Tag: magical realism

Male author writing from a female character’s POV

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books

In some ways, this post is a shameless promotion. My apologies.

The four books in my Florida Folk Magic Series have female primary characters. I had already written one book, Sarabande (contemporary fantasy) from a woman’s viewpoint. It’s the opposite of The Sun Singer (the sequel) about a young man following a plotline based on the hero’s journey popularized by Joseph Campbell in The Hero With a Thousand Faces.

When I began thinking of a sequel to The Sun Singer, I discovered a lot of controversy among writers and mythologists about how a woman would go on such a journey. Many people said the woman would simply follow the standard tropes of the man’s hero’s journey; others thought that was absurd because men and women generally have different mythic focuses. I agreed: I needed a heroine’s journey, not a tweaked hero’s journey.

So after researching mythologists who wrote about strong mythic females, I opted to write Sarabande from a woman’s point of view by using a mythic journey, that of Inanna, an ancient Sumerian goddess, as a basis in a very general way. Research took a long time mainly because I needed to get to the point where the narrative sounded true to a woman’s thoughts and actions rather than to a man pretending to know how a woman would think and feel about the experiences encountered in the story.

I decided maybe I had accomplished this when a female reviewer, speaking of an assault scene in the novel, said the scene worked and that she had to keep reminding herself it had been written by a male author.  The mythic elements and the fantasy genre probably played a lot in my accomplishing this; had the woman been a modern-day character in typical real-life situations, I don’t think my characterization could have come out sounding true–that is, as a woman would think and feel.

However, when it came to the “older-than-dirt” African American conjure woman in the 1950s-era Florida Panhandle, this white boy knew better than to write from her point of view. The gulf in our ages, cultures,  and experiences was just too great even though the conjure woman is loosely based on a person I knew while in junior high and high school; then, too, I lived within the period when the book was focused and had observed the things I was writing about.

That’s why the narrator is a cat, something I thought I could get away with since the novels are written in the magical realism genre. That allowed me to do things that wouldn’t have worked in a non-genre book. I was helped in this ruse by having lived with one to three cats in the house since the 1980s when my wife turned me into a cat person. My “take” on how a cat might act and think was probably more believable than trying to write directly from my character Eulalie’s viewpoint. Readers worried more about something bad happening to the cat (Lena) than the people. I didn’t count on that, but I got used to it.

The writer’s “trick” is to write around the things s/he can’t possibly write “property.” Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t work.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the contemporary fantasy novel “The Sun Singer.”

‘Other Birds’ by Sarah Addison Allen

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books

Southern author Sarah Addison Allen (Garden Spells) writes books that blend magic, magical realism, and well-drawn characters into delightful stories that seem as real as the world outside my window. I haven’t mentioned her work here since Lost Lake was released in 2014. So, let’s get up to date with Other Birds which came out in the summer of 2022 from St. Martin’s Press. As Readers Digest aptly notes, “Allen’s gift for whimsical, poetic language, makes Other Birds one of our most-anticipated books for 2022. You’re going to want to read this one with your book club.”

From the Publisher

“From the acclaimed author of Garden Spells comes a tale of lost souls, secrets that shape us, and how the right flock can guide you home.

“Down a narrow alley in the small coastal town of Mallow Island, South Carolina, lies a stunning cobblestone building comprised of five apartments. It’s called The Dellawisp and it’s named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy.

“When Zoey Hennessey comes to claim her deceased mother’s apartment at The Dellawisp, she meets her quirky, enigmatic neighbors including a girl on the run, a grieving chef whose comfort food does not comfort him, two estranged middle-aged sisters, and three ghosts. Each with their own story. Each with their own longings. Each whose ending isn’t yet written.

“When one of her new neighbors dies under odd circumstances the night Zoey arrives, she’s thrust into the mystery of The Dellawisp, which involves missing pages from a legendary writer whose work might be hidden there. She soon discovers that many unfinished stories permeate the place, and the people around her are in as much need of healing from wrongs of the past as she is. To find their way they have to learn how to trust each other, confront their deepest fears, and let go of what haunts them.

“Delightful and atmospheric, Other Birds is filled with magical realism and moments of pure love that won’t let you go. Sarah Addison Allen shows us that between the real and the imaginary, there are stories that take flight in the most extraordinary ways.”

From Book Page

“What does it mean for a story’s setting to really act as an additional character? It can’t just be a well-defined place where players act out their roles. Rather, it must feel like an extra layer where secrets might be kept—and possibly revealed. An apartment building on Mallow Island, South Carolina, beautifully illustrates this principle in Sarah Addison Allen’s sixth novel, Other Birds.”

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of magical realism and contemporary fantasy novels and short stories available via at books stores and online sellers from from Thomas-Jacob Publishing.

‘The President’ by Miguel Ángel Asturias

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn writing

“Neither Gabriel García Márquez nor Mario Vargas Llosa had yet been born when the Guatemalan Miguel Ángel Asturias began to write his first novel, El Señor Presidente, in December 1922. He labored on it for a decade while living in self-imposed exile in Paris, then returned home when the Great Depression left him strapped for money, only to find that his work was unpublishable because the dictator whose reign it portrayed had given way to an even more cruel and oppressive one. When he finally self-published the novel in Mexico in 1946, it was riddled with typographical errors, and a definitive edition did not appear until 1952.” – Larry Rohter in The Inventor of Magical Realism

From the Publisher

“Winner! Nobel Prize for Literature. Guatemalan diplomat and writer Miguel Angel Asturias (1899-1974) began this award-winning work while still a law student. It is a story of a ruthless dictator and his schemes to dispose of a political adversary in an unnamed Latin American country usually identified as Guatemala. The book has been acclaimed for portraying both a totalitarian government and its damaging psychological effects. Drawing from his experiences as a journalist writing under repressive conditions, Asturias employs such literary devices as satire to convey the government’s transgressions and surrealistic dream sequences to demonstrate the police state’s impact on the individual psyche. Asturias’s stance against all forms of injustice in Guatemala caused critics to view the author as a compassionate spokesperson for the oppressed. “My work,” Asturias promised when he accepted the Nobel Prize, “will continue to reflect the voice of the people, gathering their myths and popular beliefs and at the same time seeking to give birth to a universal consciousness of Latin American problems.”

Critics note that while living in Paris,  he was greatly influenced by the surrealists and that this led not only to the structure of his work but his influence over subsequent authors’ understanding of the role of indigenous cultures in “real life” and fiction as well as the value of mixing fantasy into an otherwise realistic work.

Wikipedia notes that, “Critics compare his fiction to that of Franz Kafka, James Joyce, and William Faulkner because of the stream-of-consciousness style he employed” while Nahum Megged writes that his protagonists are those who are in harmony with nature and the antagonists are those who are out of sync with the natural world.

I do believe that in spite of his Nobel Prize, he is often overlooked when the origins of magical realism are discussed.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell’s novels are written in the magical realism and contemporary fantasy genres. You can find them listed here.

What Happens Here Can Only Happen Here

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn writing2 Comments

“A particular place in the land is never, for an oral culture, just a passive or inert setting for the human events that occur there. It is an active participant in those occurrences. Indeed, by virtue of its underlying and enveloping presence, the place may even be felt to be the source, the primary power that expresses itself through the various events that unfold there.” – David Abram

The modern world often obscures the importance and influence of a place because in knowing about the events of many places at the same time via news and social media, we often focus on similarities while ignoring the differences. It’s human nature, I think, to look for common themes and even to copy those we like best leading, among other things, to build the same stores and restaurants across the country because they are profitable by virtue of being known as well as a comfort to both the residents and those traveling through town. Homogenizing everything we can not only destroys local culture and exciting differences but makes for a very sterile way of life by trying to translate the culture of another place into our place where that culture is unnatural.

(I digress when I say that I don’t like this practice, especially when traveling and finding mostly chain restaurants dominating the scene to the detriment of local culture and local restaurants. I can’t imagine visiting New Orleans, for example, and only eating the same fast food I eat at home.)

If you read and/or write magical realism, you know already the importance of the place where a real event or fictional story is set, and in knowing, that one understands how the place helps shape the events that happen there. Those events cannot happen anywhere else–no matter how much people might try to copy them–because they depend on the place’s history, culture, geography, and other factors that are unique. One tries through his/her writing to communicate this to the reader subconsciously rather than overtly. You can’t say “The swamp didn’t like Jim.” But when Jim goes into the swamp in your story, you can give the impression that this is true–or that Jim is scared of the swamp and acts differently than he would act if he weren’t scared of it.

It’s hard not to think of the exchange between Luke Skywalker and Yoda, when Luke asks (about the swamp), “What’s in there?” Yoda replies, “Only what you take with you.”

This is true everywhere even though most people won’t acknowledge it.

In looking for similarities between shootings and other crimes, commentators are quick to compare a crime in one place with a crime in another place. They often refer to these as “copycat shootings.” But that can’t be true even if the second perpetrator was aware of the first and wanted to duplicate it. He/she lives in a different environment–the Great Plains as opposed to, say, the Everglades–and part of his/her motivation is copying, a factor that wasn’t involved with the first crime.

Focusing on the real or imagined copycat nature of an event will usually lead investigators astray. Storytellers know this and honor the influence of the place on what happens in that place rather than the extraneous fact that similar events might have happened somewhere else. In magical realism, we understand that what happens here can only happen here.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the magical realism novels in the Florida Folk Magic Series. This Kindle set includes all four novels in the series.

Rereading ‘The Tiger’s Wife’ by Téa Obreht

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn authors

Several days ago, I posted some ideas that a story happens in a place and can be revisited like any tourist destination. I especially like returning to places filled with magical realism since I often write in that genre. So it is that I decided to reread The Tiger’s Wife which NPR reviewed as Magical Realism Meets Big Cats.

I’m rereading the book now because I wanted to take another look at it before finally getting around to reading Inland, a novel set in the American Southwest.

NPR wrote that “The Tiger’s Wife rests securely in the genre of magical realism, inciting comparisons to Gabriel Garcia Marquez and even Kafka.” The reviewer thought that the ending was too abrupt. I didn’t in my April 2011 review: “The Tiger’s Wife is dark and deep and perfectly crafted, and if you allow yourself to be immersed in it, you will see the blazing eyes of Shere Khan.” The novel won the Orange Prize for Fiction and was a 2011 National Book Award finalist.

From the Publisher

Author’s Website

“Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Téa Obreht, the youngest of The New Yorker’s twenty best American fiction writers under forty, has spun a timeless novel that will establish her as one of the most vibrant, original authors of her generation.

In a Balkan country mending from war, Natalia, a young doctor, is compelled to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. Searching for clues, she turns to his worn copy of The Jungle Book and the stories he told her of his encounters over the years with “the deathless man.” But most extraordinary of all is the story her grandfather never told her—the legend of the tiger’s wife.”

–

Téa Obreht was born Tea Bajraktarević in the autumn of 1985, in Belgrade, SR Serbia, SFR Yugoslavia, the only child of a single mother, Maja Obreht, while her father, a Bosniak,[10] was “never part of the picture.” – Wikipedia .

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of Eulalie and Washerwoman, magical realism set in the backwoods of the Florida Panhandle in the 1950s.

W. P. Kinsella’s magical realism in ‘Shoeless Joe’ and ‘The Iowa Baseball Confederacy’

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, writing2 Comments

If you watched Ken Burns’ 1994 documentary “Baseball,” perhaps you felt the magic in the sport. PBS called the film, “An American epic overflowing with heroes and hopefuls, scoundrels and screwballs.” If you sense this magic at the ball field or even while watching a game on TV, perhaps you can understand why Canadian author W. P. Kinsella (1935-2016) used magical realism in Shoeless Joe, The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, and his later novel Butterfly Winter.

If you watched the feature film based on Shoeless Joe, “Field of Dreams,” or the movie version of “The Natural,” you might ask how anyone could write sincerely about baseball without magical realism. Shoeless Joe Jackson (1887-1951) was (and is) considered one of baseball best players with the third highest batting average in the major leagues. Even now, many dispute the claim he was involved in the 1919 “Black Sox scandal” in which White Sox players (including Jackson) were blamed for trying to throw the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. Jackson–whose participation is doubted–was banned from baseball. In some ways, the book and film redeem him even though MLB never would.

The spirit of the magic is aptly summed up in the New York Times review of Shoeless Joe that includes the following excerpt that appeared after a character was discovered to have been lying about his baseball experience: “I imagine Eddie Scissons has decided, ‘If I can’t have what I want most in life, then I’ll pretend I had it in the past, and talk about it and live it and relive it until it is real and solid and I can hold it to my heart like a precious child. Once I’ve experienced it so completely, no one can ever take it away from me.'”

This is the way of sports. When actuality doesn’t meet our needs, dreams suffice.

Wikipedia says,” The Iowa Baseball Confederacy (1986) another book blending fantasy and magical realism, recounts an epic baseball game a minor league team played against the 1908 World Champion Chicago Cubs” and Butterfly Winter as “The story of Julio and Esteban Pimental, twins whose divine destiny for baseball begins with games of catch in the womb, the novel marks a return to form, combining his long-held passions of baseball and magical realism.”

Great reading if you’re a baseball fan or even if you aren’t. Eitherway, you’ll suspect that magic exists by the time you get done reading the books.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of magical realism novels and short stories from Thomas-Jacob Publishing.

‘The House of the Spirits’

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn writing

“When I start I am in a total limbo. I don’t have any idea where the story is going or what is going to happen or why I am writing it. I only know that—in a way that I can’t even understand at the time—I am connected to the story. I have chosen that story because it was important to me in the past or it will be in the future.” – Isabel Allende

I am re-reading The House of the Spirits for the first time since it came out in English in 1985, most likely from the copy I read then. Allende is one of my favorite writers (perhaps above all others) because the stories she tells resonate with me as does the fact she begins each of her books–and I’ve read most of them–without knowing where the story is going. The House of the Spirits didn’t disappoint me in the mid-1980s, and yet, I was afraid to go back to it for fear the most perfect novel would have become imperfect over time like a first lover you don’t dare meet again after both of you have grown up.

I can’t imagine knowing where a story is going when I start writing it and fear that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to write it, or that if I wrote it anyway it would be less true. As I re-read this magical realism novel, I’m not disappointed the second time out and I feel inspired now as I did over thirty years ago; I see again that the story unfolded as it had to unfold because it was (and is) all of a piece that existed in and of itself before Allende wrote the first line: “Barrabus came to us by sea.”

“I think that the stories choose me,” she has said.

When I chanced across author Mark David Gerson’s book The Voice of the Muse in 2008, I was surprised to find a book for writers that acknowledged the truth that stories exist untold until we find them and/or until they find us. As I wrote in my Amazon review of his book, “Gerson believes stories pre-exist, waiting hidden away in dreams to come alive. But while I’ve worked more or less as a blacksmith hammering them into this world, he provides ways to tune into the ‘muse stream’ whereupon life flows onto the page like a warm sweet river.”

I suspect Allende knows this to be true. Otherwise, she couldn’t have written this:

He could hardly guess that the solemn, cubic, dense, pompous house, which sat like a hat amidst its green and geometric surroundings, would end up full of protuberances and incrustations, of twisted staircases that led to empty spaces, of turrets, or small windows and could not be opened, doors hanging in midair, crooked hallways, and portholes that linked the living quarters so that people could communicate during the siesta, all of which were Clara’s inspiration.

I’m relieved to discover that I’m still in love with this novel and that life might have been better if I hadn’t stayed away from it for so many years.

—Malcolm

My stories come upon me out of nowhere and that’s for the best.

Some books are a joy to write

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Florida4 Comments

(A word from your sponsor (AKA, me).

If you hike, jog, kayak, or so anything else that requires effort and stamina, you know that when everything within you (mind and body) is functioning optimally, you reach what’s called a flow state–in the zone, some say. Writers feel that flow state as well when the words are coming off the keyboard and onto the screen without struggle. There are multiple sensations here, but they can be summed up as joy.

I felt this way while working on the four novels in my Florida Folk Magic Series set in the panhandle near the Apalachicola River (shown above). While writing in a flow state, I saw in my mind’s eye a movie of the stories unfolding and typed up what I saw. I loved the characters, the locations, and the themes, so I felt that I was working on a view of the 1950s’ racial tensions in the sunshine state that needed to be told.

I began with Conjure Woman’s Cat and quickly discovered I was writing about my childhood and all the days I lived in Florida starting in the first grade came flowing back to mind. I was writing this book for myself but happily found out that others liked it, too, and that AudioFile Magazine loved the audiobook edition with a great review and an earphones award. 

Melinda, my publisher, asked if I’d thought about a sequel. No, not really. Funny thing. Once she asked the question I began seeing a movie of the book that would become Eulalie and Washerwoman. When Facebook friends found out I was working on a second book, they said, “nothing better happen to that kitty (Lena).” I promised that the conjure woman’s cat would be okay. Having people check in and ask about their favorite characters was a new experience for me and added to my flow state.

So now I’ve written four books, including Lena and Fate’s Arrows. It’s time to stop. I remember my creative writing instructors warning us not to write past the ending. Fate’s Arrows, the only book in the series that isn’t told from Lena’s point of view, seems to be a natural place to stop inasmuch as the conjure woman is feeling her age–older than dirt–and the protagonist (Pollyanna) is moving from west Florida to Tallahassee (where I grew up).

I’ll always be tempted to search for that flow state again with these characters. Never say never, right? 

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell

Publisher: Thomas-Jacob Publishing

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Save money on Kindle with the four-book set.

Need Help Christmas Shopping

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books

If you have put off your Christmas shopping until the last minute, here are a few ideas from your host (AKA, me) for your quality friends. Books, of course, because books are what I do.

Special Investigative Reporter

This book can be classified as a sarcastic, satirical humorous mystery. It’s a great book for people who like to laugh and who also happen to distrust authority–as my main character Jock Stewart does.  And as I do. Jock is probably my favorite protagonist because he reminds me of me, the kind of guy who’s likely to say anything to anybody, especially people who are really full of themselves.

Fate’s Arrows

This is my most recent novel, the fourth in my Florida Folk Magic Series which began with Conjure Woman’s Cat. I’m partial to the series because it’s set where I grew up, with places and people I knew.

Continue reading “Need Help Christmas Shopping” →

The magic in my books

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, magic5 Comments

One way or the other, most of my novels include magic. Over time, this blog has often sought a comfortable niche. Apparently, that niche is magic even though I do a few book reviews, some posts about writing, conservation and wilderness, and some opinion posts.

The existence of this niche has become apparent of late when I see that most of my readers are stopping by to read posts about magic (many of those posts are old) and fewer readers are stopping by to look at everything else. My views of consensual reality and magic are more blurred than most people’s, meaning that I often think I’m writing realism and others think I’m writing something else. So, here’s how the books sort themselves out:

  1. Florida Folk Magic Series (Conjure Woman’s Cat, Eulalie and Washerwoman, Lena, and Fate’s Arrows – Magical realism based on hoodoo (conjure) as it’s generally viewed in the South. These are set in Florida.
  2. Mountain Song and At Sea – Both of these books are realism, but with fantasy elements and (in Mountain Song) spirituality in the form of a vision quest. These are set in Montana, Florida, and the South China Sea.
  3. The Sun Singer and Sarabande – Contemporary fantasy set primarily in Glacier National Park. The Sun Singer follows a hero’s journey theme and Sarabande (the sequel) follows a heroine’s journey theme.
  4. Widely Scattered Ghosts – paranormal short stories in a variety of settings.
  5. En Route to the Diddy-Wah-Diddy Landfill While the Dogwoods Were in Bloom – Short story within the Florida folklore and magical realism genres.
  6. Emily’s Stories (audiobook) – Three contemporary fantasy short stories. One of the stories is set in Montana and two are set in north Florida.

So, apparently, I’m writing about magic when I’m not even aware I’m writing about magic.

Malcolm