If you were going to ask me what first percolated an interest to read a densely researched novel about a 7th Centurion monk, I might not be able to fully address the enquiry as whilst I was contemplating hosting this particular novel and author, I had stumbled across another religious historical fiction by way of Taking the Cross by Charles Gibson. Even before my review on behalf of that particular story out of the Crusades, I started to wonder if perhaps I ought to read both: separated only by a few months, and hosted by two different blog tours!
I am a bit of a paradoxical reader as there are moments where I have the inclination to delve into topical research with centuries I barely know a whisper of a breath about and/or I happily take up the challenge to read a well-researched tome of a novel which has a righted place at a University library due to the efforts on behalf of the writer to clarify it’s contents to layreaders who are keenly interested but not as well versed as the one who penned the story! In this way, my best way to explain my interest in The Oblate’s Confession is simply to say, when I read Illuminations by Mary Sharratt (in 2013) I started to gather a prospect of seeking out other stories of cloistered life.
I even elected to broach this particular vein of thought with Mr. Peak in our conversation, as I was curious if others had felt as inclined as I did to understand what might be challenging at first to accept but where enlightenment might touch you as you walk through the text itself. I felt quite inspired about the subject within the novel, even prior to fully appreciating reading it as I wanted to give enough time to Mr. Peak to collect his thoughts on the questions I was asking of him. When I post my book review, I’ll share the interview he gave by radio that gave me the groundwork knowledge of where most of my own enquiries came to light.
I hope his dedication to publishing an enriched historical narrative will find an open-mind in the reader who likes to take on thought-provoking stories whilst immersed in the historical past! As much as I felt quite happy to notice in the author’s acknowledgement sections, he mentioned one of my favourite monks as being part of his own inspiration: Thich Nhat Hanh!
Book Synopsis:
Set in 7th century England, The Oblate’s Confession tells the story of Winwaed, a boy who – in a practice common at the time – is donated by his father to a local monastery. In a countryside wracked by plague and war, the child comes to serve as a regular messenger between the monastery and a hermit living on a nearby mountain. Missing his father, he finds a surrogate in the hermit, an old man who teaches him woodcraft, the practice of contemplative prayer, and, ultimately, the true meaning of fatherhood. When the boy’s natural father visits the monastery and asks him to pray for the death of his enemy – an enemy who turns out to be the child’s monastic superior – the boy’s life is thrown into turmoil. It is the struggle Winawed undergoes to answer the questions – Who is my father? Whom am I to obey? – that animates, and finally necessitates, The Oblate’s Confession.
While entirely a work of fiction, the novel’s background is historically accurate: all the kings and queens named really lived, all the political divisions and rivalries actually existed, and each of the plagues that visit the author’s imagined monastery did in fact ravage that long-ago world. In the midst of a tale that touches the human in all of us, readers will find themselves treated to a history of the “Dark Ages” unlike anything available today outside of textbooks and original source material.
Being able to discover a new thread of historical enlightenment is a healthy pursuit for both writers and readers, yet when I came across your novel for this blog tour, I must confess I was more than curious as to what originally sparked your passion to tell the story? Was it simply to re-inspire a desire to highlight the period of the Dark Ages or was there something you found whilst you were researching the novel you felt deserved to have it’s story told?
Peak responds: I followed a number of different paths to The Oblate’s Confession. First, I became interested in contemplative prayer and wanted to learn everything I could about its earliest forms of expression. This research led me to the desert fathers and early monasticism. Reading about early monasticism, I discovered the Venerable Bede and his magisterial work, A History of the English Church and People. Holding that book in my hands, I realized I had the makings of a great novel set in the 7th century.
If only a portal could be breached to send a letter of gratitude to the Venerable Bede letting him know how impressive his work was on behalf of a 21st Centurion story-teller; he would be properly aghast with delight, I’m sure! I oft-times do wonder if writers and historians of past eras ever receive an inkling of a hint towards knowing how impactful their dedicated work to leave a legacy behind has endured through time but also has inspired hearts to pen new stories and put forth new ideas.
I must admit there is a certain level of interest on my own behalf to read this story, as this novel takes place in residence of a monastery whereas I was already introduced to the life of nuns in my previous readings of “Illuminations” by Mary Sharratt, whereupon one nun has to decide what is more important: compliance or freedom. Do you think the reason stories set behind the walls where lives are lived in a cloister atmosphere are privy to exploration due to how isolated and challenging it is to listen to your one true conscience vs being compelled to comply with the ones who make the rules?
Peak responds: Whenever people choose to follow a lifestyle radically different from the norm, the general population is naturally going to be curious about them. People have long speculated about what goes on behind cloister walls. Add to this that, generally, monks and nuns enter monasteries with the expressed intent of changing themselves—of becoming the person God dreamt they would be—and you have the material for a novel, one that will be populated with interesting characters and attract a ready-made audience of people already curious about the subject at hand.
Hmm, yes I believe this is accurate on one scale of thought, but I was thinking perhaps living in a structured environment where there are rules dictating what you can or cannot do, think or cannot think, and are given chores to undertake that might even be outside your scope of enjoyment — that perhaps in those cloistered environments the hardest part is to keep a reverend mind open to the freedom the soul has over the physical self and how the shortest walk between oppression and freedom is singular within the individual to control. I also felt living a cloistered life within a convent or a monastery yields an confluence of spiritual intuitiveness due to the hours you can spend in full mediation without the worriment of what an everyday person might have weighing on their shoulders that could cut short the growth of intuition.
Your own path to publication was fraught with difficulty in seeking a publisher who would understand the merits of what you were attempting to share with readers, yet you did not let rejection detract from your pursuit of being printed. What do you feel is the one thread of hope towards being published that grounded you rather than becoming jaded within the progress?
Peak responds: You know I would love to claim I didn’t become discouraged when no one seemed interested in publishing my novel, but that would not be true. After several years and untold numbers of rejection letters, I felt it was important for my own mental health to move on. But while I stopped actively sending the book out to publishers, I didn’t give up hope entirely; I continued to put out feelers here and there and I continued to write. It was thanks to this (my publisher approached me after reading some of my poetry in a literary review) that my novel was eventually published. But it is a hard world out there for anyone wishing to get a piece of serious fiction published today. There is no tried and true path to successful publication (unless, of course, you’ve already been published and your work sold millions). I fear there are many, many excellent writers out there today who remain unpublished, discouraged, and, most likely, miserable. God be with them.
I do not look upon the path of a writer to be completely blighted and bleak due to the nature of how manuscripts are accepted or vetted. In fact, despite knowing I’m a writer whose season it is to focus on blogging about the stories which capture my heart and imaginative eye as much as being a book cheerleader — my own outlook for foraging my own path into publishing is simply not this shade of die cast to stone. Honestly, the past year alone I have encountered so many lovely writers who have surmounted challenges within traditional publishing and have inked out a route through Hybrid, Self, or Indie publishing channels that opened my eyes to how many options there truly are for the writer who simply wants to get their stories into the hands of readers. All of which I am referencing were for ‘print books’ not digital releases too!
I believe the dedication you gave to your publisher Ron Sauder in the Author Acknowledgements might have answered this question in full, as your response there was more akin to what I was hoping to find revealed in this conversation. You had a supportive circle around you, encouraging you onwards, and you believed in your story — to me that is first and foremost the best advice for all writers. Own your work and seek out a way to have a circle of support to cheer you on and also to give keen feedback.
I personally adore libraries, and as you will see throughout my blog and bookishly joyful tweeting, I find clever ways to speak about libraries moreso than I do not! Especially considering my blog’s sub-heading is a direct reference to the fact I love to dissolve the hours away whilst wandering inside of a local library or a university library! The joy of knowledge never ends and I was curious as you’ve only worked at a library for a short period of time, what first inspired you to go from patron to librarian?
Peak responds: Money. Not that there’s a lot of money to be made working in a library, but I was desperate for a job. For ten years, while I wrote The Oblate’s Confession, my wife was the only one bringing in a steady income. It was time—it was long past time—to take some of the pressure off her shoulders. And of course, like you, I love libraries, so it was an easy choice to make. Among the many hats I wear at the library, one is columnist. I write the library column for our local newspaper, The Star Democrat. If you’re interested, you can read more about my adventures in library-land at the column’s archive: http://www.tcfl.org/peak
I must admit — you completely surprised me with your answer! As you had mentioned in your Author Acknowledgements how wicked it was to have unlimited access to the library’s collections, therein proving you with further access for your research. I thought perhaps it might have been a balance between seeking out a way to work whilst interacting with readers and writers; even inspiring stories to be found by the bookish souls who enjoy having a library as a second home.
You have an unconventional approach to writing essays on the life inside libraries – I imagine you have a lot of regular readers who find your reflective thoughts to be quite entertaining as they are informative.
After your research lead you to uncover Contemplative Mediation, did you find the art behind the practice to be something you wanted to incorporate into your own life or was it simply a reference point which inspired you to go further into the 7th Century in order to make a stronger direct connection to the story you would eventually write? Did you want any of the characters to use this in their life?
Peak responds: Actually, I began practicing contemplative prayer before I began working on the research that would lead to The Oblate’s Confession. I think the book itself was, in part, an attempt to understand some of what I was experiencing in that form of prayer. And yes, I very much wanted the characters in my novel to practice contemplative prayer, but I found it difficult to write about. Story is everything in a good novel. If it doesn’t help the story, I don’t think a writer should include it. But prayer is not the sort of thing one normally associates with good plot development. To make it work as a significant—and compelling—part of the plot was a real challenge. I’ll let your readers decide if I succeeded.
I am not sure if I fully accept prayer cannot be used as a method of having the plot of a story move forward, as I read both mainstream and inspirational markets on a regular basis, and within those readings I can attest to how well prayer is used and conveyed. I think it depends more on the writer and/or the voice he has given to his characters within the story he has cast out of his imagination.
What was the hardest part of exemplifying the experience of a child entering the monastery without losing the historical accuracy or the visual connection to what he might have seen or lived through back then?
Peak responds: For me, the most difficult thing about writing from a child’s point of view was that I saw my audience as being primarily adults, and adults tend to forget that children think very differently from us. Children work hard at understanding the world around them, constructing what they believe to be rational explanations for what they see and experience. The problem is, much of what they construct must necessarily be wrong. Indeed, from an adult’s point of view, possibly even laughably wrong. But the child doesn’t see it that way. The child takes what he has thought seriously. So how to produce the interior monologue of a child—a child that is often mistaken in his perceptions—without it appearing laughable. And then once you’ve gotten your readers to take the child’s perceptions seriously, how do you make sure that, at the same time, they don’t forget they’re dealing with a child … that despite the fact what he is thinking seems sober, rational, and plausible …he could still very well be mistaken. That was the challenge I faced.
Yes, indeed — how to strike the heart of what you want to convey without limiting the perspective of the child nor having an adult lose interest with the text if you made the wrong presumptions on how best to tie these sections together to the best voice you could grant the child themselves. I think most readers of cognizant of character voice and attributions of how life is processed through the lens of childhood; afterall we were all children at one point in time, and it is never far out of step from who we are today. I think perhaps it is healthy to believe what the child is thinking to be true, even if what is true to them is not quite as true to an adult — this is part of the growth the child will undertake through maturity as much as the reader through the full arc of the story.
What was the strongest takeaway you were left with both before you finished writing the novel and after seeing the final draft go to the publisher? Did your impressions of what you’ve gained through the process of writing “The Oblate’s Confession” change or should I say, did the experience change you? Perhaps having found a deeper understanding for things you might not have realised were inspired out of this particular part of history?
Peak responds: I learned so many things from writing my novel, there is no way I could list them all. But if I had to choose the most important, it would probably be the lesson I learned from the story itself. Writing The Oblate’s Confession, I had an experience common to many novelists, my characters and storyline seemed to want to head off in directions I hadn’t anticipated. Frightening. And of course, at first, you fight it. But when, finally, you give in to the inevitable and follow the story where it seems to be leading you, the experience is at once both terrifying and exhilarating. Terrifying because you haven’t a clue how this is going to work out, how you’re going to resolve all the different layers the story seems to be giving birth to, and exhilarating because, despite your ignorance, unexpected avenues keep opening up before you that, in fact, do (almost miraculously) deliver resolution. It’s as if the story were already out there, whole and perfect and waiting only for you to come along and put it into words. You’re just the servant, it’s the story (whatever or Whoever that is) that really tells the tale.
I’m the opposite of you, wherein I do write intuitively and it doesn’t bother me one iota if my characters want to chance course or take me down a passage of thought I hadn’t predicted would fuse the flow of story with the conclusion I had in mind to give it. I am very spontaneous in life and I would be properly shocked if my characters and stories did not keep me on my toes! However, if your method is more pre-thought out to where you know each connective chapter and pace of character growth, then I could see how frightening that could be because your pen has nearly lead you down a blind alley! You also touched on something I have revealed myself whilst in a conversation with a group author blog — about how we are blessed with creativity and of whom gives us the gift of creating stories out of words that did not exist together until our pens inked them to the page.
How would you advise writers who are aspiring to write historical fiction and find themselves so deep into the research that sometimes the portal into the story becomes a bit obscured. How do you temper the research and tell the story without forsaking the pace of the character’s life?
Peak responds: Research is important. Research is essential. But, as any professional historian will tell you, the past is a moving target. No one ever strikes it dead-on. The moment you set pen to paper, the history you’re writing becomes dated. New discoveries will inevitably cast a new, and different, light upon your subject matter. So, at some point, you have to say enough already and begin writing. If you haven’t done enough research, that will become evident quickly and you must return to the books. If you have done enough, well, then you’re off to the races.
In other words, writing is a bit like approaching a role on the stage or on film through method acting – once the subject and the tangible aspects of the moment are absorbed and understood, you can act freely and confidently because what you need to know prior to performance is already knitted inside you.
Which character surprised you the most in how they appear on the page verse how you envisioned them to be originally? Do you write intuitively as you see the chapters evolve forwards or do you have a methodology where everything is outlined ahead of setting words to chapters?
Peak responds: Perhaps the most surprising character was Stuf, the pagan. Of all my characters, I knew least about him—which is hardly surprising as the 7th century chroniclers whom I depended upon for my research were all Christian monks and, therefore, uninterested in writing about a type they considered disreputable. In any given scene, I never knew for sure how he would behave, except that it would be, from the point of view of his Christian observers, unexpected and irregular. As the story developed, though, Stuf became more important to the tale than I had expected. By the end, I quite liked him. He is one of my wife’s favorite characters.
As for the second part of this question, I have already answered it above. Though I thought I knew how my story was going to play out, it in fact led me in an entirely new direction, the tale becoming something quite unexpected and—at least I hope—enchanting.
I love when persons with historical roots to history itself are strongly intent on finding a way to carve out their niche into a story they can occupy with a joy of inclusion but of whom take their writers off-guard for being so bold as to assert their presence is not only merited but needed! What great folly, indeed for you to find Stuf so beneficial and strong! I liked knowing he was one of your wife’s favourites; those tidbits are not always revealed about which characters your close circle admires, so thank you!
As this is your debut novel, are you going to continue to write in this era of history or are you undergoing a change of era to tell a story set completely outside the scope of religious history?
Peak responds: I have several ideas I’m working on for a new novel, but whichever one I settle upon, I can assure you the story won’t take place in the 7th century. I chose to set my first novel in the 7th century because it fit the story I wanted to tell, not because I had some overpowering desire to write about the 7th century. In my book, story always comes first, and then, depending upon the nature of that story, you pick its setting (or, in most cases, the story itself will require a particular setting). I do have an idea in mind for my next novel but it is still at the formative stage. If I do settle upon this story, it will take place in the near-past (1980s?), with a second story contained within the first that recalls events that took place in the 1920s.
Hmm, your second (potential) novel nearly feels like a time slip where you can cross-over relate two separate eras with one centralised theme of a story. I love those personally! I think you would create a nice juxtaposition if you started the novel in the 1980s and shifted backwards into the 1920s. The past forty years are not often used in historical fiction narratives, especially due to the technical issues of what is considered ‘historical’ or such, but to me, all eras and decades of the ‘past’ I believe are fair game. Afterall, for each decade that has past there is someone who either grew up in the one before it or just after it and perhaps doesn’t know it as well as someone who was older whilst the decade was in full force.
When you seek historical fiction for the joy of reading rather than seeking for extending your knowledge for future novels, which authors and stories whet your palette of interest to consume?
Peak responds: My favorite historical novel would have to be Graham Swift’s Waterland, but I also love Iain Pears’ The Dream of Scipio. I re-read both of them regularly. I thought Alice McDermott’s Someone did an almost eerily-perfect job of evoking its time-period. If you’re just looking for a fun read, I can highly recommend Robert Harris’s Imperium and Enigma.
I honestly have not yet heard of the authors, therefore in case my readers haven’t as well here they are:
- Graham Swift (bio & bibliography) & (book info)
- Iain Pears (bio & bibliography) & (book info)
- Alice McDermott (bio & bibliography) & (book info)
- Robert Harris (bio & bibliography) + (book info) & (book info)
Converse via: #TheOblatesConfessionBlogTour, #TheOblatesConfession, & #WilliamPeak
It was quite lovely getting to talk to Mr. Peak as his debut novel starts to make it’s journey through the book blogosphere! I was quite thankful for his kind responses as they enabled me to give a bit of an engaging conversation to my readers! I look forward to revealing my ruminations and impressions on behalf of The Oblate’s Confession. As I am hosting this interview and a review for my tour stop, I am time releasing both posts a bit apart from one another in order to give you a chance to enjoy both of them separately. I look forward to seeing your notes left in the comment threads for the author and of continuing this bookish conversation on the review after it goes live.
I am most curious what intrigues you the most about religious historical fiction narratives? And, what are you hoping to discover inside them?
The Virtual Road Map for “The Oblate’s Confession” can be found here:
Find all the wicked happy stories coming soon to Jorie Loves A Story:
{SOURCES: Cover art of “The Oblate’s Confession”, author photograph for William Peak, author biography, book synopsis, and blog tour banner were all provided by HFVBT (Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours) and used with permission. Conversations with the Bookish Banner created by Jorie in Canva. Bookish Events badge created by Jorie in Canva. Post dividers by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2015.
Leave a Reply