American Dreams

Interviews & Essays

Q:  In your opinion, what has been the most exciting time period to live in?

A:  There are any number of historical eras I'd love to visit if I had a time machine: Shakespeare's London (taking in a performance at the Globe), Europe in the age of Napoleon, England in the bawdy Restoration period (but be careful to get your shots first and go armed in the streets after dark). Realistically, though, I feel that the most exciting period will be the 50 or 100 years just ahead, when my 11 grandchildren will find their careers, and live out their lives, in an unpredictable and ever-changing century I wish I could see.

Q:  Why does writing historical fiction appeal to you?

A:  The past, like the present, is packed with dramatic events and colorful personalities, but in writing about the past I have the benefit of decades of scholarship to put the historical record in better perspective than we have for present events in this era of government secrecy, hush-hush diplomatic negotiations, et cetera. There is also a kind of romantic glow to the past as it recedes from us -- certainly not entirely realistic, or justified, if you look at the grim and grimy record of most eras. But this aura is very real for millions nonetheless. Some of this romantic feeling enlivens most good historical fiction, including, I hope, mine.

Q:  What are your favorite five books? Your favorite historical movie?

A: 

1. Great Expectations. Charles Dickens is my No. 1 literary idol, and this is one of his masterpieces (along with Bleak House). It's also one of his most accessible novels. I've just completed the book and lyrics for a musical theater version of the novel (score by composer Mel Marvin), which will have its world premiere at our new $10 million Self Family Arts Center on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, in April 1999. Obviously a labor of love!
2. The Count of Monte Cristo. Of all the historical novels I read as a youngster, this is the one that hooked me on the form.
3. Anthony Adverse. Hervey Allen's towering 1933 work may be the best historical novel of this century -- despite its dated and wrongful attitudes toward slavery.
4. Lonesome Dove. One of the great novels of this century, in my estimation, and possibly the best ever written about the American West.
5. The Martian Chronicles. This hooked me on science fiction, and Ray Bradbury, whom I tried to imitate with my own SF stories written as a teenager (I sold my first when I was 18).

Film: "Dodge City." The "history" in this 1939 Errol Flynn epic for Warner Bros. is dubious to nonexistent, yet I vividly remember seeing the picture as a seven-year-old kid in Terre Haute, Indiana, where it had an enormous impact, introducing me to the drama and color of the American past.