How to tackle intensely serious sometimes heart wrenching topics, all laid out using terms and attitudes carefully chosen to not disturb contemporary politically correct hyper-sensitivity without being unfaithful to historical accuracy and all while making people laugh.

I'm the one on the right

 

Battered Wife

I very often write about intensely difficult subjects. I hope no one has noticed. But I do.
I hope they're laughing and flipping pages to see who's going to start shooting next.
That can get tricky if you’re writing about the Civil War and slavery and the frontier and clashes with Native Americans and the attitudes of men for women and women for men and mental illness and abuse. And it all has to be set in politically correct terms.

Mental Illness,
Psychotic Breaks
Alcoholism,
Early Onset Alzheimers

I had a review of one of my books once, when Mandy McClellen stayed with her awful husband Sidney Gray rather than leave and/or divorce. The reviewer said, “Connealy gives her heroine the mentality of a 1950s housewife.”

Meth Addiction

Uh, excuse me, no I didn’t. I gave Mandy the mentality of an 1880s housewife. People just didn’t get divorced. It was considered a terrible sin. To break a vow made before God was beyond the pale even a cheating, runaway husband wouldn't consider divorce. Add in that divorce was hard. Almost impossible…it was just not considered an option.

But that review tells you what I have to deal with. Reviewers, reading an 1880s set historical and critiquing it using views from 2011. What’s more, secular 2011.

This is a pet peeve of mine. We take a terrible risk, I think, when we judge history using modern attitudes.

A good example:





The Three-Fifths Compromise and how it's abused when it's discussed in modern times



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The point is, counting slaves as 3/5ths is often mentioned as an example of racism. But it was supported by fierce abolitionists--those fighting to free the slaves.



Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

So how do I incorporate my love of truth into my books without stepping on any toes? Well, there are many words that are just not allowed in modern work that probably permeated historical language. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn comes to mind.

Fortunately I have no wish to use such words and find alternatives quite easily.

Second, I create feisty women who in large part defy the conventions of the 19^th century.

Third, I have Christian characters and they treat others (except maybe outlaws) with Christian love and respect…and this come through in any era.

Abusive Adoptive Father,
Post Partum Depression



Child Abuse, Spousal Abuse

And as for tackling serious topics, such as, in Stuck Together early onset Alzheimer’s, psychotic breaks, insane asylums and what to do about all of it, there were no correct terms for any of these things back then. So I try and make what’s REALLY happening clear to a modern reader without using the modern terms. They talked about being furiously mad. They talked about old people being dotty or ‘in their dotage’. But I trust the intelligence of my readers to know what I mean by it all.

 

 

Emotional Abuse

Demon Possession

 Okay, I think I've failed to explain any of what I promised (which was easily predictable) so just play along and leave a comment to get your name in a drawing for a signed copy of Stuck Together and a SECOND give-away, a signed copy of the novella collection with Robin Lee Hatcher, Margaret Brownley and Debra Clopton...Four Weddings and a Kiss)

And if you'd like to see more examples of me dealing with various types of horror in my odd, lighthearted and deeply questionable way, go read my prequel to the Trouble in Texas series, CLOSER THAN BROTHERS...free on my blog. It's all there now!

http://www.maryconnealy.com