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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

LGBT history: Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

12/2/2017

4 Comments

 
Sebastian Barry’s latest novel, which won the 2016 Costa Book of the Year Award announced last month, is a story of migration and massacre; of bravery and brutality; of family, friendship and gender fluidity told in the unique voice of an Irishman in 1850s America.

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His family wiped out by the potato famine, Thomas McNulty faces unspeakable horrors crossing the Atlantic to Québec. From there he travels south to Missouri and has his first stroke of good luck when he falls in with another boy from Ireland, John Cole. For two happy years they find employment as dancing partners to the miners whose manners improve remarkably in the company of boys dressed as girls, although it probably helps that the owner of the saloon has a weapon behind the bar to discourage marauding hands. At seventeen, too old to pass as female, the pair join the U.S. Army, whose objective at that point is safeguarding California for the White settlers. One particular violent skirmish leads to a group of orphaned Sioux children given shelter in the fort and schooled by the major’s wife. Thomas befriends one of them, known as Winona because he can’t pronounce her real name, and, when the young men complete their term and leave the service, she accompanies them, first as a servant and then as a daughter.

John and Thomas have been a couple since their dancing days, but it’s the presence of Winona that gives them a sense of family. For a while they perform a stage act which enables Thomas to don a dress once more, in which he increasingly feels more comfortable (p234):


I am easy as a woman, taut as a man. All my limbs is broke as a man, and fixed good as a woman. I lie down with the soul of woman and wake up with the same.

But another war is looming and, inspired by their friendship with a free-born Black employee at the theatre, the couple leave Winona in his care and go off to fight the civil war.

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Although I liked it, I didn’t enjoy this novel as much as I expected. The voice is impressive, but I found it distancing, and, although I relished the in-between stuff, I’m afraid my attention wavered each time they went off to war. But I’m thankful to Faber and Faber for my review copy and welcome the steady creep of diversity into fictional retellings of the past.

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Days Without End is my only reading contribution to LGBT history month this year, but much of the content of last year’s celebratory post – highlighting favourite reads as well as my own novel – remains relevant. However, with the fiftieth anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act, Britain is having an LGBT history year. I’m honoured to be invited to speak at the launch of local project, Other Stories, documenting LGBT histories in and around Derbyshire, on 27 February. I’m looking forward to sharing my fictional history and learning more about others.
Meanwhile, Charli’s flash fiction prompts get increasingly challenging: how do you write a 99-word story about a rainbow in a puddle? I wasn’t sure, until I remembered that the rainbow is a symbol of Gay Pride, bright colours being the means for gay people to recognise each other, especially when other forms of connecting were outlawed.

I cannot kill a rainbow.
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Even our uniforms are mud coloured, the better to blend with the terrain. Where once was meadow, now is quagmire; our every step hefts a sticky stinking shadow, as if our boots have built a platform sole. No grass, no flowers, no sun to lift the spirits; the only bright spot on the battlefield is blood. Mud paints our hearts with fear and hatred. Where massacre is our mission, colour is a crime. Thus I meet my enemy across a muddy puddle, until I recognise the badge on his lapel. I cannot kill a rainbow. I cannot murder love.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
4 Comments
Norah Colvin link
14/2/2017 11:08:50 am

This sounds like a fascinating story the way you describe it, Anne, so I was disappointed to hear that you were a little disappointed in it too. It is great to see diversity creeping further into historical fiction though. I'd like to see it creep further into stories and videos for children also.
Congratulations on your speaking engagement. I'm sure you'll do very well. I hope it is a paid gig. Speaking was one of the ways recommended for promoting our work at a marketing seminar I attended recently.
Your flash is great as usual and tells quite a lot in a few words. I love the description "as if our boots have built a platform sole". How I recognise that from walking in mud. It adds such weight and makes walking so much more difficult. The recognition through the rainbow tells much. How long has the rainbow been used?

Reply
Annecdotist
14/2/2017 12:29:34 pm

Late 70s apparently, though I doubt I was aware of it then. I have a very nice enamel badge in the shape of a rainbow ribbon that was given to me by the LGBT Forum of the place I used to work. As I’m singing in church in a couple of weeks’ time – actually a minister – I must remember to wear it in solidarity with lesbian and gay Christians who continue to be barred from marrying in church. If it’s cold I’ll wear it with my pussy hat!

Reply
Charli Mills
16/2/2017 06:30:08 am

I was excited to learn about this diverse book because the genre of history (especially US westerns) has a dearth of diversity. A few months ago I decided to give Audible a go, and found it's a fun way to share books with Todd or listen on my earbuds. I have this book! In the US, February is Black History Month. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It feels like a segregation. I don't think we can separate black history from US history, yet many don't like to consider the impact slavery has had on all development of our nation. On a humorous note, Trump introduced a group of black people from his staff to show he knows black people (none serve his cabinet, of course) and he spoke of Fredrick Douglas (an historical icon) as if he were doing great things today. He really got razzed for that flub!

Your flash makes me think of the Civil War, when it was brother against brother. "I can't kill a rainbow" expands the horror of that episodic violence. I always thought what a lonely horror that must have been, to be on the battlefield recognizing the one you "can't" kill, yet none of your fellow soldiers see your dilemma. That last line is tragic.

Reply
Annecdotist
16/2/2017 12:53:44 pm

I thought this would be your kind of book and would be interested in your perspective as you are much more attuned to the history than I am.
As to the inseparableness of black history from US and UK history as a whole, I think I read something interesting about that recently, it might have been Yaa Gyasi, author of Homegoing, on being not at all surprised by the Trump election, seeing it as a continuation of ignoring universal human rights.
As opposed in war there are very few straightforward enemies when one thinks about it, most soldiers fighting the battles of the powerful.

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