Please
give a warm welcome to Historical Fiction author, Tom Williams.
Author’s
Inspiration
When Mary Anne Yard offered me the chance to write about the
inspiration for Burke in the Land of
Silver, I was a bit disconcerted. Traditionally, authors are inspired by
something they stumble across and then write the book that they have to write
because they are so moved by their experience. The origins of Burke in the Land of Silver are
probably more typical, but much less romantic.
The first book I wrote was The White Rajah and I was lucky enough to get an agent who was able
to get it read by several major publishers. They generally seemed to think that
it had merit, but that it was not sufficiently commercial for a first novel. My
agent said that I should write another book which might prove more popular with
readers and that it should be historical.
The
White Rajah had been based on the life of a real person and
I felt comfortable writing about people who really existed. (Perhaps I lack
imagination.) But who could I find to base a book on? Or, given that this was
to be a commercial enterprise and nowadays that means a series of books, who
could I find who might be the hero of several novels?
Friends began to make suggestions. One of these was an
Alaskan woman who I had met, as you do, in a dance hall in Buenos Aires. She
knew that I was fascinated by Argentina and pointed out that there were many
Europeans who had lived exciting and glamorous lives during the period when
South America was looking for independence from Spain. Why didn't I search for
a hero amongst them?
I started to read books about South America, looking out for
interesting people. It's not the traditional way of getting inspiration, but I
suspect it's what a lot of writers – especially historical writers – end up
doing.
Eventually I came across James Burke. I found only passing
references to him. It seems that he had been a spy and that he had been working
for the British ahead of their attack on Buenos Aires.
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| Portrait of Sir James Brooke by Sir Francis Grant National Portrait Gallery London. Used with permission |
What attack on Buenos Aires? It turns out there were two, one in 1806, which started well, but ended in a British defeat. The British had another go in 1807, which didn't end well either. Perhaps because both attacks were ultimately ignominious failures, the British don't dwell on them. That's certainly not true in Argentina: a major street in Buenos Aires is called La Defensa, commemorating the fact that it was where the 1807 attack was turned back.
Anyway, the initial success of the 1806 attack was probably
at least partly due to the efforts of James Burke. What exactly he did was not
easy to discover. There were stories about him in Spanish, but my Spanish
wasn’t up to reading historical research. There seemed hardly anything about
him in English. The one paper I found was in an Anglo-Irish journal (Burke was
Irish) not widely available in England. Even the British Library had lost their
copy and had to send out for one specially.
It turned out that Burke was quite an exciting character. He
had fought in Haiti and travelled widely in South America and Europe. His name
was linked with a succession of women, including the queen of Spain, a princess
in Brazil and the Viceroy’s mistress in Buenos Aires. Little is known of his
later life, but he remained on the Army List, with a pattern of promotion and
transfers between regiments that suggested that he continued to work primarily
as a spy, rather than as a straightforward soldier.
James Burke, it turned out, was the ideal hero. Brave,
cunning, irresistible to women he was, indeed, the James Bond of the Napoleonic
wars. The first story about him, Burke in
the Land of Silver, was based closely on his real exploits and practically
wrote itself. Burke
has gone on to have fictional adventures in Egypt and at Waterloo, with more
planned for the future. He has, indeed, proved an inspiration, but not, perhaps, in the way that most people imagine writers become inspired.
Tom Williams
Have you ever noticed how many authors are described as ‘reclusive’? I have a lot of sympathy for them. My feeling is that authors generally like to hide at home with their laptops or their quill pens and write stuff. If they enjoyed being in the public eye, they’d be stand-up comics or pop stars.
Nowadays, though, writers are told that their audiences want to be able to relate to them as people. I’m not entirely sure about that. If you knew me, you might not want to relate to me at all. But here in hyperspace I apparently have to tell you that I’m young and good looking and live somewhere exciting with a beautiful partner, a son who is a brain surgeon and a daughter who is a swimwear model. Then you’ll buy my book.
Unfortunately, that’s not quite true. I’m older than you can possibly imagine. (Certainly older than I ever imagined until I suddenly woke up and realised that age had snuck up on me.) I live in Richmond, which is nice and on the outskirts of London which is a truly amazing city to live in. My wife is beautiful but, more importantly, she’s a lawyer, which is handy because a household with a writer in it always needs someone who can earn decent money. My son has left home and we never got round to the daughter.
We did have a ferret, which I thought would be an appropriately writer sort of thing to have around but he eventually got even older than me (in ferret years) and died. I’d try to say something snappy and amusing about that but we loved that ferret and snappy and amusing doesn’t quite cut it.
I street skate and ski and can dance a mean Argentine tango. I’ve spent a lot of my life writing very boring things for money (unless you’re in Customer Care, in which case ‘Dealing With Customer Complaints’ is really, really interesting). Now I’m writing for fun.
If you all buy my books, I’ll be able to finish the next ones and I’ll never have to write for the insurance industry again and that will be a good thing, yes? So you’ll not only get to read a brilliant novel but your karmic balance will move rapidly into credit.
Can I go back to being reclusive now?
Burke
in the Land of Silver
He falls in love with the country – and with the beautiful Ana. Burke wants both to forward British interests and to free Argentina from Spain. But his new found selflessness comes up against the realities of international politics. When the British invade, his attempts to parley between the rebels and their new rulers leave everybody suspicious of him.
Despised by the British, imprisoned by the Spanish and with Ana leaving him for the rebel leader, it takes all Burke’s resolve and cunning to escape. Only after adventuring through the throne rooms and bedrooms of the Spanish court will he finally come back to Buenos Aires, to see Ana again and avenge himself on the man who betrayed him.
Such an interesting post. Thank your or sharing your inspirations with us!!
ReplyDeleteI do like the sound of this book! Another one to add to the 'to-read' list!
ReplyDelete