Today Ken Brigham is visiting Ascroft, eh? to tell us a little about his new novel, The Life and Deaths of Blanche Nero.
Welcome Ken. Thanks for joining me today. Let’s get started, shall we?
Tell us about your novel.
KB: This is Blanche Nero’s story. It is a historical novel only in the sense that, long 
after the fact, Blanche’s persona, experiences, and behaviors were strongly influenced by historical events that largely preceded her existence. At 15, Blanche watched her father electrocuted for a brutal and inexplicable murder. Left with her emotionally remote mother who worked as a nurse, Blanche became pretty much totally responsible for the course of her life. She did well with that charge. She became a trauma surgeon and spent her professional life at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. She did well professionally, but wasn’t good at personal relationships. Sex was good, but emotional attachments were painful and difficult. She was haunted all her life by the enigma of her father and when hurricane Katrina destroyed Charity hospital and essentially ended her career, she went to Venice, her father’s birthplace, hoping to discover more of herself and life by writing down her history and exploring the place where it all began for her father. She meets an aging count who is dying of AIDS who introduces her to his special perception of Venice and who eventually solves the riddle of her father. As the count dies, Blanche weeps for him and is overwhelmed with a new realization of who she is and the depth of her emotional strengths. So the book is the story of Blanche’s emotional and physical journey punctuated by cataclysmic acts of man and of God, eventually arriving at an understanding of who she is.
What prompted you to write about this historical event?
KB: I didn’t write about the historical event as the central theme of the book. This is Blanche Nero’s story. The importance of Italian fascism and the second world war to the story is how those events (both actual and fictional) influenced who Blanche became and informed her eventual resolution of her enigmatic life. Of course Katrina and New Orleans were also seminal events for Blanche and that material is what I could learn from multiple accounts that are widely available.
How closely did you stick to the historical facts? If you used them loosely, how did you decide whether to deviate from them?
KB: The particulars of the depicted historical events are as factual as I could determine. However, as is often true of history, there are sometimes several versions. That is certainly true of Mussolini’s final days. The version I chose was the one that best integrated into the fictional story of Blanche Nero’s father and how, many years after the actual events, Blanche became collateral emotional damage of the second world war.
What research did you do for this book?
KB: Much of the work is based on my personal experiences over the course of a long career in academic medicine (e.g. med school, residency, treating critically ill patients in large teaching hospitals) and most of the places are places I know personally. The New Orleans episodes including hurricane Katrina are based on research into those events and places, mainly from material available on various internet sites. Of course, the WWII history and some details of Italian Fascism, Mussolini, etc. come from researching that period, including books and other materials. I relied heavily on materials available on the internet for the most part.
Do you use a mixture of historic figures and invented characters in the novel? Which is more difficult to write? Which to you prefer to write and why?
KB: Interesting. In fact, both kinds of characters are at least partly fictional. One can only know historical figures from second-hand (or more remote) accounts, so a lot of the character is invented by the author’s imagination. In some ways it is easier to totally invent a character, but in other ways it is easier if you have at least a framework of facts to embellish. If pressed, I’d have to say that I like inventing characters from whole cloth. That process requires thinking about human nature and the details of personality and behaviors – a philosophical exercise that can be revealing.
In an historical novel you must vividly re-create a place and people in a bygone era. How did you bring the place and people you are writing about to life?
KB: Most of the places I write about I know from personal experience and (with the exceptions of hurricane Katrina and WWII) the times are times I have known. The personal factor makes it easier, I think, to convey a sense of reality. For fictional people, I think details of conversation, behaviors, and to a lesser extent, appearances that resonate with the reader (hey, I know somebody like that) can breathe some life into fictional characters. Likewise, places, if based on real places, have to be consistent in detail with the actual place. Insertion of details that are real can help to make the fiction believable.
There often seems to be more scope in historical novels for male characters rather than female characters. Do you prefer to write one sex or the other. And, if so, why?
KB: As I have found true of real life, strong women usually make more interesting fictional characters than men. For example, I think Blanche Nero would be much less interesting as a man than she is as a woman. I see no reason why historical novels (or any other genre) should have more scope for male characters.
Thanks for answering my questions, Ken.
For more information about Ken Brigham visit his website . You can also follow him on Twitter. For more information about The Life and Deaths of Blanche Nero visit the book’s Amazon page.
About Ken Brigham: Ken is emeritus professor of medicine at Emory University. He is widely published in the scientific literature and has authored or coauthored two previous novels and two nonfiction books. He lives with his wife, Arlene Stecenko, in midtown Atlanta.
When you open a book in a particular genre, let’s say historical fiction, crime or romance, should you be able to guess what you’re getting before you read it? On Writers Abroad’s blog today I’ve voiced my thoughts on how narrow the path is for authors when writing in specific genres and how readers might benefit if it were widened a bit. You can read the 
ugly when a body is discovered inside the burned-out husk of an old hay barn near the village of Elgin.
AB: Under the Approaching Dark is the third in my ongoing series, The King’s Greatest Enemy which is set in early 14th century England. My main character, Adam de Guirande, is a man who has once served Lord Roger Mortimer and is now serving the very young Edward III. Adam loves both his lords, and as the tension between Edward and Roger rise, the more difficult things become for Adam—and for his beloved wife, Kit.
About Anna Belfrage: Anna was raised abroad, on a pungent mix of Latin American culture, English history and Swedish traditions. As a result she’s multilingual and most of her reading is historical- both non-fiction and fiction. Possessed of a lively imagination, she has drawers full of potential stories, all of them set in the past. She was always going to be a writer – or a historian, preferably both. Ideally, Anna aspired to becoming a pioneer time traveller, but science has as yet not advanced to the point of making that possible. Instead she ended up with a degree in Business and Finance, with very little time to spare for her most favourite pursuit. Still, one does as one must, and in between juggling a challenging career Anna raised her four children on a potent combination of invented stories, historical debates and masses of good food and homemade cakes. They seem to thrive…
Navy JAG Corps buddy Ric Stokes has been jailed for possession of heroin in Vietnam. He was found in the same room with his traveling companion Ryan Eversall, dead of an overdose and in the company of a prostitute. Steve knows his friend is a straight arrow. Was he set up? If so, for what reason? Steve travels to Ho Chi Minh City in search of the truth.
raised in Cleveland, Ohio. After graduating from the College of William & Mary in Virginia with a B.B.A. in Accounting, he began working for the accounting firm Arthur Andersen & Co., in Houston, Texas, as a Certified Public Accountant. He left Arthur Andersen in 1984 to attend the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville, Virginia, graduating in 1987. He earned his Masters in International Law from The George Washington University Law School and is a licensed attorney in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Firstly, there’s the Instafreebie Historical Fiction Group Giveaway. There’s 20 diverse historical short stories and novels to choose from. Readers can sign up for as many of the authors’ newsletter mailing lists as they wish and download the offerings. There’s some great stories available so don’t miss this opportunity. And if you haven’t already signed up for my author newsletter, you can do so and get my free short story, Friends and Foes, which is only available when you sign up for my mailing list. This offer ends on Friday, 5th May.
The next offer I’d like to tell you about is the Best of British and Irish fiction. More than 100 books by British and Irish authors are included. There’s historical fiction, contemporary fiction, science fiction, fantasy, thrillers and more. It’s well worth having a look at what’s available as there is definitely something for everyone. In this offer, I’ve included a free sample taster from my collection of stories, The Yankee Years Boxset Books 1-3, which readers can download when they sign up for my newsletter mailing list. This offer ends on Sunday, 7th May.
And I haven’t forgotten those who enjoy the romance of spring. The Sweet Romance Giveaway includes 13 sweet and heartwarming romances for readers who thrill to love stories that end well. This offer ends on Monday, 8th May. You will find the Sweet Romance Giveaway here: 
Readers who are feeling lucky might like to enter the Mega Multi Genre Book Giveaway. The contest runs until 31st May. There’s 180 books, in loads of genres, to be won. One Grand Prize Winner will win one of every book in the event! The Multiple Genre Grand Prize Winners will get all the books in their favorite genre! And there will be one Winner of each individual book! Enter to win the Mega Multi Genre Book Giveaway here: 
For readers who are members of Kindle Unlimited, why not check out the Loved Kissed Kindle Unlimited May Challenge and Giveaway? Have a browse through the May KU Challenge page and nab any titles that take your fancy. Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom of the page and also enter the prize draw for several prizes: one Kindle ereader and three $25 Amazon gift cards. The draw closes on 31st May. Enter to win the Kindle Unlimited Challenge and Giveaway draw here: 
CM: My novel tells the story of the unnamed wife of St. Peter, a woman who shuns a loveless betrothal to a wealthy merchant and instead marries a poor fisherman whom she desperately loves. For being true to her heart, she is disowned by her family. This is the tale of her relationship to the fisherman known as Simon Peter, and the story of Israel during the times of the Roman occupation, a time of revolution and danger, a time of economic hardship and heavy taxation, and a beckoning new hope they find in an enigmatic young carpenter: Jesus.
About Catherine Magia: Catherine was born in Brooklyn, New York, and moved to New Jersey as a teenager. Although her formal education was in the hard sciences, she has always maintained a passion for the written word, publishing her poetry in several literary journals including the Michigan Quarterly Review.
Yesterday I spent a very sociable Saturday visiting two of my fellow historical fiction writers’ blogs. I haven’t done that in a while and it was fun.
BMB: The Varangian is the final volume of my trilogy, Odd Tangle-Hair’s Saga. (The first two books are entitled Odin’s Child and The Ice Queen.)
About the author: Bruce Macbain holds degrees in Classics and Ancient History and was formerly an Assistant Professor of Classics at Boston University. He decided to stop writing scholarly articles (which almost no one read) and turn his expertise to fiction—a much more congenial medium. His previous novels include two mysteries set in ancient Rome (Roman Games, The Bull Slayer) and the first two novels in the Odd Tangle-Hair series (Odin’s Child, The Ice Queen).
It was fantastic. Approximately 80 women shared their writing with their peers and others who comprised the audience in three minute bursts. In between listening to the amazing readings, I slipped out to listen to a panel discussion about self-publishing, chaired by Catherine Ryan Howard, and hung out downstairs in the library, chatting with friends, old and new. We finished off the day with a mass reading in the Garden of Remembrance across the road from the Irish Writers Centre.
dianneascroft.com 