Dancing Priest

Author and Novelist Glynn Young

Brookhaven

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.

From a Review of “Brookhaven”

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From a review of “Brookhaven” by Jody Collins on Substack:

“As you know, Miss Putnam, every story has a before, a during, and an after. I think it’s how we make sense of the stories we hear, to organize them that way. Novels are like that, generally.” Sam McClure (the elder) in “Brookhaven” by @Glynn Young. Historical fiction is my new favorite genre and Glynn Young’s story, Brookhaven is the main reason why. I was a poor student of the Civil War when I was in school, so I learned a lot about particulars of a number of battles, as well as the effects of the war on the South. Young manages to weave a love story into a mystery surrounding a stealth-footed youth whose undercover intelligence (supposedly) aided Robert E. Lee and his army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War. This poet also enjoyed Young’s addition of a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem at the head of each chapter, making Brookhaven both a time capsule of literature and a captivating, history book-worthy tale. (from my Amazon review). If you’re a historical fiction/love story fan, I highly recommend “Brookhaven.” 

How My Novel Originated in the Family Bible

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When I was young child, I asked my father what the package was that sat on a shelf in his closet. It was wrapped in brown grocery bag paper and tied with twine. “That,” he said, “is the family Bible, and one day it will be yours.” 

That day came during a visit home to New Orleans about 25 years later. Apologizing for the sorry state it was in, my father thought I might find someone in St. Louis to restore it. Instead, I did the time-honored thing and put in on a closet shelf. I did find a conservation box to store it in, and I did handwrite a copy of the four pages of family records. But it sat on the shelf, just as it had sat before.

But as I studied the family records, I noticed that the entries for births, deaths, and marriages were all in the same hand, presumably that of my great-grandfather Samuel. He’d even signed his name on an inside cover page. Samuel was something of a family legend, a legend which my later research showed was almost entirely untrue. But he’d certainly written all of the entries.

To continue reading, please see my post today at the ACFW Blog.

Research for a Novel Upended a Family Civil War Legend

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In writing Brookhaven, one of the sources I relied upon for research, book referrals, and general information about the Civil War was a web site called Emerging Civil War. Its official description is “a public history-oriented platform for sharing original scholarship related to the American Civil War.” 

Because the site is aimed at the general reading public (people like me), the articles include historical research, memory studies, travelogues, book reviews, personal narratives, essays, and photography. The writers include professors, National Park rangers, teachers, historical authors, and even general writers (like me).

I can’t say enough about how helpful the site has been to my research and my general understanding of the war and the people who fought in it. And now I’m one of their guest authors, with “Research for a Novel Upended a Civil War Legend.” 

Photograph: My great-grandparents, Samuel and Octavia Young, about 1880. The photograph was rather clumsily repaired after suffering some damage.

Two More Reviews for “Brookhaven”

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Brookhaven Full Cover-confidential

Two additional reviews of Brookhaven have been published on Amazon. 

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written. Impossible to put down.

This wonder of a Civil War novel captivated me from the first page. Set ostensibly in 1915 when the only female reporter for the NEW YORK WORLD is sent south to learn details about a mysterious Confederate spy, author Glynn Young spins a family saga that details the heartache and loss not only of the war specifically but the broken relationships and twisted lives that came out of those devastating years.

What begins as a mystery to solve quickly evolves into an elderly man’s own story of the nation’s worst war. Set primarily in the town of Brookhaven, Mississippi, and the homes of a family still caught in the grasp of the war’s aftermath, the story moves back and forth between 1915 and the 1860s, taking readers on a personal tour of troop movement in the eastern border states, battles of Gettysburg and Wilderness, General Lee’s surrender, and ultimately, a very satisfying finale.

As I read, the book and its characters felt very real. Not my ancestors, certainly, but people I learned to cheer for and care about as the ways of war and the world had their effect. That turned out to be not too surprising, as the author wrote an end-of-the-book note that BROOKHAVEN was inspired by tales he heard from his own family as he was growing up.

Finally, marvel of marvels for people like me who always “want to know more” after I’ve finished a historical novel, author Young provides readers with a comprehensive bibliography at the end of the book that ranges from general Civil War books, to books about the war in Mississippi, to letters and memoirs that offer personal insights into those years.

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully told, fascinating in historical detail

Glynn Young has crafted a beautiful, engrossing story that shines with historical details. I’ve always loved historical fiction and Brookhaven does not disappoint. The many twists and turns in the story made this one a page-turner for me. The author’s note at the end of the book relates how the book was inspired by an old family story, which I found to be so interesting. I could tell by the way the author handled the characters with such integrity that this story holds a special place in his heart. This book kept me company over the holidays and through a winter snowstorm. It was a very good companion.