Dancing Priest

Author and Novelist Glynn Young

book review

“The Canteen” by Trevor Tipton

By Leave a Comment

Family memories passed down through the generations can create fascinating stories.

Eighteen-year-old Travis Tipton and his Indiana unit find themselves lost in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. It’s late 1863; the men are cold and they’re increasingly tired of the war. They’ve become separated from the main body of Union General Burnside’s army and need to find their way back. Travis has just gone off guard duty when the Confederates attack. The few Union soldiers are killed; Travis himself is shot directly in the heart and tumbles into the nearby stream.

When he wakes, he discovers he’s still alive, protected by the canteen he’d slung across the chest; the rest of his troop are dead; he’s floating on a log downstream; and the water is freezing. He loses consciousness and later finds himself rescued by a Union-friendly mountain family, who help him recover from frostbite and exposure.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is The-Canteen.jpg

He finds romance, but his adventures are far from over. He eventually leaves the mountain family to find Burnside’s army but soon faces another peril: Confederate bounty hunters. 

Travis’s story is told in the short novel The Canteen by Trevor Tipton. The reason the story’s fictitious hero carries the same last name as the author is because the story is based on family history and a Civil War rifle passed down through the decades. There really was a Travis Tipton from Indiana who fought in the Civil War and married a young woman he met during the war. And one of his descendants would write a novel about the war, loosely based on Travis’s history.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Trevor-Tipton-1-768x1024.jpg
Trevor Tipton

It’s a rich story, filled with anecdotes about real events during the war, including the POW camp at Camp Cahaba in Alabama, which plays a role in the story. (Designed to house 100 soldiers, the camp housed up to 3,000 Union prisoners. Not as bad as Andersonville or some of the POW camps for Confederate POWs in New York and Chicago, Cahaba had its own horror stories.)

Tipton the contemporary author taught for 43 years, using his storytelling skills to make the past become interesting and alive. He lives in northern Indiana.

I learned about The Canteen from an unusual web site / podcast / YouTube channel called American Civil War & UK History (link below). I, too, have a Civil War story passed down through the generations that eventually became a manuscript, and will soon become a published novel.  

Related:

Trevor Tipton talks about The Canteen with American Civil War & UK History.

“The Blackbird & Other Stories” by Sally Thomas 

By Leave a Comment

A little girl tries to lead a normal life – dance revues, school – while the shadow of her mother’s illness seems everywhere. If she focuses on dancing “The Blackbird,” she’ll be fine.

A couple try to make sense of their grown son’s suicide, even if you can never really make sense of that kind of tragedy. Or you’re traveling with your grandparents, trying to escape, or deal with, a family breakup. Or a spouse dies, that “little cough” having turned into something fatal. Or your youngest child is born with a skin condition that essentially makes him allergic to sunlight, and you have to re-orient everything you know and do. Or you take refuge from your spouse’s beach house, the one in your family for three generations, the one containing memories of every childhood vacation. 

These are a few of the stories in The Blackbird & Other Stories, the new collection by Sally Thomas. Comprised of eight stories and one novella, Thomas explores life in contemporary America, where marriages flounder and fail, children die, someone you know and love is going to be on the autism spectrum, and dementia and its annihilation of memory always threatens. Underlying all the stories is the subject of faith, or lack of it, never overtly there but only a subtle presence, almost a reminder of something lost. 

But being lost doesn’t mean unimportant. In one of the stories, “Not Less Than Everything,” faith has an important part to play.

Three of the stories and the novella (“The Happy Place”) are about members of the same family, especially the mother Caroline and the daughter Amelia. You read how their lives unfold, and you ache, all the while sensing that there is something here to hold on to while life throws everything at you. These are people you know; they may even be your own family.

Sally Thomas

Thomas is a poet and fiction writer. She serves as the thesis advisor for the M.F. A. program at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. She’s published two poetry chapbooks and collection Motherland, with a second collection being published this year. Thomas served as co-editor (with Micah Mattix) of the anthology Christian Poetry in America Since 1940. Her writing and poetry have appeared in numerous publications, including Plough Quarterly, North American Anglican, Dappled Things, First Things, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Public Discourse, Southern Poetry Review, and many others. With Joseph Bottum, Thomas is the co-editor of Poems Ancient and Modern, a poetry newsletter on Substack.

The Blackbird & Other Stories is a collection that asks, how do we make our way in a broken, fallen world? Or conversely, how can we make our way without faith?

Related:

Works of Mercy by Sally Thomas.

Top photograph by Nick Fewings via Unsplash. Used with permission.

“Write & Publish Organically” by Catherine Lawton

By 1 Comment

Sometimes I think more people write about writing than actually write. I follow several writer blogs, web sites, online magazines, and Substack listings, and just keeping up with those can be overwhelming. I’ve read and read lots of books on the subject. This is all in addition to the writing itself.

But it is a good idea to step back from time to time and think critically about what you do and how you do it. And to figure out if you can do it better. A new book on writing that is aimed at Christian writers but easily applies to all writers is Write & Publish Organically by Catherine Lawton. And it is a gem. 

Lawton uses a rhyming scheme to explain what she calls organic writing and publishing.

First is “soak.” All writers are soaked in modernity; Christian writers have to strive for being soaked in God’s presence. It’s not easy; she points out that the idea of faith has been shifting from an institutional framework to “unmediated experience.” For Christian writers, grounding in God’s presence is essential.

Second is “spoke.” Lawton details what she learned about writing rom “being practically raised in a church pew.” That understanding include the power of words, the joy of writing and publishing, the importance of being heard or getting the word out, and the value of reading and sharing books.

This is “evoke,” or letting one’s imagination awaken. That’s followed by “provoke,” or stopping playing it safe and getting out of one’s comfort zone. And fifth is “stoke,” where she describes marketing strategies for both writers and publishers.

Catherine Lawton

She includes three useful appendices – publishing models; the publishing process; and marketing for introverts, which likely describes the majority of wrtiers. 

Lawton has been writing and telling stories since childhood. She’s published fiction, poetry, essays, and non-fiction. She’s also the founder of Cladach Publishing, a Christian publisher of memoirs, fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. The firm is based in Greeley, Colorado.

Write & Publish Organically is a guide not only for young writers beginning their careers but also established writers. Particularly helpful is the idea of being centered (for Christians, that means centered in God). It’s a work filled with insights and helpful advice; Lawton works both the writing and publishing sides of the business. She’s distilled what she’s learned into a highly readable book.

And reading it is a good way to think about writing.

Note: The book will be released on Monday, Sept. 9.

Top photograph by Andrew Neel via Unsplash. Used with permission.

“Decisions of the Vicksburg Campaign” by Larry Peterson

By 1 Comment

I’ve completed for reading and research for my Civil War novel, tentatively entitled Brookhaven. It’s been something of a relief to see the conclusion of this phase of the project, and I’ll have more to say about the next phase soon.

The Civil War is something of a publishing mini-industry; new books are coming out all the time. I think we keep examining the war, what left up to it, and what came afterward to try to understand our own times. I can say that much of what I thought I knew has undergone some serious revision.

I’m still following news of new articles and books on the conflict, and one was recently published that I couldn’t resist. Decisions of the Vicksburg Campaign: The Eighteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Operation was written by Larry Peterson and published recently by the University of Tennessee Press. And I couldn’t resist it because it was precisely the operation that framed the Civil War experience of my ancestors. 

They didn’t live in Vicksburg; they lived south of Jackson near the city of Brookhaven. If you travel on Interstate 55 between New Orleans and St. Louis, which I have many, many times, you travel through Brookhaven. 

Vicksburg was the last impediment to Union control of the Mississippi River. New Orleans had fallen in 1862, and Baton Rouge and Memphis not long after. Vicksburg was the blockade point, and it had to be taken. The siege lasted a considerable period, and it involved a number of related operations, including the capture of the state capital at Jackson and what it known as Grierson’s Raid, a cavalry maneuver that started in Tennessee, swept down the state of Mississippi, and end in Baton Rouge. It was designed to confuse and distract the Confederate Army and allow Ulysses Grant to move his troops across the river south of Vicksburg. And it worked rather spectacularly. 

Grierson’s Raid is one of the 18 critical decisions of the Vicksburg campaign. 

With each decision, Peterson explains what the situation was, what the options were, what was decided, and what were the results or impact. The decisions range from the appointment of the military commanders on both sides, failures of command, Grant’s attempted advance through central Mississippi, Union Admiral David Porter’s decision to run the Vicksburg blockade, Grant’s attack on Jackson, the Confederate mismanagement of Vicksburg’s defense, and more. The discussion for each is short and succinct; the main part of the book is only 100 pages.

Admiral Porter’s ships run the blockade.

The appendices are also well worth reading and constitute another 84 pages, including directions for a driving tour you can take of the entire campaign; he Union and Confederate Orders of Battle; and a short discussion about reinforcing Vicksburg. The book also includes notes, a bibliography, and an index.

What I found especially interesting was that Grierson’s Raid almost didn’t happen. The Union officer takseed with the decision initially postponed it because of Confederate activity and because he thought its success was questionable at best. He was eventually overridden, and the raid was authorized, taking place between April 17 and May 2. One stop made by the Union cavalry was Brookhaven, where the rail station was burned and track torn up. 

In my novel, that becomes the event that frames all of what follows.

Peterson retired from United Airlines as a Boeing 757/767 Standards Captain. He’s previously published Confederate Commander: The Remarkable Life of Brigadier General Alfred Jefferson Vaughn Jr and several volumed in the Command Decisions of the American Civil War series. 

Decisions of the Vicksburg Campaign covers an extensive amount of information, and it does so in a highly readable, compact way. You get a full sense of the major decisions, good and bad, that figured in the Union’s ultimate capture of the city. 

Top photograph: Vicksburg during the Union siege, showing the caves where many citizens lived during the bombardment.

“The Storied Life” by Jared Wilson

By Leave a Comment

I’ve had many conversations with Christian writers about the idea of “calling,” that writing is a calling from God. Most will agree; some even will identify a specific time when they experienced the calling. 

I can’t. Writing has been a part of my life since I can remember. I was raised in a culturally Christian home, but I had been writing for almost 12 years by the time I became a Christian. I wrote my first story when I was 10; I don’t remember much about it except it was a mystery, involved a group of kids, and featured a grandfather clock that opened to a secret passage and a cave.

Jared Wilson has had a far different experience. In The Storied Life: Christian Writing as Art and Worship, he develops the idea of writing as a specific calling (a kind of ministry, for those unfamiliar with “calling”) and goes so far as the suggest a theology of writing. He tells a good story, and he’s created a solid case for writing as one of those endeavors God would see as good.

The Storied Life is divided into two parts. First, Wilson provides reflections on story. What makes writing good? Does writing have its own liturgy? (Wilson would say yes.) And then he explores writing as a spiritual act.

Part Two is how Wilson explains cultivating the spiritual life. This moves the narrative into areas more familiar to all writers – finding your voice, excellence, the promise and perils of platform, and writing as a calling. Yet even here, he retains a Christian perspective. Writing can be a vocation or an avocation (for me, it’s been both). He explains there isn’t just one kind of calling to writing; the calling can be a call to grow, to emphasize, to recognize limitations, and even to worship.

Wilson suggests that, like the characters we create in fiction, we, too, are characters in God’s story. And just like our fictional characters seem to have a mind of their own (which I’ve experienced many times in fiction), so, too, do we. The calling to be characters in God’s story, and the call to write, is “a call to be his,” he says.

Jared Wilson

Wilson is an assistant professor of Pastoral Ministry and author in residence at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. He also serves as staff pastor for preaching and director of the Pastoral Training Center at Liberty Baptist Church, also in Kansas City. He received a B.A. degree in English from Middle Tennessee State University and an M.A. degree in ministry service at Spurgeon College. He’s currently enrolled in the D.Min. degree program at Midwestern. 

The Storied Life is written for Christian writers. Others can read it and benefit, but it is aimed squarely at those of us among the Christian community who are called to write. Wilson offers his own experience, encouragement, and deep insights into the writing process. Christian writers need a book precisely like this one.

Top photograph by Etienne Girardet via Unsplash. Used with permission.

“A Shining” by Jon Fosse: It Does Have Punctuation, Which Helps 

By Leave a Comment

In 2023, Norwegian author Jon Fosse received the Nobel Prize for Literature. He’s a novelist, playwright, essayist, and author of children’s books; in fact, he’s likely better known for his theater plays than his novels. 

When I read about the Nobel, I checked Amazon to see what of his works might be available in English. At the time, there wasn’t much; the situation now is considerably different. There was a short story available in translation, A Shining, translated by Damion Searls. 

A Shining is a short story, longish as in – coming in at 43 pages in the e-book version. It tells the story of man who drives from him home with no destination in mind. He simply keeps driving until his car gets stuck in a narrow forest road. After debating what to do, he decides to try to find help in the forest.

The man moves through a series of dreamlike sequences; the shining of the title happens two or three times, when some kind of shining presence is watching him, then walking with him. He also sees his own parents. By the end, he’s in the presence of his parents and the shining presence, still walking through the forest, barefoot. (And it’s cold and snowy; he shivers from the cold several times and wishes he’d stayed in his car.)

The entire story is a metaphor for death; he never says his parents predeceased him, but they’re barefoot, too. The presence is something of a God-like guide, not directing toward any particular end or goal but just being there.

Jon Fosse

It’s an unusual story. It’s also a 43-page story with one paragraph. While the indent feature on his keyboard might have been broken, the effect of a single paragraph is essentially to compel the reader to keep reading; there’s no good place to stop or even pause. The story does have punctuation (another Nobel Prizewinner, William Faulkner, could often be bad about that), and punctuation helps.

The story is rather haunting. It builds a sense of frustration; how long is this guy going to continue to wander in the dark and not find help? The help does come, of course, but it’s not what the reader’s expecting. It’s a story about death, but it’s also a story about faith. The story may have been influenced by his own childhood when he suffered a serious accident and came close to death. He speaks of seeing “a shimmering presence.” He was raised in the Quaker and Pietest traditions, and he’s now a practicing Catholic.

His Nobel lecture is entitled “A Silent Language.” It’s available to watch on YouTube (he’s introduced in English but his lecture is Norwegian) and it can be read in English here.

Top photograph by Casey Horner via Unsplash. Used with permission.