Tag: Historical Fiction

Madeira Mondays: America’s 250th Birthday, Independence Revisited

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I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that a lot of Americans don’t know why we celebrate the 4th of July. And I get it. You learn about American history in school and then life gets going and some of those details just fall away. Maybe you vaguely remember some stuff, but not a lot. And, after all, it’s easy for things that happened hundreds of years ago not to feel very relevant in our day to day lives.

But the truth is that history is always relevant, and America’s founding, and the documents it produced, have a direct impact on the lives of everyone who lives in that country (and, I would argue, anyone living in a democracy in the modern world).

When I started this blog (like seven years ago?!), one of my goals was to get people excited and interested in this period of history, which always fascinated me so much! The last year or so I haven’t written too many “Madeira Mondays” and that is in part because of major new career developments that I can’t yet talk about (hopefully soon!). My head and my heart has not been in the 18th century. Pair that with the fact that I’ve just been so sad about a lot of America’s current political climate (see my post on John Donne), that I’m still not quite sure where to take this blog. As this new chapter of my writing life opens up, I’m figuring it out.

In the meantime, I wanted to share with you a look back at some of my favorite posts from the last seven years about America’s founding and independence. It felt wrong to not share anything in honor of the 250th! So here are my top five posts about the topic. A “Best of” list, if you will!

Since I live in Scotland, I was feeing homesick this holiday and missing neighborhood BBQs, parades, etc. Although admittedly not the heat.

Anyway, I hope that you had a lovely 4th of July if you are in the the US and celebrate it, and that one of these posts inspires you to learn more about this complex, turbulent, inspiring, and endlessly interesting period of history.

Independence Hall in Philadelphia, from when I visited in 2019

1: The John Adams TV Series

We’re going back to the beginning! One of my earliest posts about one of my favorite depictions of this time period of America’s founding: The HBO John Adams miniseries starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney! Part of my PhD actually looked at different pop culture representations of one real historical figure (Adams) in different eras.

(I’d highly recommend Episode 2: Independence from this miniseries, as it gives a great sense of what a Big Deal it was for a group of colonies to declare their independence from Great Britain)

Giamatti and Linney in their iconic roles as John and Abigail Adams

And if you’re interested in break-downs of historical fiction films, check out my look at The Patriot.

2. The Poetry of Phillis Wheatley

A lot of people haven’t heard of Wheatley (though she was famous in her day!), and this post in honor of her birthday explores her unique position in American literature as a young African-American woman in colonial America who was also an internationally famous poet.

3. Colonial Fashion on RuPaul’s Drag Race

One of the queens dressed up as a redcoat soldier and I had to talk about it! (If you wanna see me dressed up like John Adams, there is also a photo of that in this post haha!).

5. Tracy K. Smith’s poem ‘Declaration’

Probably the most read blog post from my “Madeira Mondays” series and one of the ones I’m the most proud of! An analysis of the poem “Declaration” by Tracy K. Smith. It also features an explanation of what the Declaration of Independence was (that’s what the Continental Congress signed on July 4th “declaring independence” from Great Britain). If you need a refresh on why we celebrate 4th of July, start here!

6 (Bonus post!). The best songs in 1776

I was going to only choose 5 posts, but I had to include this one too. It’s about one of my favorite musicals: 1776!

The cast from 1776 meeting Richard Nixon at the White House, everyone looking just a little bit awkward

And there you have it, folks! If you’ve been reading the blog for years – thank you! If you’ve just dropped in for this post, thank you! There is a big archive that you can explore…

You can follow the blog (I’m thinking I’ll still do history content, but maybe different eras…) and/or follow along with my literary endeavors either on my quarterly newsletter or on my new Instagram account: @goodgriefcarlybrown

And a happy belated 4th of July!

PS Today’s featured image is John Trumbull’s famous painting depicting the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Madeira Mondays: Hamnet (Film Review)

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I love Shakespeare. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that on this blog? Longtime readers please correct me, but I don’t think I’ve written any posts on Shakespeare before? Nevertheless, I felt compelled to write this review of the recent historical drama Hamnet, adapted from a book by Maggie O’Farrell, which is all about Shakespeare’s wife and the loss of their son.

For full disclosure, I’ve not read the novel and, while I’ve read and seen the play Hamlet a couple of times, it’s not a play I’m intimately familiar with. In Austin, Texas, where I grew up, there is a program at the University of Texas called Shakespeare-at-Winedale. I was lucky enough to take part in their outreach program for teens, so I spent my childhood summers acting in Shakespeare plays in a big barn with other nerdy kids. Pure bliss. I just looked it up and the program I took part in – Camp Shakespeare – is still running! Shakespeare Camp is all about “play” and encountering Shakespeare through performing the text and bringing it to life with other people. It taught me so much and instilled in me a deep love for Shakespeare, which I carried with me all through university (when, for example, I was in a production of Macbeth in a ruined 14th century Scottish abbey!).

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Friday Finds: Five Christmas Book recommendations

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Regular readers of the blog will know that I’ve written about Christmas a lot! I’ve shouted from the rooftops about my love for A Christmas Carol (more on that in a moment). I’ve delved into how Christmas was celebrated in 18th century Scotland. Today, I felt like recommending a couple of my favorite Christmas/winter books. These are books that talk about Christmas and/or the season and that I think would make great gifts.

You’ll probably be familiar with some, but I also tried to pick a few that were more off-the-beaten-track. As always, I hope you enjoy.

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Madeira Mondays: A period film about periods?

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A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine came to Edinburgh for a visit and suggested that we watch Lena Dunham’s movie Catherine Called Birdy. She knew I’d enjoy the movie because a) it’s historical fiction b) it’s a comedy c ) it’s about sassy young ladies. She was right, of course. I did like the movie. But not just because it ticked all of those boxes. I liked the film because it was actually funny and warm and kind of quietly transgressive in a way I wasn’t expecting.

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Madeira Mondays: Ridley Scott’s Napoleon (Movie Review)

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What you think about a historical figure often depends on where you were educated. Take Napoleon. Growing up in the US, Napoleon was described in my schools (if he was mentioned at all) as a kind of over-ambitious conquerer. People even say ‘Napoleon complex’ for a small man who tries to overcompensate for his size. But I recently learned from my partner, who is Italian, that in Italy he’s a more positive (if still complex) figure. He conquered Italy, yes, but Italy was sort of in shambles anyway at the time and he paved the way for future revolution and the democratic ideals that would unify Italy a century later. In France I understand him to be a divisive, complex figure too, especially considering his decision to reinstate slavery after it had been abolished in France.

I personally don’t claim to know a lot about Napoleon. He’s not a person I’ve ever studied, and, beyond Waterloo, I couldn’t name one of his famous battles. My main associations with Waterloo are the ABBA song and also that it features in Vanity Fair (brilliant book btw). So I went into Ridley Scott’s Napoleon with an open heart and an open mind. I wasn’t looking for historical inaccuracies (though I’ve heard there are many). I was looking for entertainment.

I did not get it.

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Madeira Mondays: My new historical short story ‘Feminine Absurdities’

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“It wasn’t until my fourth or fifth sip of tea this morning that I noticed Miss Nancy Carson was missing her eyebrows. I promptly set the cup down and stared at her across the breakfast table. I wanted to make certain she had not simply hidden her brows under too much white pomade. The girl is at an age where she has begun to prepare her toilette, and painting takes practice to master. But her brows were not covered up. They were gone.”

That’s the opening paragraph from my new historical short story – ‘Feminine Absurdities’! It was published last month in CALYX magazine. You can listen to an audio recording of the full story right here.

‘Feminine Absurdities’ is set in 18th century New York City during America’s Revolutionary War. As many of you will know, that’s the war when the American colonies fought for independence from Great Britain. But that’s not what my story is about. My story is about a schoolteacher who notices that something is wrong with one of her pupils. Her eyebrows are gone! But what’s actually wrong with the girl might be deeper and darker than it first appears…

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Madeira Mondays: Last Dance on the Starlight Pier by Sarah Bird (Book Review)

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The only thing I knew about ‘dance marathons‘, prior to reading Sarah Bird’s new novel, was that Lorelai and Rory took part in one during that episode of Gilmore Girls. Turns out, they were all the rage in the 1930’s during the depression in the USA. It was a time when people were down on their luck and wanted something to root for, someone to cheer for, and ultimately something loud, ridiculous, chaotic and fun to distract them from their troubles.

This is the world that Bird’s heroine – Evie Grace – finds herself swept up in. Although Evie dreams of becoming a nurse, when her previous life in vaudeville catches up with her, it’s through dance marathons that she finds a glimmer of hope to regain the future that she lost. This book was fun, picaresque and full of adventure in a way that perfectly suits this glitzy, turbulent time period.

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Madeira Mondays: Marie Antoinette (2006) revisited

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It’s hard for me to describe how excited I was when I first saw the trailer for Marie Antoinette directed by Sofia Coppola. I was about 15 when the trailer came out and I was riveted: cool punky modern music mixed with 18th century fashion and this glamorous story about a doomed queen in revolutionary France. Sign me up!! Remember, this was many years before Hamilton and while I totally found the 18th century cool and exciting and hip, I don’t think that was the consensus and a lot of period pieces I’d seen felt really staid and kind of stodgy. The idea of a fun, edgy, period film with a rock-and-roll vibe about, and presumably for, young people was really, really exciting.

When I saw the film though, I was disappointed. Assuming my expectations might have been too high, I watched it again a few years later: still didn’t like it. Now, when I was at home sick with a cold (not Covid btw if you’re wondering. I tested a lot), I decided that I’d give it a THIRD try, over 15 years after its original release, to see if the film, which had failed to win over fifteen-year-old Carly could win over thirty-year-old Carly. The answer was, sadly, no. It didn’t.

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Madeira Mondays: Mercury 13

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‘Floating among the stars, that is my objective.’ – Wally Funk

I didn’t know about the Mercury 13 until recently, when I read the sci fi thriller Goldilocks and saw that the book was dedicated to them. I looked them up and learned that they were a group of 13 women in the 1960s who wanted to become astronauts. They aced the same grueling physical tests as the male astronauts, but their careers were cut short before they even began when it was decided (in the USA, at least) that women shouldn’t be astronauts at all. What a tragic story, and equally more tragic when I watched this documentary, Mercury 13, and saw how qualified, capable and enthusiastic these women were.

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