The reason I decided to write a novel that took on these particular historical figures is because I became fascinated with what it was like to be these people unaware of what the future held. What was it like to be Roger Casement and ignorant of the outcome of the Uprising? What was it like to be Herbert Ward, a realist sculptor in a time of great artistic change? What was it like to be Sarita Ward, a mother, as the First World War threatened to break? History is essential in the writing of a book like Valiant Gentlemen, but I wrote this book to understand what it was like to not know the outcome, to look at history that had not yet become history. So, in my mind, this historical fiction is fiction set in the past that refuses to recognize its historicity. The prime narrator—actual event—does not exist and we must turn the pages blindly.
A more complete list of books consulted can be found on my website, sabinamurray.com.
Many people were helpful in the execution of this book. James Kelly of the University of Massachusetts Library System provided assistance early on with genealogies and various other hard-to-track-down material. Vyvyan Harmsworth supplied information on Lord Northcliffe and the activities surrounding exploration ventures of the Windward. Alexander Chee furnished photographs of the famous urinals of the Old Town Bar in Union Square, New York. Okey Ndibe texted me the correct 1894 Niger Protectorate term of address for Casement, while on holiday with his family in Utah. Roseanne Guille took me fishing on Sark, and Richard Axton let me into the archives. Neil Guerra, nature guide, showed me a wild rubber tree somewhere up the Amazon in Peru. Anston Bosman put me up in Cape Town. Keti Mbogile took me around villages in Maun, Botswana, which altered the landscape of my mind. Danny and Deborah Devenny gave me an insiders’ view of the murals, pubs, improvisational museums, and other sites of Belfast, my favorite being their living room. Cloddagh, last name unknown, translated what the men up at the bar on Inishmaan were saying. Margaret O’Brien read an unwieldy early draft to make sure that I would not (ironically) be strung up by the Irish. My husband John Hennessy—in addition to listening about this book for close to a decade—prevented the children from starving and going feral. The children, Nick and Gabe, neither starved nor went feral, and provided much needed levity throughout.
I was supported in other ways. I received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and various travel and research grants from University of Massachusetts at Amherst. I was also resident at the Tyrone Guthrie House in Annaghmakerrig, County Tyrone, Ireland, which is an official gig, and a resident at Sunetra Gupta’s and Adrian Hill’s house in Oxford, England, which isn’t.
There are also a number of people who maintained an astounding level of faith in this book through the years. First of all, my agent, Esmond Harmsworth, who makes everything seem possible. Elisabeth Schmitz, my long time editor who is always supportive, and Katie Raissian, my editor on this book, who said she loved it and then made me change a bunch of stuff, which I—wisely—did.
Valiant Gentlemen Page 52
