Historical Research ~ It isn't Always Black and White

I'm blogging at the Rainbow Blog today about historical research. I think writers of gay historical romances have a tougher job than others. And we have to dig deeper. So I've offered an example of some of the research I did for Bend in the Road.


I hope you'll stop by and read and let me know what you think.

The link is: http://therainbowstudio.blogspot.com/

Brit Week ~ Charlie Cochrane

Charlie Cochrane is my guest today and she brings her own special take on this week's Invasion!
Two nations, separated not only by a common language

Jeanne, thank you so much for letting me drop into your blog. You’ve a real invasion of Brits this week, although I suspect I’m the only one who’s half cockney and half Geordie.

I’ve been writing historical stories, all set in the British Isles and in the early part of the 20th century, although I have to own up to one totally different tale, a contemporary short story about gay werewolves in the anthology Queer Wolf. It was great to be able to take all sorts of humorous digs at contemporary things - like tabloid newspapers and premiership footballers - who got woven into the tale.

Much of my time at present is taken up with my series for Samhain, the Cambridge Fellows Mysteries, m/m romances set in Edwardian Cambridge and featuring the contrasting pair of Jonty Stewart and Orlando Coppersmith. http://www.mybookstoreandmore.com/shop/author.da/405. I’ve also got a Regency m/m novella (with a ghost) just out in e-book for MLR - http://www.mlrbooks.com/upcoming.php - that’s with Stevie Woods, who’s also appearing on your blog this week.

Something that continually strikes me, in researching, in talking to fellow authors, in doing edits, is the huge difference between the USA and the UK. In everything. Yes, we all know the differences in vocabulary – breaks into Fred and Ginger –

“You say sidewalk, we say pavement,
you say trunk, we say boot,
cookie, biscuit,
jello, jelly,
let’s call the whole thing off!”

But there’s lots of little bits of speech which puzzle my poor editors. The most recent was “Chance would be a fine thing” which clearly hasn’t crossed the Atlantic. Yet. And I guess there’s things which are so linked to our culture – Nora Batty’s wrinkled stockings or Arkwright’s till spring to mind for the TV age – that they simply can’t be translated.

So we don’t talk alike. I suspect we don’t think alike, either. The British sense of humour – dry, pawky, call it what you want – doesn’t always travel well, either. I rely on my editor to pick out the jokes or little asides which are too obscure for universal approval. The continual self-deprecation and easy banter is something that doesn’t always connect with my American pals. And we’re hard taskmasters, too – if Dancing with the Stars was made here, no-one would earn a ten!

Both Jonty and Orlando are ‘typically English’, as are William and Benjamin in the Regency story. I love Max Arthur’s books containing soldiers’ and pilots’ recollections of the two world wars – when I read some of the things from WWI veterans I can almost hear Jonty talking. I think it’s really important to get your characters talking in an argot which feels right for the time without being too ‘Hollywood historical’. Perhaps the nicest compliment I’ve received from a reader was that my books felt like an episode of Masterpiece Theatre, which is a huge compliment. The stories certainly play out in my head like some BBC adaptation.

Now, here’s a controversial thought. Do some of our US cousins imagine that all of us Brits have a lifestyle that’s like one of those Masterpiece Theatre stories? I’ve suspected it since one my dear pals from California was shocked to find that white Christmasses are so rare here as to be almost anachronistic. The view was confirmed when some ex-pat friends of ours were asked if we all wore crinolines in England. (No, we don’t. We dress pretty much the same as you do, surprisingly.)

Maybe that perception is because we are so surrounded by history here. When I visit our local town for shopping, I take a little shortcut past a 13th century hunting lodge with Tudor additions and come out by an Abbey which is over 1000 years old. Then I nip round to the old Cornmarket square, past an iron shop sign where two soldiers were hung during the civil war. (Ours.) And I take it all for granted, like many of my compatriots. At least it makes my job easier – go to Cambridge or Bath and you can easily imagine yourself back in time. Some of the locations have hardly changed.

So bear with us, please, even if we seem eccentric or talk in a strange language. We’re lovely, really.

You can find out more about me at my website http://www.charliecochrane.co.uk/ or at my blog, http://charliecochrane.livejournal.com/.

Thanks again, Charlie for a fun post. Now, if someone can translate some of those TV phrases I'd be eternally grateful!

Mick Dementiuk's review of BEND IN THE ROAD

I am so pleased to share a review by Mykola Dementiuk, author of Times Queer, Vienna Dolorosa and other works, of BEND IN THE ROAD. Here's some of what Mick says:

While reading Jeanne Barrack’s Bend in the Road I couldn’t help but be reminded of that Yiddish story teller Isaac Bashevis Singer, whose Yiddish tales of the pre-Holocaust Europe earned him the Noble Prize. One story especially comes to mind, "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy," in which the girl Yentl, wanting to learn the teachings of the rabbis, disguises herself as a young man and befriends the other young men in pursuing this course of study. Though the latent homosexual traits are obvious to any reader, Singer shies away from exploring the relationship any further…

Not so Jeanne Barrack in her two-part novella, Bend in the Road. In Part One In the Lion’s Den, she explores a relationship between an older male, Aryeh, and Dani, a very young man.

In the other novella, Part Two, From Stage to Stage, Yuval and Tsvi are as different from each other as night and day or Christian and Jew. Yuval runs the music of the theater troupe while Tsvi is a lowly disfigured gardener in a home Yuval is visiting. Yuval convinces Tsvi to sing in the company, at least part time, as they prepare for a recital.

Each man feels he in unworthy of sexual pleasure or true physical love; in this they stand utterly alone, tormented by their sexuality, by their aloneness. No wonder there’s a feeling of lost about them, which will persist until they let another into their lives.

These two stories are exquisite, rewarding novellas...I would highly recommend these two novellas. You’ll definitely learn something from this book about a long-lived culture that now seems so short-lived before anti-Semitism reared its ugly head once again …but until then at least it was gloriously lived!

Jeanne Barrack has shown us what indeed was a fascinating way of life and that underneath all the poverty and hatred was a powerful resilience, a force of love pushing its way upwards not to the sky but directly straight to God…

Thank you, Mick. From one New Yorker to another...
Mick's website: http://www.mykoladementiuk.com

A Review to Treasure for Bend in the Road

Reader reviews are like precious gems to be treasured. When the reader is also a fellow author, the review is doubly treasured. Author, Z. A. Maxfield's response to Bend in the Road was sent to me through several e-mails and she's graciously given her permission to share it. Thank you, LL, for your very kind words.

I'm reading Bend in the Road and I'm only on page 35 and I LOVE these guys! I'm right where Aryeh and Dani meet and they're uncomfortable...historicals scare me like crazy but you handle it beautifully. So lyrical and lovely.

(after finishing the first story she sent this note) Oh, my what a beautiful story Aryeh and Dani have. I just loved how sweet they were. The conflict was real and scary and it was the sweetness between them that just made everything seem so right. So few m/m writers will write a character that wants to be feminine or dress in women's clothes and yet it's so perfect, how he longs for the soft things, the feminine pretty things so he can feel beautiful with his lover. Dani really touched me and made me feel all maternal. I enjoyed it very much and now I get to embark on Yuval's story.

(after finishing the book she wrote) I wanted you to know that I finished Bend in the Road. I think Yuval's story is my favorite, because I like the musical aspect of it so much! But maybe Dani was my favorite character. Wow, what a lovely set of stories; I just didn't want it to end. I LOVED these people and would very much like to follow them to America, maybe a sequel is in the offing??? *has hopeful puppy eyes*
I think people who like to read a well researched historical will love this book. Intelligent, thoughtful people will come away from the book feeling uplifted and delighted... and maybe a little educated. It's always been my desire (and I can tell it's yours as well) to put out quality work and let the chips fall where they may.
The more books like yours, the more intelligent and well plotted and the more characters are defined and real in romantic m/m, the more legitimate and delightful the books will be. I maintain romance genre books can be great books and still be erotic and romantic as hell, and romance genre readers who say they will only read het will flock like seagulls over the picnic tables at MacDonald's to read them whatever sexual identity the main character couple is. Brava, Jeanne!
Thanks so much for a great read.
LL
Z.A. Maxfield
http://zamaxfield.com/

And thank you again for falling in love with my guys!

Guest Blogger - Alex Beecroft

Guest blogger, Alex Beecroft, author of wonderful gay historical fiction shares her thoughts as
M/M Romance takes on the World!

Alex:
LOL! Perhaps I'm inclined to overdramatize there, but that's a little what it feels like to me today.
Today is the release date of my new book, 'False Colors', conveniently subtitled "an m/m romance" by the publisher so that nobody will think the two good looking young men on the cover are sailing off in search for brides.
Actually it's conveniently subtitled because it is one of two new releases coming out today from Running Press which are being packaged and promoted as mainstream romances. The other book in this new series is 'Transgressions' by Erastes, set during the English Civil War, with an equally gorgeous cover, and also with the helpful subtitle "an m/m romance".
What is going on here then? Well, simply this; Running Press are making a bid to make m/m romance mainstream – to make it as respectable as m/f romance. No more confining m/m fiction to a little ghetto on the internet where the uninitiated can remain ignorant that it exists at all. No more being treated as second class citizens by RWA and Romantic Times because we don't fit their notion of what is a 'traditional' story about people falling in love with one another.

It's an all or nothing attempt. These books are only being released in print, and their tasteful covers are partially there to make it easier to pick one off the bookshelf and take it to the till without feeling self-conscious. Easy to read on the train or in the dentist's surgery (I've tried this myself, with an author's review copy, and not one person looked at me oddly! Result!)

It's… quite a bold move, I think. The publishers (and I too, I admit) are hoping they will succeed like Brokeback Mountain, because the thirst for m/m romance is out there among a lot of women who don't yet know the m/m publishing business exists. But is the world ready to treat same sex romance as if it's the same as opposite sex romance? As if the love stories between hero and hero are as 'normal' to write about and as 'normal' to read about as love stories between hero and heroine? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I hope it is ready, not only because this is my book and I want it to do well. Not even because if this succeeds it will open up new opportunities for m/m writers, readers and publishers that we haven't had before. But mainly because I want to be part of a world in which gay romance and lesbian romance and bisexual romance and transsexual romance is there on the bookshelf next to heterosexual romance. I want to be part of a world that values all people's love stories equally, and I see this as a small first step towards that world.

After all that, you might want to know what False Colors is actually about! So here's a quick run down:

Blurb
For his first command, John Cavendish is given the elderly bomb vessel HMS Meteor, and a crew as ugly as the ship. He’s determined to make a success of their first mission, and hopes the well-liked lieutenant Alfie Donwell can pull the crew together before he has to lead them into battle: stopping the slave trade off the coast of Algiers.
Alfie knows that with a single ship, however well manned, their mission is futile, and their superiors back in England are hoping to use their demise as an excuse for war with the Ottoman Empire. But the darker secret he keeps is his growing attraction for his commanding officer—a secret punishable by death.

With the arrival of his former captain—and lover—on the scene, Alfie is torn between the security of his past and the uncertain promise of a future with the straight-laced John.

Against a backdrop of war, intrigue, piracy and personal betrayal, the high seas will carry these men through dangerous waters from England to Africa, from the Arctic to the West Indies, in search of a safe harbor.
Excerpt
Eighty pairs of eyes watched John as he came up the side and strode stiffly to the Météore’s small quarterdeck. Taking off his hat, he turned to face his crew, noting the slack, bruised faces of men with scurvy, the nose-less, crusted features of those whom pox was slowly consuming from within. The Master was barely being held up by his mate, his linen drabbed with wine-stains. The single midshipman picked his nose as he slouched by his division, then spat over the side. Only the new lieutenant stood straight and alert, in newly laundered dress uniform, his wig powdered, his buttons gleaming and his pale brows arched a little in amusement as he watched John struggle with hat and paper in the increasing wind.
John fumed inwardly at the slackness, the disrespect as well as the waste of lives. Opening Admiral Saunders’ letter he read it aloud in a firm, positive tone, reading himself in as captain, telling them whence his authority came and warning that he had the right to govern and punish as he saw fit. Some of his anger wound its way into his voice, making it snap like the cat, and the more alert members of the crew stood straighter by the end of it.
Hoping to find at least one other person aboard competent to do their job, John was about to quiz the volunteer, when his thoughts were instantly dashed as the huddle of warrant officers parted to reveal the modest black dress and white lace bonnet of an elderly lady. John bowed over the twigs of her fingers, reeling. ‘The Doctor’s wife, Mrs Harper’, a voice informed him, and ‘charmed’ he said, mechanically. They’d sent a woman on board! In God’s holy name—knowing what they knew—they’d allowed not merely a woman, but a lady on board! The blood drained from his face, then returned, thundering and stinging in his ears. A victim. Are we to put up a plucky resistance and then be sunk, so that the outrage may provide an excuse for war? So that the First Lord may say ‘see, we don’t scruple to spare even our women in the pursuit of this menace?’ It was despicable.
His head throbbed suddenly, pain winding up from his clenched teeth to lance through his temples into his eyes. Giving orders to set sail, to clean the decks, and paint a properly anglicized Meteor over the name on the stern, he waited until the life of the ship around him settled into its routine, then ducked into the captain’s cabin to think. But the ruin he found seemed to mock him. The French captain’s cot lay slashed on the floor, stern lockers and all the chests broken open and ransacked.
“A right fucking pig’s ear they’ve made of this, sir,” the voice of his steward grated along his spine, making him straighten up, instinctively. Turning, he found Japheth Higgins looming behind him with John’s portmanteau propped against his hip and his sea-chest dragged by one handle from the other hand. An orange brute, Higgins had a tendency to appear out of random shadows, like the Borneo wild man.
“I thought I told you to stay on the flagship, Higgins.”
“You was having a little laugh, though, right sir? ‘Cos you wouldn’t leave me behind, not was you Admiral of the White.” Higgins dropped the sea-chest by way of final punctuation and scratched his ginger sideburns with a tobacco-stained finger.
John laughed around the queasiness in his throat. An unusual fairy godmother Higgins made, to be sure, but it was true. Assigned to him as a sea-daddy on his first ship, set by the captain to teach the infant young gentleman the ropes—and to make sure he was not too homesick, too lonely, or too much picked on—Higgins had been with him ever since. Now he couldn’t even say “I was trying to keep you safe, you fool,” without spreading rumors he did not need the rest of the crew to hear.
“Not a very good joke, I’m afraid,” he said instead. “I’m sorry Higgins. I’m glad you’re here. See what you can do to sort this mess out, would you? I’m going for the tour.”
Choosing not to notice as he passed the Master retching into a bucket, John paced the length of the gun-deck. Lighting the lantern he had taken from the midshipmen’s berth, he descended to the lightless lowest deck, past the carpenter’s workroom and the gunner’s stores, and so back again to the grated area where the anchor cables were laid to dry. Trying to calm his mind, he strode out nervous and filled with a lightning of energy he had to out-walk before he could think.
On the cable tier, absolute darkness pressed inwards around the circle of his light. Water trickled, glistening, down the Meteor’s flexing sides, the sound of it sweet in the silences between waves. A stench came from the hold, seeping up through the holes of the deck. Below the latticework of planks on which he stood, the ballast of gravel below stirred with a great hiss, like the tide rolling over a beach. Not all the anxiety in the world could prevent him from making a note to order the pumps set working at once.
Around him, on either side, the anchor cables lay coiled, water dripping from them, falling as an indoor rain through the gratings to join the water in the hold beneath his feet. Footsteps knocked on the deck above him but, down here, dark, quiet and solitude calmed him. Breathing in, he sighed, the spring of his anger easing enough to allow thought. It was too early to despair. Somehow, he would complete this mission and return as the hero Saunders described. Or at the least, he would complete the mission while keeping his crew alive, from the old lady to the youngest powder monkey. Here in this waiting space, this space between worlds, as he thought of it, it was easier to believe.
Straightening his back even further, an ache like a fist between his shoulder blades, he picked his way back through the coils of hawser. They rose like cliffs on either side and, as he walked, his lantern light mingled with a growing brown gloom that spilled in from the doorway. There, in the narrow gap between John and the main companionway, stood the volunteer--Lt. Donwell, he reminded himself from the orders--with his wig off and his bold eyes glimmering gold as John raised his lantern to look at him. Walking forward, John expected the man to yield, to step back and let him out. Mere inches separated them by the time it dawned on him that Donwell was not going to move. Confusion striking through him, obliterating even the dread from moments ago, he pulled himself back from a collision only just in time. The skirts of their coats brushed, sending a jolt of invasion through him from thigh to shoulders. What the devil?
His mouth dried as a wave of prickly embarrassment swept over him, bringing guilt in its wake. Yet what had he done wrong? It was Donwell who should flinch, who should feel guilty, who should not be smiling so! John could not wrench his gaze away from Donwell’s face. Limned with gold, it was perfectly nondescript; round, pleasant, and completely lacking in self-conscious guilt. Donwell’s mouth quirked up at one side into a slow, charming smile. And his presence! It was extraordinary. It beat on John’s skin like strong sunshine. He fought the urge to close his eyes and bathe in it. His pulse picked up, waiting, waiting for something....
Returning sanity hit him in the face. He snapped, “Get out of my way! Don't you know who I am!”
Donwell’s smile only broadened. John thought the man would at least salute, but he just passed a hand through the loose blond curls of his hair and stepped away. “I’d know you anywhere, sir.”
“I’ll have a little more respect from you in future, Mister.”
“You may have whatever you like.”
Speech deserted John once more. Aware he should act now to regain the initiative, he had no idea what to do. Instead he pushed past, feeling the man's gaze on the back of his neck like warm breath, and tried to tell himself that he made a dignified exit. But if the truth be told it was a flight, spooked as a partridge from the covert

* * * *
Please check Alex's presence on the Internet at the following links:
website: http://www.alexbeecroft.com/Adventure_and_Romance.shtml
Her LiveJournal: http://alex-beecroft.livejournal.com/
Her Blog: http://alexbeecroftblog.wordpress.com/
Buy Link: False Colors
Buy Link: Transgressions