WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION: Guest Post by Jeanne DuBois

JEANNE DuBOIS:

Writing Historical Fiction

Reading historical fiction should be like stepping into a time machine. So writing it usually requires some research. The more the better, seems to be my mantra. I tend to get a little carried away. I love going back in time.

First stop, TimesMachine, the New York Times digital archive of its newspaper covering over one hundred fifty years. Next, Chronicling America, a searchable collection of historic digitized American newspapers organized by the Library of Congress. Then, interminable online searches for railroad route maps, women’s fashion, WWI binoculars, children’s toys, etc. For the story that would become ‘Moonset,’ I go one step further. I drive from Florida to Atlantic City so I can read the local newspapers from July, 1921, archived at the Atlantic City Free Public Library. My sister lives less than an hour away, so I’m not as crazy as I sound.

While waiting for my turn on the microfiche reader, I discover Atlantic City, The World’s Play-Ground, by James Bewkes, “dedicated to the millions who visit Atlantic City at all times of the year to find rest, recreation, and enjoyment.” The 1922 travel book, illustrated with beautiful colored sketches, is both a font of information—“More than 100,000 bathers disport in the ocean daily during the summer season. There are 1,000 hotels.”—and a delight.

Scrolling through the newspaper archive, advertisements for the imposing Chalfonte-Haddon Hall hotels, which I remember from the second page of Bewkes’ book, catch my eye. The “two most delightful of Atlantic City’s famous hotels,” offer “sunny rooms, single or en suite. Hot and cold salt sea water in every room; salt sea air at every window.” My main character, Loretta Bremer, a widow with two children, is definitely going to stay at Haddon Hall, ready to take dictation at a law conference being held there, until death intervenes.

I drive straight from the public library to the Boardwalk. Haddon Hall is now Resorts Casino. The Chalfonte is a parking lot.

The Boardwalk is populated this gray afternoon by a few lackluster panhandlers. I give them each a couple dollars and they soon fade away. The beach is deserted. I close my eyes and try to conjure up the noise of a crowd. I hear only the relentless roar of the surf and some strident laughing gulls.

I huddle inside my jacket as I walk on the beach. The bathhouses are long gone, as are the first aid tents, and the pony rides. Dune grasses wave in their place, planted this century to protect the beach from erosion. I collect some shells and quartz pebbles on my way back to the car. It will be dark soon. Before leaving, I snap some photos of the casino’s grand edifice. Details of the old Haddon Hall, hiding behind blue and white paint, call out to me. Is that a face I see pressed against the glass there? No, I tell myself, it’s only a reflection of the moon, and quickly turn away. My sister is waiting.

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Jeanne DuBois lives in Florida with two retired greyhounds and writes short mystery fiction. ‘Moonset,’ set in 1921 Atlantic City, is her second published historical mystery and appears in Moonlight & Misadventure: 20 Stories of Mystery & Suspense. Her first, ‘Murder at the Alcazar,’ set in 1906 St. Augustine, is available at Mysterical-e. Find her at jeanne-dubois.com

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About Moonlight & Misadventure: Whether it’s vintage Hollywood, the Florida everglades, the Atlantic City boardwalk, or a farmhouse in Western Canada, the twenty authors represented in this collection of mystery and suspense interpret the overarching theme of “moonlight and misadventure” in their own inimitable style where only one thing is assured: Waxing, waning, gibbous, or full, the moon is always there, illuminating things better left in the dark. Edited by Judy Penz Sheluk, available everywhere.

 

 

Maybe She Didn't Jump: Guest Post by Robert Weibezahl

Robert Weibezahl:

Maybe She Didn’t Jump 

Peg Entwistle, “the girl who jumped from the Hollywood sign,” has an indelible place in the history and lore of the movie business in Los Angeles. On September 18, 1932, the body of the 24-year-old actress was found at the base of the giant letters that at the time spelled out the longer HOLLYWOODLAND in the hills above the city. A note found in her handbag read, “I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain.” 

Police ruled that she had died two days before, a suicide. Entwistle immediately became a legend, a perennial symbol of the callousness of Hollywood and the way it chews up young aspirants. In popular culture, the unfortunate Peg (or some allusion to her circumstances) has surfaced in pop songs by such disparate performers as Dory Previn, Protest the Hero, Jakko Jakszyk, Camille Saillant, and Lana Del Rey. Entwistle has been the subject of short films and documentary segments, and just last year the hyperbolic Netflix miniseries Hollywood revolved around a fictional production of a movie based on her grim cautionary tale. 

Legends, by definition, are driven by elusive details and unauthenticated facts that feed speculation. A few years ago, while reading a biography of a screen icon from Hollywood’s Golden Age, I read in the star’s own words about how, as a young aspiring actress herself, she had seen Peg Entwistle perform on the stage and dreamed of one day being exactly like her. 

Their eerie connection went further: The two women were born the same year, exactly two months apart. Both had played the same breakthrough role on stage. Certainly, one might presume that the two actresses’ paths crossed in Los Angeles, then a very small company town. My devious writer’s mind was triggered. How can we know, really, that Peg’s death was a suicide? Maybe she didn’t jump. What circumstances might have led to something more sinister, more violent? Could one of the greatest actresses to ever grace the screen have taken a dark truth to her grave? 

My short story, ‘Just Like Peg Entwistle,’ which appears in the new anthology Moonlight and Misadventure, poses an alternative scenario about the mythic death of “The Hollywood Sign Girl.” While it is speculation, and avowedly fiction, the historical details are drawn from the facts as they are known, with only certain names changed to protect the perhaps-not-innocent. If Peg hadn’t died, the story’s narrator reflects, “Maybe we could have played the sisters on screen that I always felt we were meant to be in real life.” Maybe, in the ensuing years, Peg Entwistle might have won an Oscar or two just like her admiring friend. Maybe now she’d be a Hollywood icon of equal stature, but for reasons beyond her storied death. Maybe she’d be forgotten. Maybe …. 

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Robert Weibezahl’s stories have appeared in CrimeSpree, Beat to a Pulp, Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, Mouth Full of Bullets, Kings River Life, and the anthology, Deadly by the Dozen. He has been a Derringer Award finalist for his short fiction and a two-time finalist for both the Agatha and Macavity Awards in the nonfiction category. His two Hollywood-set crime novels, The Wicked and the Dead and The Dead Don’t Forget, feature screenwriter-sleuth Billy Winnetka. Find him at www.RobertWeibezahl.wordpress.com. 

About Moonlight & Misadventure: Whether it’s vintage Hollywood, the Florida everglades, the Atlantic City boardwalk, or a farmhouse in Western Canada, the twenty authors represented in this collection of mystery and suspense interpret the overarching theme of “moonlight and misadventure” in their own inimitable style where only one thing is assured: Waxing, waning, gibbous, or full, the moon is always there, illuminating things better left in the dark. Release date: June 18, 2021 in all e-book formats and trade paperback at all the usual suspects.