Tag: historical fiction

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Choosing Carolina Cioara as Narrator for FALLEN GIANTS OF THE POINTS

Carolina Cioara

Carolina grew up in a lazy town in Newbridge, Ireland. She has loved reading, writing and books for as long as she can remember. As a toddler, she loved reciting poems. At the age of two, Carolina and her mammy made a habit of visiting the local sweet shop, where the lady at the counter would write poems on scraps of paper and give them to Carolina to learn, and if she did, she’d get sweets. Carolina’s love for learning (and getting sweets), led her to develop her narrating skills from a young age.

After obtaining her Bachelor’ degree in English Literature, she decided to take a Masterclass with Dan O’Day and David H. Lawrence XVII. Carolina is now narrating books that require an Irish accent, and she is also writing her second fantasy novel. Carolina teaches English to foreign students to help pay the bills.

Cover for the audio book of FALLEN GIANTS OF THE POINTS, by Alan M. Clark, read by Carolina Cioara

First of all, I chose Carolina Cioara as narrator because she caught the emotion behind the words I’d put on the page, her vocal inflections capable of expressing them appropriately when they were subtle, overt, or extreme. She reads at a nice pace for listening, and she is easy to work with.

I chose her also for reasons having to do with characters in the novel. Fallen Giants of the Points opens with an “Introductory Note from the Authors.” The “authors” in this case are the two fictional main characters, Alta Mae and Cedric Brewer. The note conveys that the story that follows is an autobiographical account, written by the characters in adulthood of their experiences as children.

Many of those who immigrated to the city in that time, no matter where they came from, ended up on the streets, destitute, jobless, and homeless. Those able to find jobs, in many cases, found themselves over-worked and abused by their employers and landlords. Desperation among these unfortunate human beings frequently led to criminal behavior, and drug and alcohol abuse. Disease more easily claimed the lives of those suffering such hardship.

Children in these situations often fled to the streets to get away from abusive home life or found themselves orphaned and homeless upon the death of their parents. The numbers of orphans increased well beyond the city’s capacity to manage. Some of the children were rounded up and sold into the service of those needing child labor. Others survived as best they could, avoiding the “coppers” and those who would capitalize on their labor.

During much of the first decade of their lives, Alta Mae and Cedric Brewer are homeless orphans on the streets of Manhattan during the 1840s. They spend much of that time free, if hungry and suffering from exposure to cruel weather, especially in winter. They do not possess memories of  their parents.

At the time, New York City had immigrants mostly from northern Europe and what’s now known as the UK. The big waves of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe had not occurred yet, so the accents of those learning to speak the main language of the city, English, would have been most heavily influence by the English, Scottish, and Irish who immigrated to the city or were engaged in maritime trade there. Most of the slang of the time, including the thieves cant of the streets, comes from England. Additional significant influence on the language would have come from escaped black slaves fleeing from the South to the North. During the Irish Potato Famine (1845 to 1852), innumerable Irish came to New York City to escape hardship—more like out of the frying pan, into the fire. Many made the passage as indentured servants, then fled their masters upon arrival and hid among the countless homeless on the city’s streets, especially in the neighborhoods around Five Points, in lower Manhattan, areas so dangerous and crime-ridden, the police would not patrol them. This was the neighborhood in which Alta Mae and Cedric spend their early childhood.

Thinking about the voices of Alta Mae and Cedric Brewer, I decided that they most likely would have a light Irish accent. I also wanted that voice to sound young since, in most of the tale they tell, the characters are between the ages of five and eleven years.

Listening to Carolina Cioara read the sample I provided for auditions, I could clearly hear the characters speaking. She also proved herself quite capable of delivering the slang in the novel, mostly thieves cant, quite naturally.

I highly recommend the experience of listening to the adventure tale, Fallen Giants of the Points, as read by Carolina Cioara.

—Alan M. Clark

Eugene, Oregon

The audio book of the novel, FALLEN GIANTS OF THE POINTS, by Alan M. Clark, read by Carolina Cioara, is available from Audible.com and other online retailers such as Amazon.

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A Parliament of Crows: Horror that Happened (™)

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Murder in the service of maintaining wealth and status. That’s not uncommon, but when it is done by seemingly “proper” Victorian women, three sisters who teach social graces in women’s colleges in the old South, the contrast sets us up for a good Southern gothic. Based on crimes committed by the infamous Wardlaw sisters against members of their own family, A Parliament of Crows, explores in fiction the emotions and the thinking behind such crimes. The Novel was released this month under the new IFD Publishing imprint, Horror that Happened (™). I have changed their name to Mortlow and made some other changes to drive the story, yet I’ve tried to follow what history has told us about the Wardlaw sisters’ crimes. The tale unfolds from their respective perspectives, the chapters rotating through the three POVs.

Murders committed over the course of many years left the three Mortlow sisters, Vertiline, Mary, and Carolee, with many secret to keep. Differing in personality, faith, and outlook, they were at odds with one another from the start—more so even than with those they killed. Jealousies, grievances, and mistrust threatened to break their loyalty and shared silence.

With a final crime, the murder of Mary’s daughter, authorities caught up with the sisters. They were indicted for murder and insurance fraud. That’s where the story begins. The backstories of all three are revealed as the court case proceeds.

The mystery here is not whodunnit, but how they found it reasonable to do what they did.

Concerning the title, some have asked if I meant owls, because a gathering of owls is referred to as a parliament. There is also a parliament of crows that is less description of them as a group and more something the group may do when they gather together in large numbers, say in an open field. In such gatherings of perhaps fifty or more crows, occasionally an argument breaks between one or more of the birds. The others seem to watch. When the argument is done, the crows turn on one of the participants, presumably the loser, sometimes maiming, killing, or even cannibalizing the creature. Some people who have viewed this phenomenon have likened it to a trial in which the defendent is convicted and punished. A parliament of crows is the term for that type of gathering. With the way the sisters go after each other and because they habitually wore black mourning clothes, I thought the title appropriate.
A Parliament of Crows, by Alan M. Clark, is the second novel to be included in the new IFD Publishing imprint Horror that Happened (™).

The outrageous is all the more extraordinary when we know it actually occurred. Horror that Happened (™), provides riveting stories in three catagories: True Crime, Based on a True Story, and Lifted from the Past. We hope you will come back to IFD Publishing for your high-quality reading entertainment.

—Alan M. Clark
Eugene, Oregon

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The Flotsam and Jetsam of History

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If you love words as I do, you probably love history. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years writing historical fiction. In performing research for the novels, I’ve leaned about the origins of certain English words and phrases I’ve used in both written and spoken language throughout my life, but didn’t completely understand. Although many expressions that came into existence long ago are still in use and their meanings as idioms are clear to us, the original meanings of the phrases may be lost without a search in history.

Because the gun played such a large role in events over the last few centuries, many idioms are related to firearms of the past. Here are a few that are still widely used, but the context of their origination not widely known.

Lock stock and barrel is an expression we use to mean “all of it.” I used to think it meant the whole store, like a mercantile of some kind. It means the whole rifle or musket. The lock is the firing mechanism, the barrel is, well… self-explanatory, and the stock is the part that helps you hold onto the firearm.

Bite the bullet means expose yourself to possible pain and danger to get a job done. Many people believe it originally meant to bite down on a lead bullet to endure pain, perhaps while having a surgical experience without an anesthetic, but it comes from a time when to prepare a rifle for firing you had to bite the end off a paper-wrapped cartridge before placing its contents in the barrel of your firearm. Doing this while under fire took brave resolve.

Stick to your guns means remain true to principles or goals. The expression has less to do with guns per se and more to do with maintaining a particular post during battle, especially if you’re told to hold a position without retreating. Well, of course you will need that gun, won’t you?

Flash in the pan is an idiom we use to mean a great start but little or no follow up. It’s a great metaphor for a one hit wonder in the music industry who puts out a single very popular tune, yet never does any better afterward and soon falls out of favor. To do justice to this one takes some explaining, so bear with me.

The original meaning comes from a time when pistols, muskets, and rifles had flint lock firing mechanisms. To load a flintlock firearm, gunpowder was poured into the barrel followed by a lead ball, called “shot,” wrapped in a bit of rag to make it fit snugly and hold everything in place. A small pan beside a hole in the side of the barrel was primed with a little gunpowder and then protected from spillage by a hinged iron part called a frizzin (see the illustration above). When the trigger of the flintlock was pulled, the hammer, which held a piece of flint did two things: it struck sparks off the iron frizzin and knocked that hinged part off the pan. With the frizzin out of the way, the sparks could reach the powder in the pan and ignite it. The hot expanding gas of the lit powder was meant to travel down the small hole in the side of the barrel and ignite the powder behind the lead shot. If this last step didn’t occur, there was merely a flash in the pan and the gun didn’t actually fire.

Understanding the metaphor of this idiom creates a mental picture that enhances the meaning of the expression. A flash in the pan is an exciting event, with a hiss, a flash, and billowing smoke, but the results are disappointing if that isn’t followed by the loud crack of the shot flying from the barrel and striking a target. Without the mental picture some of the power of the expression’s metaphor is lost.

The original meanings of many single words are unknown to most of us today. I’m thinking of several having to do with the production of linen. A lining, like what you might have in the inside surface of your coat, means something made from line flax. Line flax is the fibers of the flax plant that don’t break off when run through a device that looks like a small bed of nails called a hackle (aka heckle). The fibers that survive going through a hackle and remain long are spun together to make fine linen thread (note the word “line” in “linen”). So a lining is something made of linen. The lining of my stomach or my water heater is not made of linen, though. When my dog gets upset, wants to look bigger and more threatening, he gets his hackles up, but that doesn’t mean he has metal spikes sticking up out of his back. In the past, the flax fibers that broke off short in a hackle were called tow flax. They weren’t good enough to make fine thread and were spun into a rough cord to make tow sacks, which are much like the burlap sacks of today. Tow fibers are very blonde, but a tow-headed child doesn’t have tow flax for hair even if the tyke is referred to as flaxen-haired. The act of drawing flax fibers through a hackle is known as heckling. The purpose was to worry, to tease (in the old sense, meaning to comb), and straighten the fibers to determine which would stand up to stress and were worth using for linen production. When a stand-up comedian is heckled, that doesn’t mean he’s drawn through a small bed of nails to straighten his fibers and break off his weak parts. Okay, so maybe it does mean he’s being teased, but still, you get my point.

Here’s an expression I like a lot: flotsam and Jetsam. It’s not the most commonly known phrase, but it’s still a fun one using curious words, and I want to use it in the last paragraph of this post. We use it now to mean odds and ends. For example, somebody might say, “The project is finished except for the flotsam and jetsam of small problems I discovered along the way.” Flotsam and jetsam are separate nautical terms, but frequently appear together, both as words and in the context in which the words have meaning. Flotsam is the remnants of a shipwreck that floats on the sea after a vessel has gone down. Jetsam is what is jettisoned from a ship going down to lighten its load and help it stay afloat longer or even save it from going down.

In the time in which the idiom, flash in the pan, came into existence, the context from which it emerged was well-known to most individuals. An expression like that becomes popular perhaps because it’s frequently used in conversation as a metaphor in lieu of lengthier descriptions. If an idiom becomes useful enough that it’s overused and becomes cliché, it will be so universally understood that the significance of its original context can be discarded. It can far outlive the simple context of its birth. The idiom still performs a meaningful function although many who hear it and repeat it may not understand where it came from. Although the expression, flash in the pan is very much alive, having outlived the technology of the flintlock by more than a century, the metaphor it presents can be considered broken since most people today don’t understand how the firing mechanism works. I’ve heard and used many idioms for years in partial ignorance. As I became more interested in history, the original meaning of some idioms came clear. Finding the discovery satisfying, I became much more curious about the origins of words and phrases, and my interest in history intensified.

My latest historical fiction novel is The Prostitute’s Price. It is part of my Jack the Ripper Victims Series. Because the stories take place in Victorian times or earlier among English speaking people, British or American, they employ characters that use the language a little bit differently than we do today. The trick is to provide scenes in which the context makes clear the meaning of what is being said. The characters are involved with simpler, humbler domestic and labor situations and technologies often in early development or infancy.

I like to think of idioms with broken metaphors as flotsam of history. The ship has long since gone under, taking its passengers with it. Phrases remain, floating above the wreckage on the surface like lost luggage, filled with words that once had specific meaning, and, in combination, still have an idiomatic meaning. The specific sense of the words might have been lost, but the phrases still have value. We all claim salvage rights from time to time, but often don’t ask the simple questions: Who owned these expressions and why did they find them valuable? If we seek answers to the questions, we can learn something about those who left them behind and perhaps find out why the phrases float so well even today.

—Alan M. Clark
Eugene, Oregon