I have garnished an appreciation for ‘natural disaster’ stories – mostly via motion pictures or tv adaptations since I was a young child. I credit this to being surrounded by natural disasters in a region of the United States frequently plagued by everything you can think of save earthquakes, such as the one at the center of what went wrong in San Francisco in ‘1906’! I’ve survived my fair share of tornadoes, hurricanes, severe lightning storms and have been downwind of impressive forest fires which blocked out sunlight and daylight in equal measure. Nature has a way of imparting it’s fury on us at times where I tend to think we’ve missed a lesson somewhere about minding our actions and being more respectful towards the environment we’re meant to be stewards.
The heart of the story within in ‘1906’ is not entirely centred on the quake itself, but the back-story of what was happening in the city – at the corruption and the actions of others who set into motion a spiraling vortex of destructive damages that would lead to the greatest cost of the event itself. I wanted to give the author a chance to explain his approach to lending a literary voice to this event and to the circumstances surrounding it; as to best introduce the inspiration behind the novel and the story which has led to changing hearts and minds about what truly was the truth about the losses lost that fateful year.
Lend your heart and mind to the truer story behind the fictional account and I hope you might become inspired to read ‘1906’ as much as I was myself. Some stories simply need to be told in order for History to acknowledge the truth that was simply hidden from sight – generation to generation – after faded memories erased it from being remembered.
Every disaster has a backstory, none more thrilling than this one. Set during the great San Francisco earthquake and fire, this page-turning tale of political corruption, vendettas, romance, rescue—and murder—is based on recently uncovered facts that forever change our understanding of what really happened. Told by a feisty young reporter, Annalisa Passarelli, the novel paints a vivid picture of the Victorian-era city, from the mansions of Nob Hill to the underbelly of the Barbary Coast to the arrival of tenor Enrico Caruso and the Metropolitan Opera. Central to the story is the ongoing battle—fought even as the city burns—that pits incompetent and unscrupulous politicians against a coalition of honest police officers, newspaper editors, citizens, and a lone federal prosecutor.
With the appeal and texture of The Alienist, Carter Beats the Devil, and the novels of E. L. Doctrow, James Dalessandro weaves unforgettable characters and actual events into a compelling epic.
The topic I pitched to Mr Dalessandro about his novel ‘1906’:
How did you take the scale of the disaster and purport it through the dramatic narrative arc which became the embodiment of the story behind ‘1906’? What did you instinctively want to focus on in order to provide a grounding of depth but also the humanistic response to the tragedy and it’s aftermath? Did anything surprise you whilst you were researching the back-story for the novel?
I have been a devotee of historical fiction since age 12 when I began reading Leon Uris – Battle Cry, Exodus, Mila 18. I discovered historical detail and human struggle missing from my classes and textbooks. I was transported, an eager party to the events unfolding in the pages.
All epic historical fiction needs a narrative arc, a dramatic spine anchored in an ever-evolving human struggle. Ordinary person, extraordinary events. The Civil War needs Rhett and Scarlett; California’s ascendance as the last beacon of the American dream requires Steinbeck’s Adam Trask and Tom Joad.
In my new home of San Francisco, I had a window seat on the murders of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, and the equally appalling 3 ½ year prison sentence of their killer, Dan White, of the infamous “Twinkie Defense.”
I set out to write my first novel, Bohemian Heart by updating the Noir detective thriller to contemporary San Francisco, where it was born in the Remington of Dashiell Hammett. I co-mingled a P.I. yarn with my outrage over the “official story” surrounding the assassinations of Moscone and Milk. The reviews and reader response were marvelous, the sales far less so.
Instead of using the same character – Frankie Fagen, my long-haired, opera loving motorcycle riding private detective of Bohemian Heart – to spin sequel after sequel, I made him the last of five generations of honest cops who had battled San Francisco’s rapturous corruption since the Gold Rush.
I made his grandfather and granduncle into principal characters in 1906.
I needed a story worthy of them. I got my wish when I read Denial of Disaster by San Francisco’s historian emeritus, Gladys Hansen. I discovered the greatest disaster in American history, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, was also the object of the biggest lies and cover-ups in our history.
Gladys reported that the official death count of 478 was an attempt to mitigate the scope of the disaster – the real death count is over 6,000. The official propaganda told us that the Army marched into the city, maintained order and fought the fire. What they actually did was get drunk on the job and shoot hundreds of innocent people as suspected looters. Their use of dynamite on hundreds of wood frame buildings only spread the fires as the flaming debris rained down in every direction.
Great fodder for a historical epic. But what’s the story? I next discovered that one day before the disaster struck on April 18, 1906, the entire city administration – mayor, political boss, all eighteen members of the Board of Supervisors and half the city’s judges – were about to be arrested in the biggest corruption probe in American history. The plot had been hatched in the President Theodore Roosevelt’s office six months earlier.
Roosevelt sent his best detective and best prosecutor to help crusading newspaper editors and reporters and a cadre of tough, honest cops in the reform effort.
Then the San Andreas Fault intervened, a 7.9 magnitude temblor along a 300-mile fault line that destroyed every town and city in its path and proximity. The resulting fires burned for three days – aided by the military’s use of dynamite.
The men about to be indicted used the chaos to strike back at their enemies, destroying evidence collected for the indictments. They also saw a chance to rehabilitate themselves, crafting felonious narratives of their heroic efforts preventing greater death and destruction.
It was all a lie, and I had to bust them, to use fact-based fiction to upend the aberrant fiction of the “official story.”
I needed a key character to bridge the chasm between my factual and fictional crusaders and the factual criminals who helped destroy the wildest, wickedest city in North America.
I had a ton of men. I had testosterone enough to drown us all. I needed a female voice, a feminist/socialist/fearless crusader who could slalom between the warring camps with equal stature in both.
There was a well-known theater and opera critic at the “Bullet” newspaper, whose editor, Fremont Older, was the instigator of the entire corruption probe. I changed her name. I changed her purpose. I used her presence in the fancy opera and theater boxes, enduring city power brokers bragging about the magnitude of their graft. She would be the key figure in gathering information against them. I called her Annalisa Passarelli – names borrowed from the daughters of two close friends.
For a voice, I had her emulate the legendary New York World reporter, Nellie Bly, who influenced a cadre of young women journalist worldwide. Bly infiltrated mental institutions, baby peddling rings, forced prostitution rings and dozens of other criminal organizations to foment real social change.
Bly did it with a unique writing style: reporting on the events in the third person and then adding her own first person feelings and observations. It was roundly criticized by some and embraced by the majority.
My fictional Annalisa Passarelli suffered a similar fate. Not every reader understood or accepted the shifting narrative, though she tried – I can always blame this on her – to explain this in the forward and afterward, with several reminders in between.
Being different comes with a price. Annalisa was happy to pay it. I’m happy to give her both credit and blame.
As best I understand it all, that’s a decent approach to Historical Fiction. I do not believe in Historical Fraud. What liberties we take, what fictional characters we imagine, should be to put the little person back into the story, to fill in the historical blanks.
I wanted, as much as anything, to paint that glorious and dangerous city that is no more. For that I’ve also been criticized, but I’m convinced that without knowing what we once had, we could never measure its loss. Mine is more than an earthquake tale: it is paradise and purgatory lost, and I stand by it.
I’m happy with the results, and the fact that the late great city of San Francisco – we now inhabit a much different version – has been resurrected. At least for a few hundred pages.
In the ultimate good fortune, we might even correct a bit of history – the lie most commonly agreed upon.
In 2005, our Board of Supervisors voted on my resolution and unanimously set aside the official death count of 478. They now recognize a figure of 3,000+, which has been universally embraced.
Ironic, no? A work of fiction helped change a city’s history.
p.s: May I also suggest that readers take a gander at “The Damnedest, Finest Ruins,” my documentary on YouTube, where they can see restored silent film footage, previously unseen photos, and hear the restored voice of the legendary tenor Enrico Caruso, who sang at our opera house five hours before the disaster struck.
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Similar to blog tours where I feature book reviews, as I choose to highlight an author via a Guest Post, Q&A, Interview, etc., I do not receive compensation for featuring supplemental content on my blog. I provide the questions for interviews and topics for the guest posts; wherein I receive the responses back from publicists and authors directly. I am naturally curious about the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of stories and the writers who pen them; I have a heap of joy bringing this content to my readers.
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2016.
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