Frances Hunter

blog of the author To the Ends of the Earth

 

Frances Hunter's Journal
April 2006

April 27, 2006: The Missouri History Museum

The street was alive with people on foot; sometimes, it seemed that everyone in St. Louis spent half the day jostling up and down the city’s principal thoroughfare. All the stores fronted Main Street, and French Creoles and brash Americans came together daily to hustle for their fortunes. Negroes of all descriptions—dark and light, slave and free—carried on their own trade with wheedling street hawkers touting a variety of produce and goods just unloaded from riverboats. Something was always happening, and Clark enjoyed the constant buzz. He didn’t even mind dodging the dogs, hogs, mud puddles, and wagons and carts dragging merchandise through the streets.

The centerpiece of our visit to St. Louis was the Lewis & Clark Bicentennial Exhibition hosted by the Missouri State History Museum. (Since our visit, the exhibition has toured several cities and is making its last stop this summer at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. This is a must-see exhibit, worth making a special trip.)

It's hard to describe how fabulous the bicentennial exhibit really is. Hundreds of Lewis & Clark documents, artifacts, and works of art are brought together from dozens of institutions, along with amazing Indian artifacts from the various tribes they encountered on the journey. In fact, one of the most noteworthy impressions left by the exhibit is how the Indians share center stage along with the Corps of Discovery.

The overall feeling was one of sensory overload (thank goodness for the exhibition book). Some of the impressions that lingered the most with me were the famous exchange of letters between Lewis & Clark that started it all in 1803; their actual journals and maps; and scientific instruments that they held in their hands. Lewis's Masonic apron was there, stained with blood--his family believes he was wearing it the night he was shot to death along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee. Clark's long rifle provided a poignant contrast with the fragile pair of glasses he wore as an older man. A quilt made for Lewis by his sisters while he was away on the Expedition gave a glimpse into how much this lonely man was loved. From the expedition itself, fascinating surviving artifacts included Clatsop hats and Lewis's botanical specimens.

We spent 2 1/2 hours pouring over the exhibit, then staggered saturated and overwhelmed into Meriwether's, the museum's restaurant. The gourmet Lewis would have approved! We had a yummy and elegant lunch of blue corn catfish with a neat stuffing and veggies, plus blueberry creme brulee for dessert! A great meal by any standard and by far the best eating we experienced in St. Louis.

We spent a little time looking at the museum's other exhibits about old St. Louis and the 1904 World's Fair. I would like to return to enjoy these again when I was not so full of looking. We spent a little time looking around Forest Park before making our way back to the hotel on the light rail along with hundreds of baseball fans.

By this time it was five o'clock and we were tired. Downtown was packed, so we simply ducked into a TGI Friday's and had a simple meal.

The opportunity to see the Bicentennial Exhibit was a once-in-a-lifetime privilege that I will never forget.

April 19, 2006: In the Footsteps of Lewis & Clark - The Last Journey

The journey of Lewis and Clark across the continent from 1803-1806 is one of the most compelling human dramas in American history. We've been fortunate to follow in their footsteps on two great trips, following the Lewis & Clark trail from Fort Benton, Montana, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. (To read the details, check out our previous trip reports.)

But our novel, To the Ends of the Earth, focuses on a very different journey of Lewis and Clark. In the fall of 1809, just three years after returning in triumph from the West, Meriwether Lewis took another trip. It led him from St. Louis, the most remote outpost on the American frontier, to a lonely inn in Tennessee along a road called "The Devil's Backbone." Lewis's last journey and William Clark's search for justice and meaning form the backbone of our forthcoming novel.

In this next series of posts, I'll share excerpts from the book and our experiences as we followed Lewis and Clark's last journey in a 2004 trip that combined research, vacation, fun, and reflection.

St. Louis and the Gateway Arch

Clark grinned and they continued up Main Street. If you didn’t look too close, Lewis thought, St. Louis possessed a certain charm. The whitewashed houses that rose step by step against the hillside sparkled in the sunshine, and the crumbling old Spanish citadel at the crest of the hill looked mysterious and exotic. But up close, the illusion fell away. Goats, pigs, and dogs wan-dered through narrow lanes littered with refuse of every description, and the houses crowded close to the narrow streets. After having spent so much of his life in open country, Lewis found the closeness oppressive.

Naturally we began our journey in St. Louis. We'd only been to this city once before for a political items collector's show at Union Station, and didn't get to see much else. This time we stayed at the Drury Plaza in the heart of downtown. This is the place to stay for Lewis & Clark fans, as there is a large sculpture of Lewis & Clark, Sacagawea, York, and Seaman in the lobby.

Mary at the Gateway Arch

Time was that downtown St. Louis was a declining, blighted place. With tireless effort by the city, it's been transformed into an attractive and visitor-friendly hub. The center of it all is the towering Gateway Arch, which dominates St. Louis with simple majesty. Its combined beauty and size are almost surreal.

The park that surrounds the arch covers the entire area of old St. Louis, the village that Lewis & Clark once knew. No trace of the old city remains to be seen, but we admired the Mississippi from the approximate spot where William Clark lived. The view of Illinois on the other side leaves a lot to be desired (mostly just a big casino). We both are big fans of John M. Barry's Rising Tide so enjoyed seeing the historic Eads River bridge that is discussed so extensively in that book.

Underneath the arch lies the Museum of Westward Expansion. This is an excellent museum where you can easily spend several hours. As far as Lewis & Clark go, we enjoyed the fine exhibit featuring scientific instruments, weapons, and cooking utensils; large panoramic photos of sites from the Expedition; a cool collection of Indian peace medals; and a creepy animatronic version of Clark that talks to you. It was hard not to think of Westworld.

After a forgettable dinner (I'm positive St. Louis has some great places to eat, but we haven't found them), we returned to the Arch for a spectacular fireworks show that was part of a summer festival celebrating the anniversary of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and St. Louis's survival and spirit. Sitting under the Arch and watching the beautiful fireworks reflected on the Mississippi and the shimmering Arch was a very special way to kick off our exploration of this city.

April 12, 2006: Citizen Tom Paine

First published in 1943, Citizen Tom Paine by Howard Fast is a stirring, tragic historical novel that tells the story of Thomas Paine. For those who need a refresher, Paine was the American revolutionary who helped transform a disorderly and often frightened collection of rebellious colonists into a nation with his series of pamphlets, beginning with the famous Common Sense.

When we first meet Paine, he is a frustrated loser on the verge of middle age, unable to break free of the class system that traps him in menial jobs in London. He forces his way into the office of Benjamin Franklin, the minister from the "colonies," who kindly recommends that he emigrate to America. When Paine, who tells Franklin that he "writes a little," comes to Philadelphia, he haltingly finds his true talent at last: as a propagandist. As the colonies hurtle towards revolution, it is Paine who roars the truth in his little pamphlets, giving courage and meaning to the efforts of the rebels.

For the first time in his life, this shambling, lonely, often drunk man is truly alive. Encouraging, exhorting, burning with anger and determination, Paine plays his vital role without thought of personal gain or a plan for the future. Before reading this novel, I hadn't realized how powerful the Tory forces were in America, especially in Philadelphia, nor how many folks simply sat on the sidelines during the war, wishing the whole mess would just go away. At the war's lowest point, Congress hightails it out of Philadelphia (then the capital) and begins talk of sacking George Washington, prompting this drunken tongue-lashing from Paine:

"...Then I'll say what I would never dare to sober. I'll say, gentlemen, that you disgust me, that you are breaking down all that is decent in our Congress, that you are ready to sell, yes, damn it, sell, and that when you lose Washington, you lose the war--"

Paine took personal responsibility for saving Philadelphia (the capital) from a Tory takeover, an action that may well have saved the country--but at the cost of making powerful enemies. Paine's passion and sacrifice for the cause sets the stage for the tragic second act of the book. Now a throughly committed revolutionary, Paine doesn't know what to do with himself after the American Revolution comes to an end:

Suddenly, not in a day or a week, but suddenly enough after all the years, the war was being won, not over yet, no treaty of peace signed, but nevertheless won, the heartache and hopeless finished, a British army trapped at Yorktown, the British cause in America torn to shreds, a French grant of several millions solving the financial problem, the Tories shattered. Then it was Paine alone and frightened, looking at all this, and wondering, "Where am I? Who am I?"

He is once again a wanderer, but now he has a reputation to uphold. The only real satisfaction he can find is as a revolutionist, on the run from the authorities. He returns to England and tries to spark an uprising there. One passage about his publishing reminded me that some things haven't changed from Paine's day to today:

"...Here the book is set and gone to press, a thousand sheets folded and dry, and you've suddenly discovered that it's treason. Is that your publishing policy, not to read nor to understand a manuscript until it's set and printed?"

Eventually, disillusionment sets in. Paine learns that his desire to change the world is not enough:

It came down like a pack of cards, and in the gray of dawn he ran away. It came tumbling down upon his head because he had not understood that no one thing, no one man, no one cause can move the world. When he wrote Common Sense, he told a people already stirred to war, already fiercely indignant, with arms in their hands, why they had roused themselves in their wrath, why they should go on fighting, and what they were fighting for...With The Rights of Man, it was different; he flung that at the heads of a people totally unprepared...they looked at his book, yearned for freedom, and then went back to their work, their slums, their gin-mills...

Paine then becomes caught up in the French Revolution and is lucky to escape with his head. Falsely accused of atheism for some of his writings in France, Paine lives out his remaining years in America, despised by the very country he helped to create.

While not a jolly tale, Citizen Tom Paine is a compelling, gripping read. Fast himself was a radical, but this novel is no propaganda piece for radical politics. Instead, Fast examines with clear eyes and a compassionate heart the tragedy that befalls a creative man who can't be content with the temporizing and sorry realities of everyday life. This is a timeless story of idealism, its triumphs, and its limitations.

April 5, 2006: The Eureka Moment, Part III

The last few weeks I've blogged a little about our big breakthrough moment in plotting To the Ends of the Earth. This week I wanted to muse a little on the nature of such moments in general and why they do or don't happen sometimes.

As this article on the University of Toronto website discusses, some research has been done into what conditions have to exist to produce breakthroughs in creativity. One condition is that coming up with a great idea means you have to generate lots of ideas, period. Most of the ideas lead nowhere. Others are worth pursuing and lead you on a period of intense focus to see if they're as good as they seemed at first.

The moments of great insight very seldom actually come out of the blue. Instead, they're a form of pattern recognition. This can be difficult to achieve unless you have the freedom to focus and play with ideas, because most of everyday life is consumed with linear thinking rather than puzzle solving.

The weeks, months, or years of work you put into your project represent your partial pattern. Then, in a process that seems sudden, you hit upon the right combination that brings the rest of the pattern into focus. It's not enough to simply work on the project: at the end, all you have is a pile of uninspired work unless you hit upon the pattern that makes something new and special out of that pile.

The research also suggests that there are distinct links between creativity and madness, and that there are things that you can do to foster creative breakthroughs. Some of the best are spending time with other creative people and expanding rather than narrow the focus of your activities. Read and dream widely; ask yourself "what if?" and turn ordinary ideas inside out.

Also, don't be afraid to put the project aside as needed. You must allow yourself to be open to new ideas and to give the subconscious time to work; this is why creative people often speak of "projects being born in their own time." For our second novel, I think we began writing way too soon. We were excited about getting an agent and tried to force the plot for Novel #2 to come. Now we have a first draft but a lot of plot pondering and reworking ahead. We didn't spend enough time just having fun with the ideas. But at least we have that to look forward to for the second draft!

The article has some good anecdotes about great eureka moments in history. The best one is about Sir Paul McCartney, who woke up one morning with a beautiful tune running through his head. It was so fully formed that for a while he was convinced he'd simply heard it somewhere. When he played it for his friends, he realized it was something new, and began to work on lyrics for it. In an example of how the eureka moment means that the real work is only beginning, for weeks he could come up with nothing better than "I believe in scrambled eggs" for the refrain. Eventually he hit upon "yesterday" as an egg substitute, and the rest is musical history.

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