It’s just not fair: the case of Evangeline Walton

It’s bittersweet to read — and read about — gothic novelist Evangeline Walton.  The sweet part has to do with Tachyon Press, that scrappy little Bay Area-based publisher of all things fantasy, receiving a fantastic opportunity to introduce readers to an overlooked work of gothic fiction by Walton (accompanied by an excellent foreword by Paul Di Filippo and an excellent afterword by Douglas A. Anderson).

evangeline waltonThe bitter part has to do with Walton’s publishing circumstances. It’s great that she finally is enjoying posthumous recognition (she died in 1996), but does it have to be posthumous?

My friends, I know that writers shouldn’t be driven to write by their audiences — it’s the inner voice that’s supposed to be the motivation, right? -- but a little recognition, a little connection, is food for any writer’s soul, whether in print or here, in the WordPress universe. It makes you feel good to know that someone is listening. When you feel that way, that feeling informs your work and can make all the difference.

Walton seems to have had very little such nourishment. Di Filippo’s foreword describes her very bruising, painful publishing history, and the brief fame she enjoyed for her Mabinogion Tetralogy — a set of books that some place alongside Tolkien and T.H. White.

“She Walks in Darkness” made the publishing rounds in the 1960s and landed back in the proverbial desk drawer when no one was interested. The book’s a small miracle in prose. A tightly-controlled, first-person narrative of a terrifying experience in a remote Italian villa.

Barbara, the narrator, and her husband Richard are honeymooners. They travel to Tuscany not for a wine-and-sunshine experience like you’ll find in Frances Mayes’ bestsellers, but because Richard is an archeologist eager to study the Etruscan catacombs under the Villa Carenni. The romantic devil.

The patriarch of the Carenni family “believed that the villa had been built over the site of an ancient temple to Mania, Queen of the Underworld....It was the old Etruscan name for the Queen of the Underworld before they began using Greek script names, and identified her with Persephone. Her rites weren’t pretty. Roman records mention the substitution of poppyheads for the kind of offerings she’d received earlier...Little boys’ heads....

Walton-Walks-in-Darkness-coverWhen Richard is injured in a car accident, and lies unconscious, and Barbara believes a murder has escaped from a local prison and is hiding among the buried tombs — or is it Mania herself? -- the story takes off. She doesn’t know what to do. She can’t make a long trek to get help, she can’t leave Richard, not when she’s convinced someone is lurking around the deserted villa. Barbara’s trapped.

Just the sort of book I’d have pounced on when I was reviewing for the paper.

Walton’s compression, her economy is brilliant ... Barbara’s narrative, for instance, moves easily from the horrifying present to the innocence of the previous day in a single tense-shifting paragraph. No bells or whistles. Deftly done.

“The Da Vinci Code’s” Dan Brown also could learn something from her handling of big, historical enigmas. Theories don’t drop into her narrative like big, chunky encyclopedia entries — at one point, Barbara’s reading of a discovered notebook seamlessly gives us a theory of the true identity of the Etruscans, who originated in a place called Tyrrha:

Did not Plato say that Atlanteans once occupied the Tyrrhene coast? Whether the place that in his Greek foolishness he called Atlantis lies beneath the sea, or—as is more likely—beneath the sands of the Sahara, that land was the cradle-land, the birthplace of all the arts of man. The birthplace of the Rasenna [Etruscans].

The book reflects its time period — the 1950s — in Barbara’s view of herself, her relationship to her husband, an unexpected hunky Tuscan, and men in general ... But such dating isn’t necessarily a bad thing, is it? It reminds us that the book wasn’t written in a vacuum, that it arose out of a particular time from someone’s particular circumstances.

I’m just sorry that we had to discover it now, when it’s much too late for Walton to receive some of the praise she deserves.

Related:

Go here to learn more about Tachyon Publications, publisher of Walton's novel.

Go here for another nice review of "She Walks in Darkness" at Bibliophilic Monologues.

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Profile in courage

Dan Brown Inferno coverDante Alighieri is a fascinating figure, and hopefully I'll be able to tell you what really fascinates me about that poor, exiled figure at some point in the near future when my work on a book about him is done. Keep your fingers crossed for me, beloved friends. In the meantime, I feel like I should at least present the cover image of Dan Brown's forthcoming book "Inferno," which is being published by Random House in May, for your viewing pleasure. The publisher sent out images of the cover yesterday. This will be the fourth action novel featuring renowned symbologist Robert Langdon.

I have to admit, it's a little disappointing to see Dante's profile, that familiar, angular chin and nose, clouded over by a bunch of thriller imagery, but thankfully it still shows through -- like a mountain peak through a bank of fog.

That red band running down the cover and merging with the red of Dante's cap and robes -- is that like the Rose Line of "The Da Vinci Code" or is it just a little design element?  Brown's book jackets are always packed with symbolism, so I'd guess that there's more to it. We will see in May.

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'I'm still looking for the answers': An interview with Ross King

Ross King, author of "Leonardo and 'The Last Supper' "; Credit: Judith Ghilks Why Italy? Why Leonardo? Why Michelangelo? Yes, these are simple questions, but they're the best ones to present to novelist and historical biographer Ross King, whose latest book is "Leonardo and 'The Last Supper' " (Walker & Company).

I borrowed a page (and some inspiration) from another book blog, The Arched Doorway -- and a nice interview of Karen Dales -- and decided to ask Ross  to discuss the motivations behind his writing (he's far too polite to ever refuse; note his friendly expression to the left).

Our discussion also moved in the direction of thriller writer Dan Brown, but this  conversation took place well before the announcement this week that Brown's forthcoming new Robert Langdon novel is situated in Italy, a country that Ross continually revisits in his nonfiction work.

You've written about Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Machiavelli, now Leonardo --- Where does your fascination with the Italian past come from?

Ross King: I’m interested in those moments in history when there’s a very definite shift -- a revolution even -- in the way people design, paint and think. Fifteenth-century Florence was probably the best example we have of these intellectual and artistic tipping points.

I’m interested in how it was that a city of only 30,000 people managed to produce, in the space of a century, geniuses such as Brunelleschi, Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. I’m still looking for the answers!

Your earlier books included novels, but your most recent books are works of nonfiction -- do you consider nonfiction to be your home, now, or would you consider a return to fiction if the right subject presented itself?

RK: I would definitely love to do another novel. Unbelievable as it seems to me, it’s been fifteen years since I wrote my last novel, “Ex-Libris.” I do have a few ideas, so it’s a matter of finding the time to develop them. I’ve learned a lot about writing in the last fifteen years, so I’m hopeful that I could do a reasonably good job!

How do you feel about books like "The Da Vinci Code" which suggest hidden conspiracies and messages in Leonardo's work? 

LeonardoRK: I don’t agree with many of the popular interpretations of Leonardo’s work. They say more about our own obsessions than those of Leonardo and his contemporaries. But on the other hand I don’t object to anything that makes people look more closely at works of art, or anything that brings artists to public consciousness. Funnily enough, “The Da Vinci Code” was in part responsible for my book on Leonardo.

It was? So Dan Brown deserves some credit for leading you to the subject of your newest book?

RK: Yes, in a way he does. Back in the heyday of Dan Brown, I used to get asked to give lectures on the “real” Leonardo and the truth, or otherwise, of “The Da Vinci Code.” The novel forced me to look very closely at the paintings and also to study the documentary evidence and historical record. It was while doing my research for these lectures that I realized how the full story of how Leonardo painted “The Last Supper” would be a fascinating subject for a book. So I suppose I ultimately do have Dan Brown to thank for that!

Your new book sheds so much light on the creation of a world masterpiece, and I wonder if thriller writers like Brown have actually helped you in another way: to reach an even wider audience. I'd bet that more people know about Leonardo now, thanks to Brown, and that must be helpful to writers with a more scholarly, serious interest.  What do you think?

RK: Yes, it may well be that “The Da Vinci Code” has helped writers tackling the historical Leonardo - such as Charles Nicholl or myself - reach a wider audience. So for that, too, I can make no complaint.

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