The hard split of the history market into two severe categories, “popular/commercial” and “academic/scholarly,” has obscured broader possibilities for historical authors.  Attacking 1776 as entertaining, consensus history wrapped in a traditional, reductionist, over-dramatized narrative will not solve that problem.  But capitulating to the massive power of the commercial market and blindly celebrating the book as the pinnacle of pop history is not satisfactory either.

Instead, historians should confound that rigid split and open the book debate to include, at the very least, the four categories mentioned here.  Fiction and filmmaking, both disciplines as broad as history and as fuzzy in their credentialing, have managed to provide respected and celebrated alternative literary, experimental, and independent outlets even though mega-blockbusters capture (and will always capture) most of the mainstream market (meaning—yes—Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Rave Cinemas, the major corporate publishing houses and Hollywood studios, the reviewers for major newspapers and magazines, and most audiences).  Many literary authors and experimental filmmakers have utilized independent outlets or created their own venues.  They cannot pay the bills with their publishing or ticket sales, but most do not expect to achieve that level of financial success.  They want to be read or watched—and a few manage to poke up through the cement of the mainstream.

For the sake of this blog, I’ll outline basic parameters for four historical categories.

• Traditional Popular History (TPH) includes any books written using historical research but without the inclusion of historiography or specific citations.  These authors emphasize plot and resolution over analysis and challenging themes.  Plot and narrative construction are both patterned on conventions of the19^th-century novel and biography, so the protagonist appears as a recognizable hero.  Anecdote infuses the story with details rather than with complexities. 1776 fits firmly, successfully, and unashamedly in this category.

• Alternative Popular History (APH) encompasses books that also use historical research but integrate historiography, source information, or research discoveries in creative rather than academic ways.  However, the books usually lack citations or a set thesis.  These authors (Sarah Vowell, for example) will sometimes foreground thematic concepts, symbolism, experimental narrative structure, or character fragmentation, which diminishes the importance of linear plot and pacing.  Some authors might also choose to write an entire book about one piece of evidence, like a diary, map, or image, explored in an imaginative way (such as a Rashomon-style of multiple perspectives) while still attempting a level of narrative cohesion if not direct linearity.

• Imaginative Academic History (IAH) has already developed a solid foundation.  These authors rely on rigorous academic scholarship and a broad understanding of the academic field.  They have extensive graduate training and use its practices.  Yet their writing relies on voice, imagery, and questions of narrative authority—and often grants these parts of the text as much importance as persuasion and argument.  Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s A Midwife’s Tale offers a prime example (and it is interesting to note that Ulrich earned her M.A. in English literature before her Ph.D. in history).  A Midwife’s Tale utilizes a particular narrative device and directly includes the author’s experience while also relying heavily on scholarly research and academic rules of evidence and citation.  The Story of America by Jill Lepore takes another unique approach.  Instead of one, single-line narrative, she uses multiple narratives on the theme of “origin” to reveal not only historical connections within the United States, but also the depth of American reliance on storytelling as a tool for mediating democracy.

• Traditional Academic History (TAH) follows an established formula dependent on a thesis statement clearly presented with evidence cited in every usage.  These authors place an emphasis on accumulating significant information and extensive details to create a new perspective or to add new knowledge to the discipline of history.  The focus of the writing is on organization, clarity, and persuasion rather than entertainment.  These monographs and articles serve a uniquely professional and academic function, like jet-engine manuals or annual corporate audit reports.  They are primarily relevant to those actively in the profession, but a few of their larger concepts and specific terminology seep into popular usage.

In 1776, McCullough makes no attempt to move outside his established role as grandpa of popular history.  He is a franchise at this point, like James Patterson or Jackie Collins or James Cameron.  These people decided to be franchises, and they were successful—so corporations are willing to invest in repeat performances.  1776 stakes another celebratory flag on the Amazon sales page for McCullough, and he deserves it.  He knows his audience, he understands basic historical research, and he uses both to achieve major sales in the commercial market.  As with best-selling genre authors (mystery, romance, thriller), he relies on formula and recognizable voice combined with just enough imagination and a gloss of newness (like “new” sources or a “new” kink in the interpretive angle—in the case of 1776 it’s that Washington represents a fallible yet still phenomenal hero).

Historians who write Traditional Academic History take the same approach.  They know their audience, they understand sophisticated historical research, and they use both to achieve success in the academic market and hope the effort earns them a tenured position.  The rigorous demands of this category do not limit these historians’ success but rather the size of their audience.  Literary authors and independent filmmakers accept that their artistic and intellectual choices reduce their potential audience—traditional academic historians must make the same realization.  And for me, it is always more enjoyable to listen to an author read at a bookstore or a filmmaker share at a festival when they are realistic without bitterness, but always with passion for their creations.

As many book reviewers and historians have noted, McCullough created another of his masterpieces and enriched his franchise with 1776.  The book shares odd details and conjures terrifyingly tactile sensations of life in army camps or on long hikes through cold, dark forests.  McCullough uses his imagination for some of the subtle details, but he relies on intensive research in letter collections, diaries, and some archives to illuminate the historical figures and military maneuvers.  And academic historians know to expect these things from him.  We do not need another review stating the obvious, but 1776 can serve as a platform for expanding the conversation about history books.

Not every author will become a franchise, not every author wants to be one.  Literary writers and independent filmmakers understand this truth.  Historians need to accept it, and if they choose to write either Imaginative or Traditional Academic History and find success—stop complaining about the lack of sales, and celebrate.

Above all, think of life as a prototype. We can conduct experiments, make discoveries, and change our perspectives. We can look for opportunities to turn processes into projects that have tangible outcomes. We can learn how to take joy in the things we create whether they take the form of a fleeting experience or an heirloom that will last for generations. We can learn that reward comes in creation and re-creation, no just in the consumption of the world around us. Active participation in the process of creation is our right and our privilege. We can learn to measure the success of our ideas not by our bank accounts by their impact on the world.

The post Franchising History first appeared on Aimee Loiselle.

Night Catches Us is a film, and it blew my mind in all the right ways. Anthony Mackie is on frickin fire. Smoldering intelligent strong righteous sexy fire.  And you’d think after all the attention for The Hurt Locker, he might have pulled a bigger spotlight onto Night Catches Us.

But this film is challenging as well as entertaining. While I consider that the perfect combination, most American moviegoers are not so interested in the challenge part. Especially any challenge about America’s racial history and its insistent legacy. (Most aren’t interested–I’m not being nitpicky or oversensitive. That’s the way it is.)

So while Night Catches Us entertains, it doesn’t pander. It’s about serious themes.  The influence and sting of family. The way our past can be both comfort and baggage. The ability for anyone, given the opportunity, to abuse power.

And most forcefully, it is about the persistence of police violence against black men, the relentless antagonism it stokes, the family rifts it exacerbates, and how black women find ways to manage with it all.

It is so smart. It is deep and intriguing. It is entertaining and contains a mystery that must be uncovered–who snitched?

But Night Catches Us didn’t get the mainstream attention it deserved.

Maybe Winter’s Bone took whatever mainstream attention rough little indie films could chisel away from the sparkling award circuit. (Because both are good films that tell stories of family and our inability to totally ditch it, or its past.)

Maybe Winter’s Bone gathered more attention because it’s about poor white people and their infighting–rather than about politically active black people, their infighting and their fight. Winter’s Bone doesn’t critique the system as much as explore an unseen part of it. Night Catches Us critiques the system while revealing complex layers.

That’s what makes it a film. It can be discussed many times. Weeks later.

For example, I love the director’s use of a Black Panther comic. It isn’t just a comic–it’s a repeating metaphor with the viewer roped in the same way as Iris and Jimmy (two young characters, each impressionable in different ways).  Then the comic comes alive on screen, as it does in their imagination. Planting its seeds. And we, the viewer, believe that the Black Panthers made those drawings of black men with guns going after pigs in cop uniforms.  But the Panthers didn’t. The comics were planted by the Feds.  By COINTELPRO. But we are tricked, like most people were. Then the viewer gets to walk away. However, the black men and women who romanticize that imagery–like Jimmy does–get jailed, hurt, or killed.

Black men and guns is an American issue. It goes back to the 1600s. It goes back to slave laws.  It goes to Nat Turner and Marcus Garvey and Rob Williams. It goes to the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam and MOVE, and also to NWA and gangsta rap and Boyz N the Hood.  It goes to the rise of the black cop and Amadou Diallo and thug imagery and The Wire and Hurricane Katrina.

But the issue of black men and guns has been separated from textbooks and from the NRA. Instead we’ve been fed simplistic images, like the COINTELPRO comics and COPS television show. We don’t hear complicated conversations about power, rights, access, confidence vs. pride, the limitations of revolution, and the intransigence of institutional violence. Night Catches Us feeds the viewer these challenges with a big spoonful of suspenseful, entertaining sugar. Tanya Hamilton (writer/director) did this drama right. Raw, passionate, intelligent.

And if you didn’t get everything in this blog, I hope it makes you curious enough to watch the film and re-read my random thoughts.

The post Tanya Hamilton Brings (Black) Power first appeared on Aimee Loiselle.

Franzen appears in all the magazines and at every major New York lit event. His name flits across essays and public radio. The man does not need any more press or publicity.

But I must add this comment: based on Franzen’s two most recent novels, he’s Nicholas Sparks for the over-educated, affluent, white American crowd. Family, love, sex, separation, arguments, humor, and melodramatic moments of reconnection and redemption–packed with just enough college references, alternative careers, advanced vocabulary, and a smidge of loose ends.

He made this move intentionally. Franzen was once a striver for the postmodern set–that was the 1990s. In the 2000s, The Corrections and Freedom maneuvered him to the center of the literary mainstream. He decisively shifted away from writing that used the novel to push and explore language, artistry, and the limits of story. And toward writing that uses the novel to tell traditional stories peppered with conscientiously simplified, unthreatening postmodern tics. It’s like American suburban teenagers running around in Che Guevara t-shirts. They’re wearing a consumer representation of rebellion–they aren’t rebelling. It’s just so much easier than actually rebelling though.

This approach sells more books while still attracting critics and literary readers, who demand the appearance of intellectual challenge within the pleasure of seamless, naturalistic narrative. In Franzen’s own interview patter, he’s become “more interested in story”–a novelist’s way of saying more plot-driven and commercial.

Franzen accelerated down this path during the Oprah Book Club Smackdown of 2001 (no, not the “you betrayed millions of readers” guy–he’s a different media manipulator). Oprah chose The Corrections for her book club. Of course the publisher and Franzen accepted the pick and issued new books with the OBC stamp. Only then did Franzen make some comment about the womanly appeal of Oprah and how he felt uncomfortable with the book club. So Franzen got his name all over the media plus got out of his appearance on the daytime talk show (he would’ve felt so tacky and dirty afterward). Very savvy–popular sales and literary cred all bound into one neat package. (But in 2011, it’s Oprah’s last season. Freedom was chosen as the momentous final book, and Franzen expressed appreciation for the historic acknowledgement.)

I am not arguing against Franzen per se. I’m just saying let’s call it like it is. Franzen has gone the way of Grateful Dead posters, girl power, and Miramax. He’s softened the most radical elements of his fiction for the mainstream–it’s where the audience, income, and speaker fees reside.

I don’t particularly enjoy avant-garde or experimental or postmodern or whatever theorists are calling bizarre fiction these days. (As a teenager, I preferred the Rolling Stones to the Ramones, even though intellectually I understood the value of the Ramones’ art and music.) But I guess I have greater respect for authors who take sincere creative risks. I also have great respect for authors of traditional fiction who are obviously writing from their own authentic artistic place without self-consciousness–like Alice Munro.

All that said about “Franzen the Famous Author”–he is a good writer, has a fabulous head of hair, makes an effort to raise attention for women authors, and does amazing work on behalf of birds and their habitats.

The post Not the Next Tolstoy first appeared on Aimee Loiselle.