Stagecoach Mary by Tanya Landman

One of the great pleasures of researching a book like Buffalo Soldier is coming across the real-life stories of extraordinary people. They don’t get much more extraordinary than Mary Fields.

This  powerhouse of a woman - six feet tall, cigar smoking, whiskey drinking, gun toting, hot tempered –was the first African-American woman to work for the US Postal Service.

Born a slave in Tennessee in around 1832,  Mary was freed after the 13^th Amendment was passed in 1865. In a world turned upside down by war her problem then was what to do, where to go, how to live?

Not a great deal is known about how she fared in the years immediately following the American Civil War but by 1870 she’d found work emptying chamber pots on a Mississippi steamboat. It may have been there that she met Judge Edmund Dunne whose family later took her on as a servant.

When Dunne’s wife died, Mary was given the task of taking his five children to Ohio to be cared for by their aunt – an Ursuline nun called Sister Amadeus.

For the next few years Mary Fields stayed with the Ursuline Sisters tending the gardens and grounds.

Sister Amadeus and Mary became close friends but in  1884 the nun was promoted to Mother Superior and selected to go to Montana to set up a mission and boarding school for Native American children.

Conditions in Montana then were primitive and in 1885 Mother Amadeus contracted pneumonia.  When the news reached Mary Fields she set out at once to nurse her friend back to health.

For the next eight years Mary helped with the building of the mission 19 miles from the town of Cascade.  Besides the construction work she also did the laundry, tended the gardens, looked after the chickens and drove the wagon that brought food and supplies to the mission.

Mary’s temper often got her into altercations and after a duel with a hired hand word of her unorthodox behavior reached the Bishop. He declared a mission school was no place for a shoot out and insisted she leave.

With the help of Mother Amadeus Mary moved to Cascade and set up a restaurant.  But Mary’s heart was a big as her temper was hot.  She’d feed anyone who was hungry – whether or not they could afford to pay.  She went bust.

But at sixty four Mary could harness a team of horses quicker than any man and so she got a job as a driver for the US mail. Sitting on top of the stagecoach, a jug of whisky at her feet, a pistol in her apron pocket, a shotgun by her side, wreathed in clouds of cigar smoke she must have made an impressive sight.

For eight years she carried the mail on a 19 mile route, never missing a day’s work.

In 1903 Mother Amadeus left Montana to carry out missionary work in Alaska.  By then Mary was too old to accompany her, and indeed too old to continue carrying the mail. She stopped driving the stagecoach  when she was around 70 but continued to work, running a laundry service from her home.

By then she’d become something of a local legend.  The Cascade Hotel provided meals for her free of charge. When her home was burned down in 1912 the townspeople rallied round to rebuild it for her. Stagecoach Mary was the only woman permitted to drink in the town’s saloons.

When her health began to fail the fiercely independent Mary left her house and lay down in a field on a freezing night, waiting for death. She was found and taken to the hospital where, on December 5^th 1914,  she died.

The whole town mourned her.  The service was held in the Pastime Theatre and was one of the largest Cascade had ever seen.

In 1959 Hollywood legend Gary Cooper – who’d met her as a child – wrote of her,  “Born a slave… Mary lived to become of the freest souls ever to draw breath, or a .38.”

YA - A Double Edged Sword? by Tanya Landman

Long ago, way back in the golden olden days when the world was full of lovely independent bookshops and I worked in one of them there was no Young Adult section.  So how did people manage? 

Well, they browsed.  And if a customer was buying a book for someone else and they weren’t certain if the content was suitable they could ask the bookseller for advice because in those days knowing the stock was considered to be part of the job.

There are still excellent independents out there but as we all know the numbers are dwindling and times are tough.  Bit by bit all that in-depth knowledge and expertise is being replaced by computers, labels and branding.

When I started writing it was for KS 1 and 2 and  I was put in the children’s section.  So far, so straightforward.  But then Apache came out: my ‘breakthrough’ novel.  It was a big moment.

I was delighted to be part of the YA brand:  it comprised the most brilliant, creative,  exciting writing that was being produced.  I was rubbing shoulders with my literary heroes – what was not to love?

On my first visit to a secondary school I was asked why I’d called the book Apache.  The student pronounced it “Apaitch.”   I was a little perplexed.  When I asked the audience if anyone knew what an Apache was hands went up all around the room.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  Then they all said an Apache was a  “helicopter”.

It came as a shock to realise that teens hadn’t been raised on the relentless diet of wall-to-wall westerns that I had.  No problem – it didn’t affect their enjoyment or enthusiasm for the book – but I realised that Apache had an extra resonance for adults.  The teachers and librarians who read the book really ‘got’ it.  But they were adults who were ‘in the know’.  How could I get it into the hands of general readers? 

With Buffalo Soldier I’ve got the same problem.  It’s accessible to teens, but I’d love adults to read it too.   And why wouldn’t they?  Well, because it’s a YA book.

 

Over the years I’ve given various books  (by various writers) to friends who have looked both puzzled and offended when they realised I was handing them a “kids’ book”. They considered reading YA would be dumbing down; an insult to their intelligence.   There are thousands of potential readers who are missing out because they have a mental block about the YA label.

A couple of months ago I had one of those in-between times, when I was waiting for a manuscript to come back from the editor. Instead of writing the synopsis I was supposed to be working on I went on Facebook (as you do) and asked a few questions.  And the warm, witty writing community came back with some wonderful answers. My apologies for reducing what were interesting and sometimes hilarious exchanges into this rather more banal summary:

1) When is a YA novel not a YA novel? There are the very obvious 'teen reads', but what about books marketed to teens that deserve a wider adult readership too? I'm thinking Mal Peet in the first instance. More examples, anyone?

Lots of names were put forward including Aidan Chambers, Celia Rees, Patrick Ness, Meg Rosoff. What was interesting was the amount of comments that came in alongside the suggestions: someone reported an adult who was embarrassed to be ‘caught’ reading The Book Thief because it was marketed for teens, for example.

We all agreed the YA brand is simply a marketing device and something that makes life easier for bookshops, but inventing a label to attract certain readers will inevitably put others off.

2) Which of the classics would get classified as a YA read if they were published today?

Sometimes books get labeled YA simply because they have a teen or child protagonist.  Again, lots of titles suggested – Great Expectations, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, To Kill a Mockingbird, Bonjour Tristesse, The Dud Avocado and all of Walter Scott’s 27 novels.

3) Are there any books out there that ONLY teens will enjoy?

Plenty of suggestions here too including Catcher in the Rye (“insufferably irritating”), Wuthering Heights (“barking mad”) and Twilight (“I died a little at each page I read”).  However, many of us know (and some of us weep over the fact) that there are grown, sensible adults out there who love the Twilight saga, so it seems the answer to my question is no.

What conclusions can be drawn from all this?   That a book is a book is a book.  Writing something that’s accessible to teens shouldn’t exclude an adult readership.  Yet “most adults won’t touch teen no matter how good it is” as one contributor to the discussion remarked. 

Love it or loathe it the YA brand is here to stay, so how do we get past the prejudice some adult readers have?  No idea, sorry.  I don’t have answers to this – just plenty of questions.

Whitewashing History by Tanya Landman

An article about the wonderfully gifted actor Sophie Okenedo in The Guardian (4^th July 2014) mentioned that in order to find good parts she has to travel to the USA.  She said,  “I think a lot of it is [due to] costume and period drama, which must be, what, at least 40% of what we do here? Which means 40% of opportunities are closed to me already.”

Now this statement bothered me and not just because one of our best and brightest actors can’t find enough work in the UK.  What’s really troubling is the apparent assumption amongst programme makers that costume and period drama is a Whites-Only zone. Peter Fryer’s Staying Power – the definitive history of black people in Britain – really ought to be required reading for anyone who produces period drama in the UK. Africans, Asians and their descendants have shaped British Culture and society from Roman times until the present. So why isn’t that represented on TV?  Are programme makers in the UK simply ignorant?  Or is something more sinister at work here? Have we whitewashed our history the way Hollywood has whitewashed it in the USA?

I grew up on a steady diet of B-movie Westerns in the cinema.  On TV you just couldn’t get away from the things -  Bonanza, The Virginian, Alias Smith and Jones, Rawhide the list goes on and on.  The cowboys were always white, clean shaven, morally upright and remarkably clean for men that lived a roving life on the open prairie.

When I started researching Buffalo Soldier I came across some startling statistics.  Around 25% of cowboys and 25% of the US army during the “Wild West’ period were black.

I must have seen John Ford’s 1954 classic The Searchers for the first time when I was around five years old.  I have a very clear memory of watching it with my father.  Starring John Wayne it tells the story of Ethan Edwards, an ex-Confederate soldier who swears revenge after Comanches kill his brother’s family and abduct his niece, Debbie.  The film made a huge impact on me at the time: I remember finding the idea of being captured by the Indians absolutely terrifying.  But what was more terrifying was what happened when – after 5 years of searching - Ethan finally found the now grown-up Debbie.   I was expecting a joyful reunion.  Instead there was a moment when Ethan - so revolted by Debbie living “with a buck” – is going to kill her.  I found it profoundly upsetting back then.  I still do.

The Searchers was based on Alan Le May’s book which was inspired by the real life story of a father who went in search of his family.  It’s only recently that I discovered the original Searcher was black.

Britt Johnson, born a slave, was the property of Moses Johnson, a landholder in West Texas. Britt had the relatively privileged foreman’s position and was allowed to raise his own horses and cattle.  But in October 1864 his son was killed in a raid in a Comanche raid and his wife and two children were captured.  Britt Johnson searched for his family until the summer of 1865.  Some sources say he went to live with the Comanches and managed to arrange their ransom.  Others say they were ransomed and released as part of ongoing peace talks.  No one asked him for his version of events.  No one wrote it down.  Shame.  It would have made fascinating reading.  Either way, Britt Johnson’s family was rescued and after that (with the end of the Civil War bringing freedom) they moved to Parker County.  From then on he worked as a teamster and freighter, hauling goods from place to place. 

On January 24^th, 1871, a group of Kiowas attacked a wagon train manned by Britt Johnson and two other black teamsters.  Heavily outnumbered, after a desperate fight all three were killed.  They were buried in a common grave by the side of the road. 

We’ve had 12 Years A Slave.  It’s time for a re-make of The Searchers, I think: one that hasn’t been whitewashed.

The problem with Gone With the Wind by Tanya Landman

Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara

In March this year a Cambridge University college chose Gone With the Wind
as a theme for its May ball. When Mamusu Kallon, a student at the college,
pointed out that the film "glamourises the romantic dreams of a slave owner
and a KKK member while rendering the horrors of slavery invisible" the idea
was scrapped.

Good result. Yet it's sad that the idea was even proposed it in the first place. Why, after 12 Years a Slave, would anyone want to glamourise America's Old South?

It was the TV adaptation of Alex Haley's novel Roots in the late 1970's that opened my eyes to the realities of slavery, the golden triangle and the Old South. Tracing the author's family history back to Africa, it
started with a young man called Kunta Kinte who was captured by slavers and
transported to America.

I was thirteen years old and back then there were only 3 TV channels.
Discussing last night's TV at school was a socially bonding event.
The effect of Roots was huge. Electrifying. I mean, up until then, the
only thing any of us knew about America's deep south was based on the film
of Gone With the Wind.

I must have been about eleven when I first saw it. I remember sitting with
my best friend and annoying all the other cinema goers by giggling over the
grandiose title sequence. But, once the film started, the giggling
stopped. I was sucked in to the world of the Old South. Scarlett ­
tough, manipulative, determined, resourceful ­ was a revelation. OK, so she
wasn't particularly nice. But then, Scarlett didn't give a damn about
whether people liked her or not. She was her own person: belle turned
businesswoman. Wow! She was feisty!!! At 11 years old, I was fascinated.

Many years later, when Charley O'Hara walked in to my head and took hold of
me, I started to write my latest YA novel Buffalo Soldier. Roots and
Gone With the Wind were an obvious part of my background research. When I
read the books, my feelings about Roots hadn't changed.

But Gone With the Wind? Mmmm.

Reading it was certainly a deeply abrasive experience and gave Charley a
whole lot to react to.

Margaret Mitchell was a gifted writer, but her book reflects a world that we
now recognise as being so clearly illogical and repellent. Read it, and you
can see right inside the head of a slave owner.

Or you could read Buffalo Soldier. And see it from the other side.

Buffalo Soldier by Tanya Landman Catherine Johnson

Tanya Landman's brand new novel is a tour de force. The voice of Charley - born Charlotte - does not waver, and the story of a girl from slave to freedom via the American Civil War and service in one of the black regiments of of the American Army as a 'Buffalo Solider' in the 19th century Indian Wars, pulls no punches.

The story of the Buffalo soldiers, African Americans who fought in segregated regiments of the American army in the 19th century is one I first heard about courtesy of Bob Marley.  I am not sure how well known this story is in the UK. For many of us the American West is a white country and it's important that Tanya Landman has shone a light on other histories. Landman  knows her stuff, Apache, her earlier Carnegie shortlisted  novel was also set in the mid century West  and covers similar territory.

It also features a rather wonderful walk on by Bill Cody, who I have to admit is one of my favourite characters. The stories of the cottage hospital at Llandudno full to the brim with Indian braves from his Wild West show, laid low with Welsh flu contracted on the long ride from Dolgellau to Portmadoc has always been one of my favourites.

Even though this is not really a slave narrative - the concerns at the heart of the book, for me were more to do with the mistreatment of the American Indians, and Charley's eventual realisation that she had been lied to again by her white masters, the people she was fighting and killing and policing were no monsters. That she was on the wrong side. That even when there was some kindness shown by those in power, there was always a cost and it was always involved compromise.

There's an awful lot of death and destruction and pain in this book. Rape and lynching and senseless violence in every form. It is in no way an easy read, and although there are moments of snatched love and humour and comradeship, Charley rides and shoots her way through life with tightly gritted teeth, and as everyone she  loves is killed. Charley manages to survive, and thankfully find her own freedom, even as she is painted out of her country's  history.

There's loads that drew me to this book, I've always had an itch for American 19th century history and Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee is one of my top non fiction reads (I can't say favourite, it is too sad).  America's history of taking care of it's indigenous peoples is no better or worse than that other ex British colony, Australia, where the local people were hunted down for sport. And there are parallels between the way both the Native Americans - Indians in Landman's book - and the black population are lied to, betrayed and ultimately dispatched in a variety of cruel and unusual ways.

Charley does, thank heavens find some peace by the end of the book. I do think it might well have been unbearable without it. If this book doesn't find itself on the awards lists next year my hat (and I would like it to be one of those Vivienne Westwood monster western hats as worn by Pharell) will be eaten.

On more thing. Another reason I wanted to read this book was that Charley is based on a real African American woman; Catherine Williams who enlisted and served as a man, William Cather.  And this resonates rather well with my own story in Daughters of Time, set during the Crimea and featuring Mary Seacole and her British Hotel.

Buffalo Soldier is out on April 3rd

Catherine

Catherine's latest book is Sawbones, an 18th century forensic murder mystery.