. And The General's Women (my latest biographical/historical fiction) is out and doing very well. If your library doesn't have it, please ask them to get it for you. It's also available via online retailers and by special order, from your local bookstores.

Homestead report. The warmest winter in recorded Texas history is segueing into a warm spring. The perennial onions are budding already, nearly ready to bloom--in all my years of gardening, I've never seen them so early. But I have to confess that it's been a treat, especially compared to the cruel late-winter storm in the North and Northeast. The Girls are laying regularly; the peas need a replant (poor germination this spring: the seed?). But the potatoes are thriving and it's time to start thinking tomatoes. Especially lovely, Pecan Creek, which is running full and clear, between banks green with fern. Inhabiting this refuge is a special pleasure when the world beyond is as ugly and catastrophic as it is just now. 

Reading note: To inhabit a place means literally to have made it a habit, to have made it the custom and ordinary practice of our lives, to have learned how to wear a place like a familiar garment, like the garments of sanctity that nuns once wore. The word habit, in its now-dim original form, meant "to own." We own places not because we possess the deeds to them, but because they have entered the continuum of our lives.--Paul Gruchow

In Bloom This Week: Primrose--and some thoughts on history

Our spring-green grass is brightened this week by the lovely lemon bloom of the Missouri evening primrose (Oenthera macrocarpa) that grows wild in our meadows. Isn't she gorgeous? And so is her other folkname: Ozark sundrop. She's also said to be edible. I've used the leaves and blossoms in salads, but never cooked the root (also edible). If you're into foraging and want to try this plant, check out this site for information. Members of the Oenthera clan have also been used by Native Americans to treat asthma, eczema, heart disease, and circulatory problems; and by modern herbalists to treat premenstrual stress. In our meadows, it's everywhere this year, and--like everything else--about two weeks early. I'm hearing from gardeners across the southern tier of states: we're all experiencing an unusually early spring, another piece of evidence (as if we needed it) that our climate is changing.

Book report. The General's Women (the Eisenhower/Kay Summersby story) is out there at last, and doing very well. If your library doesn't have it yet, please ask your librarian to order it (available via Ingram). Here's a review I especially appreciated, written by Brenda Viglienzoni for Goodreads. If you're a NetGalley reviewer, you can download a review copy here.

Also on Goodreads right now, a giveaway for The Last Chance Olive Ranch, the new China Bayles/Pecan Springs mystery. The publisher is giving away 10 copies--but you can't win unless you enter. Go here to take care of that little business. 

I'm working on the next (#7) Dahlias. As you know, this historical series is set in the 1930s--the book I'm working on is set in October, 1934. This is a fairly light-hearted series, but I can't help but be struck by the parallels between that era and our own times. After the Wall Street crash of 1929, global economies plummeted, with banks failing here and across Europe. Then came austerity measures; tariffs were imposed (here and abroad); isolationism grew; race hatred and bigotry flared, especially against Jews; and governments moved toward militarization. Hitler celebrated his first electoral breakthrough in 1930. In 1934, Paris saw a million people demonstrating for the far-right. In America, in 1934-35, Huey P. Long campaigned for the presidency, preaching his "every man's a king" sermon and promising that if he were elected, he would cap high incomes and give the money to the poor. He gained millions of supporter and would have been a serious challenge to FDR in 1936 if he hadn't been assassinated. (Roosevelt saw him as one of the two most dangerous men in America; the other, he said, was General Douglas MacArthur.) Only three years later, in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland.

The more I read, the harder it is to ignore the parallels. I keep reminding myself that if we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it--and the cost, this time, will be unimaginable.

Not a comfortable thought on a pretty Friday morning, but there it is.

Reading note: “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” --George Orwell

 

 

Goodreads Giveaway!

We're having the first Goodread giveaway for this upcoming release now through 1/25 (but don’t put it off or you’ll forget). I enjoyed digging into the research for this biographical novel, which explores the hidden relationship between Eisenhower and his Irish driver, Kay Summersby, during WW2. I learned that when the war ended, Ike was fully prepared to divorce Mamie and marry Kay but was persuaded by both duty and ambition to take the path that led him to the White House. I also dug into Kay’s postwar life as an American citizen, following her trail in the letters she exchanged with Ike (held at the Eisenhower Library) and in the newspapers. The print edition of the novel contains the notes that document my findings; if you read the ebook, you’ll find the documentation on the book's website.

If you missed my interview with the novel’s cover artist, you can find it here and here.

Book report. I finished Queen Anne’s Lace (China’s 26^th adventure!) last week. This book is structured like Wormwood and Widow’s Tears, with a backstory set in the 1880s in Pecan Springs. The signature herb is Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota), aka wild carrot, which (until the mid-19^th century) was chiefly used as a contraceptive. When I started researching the subject, I found many herbs that were used in this way and found myself very grateful to a couple of academic researchers. Here are two of the most important, if this subject interests you: Eve’s Herbs and Sex and Herbs and Birth Control. You’ll have to wait for Queen Anne’s Lace, though. It’s in the production queue at Berkley Prime Crime, scheduled for April, 2018. In the meantime, contain your soul in patience (as a librarian said to me once). The Last Chance Olive Ranch will be released in just a few months.

I’m back at work on the Gertrude Bell project, which is beginning to feel like a trilogy, rather than a single novel. There’s a lot to this story, and to tell it well, I think I have to tell it longer. I’ve always been interested in WW1, but like everyone else, I mostly focused on the war in Europe. I have a lot to learn about the war in the Middle East, with its complicated webs of political intrigue.

On another topic . . . 

Garden report:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If the soil dries out enough to dig the trenches, I’ll be planting seed potatoes this weekend. These are Red La Sodas, I think, They’ve gone through a couple of planting cycles and I’ve lost track. I try to save enough from the spring planting to seed the fall, and so on, on the theory that homegrown seed is better acclimated to the garden’s normal seasons—although like most of us, I’m no longer sure what “normal” is. Except hot and hotter.

Reading note. It may be normal, darling; but I'd rather be natural.--Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's

The Book's Look: Notes from the Cover Artist (1)

Let's be upfront about this. Book covers are billboards. Whether you're looking at them on a bookstore shelf or online, they're designed to show you what's in the book, invite you to open it, and seduce you into paying for it.

Now that we've got that straight, let's spend some time talking about the cover of my latest biographical novel, The General's Women, with the extraordinarily talented cover artist, Ann McMan.

But Ann isn't just a cover artist. She is also the award-winning author of six novels, Jericho, Dust, Aftermath, Hoosier Daddy, Festival Nurse and Backcast, and the short story collections Sidecar and Three. She was inducted into the Royal Academy of Bards Hall of Fame in 2011, and awarded the Alice B. Lavender Certificate for Outstanding Debut Novel. She has won four Golden Crown Literary Society awards, as well as numerous Rainbow Awards—most recently for Best Lesbian Book of 2016 (Backcast). Backcast was also the recipient of a Silver Medal in the IPPY (Independent Publisher) Awards for Best Northeast Region General Fiction. Her novel Hoosier Daddy was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She lives in Winston-Salem, NC and is married to Bywater Books publisher Salem West.

So Ann knows about making a good book, as well as making an outstanding cover. Recently, I asked her several questions about her work. I'm delighted to share her answers with you.

Susan: How did you get involved in designing/creating covers?

Ann: I’ve always been a voracious reader—even before I became an author. Because I work professionally as a graphic designer, I’ve always had a keen interest in book cover design. Ever since childhood, I’ve paid close attention to what I think of as the "front door" of a book. What about this cover made me stop and look at that book? Why did this book catch my eye—while others blended into obscurity on the shelf? As Ella Fitzgerald sang, "It’s gotta be this or that."

I carried this curiosity with me into adulthood—and now it informs my work as a cover designer. The questions for me as a consumer of books remain the same. How well does the design approach reflect the theme or content of the work? How successfully does the cover catch the eye of a potential reader? How well does the artist use color, imagery and typography to evoke a sense of the story? And more importantly, how much do trends in book cover design dovetail with other trends in graphic forms of communication (i.e. film, social media, magazines and newspapers, etc.)?

Book cover design is appealing to me for many reasons. It’s very direct. It’s kind of an in-and-out medium. That means you must make your best argument for why someone should pick that volume up (or click on its icon to learn more) in just a few seconds. I like that. It’s a constant challenge for me to work to pare a complex story down to its one or two essential elements—then find the best and most striking way to communicate that message.

Susan: What goes into your cover designs? Tell us about your process.

Ann: My role as a designer is to stay out of the way—to tell potential readers what they need to know about a book as simply and directly as possible. That means avoiding clutter. Not having too many things going on. Using clean and simple typography. And making certain that the design in its entirety stands up, has integrity, and is accessible and makes sense at any resolution or size.

My design mantra? If you notice the design more than the message it’s intended to convey—it’s likely overdone, and I’ve failed.

I think readers today have much more visual sophistication than most authors realize. They don’t need to be spoon fed. They don’t need to understand every nuance of a title. They are used to seeing and processing billions of bytes of information at light speed. It’s safe to say that the average consumer today views more graphic images in one hour than a person living in the Victorian age saw in an entire lifetime. That makes my work simpler, and harder, at the same time.

I find that I do my best work when my clients trust me to make the right choices for their books. It’s also helpful when an author has done the heavy lifting about essential themes before they approach me. That's what happened with The General’s Women. In fact, I almost think I should pay you for making that part of my work so easy. Of course, at the same time, that complicated matters.

Come back tomorrow to find out how my notions about "essential themes" complicated Ann's work. (Hint: it had to do with those people photos on the cover.)

Reading note Judging books by their covers is seriously underrated, and any book nerd who claims never to have done it is probably lying.--Amy Smith, All Roads Lead to Austen: A Yearlong Journey with Jane.

Snow in the Mountains

I was delighted to wake up yesterday to this lovely snowfall here in the Sangres, in north-central New Mexico. My writing/reading retreat is nearly over, and the snow was a farewell gift. I'll be driving back to Texas tomorrow, where we see snow once in a decade, if that.

It's been a productive three weeks. I dug into the Gertrude Bell books (hers and others'), not quite sure which way the material would take me. I knew I'd be working with biographical fiction, but should it center around her romances, her archaeological work, or something else? Her letters and diaries from her expedition to Ha'il in 1913-1914 have pulled me into that part of her life--her work for the British government as an espionage agent. There's so much material; I'm thinking it may become a trilogy. I've started to write and have been sharing the material with Bill, who knows the period much better than I do and can offer suggestions. It's always exciting to be perched on the brink of a new project, and I have to confess to being pretty much obsessed by it. 

Meanwhile, The General's Women (the third of my historical novels published through my Persevero Press) is moving toward its March 7 publication date. There were the usual small glitches in the formatting process, but they were resolved easily and the upload went without a hitch. I love Ann McMann's cover (I'll have a post or two on the cover design/development process). The novel (the story of Kay Summersby's love affair with General Eisenhower during World War 2) is available now for Kindle pre-sale. It will also be available in paperback and hardcover on Amazon; in print and ebook at Barnes & Noble online, and on iBook. Librarians and booksellers can get the book through Ingram. Librarians, I'll also offer it via Self-e (there's a selection process involved, I think). Reviewers, you can get a review copy from NetGalley next week. 

And Loving Eleanor (the story of the enduring friendship of Lorena Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt) continues to win literary prizes! In addition to an Ippy, it has won the Library Journal's Best Indie eBook Romance award and the USA Best Book LGBT award. Another award (a BIG one!) will be announced next week, so stay tuned.

It's been good to get away from television's political charade (no TV here), but I've stayed posted on the disconcerting developments via the Internet--it's like watching a slow-motion movie of a huge bridge collapsing or the Lincoln Monument falling to rubble. The latest lunacy is absolutely incredible:    

The Chinese government said Saturday it will return a U.S. naval drone seized last week in the South China Sea, a step toward defusing maritime tensions between the two Pacific powers. President-elect Donald Trump reacted to the news by telling them he doesn’t want it back. “We should tell China that we don’t want the drone they stole back.- let them keep it!” he tweeted Saturday evening.

Reading note. As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.--H.L. Mencken, Baltimore Sun (26 July 1920)

 

 

 

From Manuscript to Book: Part 4, Getting Close

(This is Part 4 in this series. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3)

As you know if you’ve been following this series on copyediting, copyeditor Sandra Spicher is an important member of the editorial team that is bringing you The General’s Women, my upcoming (March 2017) biographical/historical novel. I've just spent a rather intense but enjoyable few days reviewing Sandra's work on the manuscript I sent her a couple of weeks ago.

I might have enjoyed a few (quite a few?) glasses of wine while I was writing this book, but it wasn't written drunk. It is definitely being edited sober, however. The copyediting stage of the project isn’t quite finished: Sandra still has to do a final run-through of the whole thing and make sure it is clean and ready to go the formatter. But we’re almost there. And I enjoyed (really truly!) working through the manuscript carefully, line by line, paying close attention to Sandra’s suggestions. Readers deserve a text that's free of errors, so I’m very glad for her help.

I've been writing for decades and I like to think that my work is pretty clean, but I'm always surprised at the things that get past me. Here are several examples of the kind of suggestions Sandra made. My responses are in italic.

• Suggest using British spelling “grey” for “gray.” This was a major choice in the very beginning, since one of the point-of-view characters is British. My decision: stay with American spelling and punctuation throughout.
• Instead of “in Brompton Road,” should it be “on Brompton Road”? Decided to stay with “in Brompton Road,” as a dialect marker for Kay, the British character. There are several other British markers: smashing, jolly, bloody.
• He lit his cigarette at the top of this page [correcting a second cigarette lighting]. Ack. Why didn’t I catch this? So careless!
• There are several ways to handle headlines. Suggest small caps—but whatever you decide, make it consistent. Right. Small caps it is, throughout.
• You might have another way to get around the parentheses (or you might decide to keep them). Sandra feels that parentheses interrupt the reader’s flow of thought and helped me see when I was using them unnecessarily. Usually, I could restructure the sentence to get rid of the interruptions (but not always).
• Brand names aren’t usually italicized. I’m glad that copyeditors know things like this, so I don’t have to remember.
• Be careful with the timing of this one [mention of the U.S. Air Force, in 1944] : the U.S. Air Force didn’t exist as a separate service until 1947. Before that, it was called the U.S. Army Air Forces. Yikes! Sandra is right! I’m so glad she caught my anachronism.
•  “Soberly” isn’t wrong, but some people think it is (meaning “not drunkenly”), so I usually suggest changing to “somberly.” Excellent suggestion. I like the way Sandra reads the text with the reader in mind.
• Parker ‘51. The pen was named for Route 51 and the company’s 51st anniversary, so no apostrophe is needed. Another interesting factoid. Now I know!

Working through the copyedited manuscript of this long (125,000-word) book took four full seven-hour days, but it was enjoyable work that took me back into the text. I deeply appreciated Sandra’s critical engagement, her intelligence, and her experience. Her work made this book much better, and I’m grateful.

Another blog post coming soon: Developing the cover for this author-published book.

Reading note: Discriminating readers look for reasons to trust a writer and reasons not to. Sloppy expression and carelessness in the details are two reasons not to. The copy editor’s job, then, is to ferret out such infelicities. We do this in order to help the writer forge a connection with the reader based on trust— trust that the writer is intelligent and responsible, and that her work is a reliable source. We do it to help craft an article that pleases, a report that allows the reader to coast along through its ideas without slowing for red lights at every corner. And we do it— don’t we?— because we derive satisfaction and pride from knowing how.--Carol Fisher Saller,The Subversive Copy Editor

 

From Manuscript to Book: The Copyeditor

This is Part 2 of a series. Part 1, The Copyedit, is here. Go here for Part 3; here for Part 4

The Copyeditor

As a traditionally published author, I've worked with many copyeditors, but I never get to know their names, since we only meet via the manuscript. In fact, because they work on contract for the publisher, I rarely get the same copyeditor twice. One of the pleasures of publishing my own work is the privilege of working directly with the people who help me produce the book you'll hold in your hand or read digitally.

For The General's Women (coming March 2017), I have a new copyeditor, Sandra Spicher, who comes with a great deal of experience and a top recommendation from my (now-retired) editor at the University of Texas Press. I thought you might like to meet her.

About herself, Sandra says that she was "one of those kids who drooled over those old ads in the back of comics and magazines: 'Get paid to read books!'" As a freelance writer and copyeditor, she's living the dream. She tries to leave time for her own projects, but a good book can usually tempt her. "If a manuscript sparks my interest," she says, "I can't say no. I work on a mix of fiction and nonfiction, but my heart belongs to fiction. I'm especially drawn to complicated stories that feature female, LGBTQ, and POC protagonists."

As a copyeditor, Sandra is radically eclectic:

Because I'm fluent in Spanish, publishers often treat me to books that are written at least partially in Spanish or have some Latin American affinity. Recent projects I've copyedited or indexed include a translation of a colonial Spanish religious official's investigation into the deaths of priests in Florida, an architect's loving description of colonial churches in Mexico, a view of syncretism in Guatemala, and the relationship between art and literacy in colonial Peru. An offshoot of that has been books set in the Middle East, either historical or contemporary. Besides Latin American and Middle Eastern studies, film and TV, race relations, aviation history, and literary criticism are some of the subjects that crop up in the nonfiction books publishers send me.

But Sandra isn't just a copyeditor. The General's Women won't require an index, but if it did, she's the person I'd turn to. "I also enjoy the process of indexing," she says, and tells us why:

It requires a deep engagement with the text to choose what headings and subheadings will most serve a particular book's varied audiences. I recently indexed a book about the HBO series The Wire that made me want to watch the whole thing again. Books about race in Brazil and post-Katrina New Orleans have left me gasping for breath at their insights. After indexing the revised edition of Philip Naylor's North Africa, I sense that George R. R. Martin might have had a peek at something like it while writing A Song of Ice and Fire. There's certainly some precedent for the Red Wedding.

I've asked Sandra to tell us something about a day in the life of a copyeditor. That's coming in Part 3 of this brief series, so stay tuned.

Reading note: Knowing how to tinker with a broken piece of prose until it hums is a source of contentment known by all who have mastered a worthy craft.― Carol Fisher Saller. The Subversive Copy Editor