Other writers | Ruth Downie

Back in the Trenches Again

Posted on August 30, 2018 by Ruth

It’s hard to believe that we used to expect to capture a whole holiday with one roll of film that might hold 36 shots. I’ve had several trips away this summer and now even my computer is groaning at the prospect of downloading all the photos. (Who knew there were SO MANY Greek statues?) So a post about Greece will have to wait. Meanwhile, closer to home:

A pic from the weekend of the Alderney Literary Festival last year: standing with fellow-writers Jason Monaghan and Simon Turney on the wall-walk of The Nunnery – a set of buildings that may well be the best-preserved Roman fort in Britain. As we shivered in the March wind I had no idea that I’d be back the following year bringing pyjamas, sunglasses and a trowel. This time I had the honour of being able to tag along with the archaeology team investigating the Nunnery and its surroundings.

The easiest way to reach Alderney is by air: meet the new plane. It’s bigger than the old plane.

A glimpse into the cockpit revealed this warning on the dashboard.

Notice saying NO ACROBATIC MANEUVERS INCLUDING SPINS APPROVED — NO ACROBATIC MANEUVERS, INCLUDING SPINS, APPROVED

I wasn’t sure whether to be reassured by this, or worried that anyone thought the pilots might need to be told. Anyway, thanks to their self-restraint and the kindness of Isabel Picornell-Garcia (whose many talents include archaeology as well as organizing literary festivals) I made it safely to the island and thence to the Nunnery.

Part of the Nunnery complex has just been refurbished as a hostel, and it’s a gloriously peaceful beachside retreat for groups of birdwatchers and heritage enthusiasts.

My own birdwatching efforts were not wildly successful:

Stony beach with 2 ducks barely visible — “Hunt the duck.”

Birds or no, the picnic table on top of the wall is a delightful spot for dining.

The peace of the view is relatively modern: these buildings have had many incarnations in the past, and most were military.

The one thing the Nunnery may never have been is… a nunnery.

The German occupation in the Second World War left a vast amount of concrete all over the Channel Islands: there are bunkers built in to the Nunnery complex itself and another one just outside.

Their remains are a poignant reminder of the captive labourers who were forced to build them.

How to disfigure a perfectly good fort: knock a hole through the wall so you can roll your anti-tank gun down onto the beach. (Initially I’d hoped to go back and get a shot without the cars, but in fact they give a good idea of the scale.)

Speaking of beaches…

Longis Bay is the best natural harbour on an island where much of the coast looks like this

No wonder everyone who has controlled Alderney over the years has wanted to guard Longis Bay.

The outer wall of the Nunnery on the side that faces the bay is no longer there – or rather, it’s no longer where it should be. It’s collapsed onto the beach, where it now serves as a breakwater and a handy place to secure some of the boats that still land there.

The back of the beach is walled with more German concrete. It was put there to withstand human invasion but may now be protecting the land behind it from the encroachment of sea and sand.

The week I was there, the archaeologists were checking out some interesting-looking blobs on the geophysics plot of a field just up the road. There’s an Iron Age site on the hill nearby…

Clearing on top of low hill — Good site, bad photo – sorry. But hopefully it shows that the Iron Age people who made their pottery up here had a great view of the bay.

…and we were very close to a site where a wealth of Roman and Iron Age material turned up only last year. Proving that you can never be sure what’s there until you dig, the team shifted at least a metre of golden, wind-blown sand from beneath the turf and found… not burial cists, but Roman walls. Plus a massive midden containing thousands of limpet shells. Apparently limpets don’t taste great, but if you are hungry enough you probably don’t care.

I’m not going to publish pics of the archaeology because that’s best left to the professionals – if you want to see what we found, check out the Nunnery page on Facebook, and also Jason’s blog (he’s an archaeologist as well as a writer.) But as a taster, here’s one of the first shards of Samian pottery that turned up.

I don’t know what everyone else thought when that appeared, but I was mightily relieved to see confirmation that there was something interesting down there and we weren’t just using our buckets and spades to dig a huge and very hot hole in the sand.

At one stage the buckets and spades weren’t sufficient. No sooner did we wish for a mechanical digger than it came trundling in through the gateway, demonstrating one of the advantages of working in a very small community. The driver lowered the bucket into the trench and lifted out a massive stone with all the delicacy of an Edwardian tea-drinker using silver tongs to select a sugarlump.

The dig went on for another week after I had to leave, and more of the site was revealed – including the splendid paved area you can see on the Facebook page. Everything’s been recorded now, and the digger has returned to backfill the trenches while the professionals go off to write the reports.

As often happens, the excavation raised as many questions as it answered. Clearly there’s a lot more waiting to be discovered about Roman Alderney.

My Dear Hamilton

Posted on April 12, 2018April 13, 2018 by Ruth

Nobody could accuse us of being stuck in the past here at Downie Towers. Well… not in the very distant past, anyway. Today we’re venturing into the daringly modern times of the eighteenth century, where events turn out to have some even more up-to-date parallels. I’m delighted to welcome Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie, authors of the bestselling America’s First Daughter , to talk about their latest book, My Dear Hamilton.

Me: Can I get an embarrassing confession out of the way at the start? Having failed to pay attention in history lessons, when I first heard the title I thought you must be writing about Emma, lover of Lord Nelson. Of course I feel silly now. News of the hit musical has reached us even down here in the depths of the West Country. But in case any other Britons are wondering – “My Dear Hamilton” is the story of another woman altogether. Can you tell us a bit about Eliza Schuyler Hamilton and why she deserves to be better known?

Stephanie and/or Laura (see how seamlessly they blend together?): Ah, it makes sense that British readers might want to forget our Hamilton, because he was an American Founding Father–probably known as a traitor to your king, if King George stooped to notice him. Alexander Hamilton wasn’t just a pamphleteer and scrappy American soldier, but also the economic architect of America’s modern financial system. And he didn’t do it alone. He had at his side a remarkably intrepid, loyal, and strong wife–Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, one of America’s most important and longest-living Founding Mothers.

Me: Thank you! What is it about Eliza’s story that you think will resonate with modern readers?

Laura

Stephanie and Laura: Our modern political world is ugly–and due to the nature of social media, we’re all constantly exposed to rumor, gossip, and various villainies. Eliza’s vulnerability was supercharged. As the wife of a firebrand who clashed with more or less every other Founding Father, Eliza found herself the victim of newspaper attacks and public opprobrium when her husband confessed adultery. In addition, the Hamiltons believed they were caught up in a tangible and immediate fight for the integrity and preservation of the American union, and we were surprised at how many times their fears and struggles seemed to mirror things going on in the modern political arena.

Me: Given my ignorance about Alexander Hamilton, let alone Eliza, should I read up on the history before I open the novel?

Stephanie and Laura: No advanced reading required! We’ll fill you in and fully introduce you to Eliza’s American revolutionary world–including Alexander. But we always encourage readers to learn more after they’re done and provide resources for them to get a head start.

Me (cunningly hoping to pick up a few tips): I’m guessing there was a LOT of research – how do you decide what goes into the book and what ends up on the cutting-room floor?

Stephanie and Laura: That’s the hardest part of the job. Especially with someone like Hamilton who wrote so much and did so much, and Eliza, who accomplished so much in her own right and lived so very long. In the end, we focused on those things that most shaped or were shaped by Eliza’s own lived experience. We wanted to center her, not her husband, and that often helped us determine what stayed and what had to go.

Me (now I’ve picked their brains about that, moving on to something else that fascinates me as a writer…): How does a writing partnership work? Do you write alternate chapters? Work together? Do you always agree, or do you move forward by arguing?

Stephanie and Laura: We have complementary writing strengths and we’re well aware of them, so we tend to dole out sections to each other based on what we each do best. But we also write to a deadline, so when one of us falls behind, the other takes up the slack and if one of us can’t make a scene work, the other one comes to the rescue. We swap chapters constantly, and edit freely. We debate and disagree sometimes, but we don’t really argue because we always start from the premise that the other person has a point. If we do come to an impasse, we talk it out and inevitably come up with a third solution that is better than either of us originally envisioned. That’s one of the most magical things about our partnership!

Me: How about “Hamilton” the musical – what do you both think of it?

Stephanie and Laura: We’re huge fans and think Lin-Manuel Miranda made some absolutely genius storytelling choices!

Me: Many thanks to you both for taking the time in a busy launch week to stop by and chat. In the time-honoured way I’d like to end by asking: what are you both working on now?

Stephanie and Laura: We’re working on a project on women of the French Revolution together, and Stephanie is embarking on her next solo project featuring the Marquis de Lafayette!

Me: Excellent – we can look forward to learning some more history the easy way! Meanwhile I’d like to wish My Dear Hamilton every success. I’m off to read the copy I bought here.

Coping with the party season, Roman-style

Posted on December 17, 2017December 18, 2017 by Ruth

The season of partying has begun! Io Saturnalia!

*“No need to rush: the guests won’t be here for ages.”*

…although to be honest I’ve never been terribly confident about social occasions. Nothing illustrates my lack of prowess so well as the time I turned up to a party to find the hostess still in her dressing-gown with a towel around her hair. And that was in my home country. How much harder must it be to fit into a society where you don’t have the language?

It was certainly a problem for the highly mobile population of the Roman empire. What if you were a Greek-speaker trying to make good in the big city? Or indeed, a Latin-speaker who had moved east and now found all your neighbours chatting away in Greek?

Time to hire a language teacher and practise a little conversation.

Happily for us, some of those ancient conversations have survived. Originally written in Latin and Greek side by side, the “Colloquia” cover all sorts of situations the student is likely to face. Many are obviously for schoolchildren (there’s a lot about washing your face in the morning and saying ‘hello’ to the teacher) but amongst the others are “asking a banker for a loan,” “preparing for a lunch guest,” “afternoons at the baths,” “winning a lawsuit,” “going out to dinner,” and “getting ready for bed”. There are also handy suggestions for acceptable excuses.

The Colloquia give a fresh and delightful insight into the everyday life of the empire, and I’ve just been reading them in Eleanor Dickey’s splendid translation.* They’re full of things that newcomers might have found useful to know, including what to say when things went wrong, such as,

“I haven’t got anything to drink – I asked for wine and nobody gave me any.”

Once the wine is supplied, there’s advice on how to toast one’s fellow-guests and how to thank the host at the end.

Of course not everyone was a partygoer. Someone coping with a relative who had over-indulged might want to say,

“Is this the way to behave when you are a respectable father?”

statue of naked man on couch with cup

The following is aimed at slave-owners, but could be useful for parents too:

“Since you were slow to do your job, none of you may go out tonight. And be quiet – I’m going to punish anyone whose voice I hear.”

The passage about lunch reveals how a Roman guest could, unlike me, turn up at the right time every time – even though timekeeping relied largely on sundials and what was, in Britannia at least, an unreliable sun. The invited guest tells his host, “Just send a slave round when you want me to come. I’ll be at home.”

If only we still did that. Admittedly few of us have servants these days, but a simple phone call would save all that hanging around clutching drinks and making polite conversation while frantic preparations go on in the background. And no hostess would need to apologize for slipping away to put her clothes on.

*”Stories of Daily Life from the Roman World – Extracts from the Ancient Colloquia” by Eleanor Dickey, Cambridge University Press, 2017 ISBN 978-1-316-62728-0 http://www.Cambridge.org – Highly recommended!

Of Scotland and the price of peace

Posted on August 1, 2017August 1, 2017 by Ruth

Scottish river in sunshine — A holiday snap from Dumfries and Galloway. Not Fife, where the silver was found, but it’s the nearest we got.

Just back from travelling in the Scottish borders to find that Jean, Sam and Alice have kindly sent me a link to this story of Roman silver being discovered in Scotland.

It’s interesting that the experts think the silver is a bribe rather than a stash of plunder. The historian Cassius Dio tells us that a Roman governor of Britannia, Virius Lupus, was “compelled to purchase peace… for a large sum”. The people he paid were the Maeatae, who lived somewhere around the Stirling area. The silver was found in Fife, which isn’t very far away. I’m not suggesting that it IS that ‘large sum’ – it seems to come from a later date. But there are vast gaps in the historical records, and who knows how much treasure changed hands over the years as power and allegiances shifted?

The money paid by Lupus, incidentally, didn’t bring peace for long. Maybe the Maeatae asked for too much. Maybe they carried on causing trouble. Whatever the reason, the aptly-named emperor Severus arrived in Britain not long afterwards and conducted a vicious campaign against them and their neighbours. (I happen to know all this because by a happy coincidence, it’s the background to the story Simon Turney and I put together earlier this year: The Bear and the Wolf.)

Incidentally, while their name has vanished, it seems the Maeatae live on – here’s a fascinating article from The Scotsman about where today’s Scots really come from.

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Eboracum 2017 – join the Roman army!

Posted on June 9, 2017June 9, 2017 by Ruth

Soldiers address children — Right. Line up, you lot. And get that hair cut! Half of you look like a bunch of girls!

Display of writing materials — Write and tell your Mum you’ll be home in twenty years.

Souvenir stall, Roman-style — You’ll travel to distant places and collect exotic souvenirs.

Display of food — The Legion will feed you.

Weaver working at loom — The Legion will clothe you.

Centurion with microphone — Our friendly centurions…

Soldiers marching — …will teach you how to march.

Soldiers marching around arena — and march…

Legionaries in armour — (did we mention the marching?)

Soliders with drawn swords — …and fight.

Soliders surround civilians — And how to round up civilians who make trouble.

Man explaining display of medical instruments — If anything goes wrong, our highly-trained doctors will look after you.

Another display of medical instruments with bloodstains — Using the very latest equipment.

Centurion in straw hat. Soldiers — In time, you too may become a Centurion.

Soldier without armour (Graham Harris) — Or a festival organiser

Smartly dressed Tribune and lady — But without the right connections, you will never become a tribune and wear this splendid helmet.

Display of archaeology in tent — In the distant future, people like this will dig up your rubbish and display it to the public. Yes, really.

Writers talking to people over book displays. — And people like these will write books about you. (L to R – Ben Kane, Sandra G-Neville, ? , Harry Sidebottom, Penny Ingham)

Alex Gough and Simon Turney — Alex Gough and Simon (SJA) Turney

John Salter and Brian Young in Roman military kit — John Salter and Brian Young

Finally – as a reward for all that marching, people will remember you and your Emperor with parades through the streets of Eboracum.

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Small Island

Posted on March 29, 2017March 31, 2017 by Ruth

A visit to the island of Alderney has been on my bucket list ever since we saw our friends’ holiday photos, so there was dancing and singing here at Downie Towers when an invitation to the Alderney Literary Festival arrived. Below are a few photos of my own, along with some random thoughts about the festival – which was fabulous.

Alderney is a small island, so obviously the ‘new, big’ plane was never going to be terribly big. It’s super-comfortable, though, and nearly everybody gets a window seat.

Here’s the Island Hall, where most of the festival happened – one of many beautiful buildings in the town of St Anne. Something I sadly failed to photograph was the modern finale to the Bayeux Tapestry, created by islanders and on display in the Library around the corner. It’s so good that it’s been displayed in the Bayeux Tapestry Museum, where they’ve kept a replica.

Most of my photos of the festival itself are blurry shots of speakers in the distance and lots of backs of heads in between. However… please welcome some of Joyce Meader‘s highly entertaining display of military knitting through the ages. Here’s Joyce demonstrating an adjustable knitted dressing-cover for keeping bandages clean. The lady next to me is examining what I think was a knitted eye-patch.

The picture of the WW2 WAAF knitted knickers (3-stitch rib, with gusset and proper elastic) has been removed by the censor and I failed to get a decent shot of the green woolly long-johns or the one-size, shrink-to-fit socks, so here is a pair of military knee-warmers instead.

Obviously not every festival speaker offered handcrafted goods, but all offered memorable moments. These included:

Imogen Robertson‘s description of the process of creating a novel as making lots of very small decisions – very cheering to those of us who are strangers to the “flash of inspiration”.

Jason Monaghan‘s account of the battle of Cambrai: the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry suffered terrible losses and the news reached home during Christmas week.

Rachel Abbott, the 14th most successful ebook author on Kindle, revealing part of the secret of her success: working 14 hours a day, 7 days a week for months.

Andrew Lownie stressing the importance of a good title – Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, does indeed sound a lot more enticing as Henry VIII’s Last Victim.

Simon Turney illustrating a creature described by Julius Caesar, which appeared to have the head of a cow, the horn of a unicorn and the antlers of a reindeer.

Simon Scarrow describing the complicated mess of World War Two that led to mass starvation in Greece.

I have a feeling the display of a Roman cataract needle in my own talk may have been memorable for some, though possibly they’re now wishing they could forget. Anyway, here’s the moment when, having delivered the ‘author talk’, the author tries to remember what her own name is to sign the book.

I bet TH White never had that problem. Readers of “The Once and Future King” – or “H is for Hawk” – might like to know that this was his house:

Just like the UK, only… not.

There are people on the island, honestly.

Geranium envy.

Lovely to look at, terrifying to sail around.

One of many defences left behind by previous occupiers, and an unlikely location for a Countryside Interpretation Centre.

Looking even less likely now:

But yes, it really is! A modern photo of the view the German defenders would have enjoyed on a sunny day.

Speaking of occupying forces, here’s Simon Turney (left) defending Rome in the Saturday night dinner debate: “Overpaid, Oversexed and Over Here: what did the Romans do for us?” while Simon Scarrow weighs up the evidence…

…and a nervous Briton keeps smiling while she tries to think what to say in return. (And yes, that torc is completely fake. The instructions for how to make something similar are here. If that link doesn’t work, try Googling “dtorc_obj11236”)

Alderney’s tumultuous history (it lies on a strategic cross-channel route) has left it crammed with interesting sites to visit. This is The Nunnery, a Roman fortlet which has seen many different uses over the years, although none of them appears to have involved nuns. Real Romans built the wall on the right, but not on the left. Don’t ask me how you tell.

With the man who knows: standing on a Roman rampart with Jason Monaghan, writer and archaeologist, and Simon (SJA) Turney: part-time Roman, full-time writer.

The chaps discuss defence tactics while Simon tries out the Roman wall walk. We felt very privileged to be given a tour by Jason as the interior of the Nunnery isn’t currently open to the public.

I think we can all agree this isn’t Roman. It’s next door to the Nunnery…

…and this is the landing-point they were both built to defend.

Peace has now returned to Alderney…

…and I can vouch for the fact that the islanders are incredibly welcoming and hospitable. It was an honour and a delight to spend time with many of them last weekend, and my thanks go to the Alderney Literary Trust and everyone else who helped to make the Festival such a success.

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Of high heels and trivia

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Ruth

I’ve been musing on Parkinson’s Law. Not the famous one (“work expands to fill the time available”) but another from the same book: Parkinson’s Law of Triviality. “The time spent on any item on the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.” (If you’re wondering what this has to do with high heels, fear not: we’ll get there in a moment.)

Spine of Parkinsons Law book

Here it is in action, in a chapter called “High Finance”. A group of men – this was 1957, remember – meet to approve spending plans. The items on the agenda are:

An atomic reactor. Cost: £10,000,000. Most of the committee don’t know enough about atomic reactors to have an opinion, and some don’t even know what one is, so they keep quiet. Of the two people who do know about atomic reactors, one suggests they should change the expensive consultants already employed and go back to the drawing-board. The other is so daunted by the prospect of having to explain everything to everybody that he decides not to comment. Agreed spending: £10,000,000. Time taken – two and a half minutes.

2. A bicycle shed. Cost: £350. Several members who kept silent because they knew nothing about atomic reactors now feel that they should start pulling their weight. “A sum of £350 is well within everybody’s comprehension. Everyone can visualise a bicycle shed. Discussion goes on, therefore, for forty-five minutes, with the possible result of saving some £50.”

3. Refreshments at meetings. Cost: £21 a year. “Now begins an even more acrimonious debate… every man there knows about coffee – what it is, how it should be made, where it should be bought – and whether indeed it should be bought at all. This item on the agenda will occupy the members for an hour and a quarter…”

Parkinson’s Law of Triviality was a great comfort to me when I had a job recording the minutes of committee meetings, but only recently did I see its application in a wider sphere. And this is where the high heels come in.

I have to admit to being something of a Facebook addict, and as anyone else on Facebook will know, the political storms over recent months have resulted in furious postings from all sides. Sensible questions, valid warnings and the sharing of genuine news have often been drowned out by the sound of name-calling, and discussions have frequently descended into bitter squabbles involving CAPITAL LETTERS and ‘unfriending’. Sometimes I feel there are crowds of people shouting at each other in my living room.

Pale blue suede women's shoes — We’re nearly at the shoes now.

Have I backed away? Of course not. It’s gripping stuff, and it affects all of us. Many of the fundamental assumptions of Western society have been called into question. People are passionate because this matters. I have enormous respect for my articulate, clear-sighted, committed friends and am grateful to them for keeping me up to date. But have I contributed much to the debate? Er… no. Even though Downie Towers has rung to the sound of my ranting in the kitchen, and the number of comments I have started to type and then deleted would fill a small book.

I feel as though I should contribute. One should do one’s bit. So I click ‘like’ on things that I, er, like, and occasionally manage to get the end of a comment and press ‘post’. In the real world, I vote. Sometimes I sign petitions. I write to my MP. I have even been known to march through the streets in support of a good cause. But I tend not to engage in debate with strangers on the Internet. Like the atomic reactor, I feel the cut and thrust of “live” political debate is beyond me. Some people may feel I should speak up. More people may feel there are plenty of opinions on the Internet already.

And yet I feel I should do… something. Say something about something. So when this came up on the BBC website, I found myself latching onto it like a drowning sailor with a lifebelt. At last, a subject I fully understood. I am, after all, the woman who once broke a bone in her foot by falling off her own shoes. I am the woman who tottered around in agony at her son’s wedding because she had found the perfect pair of shoes but didn’t have the perfect pair of feet. Don’t get into an argument with me about the merits of forcing women to wear high heels, because you will lose. Yes! At last, something I could post on Facebook!

Until I did. And then I looked at it, and thought, dear lord. The world is going to hell in a handbasket, and you’re posting about shoes. I deleted it, and wondered what was the matter with me. Then I realised. It was Parkinson’s Law of Triviality in action.

Friends, please feel free to comment. But anything political will be deleted. Apparently I can’t cope.

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The Trojans are back!

Posted on October 18, 2016October 18, 2016 by Ruth

The new novel from seven talented members of the H-team is published today – and as ever, they’ve been weaving old stories together in new ways.

Cover of A Song of War

I wasn’t involved this time (deadlines!) and I can’t wait to find out what the team have done with the story we all ‘think’ we know. Meanwhile, they’ve been kind enough to drop by and answer a few questions. The first thing I wanted to know was:

What is it about the story of Troy that’s kept drawing people back to it for thousands of years?

Stephanie: The classicists out there are going to string me up for this, but I see the story of Troy as one of the world’s first soap operas, or at least an ancient version of “Game of Thrones,” sans dragons and white walkers. There’s adultery, gory battles, death, sneaky traps, and tons of other emotional plot twists. Not only that, but the story has been added to over the ages to give it even more tragic layers. It’s also easy for everyone to find a favorite character to root for: wily Odysseus, brave Hector, misunderstood Cassandra, noble Andromache, and so many others.

Vicky: I think Stephanie nailed it. It’s chock full of great stories! But also I think it continues to fascinate because of the surprising depth and complexity of emotions it explores throughout. One the one hand, there is empathy for the defeated–particularly for Hector, who emerges as truly noble–and, at the same time, frustration and exasperation with the devastation that results from Achilles’ unchecked rage. So it ends up being not “just” a battle story, but a moving exploration of humanity and of the costs of war.

Cover of Penguin edition of The Iliad

How did you share out the characters? Was there anyone everybody wanted, or nobody wanted?

Simon: As a general writer of Roman fiction and lover of all things Roman, even the mention of the Trojan war sets me off blathering about Virgil, Aeneas and the founding of Rome by their Trojan forebears. How could I refuse the opportunity to write the tale of a man that might be considered the progenitor of Rome? I think if there was one writer in this book destined for one character, that was me and Aeneas! Plus, he’s cool.

Stephanie: I think we were all in utter agreement that no one wanted to write from Paris’ perspective. He’s an utter punk that we all wanted to kick to the curb at one point or another. For me, Cassandra leapt off the page of possibilities, jumping up and down and shouting, “Pick me! Pick me!” My passion is retelling the stories of misunderstood or maligned women in history, and Cassandra fits the mold perfectly.

Kate: Yeah, pretty much everyone hated Paris. I still remember Libbie cackling like crazy when she realized she’d get to kill him off. Otherwise, we all had our own obsessions in this story; everyone beelined for their own favorite and no one had to arm-wrestle over who got Achilles/Odysseus/Cassandra. A big advantage to having a huge cast of characters, when there are multiple authors involved!

Russ: I was made up to get Agamemnon because everyone hates him and I thought it’d be fun to try and write a story from his point of view (no baddie THINKS they’re a baddie). Agamemnon’s inciting incident for me doesn’t even occur in Homer’s story, it’s (mainly) in Euripides – the sacrifice of his daughter. Whatever the circumstances, that single act will have changed Agamemnon utterly… so for me, that was key to why he acts as he does. In truth, it was a pretty hard story to write in all sorts of ways, but it was fascinating to delve into the black soul of the High King (he insisted on capital letters for his title).

So, definitely ‘Nul Points’ for Paris there. Were you ever tempted to change the story because you really didn’t like the way things went in the original?

Simon: I (and the rest of the crew too, in fact) went a long way to try and rationalise all the magic and myth of the tale, to try and write a realistic, grounded and plausible version of Homer’s tale, while retaining the epic Greekness of the whole thing. Aeneas’ story, for example, is full of ghosts and visits from gods and the dead, and I tried to tweak this to fit the real world. In deciding how mythical we wanted the tale to be, we essentially walked that fine line between history and fantasy. We came down on the historical side this time.

Vicky: Right. As Simon says, we didn’t want to get too mythical or magical–because then it drifts into fantasy–but at the same time we had to make our characters believe in magic and the gods. After all, it wasn’t “myth” to them! H Team logo

Kate: I really would have liked to save Hector, dammit. His death gets me every time.

Christian: I really wanted to write Achilles. Despite Achilles’ modern rep as a sort of useless lie-about or a mere sword swinger, I’ve always been fascinated by him, and more especially by his status as the ‘perfect gentleman’ and ‘best of the Greeks’ among such figures as Pericles and Socrates. And, apparently alone, I’ve never really liked Hector, who seems too dense to see how he is being used by lesser men… So I was happy to get to kill him (ducks… sorry Kate).

Libbie: I would have liked to save Hector, too. I’d counter that he’s a troubled character (as is everybody in “A Song of War”) but he was one of the few men in the story who was a genuinely good person, and who cared about the outcome for others. Overall, I really liked the way we cooperated to represent our world as a diverse landscape, with characters from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and sexual orientations. In the West, we tend to think of heroes, or even of characters in general, as one particular type of person: white, young, and heterosexual. I really welcomed the opportunity to shake up the way people envision Troy and ancient Greece by showing a broader range of the cultural mix that existed in those places and at that time.

Russ: The thing with “The Iliad” is – so much is actually unsaid. It’s a vast tale with (literally) a cast of thousands … So you can weave stuff in that you want to without actually changing the “facts” as it were. We wanted to keep it real as Libbie and Si say above, but aside from the “no Gods” rule, there’s still massive scope in the story to look at fresh angles.

If you could ask Homer one thing, what would it be?

Kate: Why do so many names in the Iliad begin with P? Priam, Penthesilea, Polyxena, Patrocles, Phoenix, Polites, Paris, Penelope, Polydorus, Peleus, Philoctetes, Phthia . . .

Libbie: I agree! The P names have always jumped out at me. It makes me wonder if there’s some kind of linguistic significance that we don’t understand as 21st-century Americans and Brits, but that would have been very clear to the original audience for these stories.

Vicky: I’d want to know all the different versions of the story that had been sung over time and why he wrote down these particular ones.

Christian: I’m with Vicky. There were dozens of versions of these stories in the Ancient World; I know at least one in which both Achilles and Hector are cowards; one of the original ‘big names’ was Memnon, Prince of Aetheiopia… an African hero at Troy! Anyway, so many questions about why Homer (s) chose this particular thread… My other question (which really burns for me!) is ‘Where did you get the ‘Catalogue of Ships’ The Ship list, in Book 2, is probably much more ancient than the rest, and may contain evidence of the actual Bronze Age world… as opposed to much of the rest, which is 8th and 7th c. Iron Age Greece..how did it survive? Please tell us, Homer 🙂

Russ: Was your wife really called Marge? It’s a question that has bothered classicists for decades and they need an answer.

If Homer (or Marge) would like to respond, or if anyone has a good word to say for Paris, there’s plenty of room for comments below. Meanwhile, big thanks to the team for taking the time to join me and since it’s publication day TODAY, I’m off to check the Kindle and get reading!

If you haven’t already, here are some of the places where you can find A SONG OF WAR:

Saturday, final stop on the Blog Tour – For Winter Nights

Posted on October 8, 2016October 8, 2016 by Ruth

Many thanks to For Winter Nights, the final host on the Blog Tour!

If you haven’t yet discovered this excellent book blog, now is a good time to nip across there – not only for the chance to win a copy of Vita Brevis, but also to browse a splendid collection of reviews and articles, and to get some ideas for good books to fill those long winter evenings.

In case anyone wants to catch up, here’s the list of people who’ve been kind enough to host the tour over the past week. My thanks to all of them, and also to the fine folk of Bloomsbury UK (you know who you are!) who did all the legwork making the arrangements.

Blog tour schedule

Friday on the Blog Tour – Hoover Book Reviews

Posted on October 7, 2016October 7, 2016 by Ruth

Day 7, and the last-but-one stop on the tour today! Across the water to Detroit and Hoover Book Reviews, which is a splendid place to browse if you’re on the hunt for contemporary fiction based in the ancient world – and more. (Nip across there and scroll down to where it says ‘categories’ on the right, and you’ll see what I mean.)

Big thanks to Paul Bennett, the man behind it all, for his very kind words about Vita Brevis.