History Through Exceptional Storytellers

Those lazy summer months when books came into my life by the stack were the most memorable of my pimply teenage years. Just me, Fritz, the cat, (They were all named Fritz.) grape soda, luncheon meat on party rye, and the library books of the week. I didn't care much for history until I held a book of fiction in my hands. Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books, Where the Red Fern Grows, Island of the Blue Dolphin, To Kill a Mockingbird were not dry recounting of historical periods. History was peopled with interesting relatable characters.

The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis gave us a glimpse of what motivated London parents to accept the Pied Piper plan to evacuate their children to rural areas in advance of what they feared would be an imminent German invasion. An event of such emotional trauma for parents and children was softened in his Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by the comforts of the professor's spacious home. The war remained a rumbling presence beneath their feet, but would not touch them when they escaped even farther through a wardrobe into Narnia. More recently, I read of a different scheme devised to rid London streets of orphans who were sent to Australia to become laborers. They were stories, one for children the other adults, but the history of the times was woven into their foundations.

Moving forward to more recent fiction, the books of the masterful storyteller, Ivan Doig stand apart as further examples. In his evocative Montana trilogy, Mr. Doig spins a tale of sticky relationships of familial love and friendships, all melded into the historical turn of the century setting. In his stories we encounter the immigrant experience and a philosophy that drove them to sink their hopes like roots deep in the land. Setting is as much a fully realized character as Angus McCaskill, single man, wheelworks clerk and soon-to-be rancher who stepped off the boat from Forfarshire into the next chapters of his life in Two Medicine country.

Mr. Doig brings the Scottish immigrant experience to the reader in the context of an engaging story of love, loss, and injustice. The voice of his protagonist is authentic and compelling as he speaks of his youthful restlessness. We are there with him on the land Charles Campbell Doig described when he said,

"Scotchmen and coyotes was the only ones that could live in the Basin, and pretty d... soon the coyotes starved out."

The proposal that fiction is an excellent medium for conveying history is a widely accepted truth. Historical fiction as a genre may not hold the esteem in literary circles that it once did, but I am not ashamed to admit that I am a fan.

Leave your comments below. What has historical fiction taught you and has it changed how you see yourself as a part of the larger story.