Archives Beyond the Box

Historical Fiction Writers and the Uses of Collective Memory

Words by Tatiyana Bastet

What, if any, was a domestic servant’s involvement in the 1843 murder of her employer and his housekeeper? Did a 1st century Roman gourmet really commit suicide because he could no longer create and eat food as he desired? How does an elaborate arrangement of bones in a basement inspire something other than a noire narrative?

Archives are increasingly being used by novelists such as Margaret Atwood, Crystal King, and Victoria Dougherty to illuminate a point or period in history that might otherwise go unnoticed. These novelists are not focusing on well-known historical figures or events, but rather the often overlooked perspective of an obscure figure in society, allowing us access to scandals and intrigues of the day. But historical fiction writers are not just looking for diaries, letters, and newspapers; they’re looking to archivists to help them find all they need to write the past into the present. This means photographs, ephemera, historic  architectural plans and details — anything to help the writers recreate a particular space in time inclusive of all sensory perceptions. As Sabina Murray, an historical fiction writer, asserts, “I am a writer who often traffics in historical material. . . half-archeologist, half-Doctor Frankenstein – excavating and animating in the name of literature."

As archivists, how do we best support historical fiction writers while acknowledging that we often don’t hold expertise in specific subjects or time periods— that, in fact, we may be experts in only some of our own institutional holdings, depending on how large and diverse they are? Archival reference may then become a focal point, reframing discovery and interaction with archives as  a collection of experiences and memories rather than a collection of ‘things.’ Archival value, then, is not limited to a traditional definition of paper-based records or manuscripts, or even museum artifacts. Rather, archives may be seen as sites of collective memory that writers can access in order to recreate scenes that evoke memory.

Poignantly, Margaret Atwood describes her frustration with the paper-based past while researching the story of  Grace Marks for her novel Alias Grace, the story of a domestic who allegedly murdered her employer and his housekeeper in 1843. Numerous accounts of what may have occurred are recorded in newspaper articles, trial transcripts, and personal accounts. Considering all the disparate recorded accounts of the murder and the degree of Marks’ alleged involvement, Atwood found it difficult to determine any one narrative that appeared to have more weight than others. Some recollections of the murders suggested that James McDermot — who may have been  Marks’ accomplice or even the primary perpetrator— dismembered the housekeeper and hid the body parts under a washtub. Other narratives suggest that Marks pushed the housekeeper down into the cellar.  Sifting through a myriad of paper-based accounts, Atwood was caught between the notion that “archivists and librarians are the guardian angels of paper” and the limitations of that “paper” in providing necessary details like the size and shape of washtubs or how cellars in rural Ontario were built during that time.  These facts were needed to ground the story in a credible collective memory made accessible to her readers. Unable to reconcile the various accounts, and apparently not being offered other avenues, Atwood created her own version of events. 

A Reference Services Archivist acting  as a facilitator of collective memory, however, might have suggested that Atwood visit a place like Black Creek Pioneer Village, an interactive open-air museum built close to where Grace Marks lived. The museum offers immersion experiences of local life in the 1860s  and would have been able to provide some of the more mundane details that Atwood was searching for. Armed with the spatial experience of mid-19th century homes, Atwood would have perhaps been better able to assess which version of events was most plausible, among them: the concealment of a body in or under a washtub, or that of the 16 year old Marks pushing a grown woman into a basement cellar.

Archives may then be (re)defined here as anything containing or representing collective memory. Archivists are no longer limited to what is available in the stacks, but are able to broaden the scope of reference services by acting as a connector and facilitator to places of encoded collective memory. Historical fiction writers present archives and archivists  with a challenge to look beyond the boundaries of the paper-based past to anything that houses encoded collective memory, regardless of form or media.

[above] The Old Kinnear Place, where the murders were committed. [below] Apple Storage Cellar entrance at Black Creek Pioneer Village, built circa 1850. Images: Richmond Hill Public Library and Black Creek Pioneer Village.

Crystal King’s historical fiction novel Feast of Sorrow tells  the story of Marcus Gavius Apicius, one of the first Roman chefs to leave us recipes. The novel invites us  to experience our own individual, communal, and ancestral relationship with food, cooking, and all manner of feasts. Unfortunately, not much survives from the time of the gourmand Marcus Gavius Apicius. While King can recreate some of his

recipes  in order to describe the process, smells, and tastes of his culinary creations, what about the kitchen environment itself? And what of his death? Could Apicius, who was legendary for his lavish tastes and extravagant methods of producing delectable delicacies, have committed suicide because he was no longer able to create food in accordance with his desires? 

As archivists, we may be able to help locate  collections of information related to noble families around the time of Apicius, particularly if there are notes relating to menu planning or celebrations. Any descriptions or artistic depictions of feasts and what constituted luxury would be of use, as would some accounting of what would cause a notable chef to no longer be in a position to live by his craft. Architectural diagrams would help place the kitchen, wine cellar, stock rooms, animals, and so on. Of course, nothing evokes memory like the physical: being able to walk through the corridors from the wine cellar to the kitchen to animal pens in an estate home of that time, no matter how dilapidated. In this case, the collection of records becomes the rooms, the ruins of the building itself.

Once again, this type of use challenges archival reference services to move beyond the stacks to see community and cultural heritage records as deposits of collective memory. Though these types of records may not (yet) be cataloged and described in the same manner, they are records by virtue of being affective to a family unit, community, and culture reflective of a set of processes and expressions of creativity from a particular time in history.

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[above] A Roman Lucullan banquet scene from a painting by Johann Georg Platzer. [below] Wall painting of a kitchen still life from the House of Julia Felix, Pompeii.

Another, perhaps less obvious archival collection is used by writer Victoria Dougherty in her historical fiction thriller The Church of Bones. Dougherty’s novel, based on the histories of her family and her own time living in Prague, uses the Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech city of Kutná Hora to evoke a broader and deeper history of the Bohemian people. The architecture and specific arrangement of bones at the Sedlec Ossuary can be seen not just as a record of collective memory, but as a mediator of memory itself. The architect and arranger of  the bones, Jan Blažej Santini-Aichl, created, as Charles University scholar Kalina describes, traditional Gothic forms in a Baroque framework to create a localized experiential expression of collective memory. 

Here, the bones of soldiers who fought in the Hussite wars and those of plague victims, previously held in mass graves, are given new meaning in elaborate arrangements of chandeliers and oversized candelabras that shed light on a story that may not be found in traditional archives. The ossuary makes us reconsider our notions of the archival: in this case, that which  evokes a collective memory, or assists in building a collective memory space.

Entrance to Sedlec Ossuary and the ossuary's bone chandelier.  Images: Tatiyana Bastet. 

Historical fiction writers come to archives with a broader focus than many other user groups. Rather than focusing on a person, entity, or relationship, they are writing a connection to a time and place in history - with authenticity of detail as the vehicle for transporting us. In listening to the needs of users like historical fiction writers, who may not have scholarly or research-based backgrounds, we have an opportunity to see and understand the role of archivists and archives as much more than passive keepers of a paper-based past. In expanding our understanding and definitions of what constitutes a record, collection, or even archive, perhaps we can begin to meet the challenge presented by non-traditional users, shifting into facilitators to collective memory and enabling an ongoing relationship between an otherwise forgotten past and  the present.

Tatiyana Bastet, MA is currently completing her MSLIS at Simmons University. She is an information alchemist fascinated with the myriad methods by which we encode memory, thereby creating archives.