Writing Uncertainty in Uncertain Times

In the period since WWII and the Cold War, it is doubtful that we have a frame of reference for the uncertainty with which people lived in the past. Until the unprecedented danger and constrictions of COVID-19, our era, in contrast to previous history, has come to expect that life is fairly free of dangers, other than perhaps those we inflict upon ourselves, severe illnesses, and, more recently, mass shootings.

My generation suffered through mumps and measles, which made us very sick. There were those for whom the results were far more dire. I had rheumatic fever as a child. Smallpox had been eradicated by then through vaccination. The great fear was polio. One girl in my hometown lived her life in an iron lung. A boy at a sleepover woke totally paralyzed and later died. By the time I reached fourth grade the Salk vaccine ended those fears.

There are still terrible things that threaten us: birth defects, mental and emotional disorders, and cancer. There is still an occasional incidence of something once highly epidemic; my husband contracted cholera from eating a contaminated raw oyster. These events tend to affect individuals, not whole societies, entire countries, let alone the world.

When we look at historical settings of whatever century or period, humanity lived with the constant and immense uncertainty of disease and conflict. Families tended to be large and it was not unusual for at least one child to die. Children and adults contracted deadly, contagious disease as common events. The fearful uncertainty we are experiencing at present, along with a certain helplessness, was familiar to our ancestors. The plague, the pox, typhoid, yellow fever, and the Spanish flu killed without mercy, nor regard for station. 

We often read historical fiction without an awareness that these characters lived with an underlying fragility of life. If we read a novel set in the midst of catastrophic epidemics or war on home soil, we may feel knowledgeably curious, but without experiential connection. We do so because we have no experiential connection. Until now. COVID-19 has shifted something foundational for us.

The current epidemic brings with it for me the fear of the virus, to be sure. Miraculously, I am aware of goodwill and kindness from others at an assuring level. But as the pandemic continues to spread, I also encounter those whose fear unfortunately turns to blame, hatred, and accusation. In the presence of unprecedented political and cultural division, I now see the beginnings of an unwarranted divide around the virus. 

As a writer, I have begun to feel on a different level what the characters experienced in my Civil War novel, THE ABOLITIONIST’S DAUGHTER. Southern Abolitionism, little-known even at the time, was more prevalent than most realize. Because of the conflict its principles created, most work of Abolitionism was done in secret. Manumission, or the freeing of slaves, had been made a crime, as was educating them. The price for doing right could be untold. The divisiveness within communities, even families, became rampant.

As COVID-19 mounts, I experience a disturbing fear, actually greater than of the virus itself, of an underlying vicious conflict between neighbors in my small community. The experience imbues a keen awareness of the foundational feelings my protagonist, Emily, and her father must have lived with in a frontier community that could and would turn on them. The war comes with its horrendous injury, death, bloody amputations, and disease, the pestilence of fleas and other insects, and prisoner-of-war camps, rampant with contagion. All of this was in my characters’ awareness, if not in mine as I wrote. 

My novel-in-progress, delves into the intersection of two women’s lives, both alone, both having lost their men. I knew that one, then both, would become passionately invested with work at an orphanage. In my research, I was astonished to learn the huge number of orphans in 1900 in New Orleans due to the ravages of yellow fever.

With this current pandemic, I understand at a different level the uncertainty with which people lived: the realistic possibility of losing family members and the burden on institutions to meet the crisis. Both characters have lost not only husbands, but infant sons, though in the novel the cause of these deaths is uncertain. There is mystery here, but there is more. There is the deep uncertainty of life that arises at the forefront of how we experience life.

Writing in this time has changed my outlook on many things. I have cleaned out closets and drawers, divested myself of things I once considered important. Staying at home in confinement, I think how much more time I have for writing.

Yet when I sit to write, I find myself involved on social media, often with other writers who are lamenting how blocked they feel, how they are procrastinating in this time. On the upside, this shared experience reassures me when I feel personally inadequate; I am in good company, all of us struggling together. 

One of the women in my novel-in-progress is overwhelmed by the massive, ornate structures she encounters in Chicago. She wonders whose hands carved and molded the trims, whose hands worked the stained glass. Who were these artists? They did this work, yet their doing is forgotten, faded quickly into the larger expanse of history. She wonders if her own doing makes any difference in the scale of time.

During the present crisis, we face a renewal of a foundational uncertainty of life, not just ours, but globally. As writers we may wonder if what we do is of importance in relation to COVID-19. What do our words mean in the face of predicted long-range threat and the rising toll of sickness and death? How do we write in such times? Does our writing make a difference? It can by encouraging deeper empathy, compassion and hope.

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Diane C. McPhail is an artist, writer, and minister. In addition to holding an M.F.A., an M.A., and D.Min., she has studied at the University of Iowa distance learning and the Yale Writers’ Workshop, among others. Diane is a member of North Carolina Writers’ Network and the Historical Novel Society. She lives in Highlands, North Carolina, with her husband, and her dog, Pepper.

Find out more about her on her website https://www.dianemcphailauthor.com/

THE ABOLITIONIST’S DAUGHTER

On a Mississippi morning in 1859, Emily Matthews begs her father to save a slave, Nathan, about to be auctioned away from his family. Judge Matthews is an abolitionist who runs an illegal school for his slaves, hoping to eventually set them free. One, a woman named Ginny, has become Emily’s companion and often her conscience—and understands all too well the hazards an educated slave must face. Yet even Ginny could not predict the tangled, tragic string of events set in motion as Nathan’s family arrives at the Matthews farm.

A young doctor, Charles Slate, tends to injured Nathan and begins to court Emily, finally persuading her to become his wife. But their union is disrupted by a fatal clash and a lie that will tear two families apart. As Civil War erupts, Emily, Ginny, and Emily’s stoic mother-in-law, Adeline, each face devastating losses. Emily—sheltered all her life—is especially unprepared for the hardships to come. Struggling to survive in this raw, shifting new world, Emily will discover untapped inner strength, an unlikely love, and the courage to confront deep, painful truths.

In the tradition of Cold Mountain, The Abolitionist’s Daughter eschews stereotypes of the Civil War South, instead weaving an intricate and unforgettable story of survival, loyalty, hope, and redemption.

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