JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: As most of you know by now, I love historical fiction. I majored in history in college, focused on early colonial history for my grad degree, and even wrote my law school thesis on 17th century law codes in Massachusetts. History is a story - it's no wonder it's had such appeal my whole life.
And I used to wonder, what was it like to live through this time or that time? How did people live through political disruptions, economic crises, war and plague?
Well, now I know. Now we all know. But a lucky few, like historical mystery author Jessica Ellicott, actually get to spin gold from the mounds of straw we've all been dealing with.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve been very interested in the different ways that writers have experienced the pandemic. For some, the circumstances made work almost impossible. For others it provided conditions that fostered the most creative and productive period of their lives. For me, the situation created an unexpected learning opportunity.
At
the beginning of 2020, before any of us knew what was about to unfold, I was
hard at work on the novel that would become my new release, Death in a
Blackout.
Although it was not my first historical
mystery,
or even the first I set in the UK, I had yet to write a novel that took place
during wartime.
I have to admit, I felt daunted. After all, how could I begin to put myself in the shoes of people who faced such overwhelming uncertainty, in so many areas of life, for years on end? How could I possibly understand what it was like to feel that the whole world had changed overnight and that life as everyone knew it, was suddenly upended?
Which is, of course, where the opportunity came in. Just as the enormity of the pandemic became clear I had begun research that involved spending day after day poring through back issues of the Hull Daily Mail circa 1940. As I read those old editions of an English newspaper it occurred to me that an insatiable craving for up-to-date news on global events was something I could now completely understand. Informational notices about new rules and regulations scattered throughout the pages from 1940 eerily echoed the ones I eagerly consumed from that day’s Washington Post or NYT.
A
sense of interconnectedness, of how the impact on far-off places could be felt
locally was another point of similarity. Articles enumerating the toll
advancing troops had taken on the economies, freedom of movement and even on
life itself in cities across the globe struck new chords in me. Even something
as mundane as a trip to the grocer snapped some of the war years’ experience
into focus. The small, but shocking, amount of inconvenience and discomfort brought
on by notices announcing rations on meat or cleaning products, or toilet paper
left me with a far greater sense of how unrelenting years of such deprivations
could have worn a population down.
Enforced distance from loved ones was another thing I had been lucky enough not to experience regularly until March 2020. Knowing how it felt to be unable to simply set a time to meet up with a friend or family member added so much to my understanding of the lives of my characters. Holidays spent apart drove the lesson home even more, especially as one year turned to two with no guaranteed end in sight.
But I think what taught me the most and urged me on as I wrote the novel was living with so much uncertainty. One of the most challenging things, at least for me, about writing historical fiction is that, positioned as I am in the future, is to remember that my characters have no idea how things will turn out. They do not know that the Allies will be victorious or for how long the war will last or how many people will lose their lives any more than we knew the path of the pandemic when it all kicked off. Uncertainty was our constant companion as much as it was theirs.
Although I hope never to write another novel under similar circumstances, I am very grateful for the opportunity to feel a deeper connection to people of the past, to experience intense emotions that added to my work and to feel encouraged and uplifted by the example of others who found ways to make the best of a difficult situation. After all, isn’t that the ultimate purpose of stories?
JULIA: Has the pandemic - or another event in your life - made you feel more connected to the past, dear readers? One lucky commentor will win a copy of DEATH IN A BLACKOUT!
Agatha award nominee Jessica Ellicott loves fountain pens, red convertibles and throwing parties. She lives in northern New England with her dark and mysterious husband, exuberant children and a precocious poodle named Sam.
When away from her desk, she obsessively knits wool socks and enthusiastically speaks Portuguese with a shocking disregard for the rules of grammar. She indulges her passion for historical fiction and all things British by writing the Beryl and Edwina Mysteries and the WPC Harkness Mysteries.
Jessica’s books have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly as well as from Library Journal. Her first novel won the Daphne du Maurier award for mystery. As Jessica Estevao she wrote the Change of Fortune Mysteries. When inspiration strikes, she writes contemporary mysteries as Jessie Crockett.
She loves to connect with readers via the Wickeds blog, FB, Instagram or through her newsletter.
