Story Archives of 'Historical Fiction'

The pitch-black nights and scuttling leaves of autumn make for prime reading weather. Over the gloomy weekend, I tucked into The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti and was transported to a grim 19th-century orphanage in a dark New England town.

There we find twelve-year-old Ren being passed up for adoption. He’s too young for field work, too old to be adorable, and missing a hand. Ren’s story unfolds when a spirited grifter posing as his brother whisks him away, knowing that Ren’s pitiful deformity will open more wallets than a gun.

It’s a briskly-paced novel with suprising turns and a cast of scoundrels, grifters, murderers, outcasts and victims straight out of a Charles Dickens novel. Hannah Tinti’s writing has been compared to Dickens, and to Robert Louis Stevenson. It’s high praise for a first-time novelist. Hannah Tinti grew up in Salem, Massachusetts. Her story collection, Animal Crackers, has sold in sixteen countries and was a runner up for the PEN/Hemingway award. She is co-founder and editor-in-chief of One Story magazine.

Click here to read the first chapter of The Good Thief

And if The Good Thief doesn’t get you in the mood for the macabre, the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Alu just might. She creates ambient soundscapes for her captivating fantasy stories about casket salesmen and circus cosmos. Producer John Diliberto brings us this profile, as part of the series Echo Location: Soundings For New Music.

The Story of Exodus is retold in Rebecca Kohn's new book Seven Days to the Sea. The book explores the story of Moses through the eyes of his sister and his wife. We'll talk with the author about her work and the difference between biblical fiction and historical fiction -- and where they overlap.

Also in the show -- New Hampshire's been named the most livable state for the third year in a row. We talk to Scott Morgan, of Morgan Quinto Press about the variables and consistencies in New Hampshire's top ranking.

A Century of November is the new novel by W.D. Wetherell. It?s set at the end of World War One and tells the story of a Canadian apple farmer, whose son is killed in the war. He decides to go to the front lines himself, to see the spot where his son died. It?s almost a literal descent into hell, to the devastated battlefields of the Great War.

Brattleboro resident Karen Hesse won a Macarthur Fellowship, the so called "genius grant," last year. She's written picture books for young children and serious novels for teenagers. In many of her books, Karen explores some of the toughest issues society faces- racism, nuclear accidents, poverty -in ways children can understand. Her 1998 book, Out of the Dust, about the dust bowl of the 1930's won the Newbury award.
Rebroadcast from October 2002.

Bob Begiebing didn?t start out to write a trilogy, but he wound up with three novels set in the mid-17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, connected by family lines and common themes- especially the role of women in those times. Bob will talk about the trilogy and the newly published third installment, Rebecca Wentworth's Distraction.