I would like to welcome Sharon Ewell Foster, author of The Resurrection of Nat Turner to So Many Precious Books.
Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Nat Turner Connection—or How to Win Friends and Enjoy Adventures in the Blustery Northeast
A March 2008 writers’ residency at the Vermont Studio Center led to an unexpected friendship and discovery of an even more unexpected connection between two well-known historical figures—one famous and one infamous.
I rode along on the train to Vermont excited about having private time to work on my novel about Nat Turner—leader of an 1831 slave uprising in Southampton County, Virginia, who was hanged for insurrection. Characters were developing, like one named Will—an actual participant in the uprising who was assumed dead but never accounted for.
Spring would be breaking in Vermont during the time of my residency and Connecticut wasn’t far away. Perhaps, there would be a way for me to make a day trip to the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford. Stowe (best known for creating Uncle Tom’s Cabin, named for the passive slave protagonist) had written a book about Nat Turner, Dred: a Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp. I wanted to see if, reading through documents at the Stowe Center, I might discover the source of her inspiration for changing course and writing about the radical Nat Turner.
As I road along, the view from my train window grew frostier and frostier. What was I thinking? I live in North Carolina and things there were already warming. As geographically challenged as I am, even I should have known that Vermont would be way too cold for someone like me—even with my Midwestern roots.
It would be warming in Vermont, I had thought, and there would be flowers. Instead, once I arrived at the Center in Johnson, I shivered in my brand new writer’s studio, too cold to think or write.
There was no phone reception to make research calls and I was bombarded by the quiet: we were on silence in the writers’ studio. All I could do was sit in front of my laptop and shake while my teeth chattered. I wondered if I would survive my month-long residency.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I should have been grateful. But I was too cold to consider gratitude. I enjoyed the interaction of artists there, but I was freezing. Outside my window, where I had imagined there would be spring grass and flowers, a frozen stream taunted me and told me to go home.
Later that first evening, bundled from head to toe and looking like a Victor Hugo character, I dragged myself into the dining hall. Even if the weather was getting me down, I was willing to slide along on the continuous sheet of ice outside to get inside what looked like a beautiful red barn to taste the delicious food at VSC.
I filled my plate, found a place to sit, unwrapped myself, and then, while eating, began to do what novelists do: eavesdrop. I was drawn to the conversation of this raspy voiced, green-eyed, wisecracking redhead who was regaling a table of folks with wild stories. I liked her immediately.
We hit it off and I nicknamed her Headliner. Her real name is Deidre Wood and she’s a high school teacher in Long Beach, California. She’s also the author of several teen novels (I think they ought to be adult novels about teens, but who am I?) that she’s shopping.
Headliner flitted happily about VSC as though she weren’t from warmer climes. She loved the center, cold and all, and often walked around coatless. Maybe she found the two-week residency less daunting. For the time she was there, she was my primary source of entertainment—we clattered around giggling and causing havoc.
On the night before Headliner was scheduled to leave, as I shivered in my studio, I had a thought of clarity: I should leave with her. I should hitch a ride with her to the local train station and ride back home where I could continue work on my novel. I ran back to my room and started packing my suitcases like Frankie from Carson McCuller’s The Member of the Wedding.
The short ride to the local train station became a brief jaunt to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls (I told you I was geographically challenged). It felt like I was Thelma and she was Louise, or vice versa.
As we rode along, I read chapters to her from The Resurrection of Nat Turner. On the way to the train station, after looping through Canada, we made our way to Albany, New York, to see Harriet Tubman’s home. While there, we met two of Tubman’s great grandnieces.
It was a blast and Headliner had a great idea: Since we were on the road, she might as well give me a ride to St. Louis—I could catch a plane home from there. And—to bribe me I think—she agreed that since we were out, we might as well swing by the Stowe Center. I felt like the citizens of Whoville when all their Christmas presents were returned.
We toured the Stowe House and the nearby home of Samuel Clements. Headliner was a good sport (I’m pretty she got demerits in elementary school for bothering her neighbors) trying to entertain herself while I searched for a Nat Turner/Harriet Beecher Stowe connection.
Just as Headliner was about to bounce off the walls for the 40th time, I found it: a reference to an 1856 letter from Stowe to the Duchess of Argyll. In the letter, Stowe (who my daughter says has become my new BFF) talked about the book Dred and said she was writing 20 pages a day.
Twenty-pages a day! Her muse must have been working overtime. Then amongst the notes I found the source of her inspiration: a runaway slave named William.
William? Could this William be my Will from Southampton County? The letter said she met William in Boston, a town known for harboring fugitives. Stowe talked about her fascination with him. It was enough to set my novelist heart aflutter.
I leapt from my seat. Headliner cheered! I thanked the curator, Elizabeth Burgess, then I skipped to the car so Headliner and I could continue our journey.
Because of that find, I wove not only Will but also Harriet Beecher Stowe into The Resurrection of Nat Turner. Stowe has become kind of tour guide leading readers through the novel. (Actually, like Stowe’s Dred, The Resurrection of Nat Turner is a novel in two parts. Part 1: The Witnesses releases in August 2011, in time for the 180th anniversary of Nat Turner’s uprising.)
Vermont Studio Center inspired me after all. In Resurrection, I describe a stream fighting with the ice that above it—the view from my studio window. My residency there also got me nearer Connecticut, where I was able to make the Stowe/Turner connection. Just as sweet, it gave me the opportunity to make a new friend for life.
Sharon Ewell Foster is author of seven novels including the Christy Award-winning Passing by Samaria and the Historical Novel Society editor’s choice selection, Abraham’s Well. Her eighth, The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part 1: The Witnesses, will release August 2nd. You can connect with Sharon on Facebook or at her website: www.sharonewellfoster.com.
Publishers Weekly review excerpt: [The Resurrection of Nat Turner is] “fast-paced . . . nearly flawless . . . riveting and expertly told by an inspired, practiced storyteller.”—Publishers Weekly
Book Description:
Leading a small army of slaves, Nat Turner was a man born with a mission: to set the captives free. When words failed, he ignited an uprising that left over fifty whites dead. In the predawn hours of August 22, 1831, Nat Turner stormed into history with a Bible in one hand, brandishing a sword in the other. His rebellion shined a national spotlight on slavery and the state of Virginia and divided a nation’s trust. Turner himself became a lightning rod for abolitionists like Harriet Beecher Stowe and a terror and secret shame for slave owners. The truth has been buried more than one hundred years . . .
In The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part 1: The Witnesses, Nat Turner’s story is revealed through the eyes and minds of slaves and masters, friends and foes. In their words is the truth of the mystery and conspiracy of Nat Turner’s life, death, and confession.
The Resurrection of Nat Turner spans more than sixty years, sweeping from the majestic highlands of Ethiopia to the towns of Cross Keys and Jerusalem in Southampton County. Using extensive research, Sharon Ewell Foster breaks hallowed ground in this epic novel, revealing long-buried secrets about this tragic hero.
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