Ever since I can remember, I've always wanted to be a writer. Maybe that's because I was an avid reader from the time I first held a book. The different ideas and scenarios I found in the pages helped me make sense of the world even if they were found in an Agatha Christie mystery.
Mysteries are my preferred reading material. I enjoy the investigation and eventual solution. Maybe it was those reads that showed me how to put facts together to come to a solution, much like the sleuthing done while hunting for facts about the lives of family who lived in the past. In those narratives too, a reader also sees the value of background information, the relationship between people, the usual habits of the deceased and what the larger part of society was into at the time, all have a bearing on the case.
Sometimes though, I read to find out more information about an historic era or events. Recently I picked up a book from my own overburdened shelves to find out more about one of those turning points in history, the plague. It's a time out of the realm of the ancestor hunt for the most part but my ancestors would have survived that time and probably yours did too. It was a horrendous long lasting event that shaped the human psyche.
The author of The Black Death: A Personal History, made an interesting choice in telling the story of the Black Death. Although an expert in the history of the medieval period, he chose to fictionalize his narrative to give the reader a better understanding of the slow creep of the news and how the villagers of a particular place in England reacted. Reading it gives me a more immediate understanding of events and how it felt to the people waiting for this particular calamity to fall. It's masterfully done and a way to bring dusty old documents to life. Would that I could translate the dusty documents I've uncovered in my own research into such a compelling narrative.
Sources:
The Black Death: A Personal History, by John Hatcher, Da Capo Press, Philadelphia,
PA, 2008
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