Guest Blog: Alex Bledsoe
I'm pleased to introduce one of my co-contributors to the new Haunted anthology, Alex Bledsoe. When we were chatting about how to promote the new book, a few of us chatted about guest blogging, and Alex volunteered to do a post here. I hadn't read Alex's work previously, so I immediately went to his site and found out that he's the author of novels such as fantasy Sword-Edged Blonde (a title I think is made of win), vampire tale Blood Groove, and his new Celtic-folklore influenced The Hum and the Shiver. Since the last is newest -- and relates most closely to our usual mythology theme -- I asked him to talk a bit about the concept behind the novel. I hope you all enjoy it and (like me) get a chance to check out his fiction!
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THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH AND THE TUFA
by Alex Bledsoe
My novel The Hum and the Shiver deals with a mysterious group of people living among the Appalachian mountains of East Tennessee. They have a distinctive physical appearance (jet-black hair, darker-than-normal skin and unusually perfect teeth), a profound relationship with their music, and a history shrouded in contradiction and secrets. I call them the Tufa.
The novel tells of a rebellious Tufa girl who leaves home to join the Army, then must return after being seriously injured in Iraq. She has to find her place again in her family and among her people, where since birth she’s been prepared for great things.
To create the Tufa, I looked at the true stories of the Melungeons, who genuinely are an isolated, distinctive group living in Appalachia. But because I intended to write a fantasy set in modern times, I didn’t want to use something so real. I needed room to bring in magic.
Instead, I imagined a group like the Melungeons, forced from their ancestral home and settling in the mountains because of the similar terrain. After all, the real Scotch-Irish settlers did that very same thing. At first the Tufa were able to stay hidden, but as technology and populations grew, it became impossible. So they decided to hide in plain sight by passing for normal human beings. They drove trucks, watched TV, used computers and farmed with tractors. Occasionally they intermarried with other races. Some of them left home, but the majority of them stayed. And for the most part, this approach worked and the world ignored them.
A touchstone for my writing--both in its contents, and the tale of its composition--was Robert Kirk’s supposedly nonfiction book, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies, written in 1691. Kirk, a minister with an unusually sympathetic view of the supernatural, was supposedly captured by the fairies for publicizing their secrets, and never seen again. While the truth of this can’t be established, the power of the story is undeniable: mess with the fairies at your own peril.
I wanted to embrace that element of danger, something we’ve bled out of what we now refer to as “fairy tales.” The supernatural is always dangerous, and the Tufa are no exception. They will try to hide, to dissemble, and even to agree with a falsehood to avoid scrutiny. But back them into a corner, force them to acknowledge their true nature, and they will fight back, just like the fairies encountered by Reverend Kirk.
Kirk also detailed the various societies among the “Good People,” as he called them. I created a mostly unseen structure for the Tufa, with a loose system of government and a sense that certain tribal divisions are intrinsic. In this first book the reader learns about one particular aspect of their society: a governing body called the First Daughters.
I call The Hum and the Shiver a “gravel-road fantasy,” as opposed to “urban fantasy,” since it takes place in the contemporary world but not in the city. Its roots, though, go back as far as the human belief in magic. They represent a modern version of those ancient and mysterious “Good People.”
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THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH AND THE TUFA
by Alex Bledsoe
My novel The Hum and the Shiver deals with a mysterious group of people living among the Appalachian mountains of East Tennessee. They have a distinctive physical appearance (jet-black hair, darker-than-normal skin and unusually perfect teeth), a profound relationship with their music, and a history shrouded in contradiction and secrets. I call them the Tufa.
The novel tells of a rebellious Tufa girl who leaves home to join the Army, then must return after being seriously injured in Iraq. She has to find her place again in her family and among her people, where since birth she’s been prepared for great things.
To create the Tufa, I looked at the true stories of the Melungeons, who genuinely are an isolated, distinctive group living in Appalachia. But because I intended to write a fantasy set in modern times, I didn’t want to use something so real. I needed room to bring in magic.
Instead, I imagined a group like the Melungeons, forced from their ancestral home and settling in the mountains because of the similar terrain. After all, the real Scotch-Irish settlers did that very same thing. At first the Tufa were able to stay hidden, but as technology and populations grew, it became impossible. So they decided to hide in plain sight by passing for normal human beings. They drove trucks, watched TV, used computers and farmed with tractors. Occasionally they intermarried with other races. Some of them left home, but the majority of them stayed. And for the most part, this approach worked and the world ignored them.
A touchstone for my writing--both in its contents, and the tale of its composition--was Robert Kirk’s supposedly nonfiction book, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies, written in 1691. Kirk, a minister with an unusually sympathetic view of the supernatural, was supposedly captured by the fairies for publicizing their secrets, and never seen again. While the truth of this can’t be established, the power of the story is undeniable: mess with the fairies at your own peril.
I wanted to embrace that element of danger, something we’ve bled out of what we now refer to as “fairy tales.” The supernatural is always dangerous, and the Tufa are no exception. They will try to hide, to dissemble, and even to agree with a falsehood to avoid scrutiny. But back them into a corner, force them to acknowledge their true nature, and they will fight back, just like the fairies encountered by Reverend Kirk.
Kirk also detailed the various societies among the “Good People,” as he called them. I created a mostly unseen structure for the Tufa, with a loose system of government and a sense that certain tribal divisions are intrinsic. In this first book the reader learns about one particular aspect of their society: a governing body called the First Daughters.
I call The Hum and the Shiver a “gravel-road fantasy,” as opposed to “urban fantasy,” since it takes place in the contemporary world but not in the city. Its roots, though, go back as far as the human belief in magic. They represent a modern version of those ancient and mysterious “Good People.”