Dancing Priest

Author and Novelist Glynn Young

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Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride”: Creaing a National Legend 

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It’s a tossup as to whether the most famous or best-known poem in America is Clement Moore”s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (aka “Twas the Night Before Christmas”), first published in 1823, or Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride,” (1860). My money is on “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Whole generations of schoolchildren, myself included, grew up reciting the lines that begin “Listen my children, and you shall hear…” 

Both poems are no longer taught in most of America’s public schools, but I know from my grandsons’ experience that they are taught (with great gusto) in many private schools, especially those offering a classical education. “Paul Revere’s Ride” commemorates one of the significant of the beginning of the American Revolution, a horseback ride at night to warn the cities of Lexington and Concord that British troops were coming.

That ride occurred 250 years ago tomorrow.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Artwork: the illustration accompanying the poem in the January 1861 edition of The Atlantic Magazine.

“Defending Dixie’s Land” by Isaac Bishop

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I grew up with relatives who were still fighting the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression, as my grandmother described it). I knew about the Lost Cause, usually referred to simply as “The Cause.” I had watched Gone with the Wind countless times with my mother, and I knew it not as a movie based on a novel but as history. It wasn’t until I was a junior in high school that my American history teaching challenged our class to explore received history and find out what really happened in the Civil War.

It was an eye-opening exercise. And yet I knew that while my relatives and my received wisdom were largely and mostly wrong, my understanding wasn’t entirely wrong. For example, the abolition movement in America was empowered by a powerful propaganda war, which often exaggerated reality to score points in public opinion (as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, himself a part of that propaganda war, would come to realize and regret). Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin without having set foot on a slave-owning plantation, yet Northern readers accepted it as fact. And the idea of secession by individual states were first advanced and popularized, not by the southern states, but by the New England states, which wanted high tariffs to protect their own manufacturing interests and were willing to entertain leaving the Union to achieve their goals. 

Still, it was something of a surprise to read Defending Dixie’s Land: What Every American Should Know About the South and the Civil War (2023) by Isaac Bishop, a pen name for writer Jeb Smith. He’s born and raised in Vermont, no less (a Yankee!). 

Bishop’s journey into the Civil War, began with his studies on the American Revolution and the country’s founders. He realized that most of what he was learning was about the founders from the Northern colonies, with very little being said about the founders from the South and what they believed. From there he studied what he terms “the most terrible sin in our history” – slavery. His previous understanding began to unravel. And the more he looked, the more unraveled it became.

Wherever possible, he looked at original source documents – writings of the protagonists, accounts by former slaves, and the people on both sides who were living through a tumultuous political conflict that became a devastating military conflict.

In Defending Dixie’s Land, Bishop lays out his defense of the South by examining several broad areas: slavery, secession of the cotton states, secession of the Upper South, the Union as created by the founders (all of them), African-American support for the South during the Civil War, America’s agricultural past, treatment of minorities by both North and South, slavery around the world, and finally the fundamental antagonism between North and South. The North, he argues, accepted modernity and the radical beliefs of the French Revolution, while South is “perhaps best understood as a Protestant version of medieval Europe.” 

Isaac Bishop / Jeb Smith

Yes, my mouth hung open in surprise as I read the book, especially when he writes about the individual he views as the chief villain in the play – Abraham Lincoln. Even if I might disagree with him on many things, I was still left with a sense of Bishop may not be entirely right, and he may not be even largely right, but it’s difficult to ignore or discount many of the arguments he makes.

Bishop, a penname for author Jeb Smith, has published two other books: Missing Monarchy: Correcting Misconceptions About the Middle Ages, Medieval Kingship, Democracy, and Liberty; and The Road Goes Ever On and On: A New Perspective on J. R. R. Tolkien and Middle-earth. He’s written more than 100 articles for such publications as History is Now, The Postal Magazine, the Libertarian Institute, History Medieval, Rutland Herald, Vermont Daily Chronicle, Medieval Magazine, Medieval Archives, the Libertarian Christian Institute, and Fellowship & Fairydust Magazine. He lives in Vermont.

Top illustration: an 1852 publicity poster for Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Rereading the “Dancing Priest” Series

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Someone once asked me if I reread my own books after they’re published. And the answer is yes. Part of the reason is research and “story-checking.” When I was writing the Dancing Priest series, I had to reread the early books to make sure I was keeping story line, characters, and settings consistent and accurate. 

But I must confess that, sometimes, I reread the books simply for pleasure. Occasionally, I get so wrapped up in the stories that I forget I wrote them. I suppose that’s a good thing. Yes, I have favorite scenes in every book that I like to reread, but I do reread the books in their entirety, about once a year.

I’ve had readers tell me that they reread the Dancing Priest series, too. Last week, Bill Grandi, a pastor in Indiana, started writing about it at his blog Living in the Shadow. This is part of what he had to say about the first book, Dancing Priest; he captured the very heart of the story in just a few words:

“Glynn has weaved together a wonderful story that even a non-religious person would enjoy. Even though Michael is a fictional character, one begins to admire this young man and his passion for life. Grounded without being preachy, Dancing Priest is a wonderful story of faith, hope, caring for others, putting other’s interests before your own, and being sensitive to those around us.”

And here’s what Bill wrote about the second one, A Light Shining, after summarizing a conversation between the Anglican priest Michael Kent and a 15-year-old boy on the steps of Michael’s church in San Francisco:

“…Each one of us matters to God. He sent Jesus to die so that we could be forgiven. While a story written by Mr. Young, the conversation is heard all over the planet. Every person has value and merit. Each one matters. We are all sinners, for sure, but we still matter to God.”

It might be time to reread my books (again). Thank you, Bill Grandi.

Meeting with a Monthly Book Club on “Brookhaven”

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Last week, I sat with seven or eight members of a local St. Louis book club. I was there at their invitation to discuss my historical novel Brookhaven, which they’d chosen for their monthly reading. I was there to talk about the book and answer their questions.

The hostess was more than knowledgeable about the Civil War, having an ancestor who served on the Union side. She even had his picture and other memorabilia. Her husband had an ancestor who published Origins of the Late War in 1866.

As usually happens when you talk with engaged and knowledgeable readers – really engaged readers – you’re the one who comes come away with a new understanding of your own work. 

Brookhaven

What was the inspiration for the story?

My family history, supposedly passed down from my great-grandfather Samuel Young, who was a Civil War veteran. The family story was that he was too young at the start of the war, so he became a messenger boy. At the end of the war, he had to make his way home on foot from the Eastern Theater to southern Mississippi. 

What a great story!

As I discovered in the middle of writing Brookhaven, it was also untrue. Completely. I had to piece together the real story from U.S. Census records, family memories from another branch, old military records, and the family Bible. The received story was so untrue that I suspect someone was pulling someone’s leg, or the story was artfully embroidered by people who weren’t there. My father, for example, said that we came from a long line of shopkeepers who never owned slaves. The census records tell a very different story. We came from a long line of farmers who had indeed owned slaves.

Women’s fashions in 1915

Any other inspirations for the book?

In early 2022, my wife found a reference to a book conserver in St. Louis, and I turned over the family Bible to repair what could be repaired. He did a great job; he also found a lock of auburn hair in the Bible. Given that all the recorded family records were in my great-grandfather’s hand, the lock likely belonged to my great-grandmother Octavia. She died at 44; my great-grandfather never remarried even though he was 43 when she died and lived until he was 75. That lock of hair and his remaining a widower told me there was a love story here.

How long did it take to write Brookhaven?

The writing itself took about eight months, but it wasn’t a solid eight months of non-stop writing. The research took considerably longer; I started reading about the Civil War in 2016, I think inspired by the red-blue divide that was just beginning to rage in contemporary America. The emotions aroused today are not unlike the emotions aroused prior to the Civil War, although the reasons were and are considerably different.

And the story is not just about the Civil War, of course, because it’s actually set in 1915, fifty years after the war ended. So that required two research efforts, like the clothes men and women wore, the kinds of automobiles driven, what you would see at county fairs, whether indoor plumbing was available in small-town Mississippi, and a whole lot more. One historical fact I learned that becomes a small part in the story was that Brookhaven in the 19th and early 20th centuries had a large Jewish population, unusual for a small Southern town.

Men’s fashions in 1915

How do you write? Do you have a set time each day?

My wife will tell you that I’m always writing, even when I’m not. Brookhaven was written in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings. The manuscript came with me when we spent three weeks in London in 2023, and I worked on it there and on the plane both ways as well. When I’m not sitting in front of the desktop or laptop, I’m often writing and rewriting in my head, like when I take long walks.

Do you write from an outline or plan?

No. I write from an idea in my head, but not from an outline. There’s a phrase for it, “writing into the dark.” When I start writing, I don’t know how the story is going to end. One of the main characters, the young reporter Elizabeth Putnam, was a relatively late addition to the story, because I kept stumbling over the need for a reason that the story was being told 50 years later. It was another main character, Sam McClure the Civil War veteran, who looked me in the eye one day and said, “You know, you really need a reason for this story being told in 1915.” Writing into the dark mean you learn to trust your characters. I know it sounds bizarre, but that’s how I write.

Related:

Research for a Novel Upended a Family Legend.

7 Tips for the Novice Historical Writer – Learned the Hard Way.

How My Novel Originated in the Family Bible.

Relearning Civil War History to Write a Novel.

10 Great Resources for Teaching the Civil War.

Top photograph: The Brookhaven, Miss., train station about 1915.

10 Great Resources for Teaching the Civil War

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I was drafting and researching what would become my historical novel Brookhaven, and I looked at the census records for Pike County, Mississippi. I’d been having trouble finding my ancestor Samuel Young listed anywhere in Confederate rosters. The only one clue I’d previously found was a listing for S.F. Young, who joined a Mississippi rifles unit late in the Civil War and was sent to Texas. And I thought the census record might have another name by which he was known.

I found the list of Youngs. And the family I’m looking for. There he was – Samuel F. Young, age 13. My eye traveled up the list to his father, Franklin. And the occupation listed was farmer. The same occupation was listed for Samuel’s two older brothers. 

Something was wrong. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph: The 1885 (first) edition of The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant.

Relearning Civil War History to Write a Novel

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I was born and grew up in New Orleans, a city saturated with French, Spanish, American, and Black American history and culture. Louisiana law wasn’t based on English common law but upon Napoleonic Code. Counties are called parishes. Mardi Gras was an official holiday.

The state was, and to some extent still is, three regions, each with a distinct accent. North Louisiana, where my father came from, resembled East Texas and Mississippi, including the southern accent. Southwest Louisiana is Cajun country and where my maternal grandfather was born and raised. And then there was New Orleans, with its own distinct accent that sounds vaguely Brooklynese. My mother and her family were all born there, and that’s where I lived with my two brothers. 

If one subject tied and unified the state of Louisiana, it was history, and specifically Civil War history. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph: General Benjamin Butler, known as “Spoons” Butler and “Beast Butler” to the citizens of occupied New Orleans.