Historical Fiction

A heartwarming story of family and love in historical America. Through love for each other and love for others, the Mattley family grows to include four young orphans and a lonely Indian chief.

Gyrfalcons in the 14th century were rare and very valuable. The narrator is compelled to seek and capture them in the Arctic because royalty in Egypt holds his brother in ransom. His quest is imperiled by the One Hundred Years War, the bubonic plague, and the rival ruler of Damascus.

Nicholas of Lynn, an historic geographer, invites him on a voyage to the Arctic. Officials in Greenland try to stop the quest for falcons. The three-year quest leads them to spend a year with native people, the northernmost in the world, from whom they develop new perspectives on European society and civilization.

Book Three of the Trilogy: Ghost Words and Puppet Plays

Each volume in the trilogy is a series of interlocking sketches or stories intended to give a view of a period in human history. It is a trilogy about human nature and thought.

The Uncertainty Principle has twenty-seven scenes set in the 17th and 20th centuries. By the 17th century the certainty which went with the authority of rulers, religious dogma and the science of Aristotle and Galen had begun to erode. The so-called Modern Period became a battleground between those who would live with new or tentative answers and those who demanded the certainty of the past.

This third volume begins in 1606 as an ice storm approaches London, and ends in 1990 as a winter storm moves across the center of the USA. The characters include the famous and the obscure. Among the former are Rembrandt, Bashô, Spinoza, the Queen of France and the Empress of China. Among the latter are an aging Nazi, an American PFC, an Iowa farm wife and a child preparing for a play.

This novel is based on the real life of a Southern lady, Aldeen the Queen. Raised in a wealthy family with a Civil War/Slaveholding history, she was crushed when her teenage lover was banished by her father. The Queen recovered and became independent and the manager of the family businesses. A series of deaths and the quandary of being jilted as a teenager impacted Aldeen but she matured and was married and widowed by four husbands. Inheriting significant wealth from each husband, Aldeen became a successful business woman.

Her banished lover accumulated a trust fund and bequeathed it to the Queen at his death.

Despite her brusk, terse personality, and outspoken bigotry, Aldeen the Queen was a generous humanitarian.

Each volume in the trilogy is a series of interlocking sketches or stories intended to give a view of a period in human history. It is a trilogy about human nature and thought. Triumph of the Skies has eighteen scenes set in those complex centuries known as the Middle Ages when much of humanity lived under the revealed authority of the skies. It begins with the state closing of the Platonic Academy in Athens (529) and ends with the final version of Chartres Cathedral (1235). Among the many historical figures are: the Byzantine princess Anna Comnena; Caliph Harun al Rashid; Du Fu, China’s greatest poet; and the adversaries Peter Abelard and St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

Each volume in the trilogy is a series of interlocking sketches or stories intended to give a view of a period in human history. It is a trilogy about human nature and thought. First we see the ancient world where the seeds of philosophy, science and religion are sown. Every Mother’s Son has sixteen scenes from the Greco-Roman world. It opens with letters from an Ephesian clergyman in the service of the Mother Goddess (500 B.C.) and closes with a letter from a cantankerous Christian clergyman who has just survived the Council of Ephesus (431 A.D.) where amid the hostilities Mary was declared “Mother of God.” Among the historical figures are: Alexander the Great, Mo Ti, Lucretius, Saint Paul, Nero and Marcus Aurelius.

In 1941, after discovering tuberculosis, Liese, is taken to a sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland by her aunt. The book traces Liese’s incarceration in the sanatorium where she meets various characters, including her Greek-Jewish friend, Antigone. Upon Nazi orders in 1942 the sanatorium expels all the Jewish patients including Liese and Antigone under the pretext to have their papers checked. However, once they arrive at a small train station in Italy, they are surrounded by German SS troops with whips and vicious dogs. An old family friend from Vienna rescues Liese by pushing her under a train. He finds shelter for Liese in an Italian village church where she encounters a dangerous sexton. She is quickly transported to a forest underground bunker where she meets a number of compelling characters and remains there until liberation by a friendly U.S. Army.

The book FROM DESPAIR TO FORTUNE - THE HALL DYNASTY was intended to be a historical novel that traces the Hall and Swango families from the mid-1800’s until the end of World War II.

Although the main characters are fictional, the author has used the true names of notable individuals from that time period. Also, the events occurring in this time frame are factual.

The setting is the barren and wind-swept plains of northwest South Dakota and northern Wyoming. The hardships encountered by these early pioneers who took advantage of the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909 is documented in detail.

With cattle as their main source of income, the harsh winters would mean that all of the ranches needed to thin their herds and ship most of the cattle to eastern markets in the fall.

In addition to the isolation and weather found in this part of the country, these early settlers had to deal with desperadoes and Indians.

It took the United States Cavalry to bring peace to this region of the country. Often, law abiding citizens who deputized sheriffs found that one or two lawmen could not control their towns.

The author brings to light far-sighted businessmen who believed in their endeavors to bring civilization to the West.

Among the many such men was Seth Bullock, the sheriff who controlled the town of Deadwood, South Dakota, after the shooting of Wild Bill Hickok. Mr. Bullock was also primarily responsible for establishing the town of Belle Fourche.

Translated from the Yiddish: Herschele by Jacob Dineson

Herschele, a story of piety and young love, was written in Yiddish by Jacob Dineson (b. 1856-d.1919) and published in Warsaw, Poland in 1928. Herschele, an orphan, is enrolled in a Yeshiva. As it was in that era, boys would be given a day each week at someone’s home to take meals. His Wednesdays were at the home of a wealthy widow. The story takes on the depth of meaning when the teenage boy falls in love with the widow’s daughter, but he doesn’t understand the strange feelings that have possessed him: “Has evil passion grasped me by the shoulder? Or has a magician cast an evil spell upon me?” he asks.

In November, 1934, Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC (Ret) appeared before the House Un-American Activities subcommittee in New York City. He testified that he had been approached by representatives of a group of influential businessmen to lead a junta and take control of the national’s capital, removing President Roosevelt from office.

Though taken seriously by the Congressmen, for the most part, the national press hounded and ridiculed the general.

Transcripts remaining are so fragmented that little is left. This novel, by adding several fictitious characters and events, suggests ways the information the committee obviously had could have been obtained.

The particulars of General Butler’s military and civilian careers contained in this work are accurate.