series – Page 10 – Empowering women through fiction and history.

Teddy Roosevelt in the Gilded Age

Roosevelt was known to pose for many photos that showed of his user-masculine persona. In this one, he’s posing in his hunting clothes, complete with rifle and hunting knife (which, according to the notes on the photo, came straight from Tiffany’s!)

Photo Credit: Theodore Roosevelt as the Badlands hunter by George Grantham Baine, 1885, New York City: w:en:Beao/Wikimedia Commons/PD US

There have been a lot of caricatures and stereotypes of Theodore Roosevelt. For example, there is the impression given of a small man with a big voice in the popular 1944 film Arsenic and Old Lace, where actor John Alexander puts a screwball comedy twist on Roosevelt by portraying him as a loud, aggressive, “take charge” kind of guy as in this scene. Then there is the Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs appears in a fake handlebar mustache and spectacles, waving a “big stick” around.

But Roosevelt was a complex man who had many talents and passions, and his Gilded Age persona (before he became president in 1901) gives us a glimpse at the extraordinary person he was. He was the ultimate Gilded Age hero who met with adversary using strength and eloquence. He threw himself into any endeavor and that included politics, ranching, writing, and war in the last quarter of the 19^th century, all before he entered the White House

Roosevelt, though, was not one of these presidents that came from humble beginnings. In fact, he was born into a family much like the Alderdices, my wealthy San Francisco family in the Waxwood Series. He was born of privilege and ease and, in fact inherited a large sum of money as a young man upon his father’s death that allowed him to live in the lap of luxury the rest of his life. But, like many Gilded Agers, he pursued several careers to prove his worth as a man. Even as a child, he never let the “big boys” bully him. The infamous story of his passion for boxing came about when he was beat up by two older boys on a camping trip. Determined never to allow such a thing to happen again, he took up the “strenuous life,” involving himself in boxing, rowing, and hunting (among other athletic activities) and advocated for boys and men to take up vigorous exercise and competitive sports as a way of developing not only the muscles but the mind as well.

Roosevent’s pre-presidential career was shadowed by political aspirations but his interests were also taken up by other (decidedly masculine) pursuits. He was passionate about naval history and published several books on the subject (including a book on the role of the navy in the war of 1812). This knowledge served him well in 1896, when he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a position that helped usher him into the famous role he played in America winning the Spanish-American War. He wrote other books on hunting (one of which is referenced in False Fathers, the second of the Waxwood Series), conservation, and ranching, many of which were published before he became president. He wrote about these things from experience, as in between his years as a rising political figure in the Gilded Age, he retired to a ranch in the Dakota Territory and lived the life of a cowboy. He also spent a time as police commissioner of New York, cleaning up the rather haphazard ways of law enforcement at that time.

I find it interesting that Roosevelt sought to make a name for himself in the very spheres which the Victorians deemed appropriate for the manly man (I talk about the concept of the separate spheres for men and women in the 19^th century here). From politics to ranching to sports, he went full force into the areas that, at that time, were the true test of manhood. The emerging ideal of masculinity that was abut aggression, success, control, and cunning were largely created by him, both before and during his presidency.

In False Fathers, those same masculine ideals are what drive Jake in his journey toward figuring out who he is after his grandfather dies and he is left, at twenty-one, to shoulder the burden of not only his own coming-of-age, but of his responsibilities as the new family patriarch. The main father figure who guides him in the book, Harland Stevens, is a staunch supporter of Theodore Roosevelt and his manly way of life and quotes him often in the book.

You can find out more information about False Fathers here You can also read more about the series here.

Release Day Blitz for False Fathers (Waxwood Series: Book 2)!

False Fathers Front Cover Photo Credit: Photo Credit: Portrait of a Young Man, Ferdinand von Wright, 1860s, portrait, oil on canvas, Finnish National Gallery: BotMultichill/Wikimedia Commons/PD old 100 expired

Title: False Fathers

Series: Waxwood Series, Book 2

Author: Tam May

Genre: Historical Fiction/Coming of Age

Release Date: December 28, 2019

Sometimes no father is better than a false father.

At nineteen, Jake Alderdice is shy, contemplative, and passionate about art. With the death of his grandfather, shipping magistrate Malcolm Alderdice, he becomes the new family patriarch and heir to Alderdice Shipping and Alderdice Luxury Liner. After two years of mourning, he is ready to add to the family honor just as all the Alderdice men have, but as an artist, not a shipping magistrate. His plans are delayed with his mother announces the family will be retreating to Waxwood, now a fashionable resort town favored by the San Francisco elite, for the summer, fulfilling her father’s dying wish to “go back”.

On the train, he meets Harland Stevens, an enigmatic but charming older man, who has come to Waxwood as chaperone and guide to his college-aged cousin Roger and Roger’s friends. Mr. Stevens, or, as he tells Jake, “just Stevens”, takes an interest in the young man’s ambitions, and introduces him to the town’s most prominent gallery owner. But when Jake takes his paintings for appraisal, the man delivers a fatal blow — Jake’s mythology-inspired paintings are too original for the market of realistic landscape paintings favored by Gilded Age patrons.

Stevens seizes the devastated and wandering Jake and counsels him toward a more aggressive but moralistic path to manhood inspired by Teddy Roosevelt and Thoreau. Jake proves himself to be more studious and serious than Roger and his friends. Impressed with the young man’s determination to take over his grandfather’s business, Stevens introduces him to The Order of Actaeon, a secret society built upon those ideals favored by his idols.

But the path to emotional maturity and masculine identity is, Jake learns, a complex thing in the Gilded Age. Will his journey free him from the Alderdice family illusions, half-truths, and lies that have kept him a child, just as it did his sister Vivian’s six years before? Or will it lead him into the world of Actaeon, where the hunter becomes the hunted?

You can pick up your copy of the book at a special promotional price at the following online retailers:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

B&N

Apple iBooks (iTunes)

Excerpt

The afternoon sun had arrived with its vengeance of rising heat. Jake took out his handkerchief and wiped at his forehead. At the same time, he felt something inside him shiver. He couldn’t help but think of what Vivian would have said, if she had heard the tale. He knew she would have found it one more reason to avoid Stevens, as the story would have struck her as another way in which Roger had been right about the way in which Stevens and his father engineered their will against the will of others.

“I suppose your father understood you.” He put the handkerchief away and made a shot through the hoop in front of him.

As Stevens set down his mallet down, Jake felt the weight of his expectant eyes. “I thought you would change your mind.”

“Change my mind?”

“About needing guidance,” said the redhead. “You needn’t be abashed. Other young men such as yourself have come to me when they needed a father too.”

“I didn’t say I needed a father.” Jake looked at the tussled grass at his feet. “I only meant I would be grateful for any ideas you have for me about my new undertakings.”

“As you wish,” said Stevens, though his eyes sparkled in the sun.

About the Author

Tam May grew up in the United States and earned her B.A. and M.A in English. She worked as an English college instructor and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher before she became a full-time writer. She started writing when she was 14, and writing became her voice. She writes fiction about characters who find their future by exploring their personal past influenced by the time in which they live.

Her first book, a collection of contemporary short stories titled Gnarled Bones And Other Stories, was nominated for a 2017 Summer Indie Book Award. She is currently working on a Gilded Age family saga. The first book, The Specter, is now available, and the second book, False Fathers, will be out in December, 2019. She is also working on a historical mystery series featuring a turn-of-the-century New Woman sleuth. Both series take place in Northern California.

She lives in Texas but calls San Francisco and the Bay Area “home”. When she’s not writing, she’s reading classic literature and historical fiction, watching classic films, or cooking up awesome vegetarian dishes.

Social Media Links

Website

Blog

Facebook

Facebook Readers Group

Facebook Blog Page

Twitter

Instragram

Goodreads Author Page

Amazon Author Page

BookBub Author Page

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Odd Duck: The Character of Jake Alderdice

[Jake Teaser]

Photo Credit: Father and son (Thomas Hopewell and his son Timothy), Frank Buchser, 1861, oil on canvas, Galerie Koller: Botaurus/Wikimedia Commons/PD art (PD old 100)

In an earlier version of False Fathers, my second book in the Waxwood Series, Jake Alderdice tells his mother how people have always thought of him as an “odd duck.” To me, this summarized Jake’s character not only in the story but in the canon of my own writing.

I won’t lie. Writing about Jake was a struggle for me for many reasons. On the one hand, since the Waxwood Series is about the deterioration (physically, mentally, and emotionally) of the Alderdice family, Jake’s story had to be told since he’s Vivian Alderdice’s younger brother. But I was nervous about writing the story of a male main character, even though Jake’s psychological reality was familiar to me.

The story I conceived of Jake in the original 3-part novel about the Alderdice family (which I talk about here) included Jake’s story. In fact, his story is the only one that remains more or less true to my original conception of it from that novel, in the sense that Jake comes of age amidst psychological circumtances many young men usually don’t have to deal with. But I realized when I started rewriting the story that I didn’t really know Jake at all. My own uneasiness about writing male characters (especially central ones) kept me from really digging deep into his character. I knew some things about him — that he was an artist, taught by his grandmother, that his mother had a particular loathing for him she didn’t have for his sister, and that his identity as a man (and the only surviving male of the family) was instrumental to his evolution. I liked him, but he felt remote to me, much more so than his sister Vivian or Gena Payne, the main character in Book 3 of the series.

What gave shape to the character of Jake was the historical time frame. When I wrote the book as contemporary fiction, Jake didn’t seem all that much different from other young men. He didn’t go for “sowing his wild oats,” but so do a lot of young men these days. He was an artist, but so are many others. His mother treated him as if he were a mistake, but so do a lot of other mothers (unfortunately).

So why did the historical context change this? Simply, I started to see Jake’s character against the backdrop of the Gilded Age. The psychology of gender has always interested me, not only regarding women but men as well. When I started researching masculinity in the Gilded Age (some of which I talk about here and here), I realized how complex the idea of what it meant to be a man back then was, almost more complex than what it was to be a woman (since women had some support with the suffragist movement and the New Woman ideal). As I wrote the drafts for this book, I got to know Jake better and understood his struggle to figure out who he was, not only in the shadow of the family half-truths, lies, and myths, but with his own personality and quirks that did not suit the growing ideals of masculinity at the end of the 19^th century.

So he became a character I appreciated and thought I could make readers appreciate as someone looking for what he wanted to be in a chaotic world with contradicting messages and conventions (not unlike young people in our world today). I could see not only his struggles, but also what he learns about his family, those around him who profess to help him, and, most importantly, himself.

To learn more about Jake, you can check out the series page here. To order your copy of False Fathers, which is now at a special preorder price, go here. Plus, you can read a bonus excerpt from the book if you join my readers group here.

The Story of Actaeon

Photo Credit: Diana and Actaeon, Francesco Albani, 1617, oil on copper, Louvre Museum, Paris, France: JarektUploadBot/Wikimedia Commons/PD Art (PD Old 100 1923)

For Book 2 of the Waxwood Series, False Fathers, the mythical hunter Actaeon and the story of Diana and Actaeon become metaphors in the book. At one time in the writing process, they were so important I gave the book the title Tales of Actaeon. I talk about that a bit in this blog post. In order to understand how the metaphor is important in the novel, it’s necessary to know a little about Actaeon and the myth.

In the book, the male secret society that plays a role in Jake’s coming-of-age is named The Order of Actaeon. When I was looking to name the fraternity, I had the idea of using a mythical character that represented some of the fraternity’s values and also lent itself to the theme of masculine identity, which is so prevalent in Jake’s story. I came upon the story of Actaeon, the grandson of Thebes’ founder and first king. I was intrigued by Actaeon for several reasons. Unlike many mythical characters, he is rather a mystery. Little is known about him except that he was a hunter and well trained by the centaur Chiron. He’s identified as a Theban hero, but there is no record of a specific deed or act of heroism on his part (at least, none that I could find). All accounts of him focus on the same thing — his encounter with Diana (Artemis) and his fate in her hands.

Diana was known as the virgin goddess of the hunt. She abhored the idea of marriage, and she and her maidens were none too kind to any man who dared try and court them. Her life was about freedom and independence, as this suited her wild nature. Any man who tried to mess with her or one of her maidens did so at his peril.

The story goes that, one day, Actaeon was wandering in the woods with his dogs and came upon Diana and her maidens bathing naked in a stream. As noted above, Diana and her nymphs were modest ladies, and the idea of a man invading their private sanctuary did not please them. Diana, in her rage, splashed water into Actaeon’s face and cursed him. Almost immediately he began to sprout horns and, within moments, he had turned into a stag. Stumbling back into the woods, he came upon his hunting dogs (which, according to some accounts, number in the 20’s). They did not recognize their master and took him as game, jumping on him and devouring him. Thus, the dogs the hunter had trained to kill had now turned him into the hunted.

The story is generally considered to be a metaphor for human sacrifice to the mythical gods and goddesses. But to me, this is too simplistic a reading. Diana didn’t sacrifice Actaeon — she punished him for daring to impose upon her and her maidens in their moment of nakedness. He compromised their chastity, and this was severe enough to warrant his fate in Diana’s eyes. So there is quite a feminist side to this story when we look at it in modern terms.

How much Actaeon was responsible for his own end has been highly debated. Many versions of the myth show Actaeon as an innocent victim of Diana’s wrath, a hunter who was just wandering around the forest and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, others point out that Actaeon was known for his arrogance and predatory skills (both with game and women), and he may had had a rivalry going on with Diana, since they were both skilled hunters. It would stand to reason that, as hunting is generally considered a “manly” sport, Actaeon would deem himself as the superior hunter to Diana.

In False Fathers, the idea of the hunter plays a role in the theme of masculine identity in the Gilded Age, which is Jake’s is struggle. The fraternity he is invited to join capitalizes on the character of the hunter as part of their masculine identity — cunning, wily, skilled, but also ethical in terms of how and why they hunt. Hunting was more accepted as a necessity for many living in rural 19^th century America than it is today, so it would have been more about utilitarianism than sportsmanship. The Order of Actaeon believes in all this, so much so that hunting is one of their main fraternal activities.

There are also some references to the myth of Diana and Actaeon in the characters of Vivian and Stevens, the older man who becomes Jake’s father figure in the book. Stevens sees Vivian, with her rebellious nature, as a modern-day Diana. In fact, he refers to her often as “Diana with her crown of thorns.” Vivian, in turn, reminds him that the wrath of Diana is nothing to be toyed with, referring to the story of Actaeon’s fate:

[Stevens] then turned to Larissa and Marvina and explained, “I told Jake his painting of his sister matched my impression of Diana, the Grecian wood nymph. I don’t think she cared for the idea.”
“You seem to have forgotten,” Vivian said. “That wood nymph turned a man into a stag and let his own hunting dogs eat him alive.”
Stevens looked at her with amusement and fascination, the turbulence gone. “She had good reason. Actaeon came upon her in the woods, and she was compelled to punish him for violating her chastity. If one has committed a crime or a sin, one must pay for it.”

These metaphors of Diana and Actaeon will come back in Book 4 of the series, Dandelion Children.

To read more about False Fathers, which will be out on December 29, 2019 and is now available for preorder, you can go to this link. I also have an excerpt from the book that involves Jake with The Order of Actaeon in my readers group here. And to read more about the characters in this upcoming book, you can check out the series page here.

Fatherhood in the 19th Century

Photo Credit: A family in a drawing room, artist unknown, 19^th century, Bonhams: FA2010/Wikimedia Commons/PD art (PD old)

As the title of the second book in the Waxwood Series, False Fathers, suggests, the idea of fathers plays a huge role in the story and in the psychological reality of Jake Alderdice, the main character. Like everything else in the Gilded Age, fatherhood was a complex and changing concept in the late 19^th century.

Before the 19^th century, the role of the father was less removed from the family. Since so many Americans lived in rural towns and kept farms or other small ma-and-pa businesses, fathers worked close to home and sometimes even alongside their families. Their involvement with their wives and children was more intimate because of their close proximity to their families.

But this changed in the 19^th century, and the concept of the separate spheres played a role. As industrialization and urbanization became the norm for many families (that is, families moved to the cities, and men worked in larger companies owned by someone other than themselves), men’s “place” was regulated more to the pubic sphere. That is, their attention shifted to the larger spaces of business, law, and finance. As such, fathers were more detached from what went on in the home, though they still maintained a certain level of control as the main disciplinarians and educators of their children. The separate spheres also put women more firmly in private places such as the home. Their role as mothers and caregivers became more important, thus removing fathers even further from the day-to-day workings of the family.

We also want to remember the characteristics of the Gilded Age — success at any price, excess, and flaunting wealth. This was an ideal many American men wanted to achieve and, as such, they needed to put all of their focus on their business and financial endeavors to get it. This didn’t leave them much time or emotional energy to devote to their families. Thus, the identity of the father became one of the bread-winner.

There was something else that factored into the extrication of fathers from family life — public schooling. Up until the 1850’s, sending children to public schools was optional. As I mention above, many Americans were still living in rural areas and tending to farms or small businesses. In this atmosphere, children were often times given a very spotty education that depended more upon when they were needed to help out with the family (for example, on the family farm or during harvest seasons) than upon the idea that children should get a steady education. But in the 1850’s, that began to change as states issued laws that made sending children to public schools mandatory. Although the transition to mandatory public schooling for all states didn’t happen until the late 1910’s, it took the role of educator out of the hands of many fathers.

But while fathers lost their hold on their children as educators, their role shifted to business advisors, mainly for their sons (since most women did not and weren’t expected to work). This put the emotional connection between fathers and sons on a different level, a more authority-oriented level that we can imagine may have been somewhat less affectionate than it had been in earlier times. This is indeed the role various father figures take in relation to Jake in False Fathers. Much of his struggle for masculine identity lies in what his future success in the public sphere will look like. In this, he asks and receives help from a number of older men in the book.

I realize this paints a pretty dismal picture of fatherhood in the 19^th century, since it makes it sound as if men were little more than bread-winners and business advisors for their families. This is not to say that fathers were emotionally remote from their wives and children by any means (as the painting above shows). And, in the 1920’s, when women had earned more of their rights, they began to demand men share in the raising of their families, both physically and psychologically. In turn, men themselves were advocating for this, starting a Fatherhood Movement which, thankfully, has gained a lot of ground today and continues to do so.

To read more about False Fathers (which is now on sale at a special preorder price), you can go here. If you want to find out more about Jake and other characters in the Waxwood Series, read the series page here. And if you’d like to read an excerpt from False Fathers, you can join my readers group.