Frances Hunter
blog of the author To the Ends of the Earth
Latest Book News!
To the Ends of the Earth
now available
everywhere
Patronize these fine bookstores if you are in the area:
Austin, TX - BookPeople
Billings, MT - Borders Books and Music
Washburn, ND - Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center (Fort Mandan)
Nebraska City, NE - Missouri River Basin Lewis & Clark Interpretive
Center
Our book is now available in e-book format for Kindle and Mobipocket.
A reader's guide for book club discussion is now available.
We're working hard on the new novel and have completed nineteen chapters. So far, so good.
Current State of Mind
Lots happening with my mom and dad. It looks within a few months, they'll
be living together again at the assisted living place. In the meantime,
we have to get the house ready to sell. What a gargantuan task that
will be, and a sad one. But it has to be done.
Watched a good movie called "The Hoax." Richard Gere played
Clifford Irving, a writer who hoaxed his publisher and the whole world
when he purported to be assisting Howard Hughes with his autobiography.
The greed and self-delusion of the publishing industry is hilarious,
and Gere and his costar Albert Molina are great as the writers who go
too far.
- Reading:
Backbone of the World - The River of Doubt
Music:
Paul Machlis
Timothy Seaman-
Movies:
The Hoax
Monte Walsh
21 Up
Divided We Fall
Nightmare Alley
Frances Hunter's Journal
May 2008
Winner, Violet Crown Award for Fiction
Silver Medal Winner, Independent Publisher Book Awards
Finalist, Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year Awards
On Meriwether Lewis's last journey, he was accompanied by a servant named John Pernia. Not much is known about the real-life Pernia, not even his age or his race--he's referred to as Creole, Spanish, or mulatto. For the purposes of our novel, we wanted to set up a conflict with York, the African-American slave of William Clark, so we made Pernia a free black from New Orleans who lords his status over poor York.
One word we wanted Pernia to be able to use was "cracker" to refer to whites. It turns out "cracker" has a long history dating back for centuries, before the United States or even the Thirteen Colonies were dreamed of. According to the always-outstanding Word Detective, "cracker" is derived from old British slang in which "to crack" means to brag or boast. A cracker was a braggart. The word was in use in this sense way back in Elizabethan times and appears in Shakespeare's King John. It survives today in the phrase "crack a joke."
By 1766, the word was morphing into its present meaning. A man named Gavin Cochrane reports in a letter that outlaws called crackers were operating in the southern colonies. "I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia, who often change their places of abode." These crackers arose from the Scots-Irish pioneers and former indentured servants who had been pushed out to the frontier by lack of opportunity along the seaboard.
By the early 19th century, the nickname "cracker" had become generalized to southern whites in general, especially those of low social status.