The Problem with Historical Fiction

People often think historical fiction is about the past. If they’re not interested in the past, they conclude they’re not interested in the novel. They need to remember that, as William Faulkner said, “The past is not dead. In fact it’s not even past.”

In other words, there isn’t a problem. “Historical” novels such as my Macdonald are contemporary novels. Written with a contemporary sensibility and point of view, they mine rich veins of history for raw material in order to say something about the present, about humanity.

Americans seem more aware than Canadians of the permeability of past and present. Their media (and ours) keep telling us we’re living through a “historic moment” as Barrack Obama begins to conduct his presidency. In the meantime we can be sure American novelists are already thinking about weaving President Obama into the fabric of future narratives – whether as a defining contextual symbol of our times, or as a fictional character in his own right. I’d be surprised if Canadian novelists are doing the same with Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

For American writers, it’s second nature to create fictional narratives out of their shared history. Because Americans see their nation as exceptional, they see their history as inherently dramatic.  And because they see themselves as actors in that drama, it’s natural for them to produce not only works of formal history or biography, but novels, plays, feature films and television dramas imagining narratives from their past. Through that process, Americans shape and reshape their understanding of themselves as a people.

Significantly, these works are enormously popular with the public, in the United States and elsewhere. That too says a lot about how Americans regard their history. One need only think of Gone with the Wind, both book and film versions, or that seminal work of American cinema, Birth of a Nation. Or more recently, the novels of Gore Vidal, Toni Morrison or Charles Frazier. For Americans, these fictions keep their history meaningfully present. 

I wrote Macdonald with similar ambitions. My motive was making Sir John A. Macdonald and his times present for contemporary readers. That ambition would have been in vain if he hadn’t provided such wonderful raw material. 

Sir John A. is an ideal subject for fiction. He was not only a great politician and nation builder but a great individual. Certainly he was a far bigger man than I’d once realized – a far richer and more complex character than the familiar caricature of the drinker and scandal-plagued rogue.

Sir John A. was a large soul. He was a man of wide experience because he lived fully and long. He was a man of learning – not because he had a great deal of formal education, but because he was an omnivorous reader and autodidact. He was a man of wit, of political vision as well as canny pragmatism, a man of great personal magnetism and charm, and, for his day, of compassion and tolerance. He inspired loyalty and devotion and a surprising amount of love in Canadians. 

Considering how we feel about our political leaders today, that is truly extraordinary. I knew a memorable novel could be fashioned from such a man.

I came to that conclusion because of what I found in the work of Canadian historians. Reading Donald Creighton’s magisterial biography of Sir John A., written more than half a century ago with a stirring narrative power, was decisive for me.

Yet Creighton wasn’t Macdonald’s first biographer. He too stood on the shoulders of earlier authors. The previous major biography was written by a man who had known Sir John A. intimately, his private secretary, Joseph Pope. Pope was a remarkable man in his own right. He was not only an invaluable source of privileged insight into Sir John A., but went on to found the Department of External Affairs under Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

Even more crucial for my purposes, Joseph Pope proved to be the perfect voice to narrate my novel. Pope was always there,by Sir John A.’s side, during practically every waking moment. Like Conrad’s Marlow or Scott Fitzgerald’s Nick Carraway or Robertson Davies’ Dunstan Ramsay, Pope was a first-hand witness to my novel’s events, and therefore a natural choice for narrator. He was also a perceptive and thoughtful man, and a very good writer – for a civil servant.

One of the incidental pleasures of reading Pope was acquiring a first edition of his two-volume biography of his chief. Published in 1894, the books had originally belonged to another character in my novel, Joseph-Israël Tarte, the Macdonald Conservative who later served in Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s cabinet. Owning those books was like holding a talisman with powers reaching beyond time: a tangible, living link to the people I was writing about.

As essential as books were to my research, there were only the beginning. Walking in Macdonald’s footsteps, visiting his former haunts and homes in Kingston, Ottawa and elsewhere, was vital to the process of getting into his head – and of equipping myself with the confidence to jump off from history into dimensions of intuition, imagination, invention.

The great privilege of the novelist, historical or otherwise, is the freedom to make things up. Along with freedom of language, it’s one of the glories of working in the medium. If I followed any guidelines about mixing fact and fiction in Macdonald, it was to respect the historical record when it came to public events. I wouldn’t alter the outcomes of elections, for example, or the composition of Sir John A.’s cabinet. Even the medical details of his final illness and treatment are taken from the written recollections of his personal physician, Dr. Powell, on deposit at Library and Archives Canada.

Private events, however, were another matter.  Most obviously, conversations between Sir John A. and the other characters in the novel had to be invented – although as often as possible I based them on reported anecdotes, recorded bon mots, or fragments of correspondence. 

Less obviously, except to historians, certain scenes in the novel are largely or entirely invented – although always with a plausible historical pretext. When Macdonald has a midnight encounter with the Métis rebel leader Louis Riel, for instance – an encounter that never happened – it’s during Riel’s incognito visit to Parliament Hill in 1874, which did happen. When Macdonald gets into the brandy with President Ulysses S. Grant, it’s during negotiations for the 1871 Washington Treaty, in which they both participated.

In these cases, I’ve drawn on my unsanctioned, unregulated, intuitive sense of what Macdonald would have done and said, given my understanding of his life and character and times. In case my method seems overly risky, I can only quote those wise Frenchmen, the Goncourt brothers: 

“History is a novel that has been lived.  A novel is history that could have been.”

Biography

Roy MacSkimming is the author of three novels and three works of non-fiction. His latest novel recreates the final days of Canada’s founding genius, Sir John A. Macdonald.

Macdonald earned advance praise from novelists Nino Ricci, Aritha van Herk and Roy MacGregor and from political historian Peter C. Newman, who called it “a singularly well-crafted novel that deserves top place among the books on Canadian history that matter.” The Globe & Mail described Macdonald as “[an] engaging novel handled with imagination, sympathy and verve, making a hugely enjoyable read.”

Roy MacSkimming has written two other critically praised novels, Out of Love (1993) and Formentera (1972), both translated into French.

MacSkimming’s most recent non-fiction book, The Perilous Trade: Publishing Canada’s Writers, grew out of his career in Canadian book publishing. The Globe & Mail termed it “masterful…a brilliantly seductive cultural history of Canada.” The Perilous Trade was named a Globe & Mail Best 100 Book of 2003 and was a finalist for the National Business Book Award. A revised and updated edition has appeared in paperback.

MacSkimming has written two books on hockey. Cold War: The Amazing Canada-Soviet Hockey Series of 1972 appeared in 1996. Gordie: A Hockey Legend, an unauthorized biography of Gordie Howe, was published in 1994, followed by an updated edition in 2003.

MacSkimming has also co-authored two titles: a self-published poetry chapbook, Shoot Low Sheriff, They’re Riding Shetland Ponies, with William Hawkins; and On Your Own Again, with Dr. Keith Anderson.

Roy MacSkimming grew up in Ottawa and attended the University of Toronto. His early poetry appeared in literary journals and the Contact Press anthology New Wave Canada. From 1964 to 1968 he worked as an editor with book publisher Clarke, Irwin, leaving to travel in Europe for a year with his wife, the painter Suzette DeLey MacSkimming.

In 1969 MacSkimming co-founded New Press in Toronto with fellow writers James Bacque and Dave Godfrey. Together with the House of Anansi and other presses, New Press led a Canadian publishing renaissance in the 1970s and co-founded the Association of Canadian Publishers, which lobbied successfully for government policies to strengthen the publishing industry.

When New Press was acquired by General Publishing in 1974, MacSkimming became books editor, literary columnist and publishing reporter at The Toronto Star. In 1977 he moved with his family to Ottawa to work with the Canada Council for the Arts, administering policies and programs for book publishing. After four years at the Canada Council he served with the Federal Cultural Policy Review Committee, chaired by Louis Applebaum and Jacques Hébert, as policy advisor on writing and publishing.

MacSkimming’s three careers – in book publishing, journalism and cultural policy – led to a period in Ottawa combining arts consulting with writing. In 1990 MacSkimming began a ten-year involvement with the Association of Canadian Publishers as policy director and government relations advisor.

During that period MacSkimming resumed writing books, following a hiatus after the publication of Formentera. In 2002 he and his wife built a house in the countryside near Perth, Ontario, and since then he has devoted himself to writing full-time.

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Photo: David Zimmerly