I’m delighted to welcome Trish MacEnulty and her new book, Cinnamon Girl, to the blog with a guest post, ‘My Historical Research’.
My Historical Research – Trish MacEnulty
Cinnamon Girl was first published in 2009 under a different title and with a different cover. When I contacted the publisher and told him I wanted to re-issue the book with a new title and a new cover, he agreed. I also decided that this time I would use what I’d learned from writing four historical mysteries: how to incorporate historically accurate details to make the narrative richer.
When a story takes place during your lifetime, it’s easy to think that you don’t need research. I found that, in fact, I did need to do research and lots of it. And actually for me, research is part of the fun.
For Cinnamon Girl, I needed to do research about the rock concerts in 1970 that my protagonist would have gone to; I needed to research the cultural changes wrought by FM radio; and I needed to do research about the anti-war movement, the Black Panthers, and the Weatherman Underground Organization.
I also needed to research the highway system in 1970. We take for granted our Interstate Highway System, but it wasn’t completely built in 1970, and when Eli Burnes, the protagonist, travels across country I needed to figure out what highways existed and which still needed to be built. Fortunately, I have a brother who actually remembers some of the main roads in St. Louis from 1970 and that helped. In fact, he also helped me to understand the anti-war movement of the time and the police brutality that existed because he was there and he witnessed it.
Researching the rock concerts was, of course, lots of fun. I definitely misremembered some things. For example I was sure Joe Cocker had played in St. Louis in 1970 or ’71 but he wasn’t in the country at the time. I found out that the Grateful Dead was arrested in New Orleans the night before my character sees them at Kiel Auditorium and they barely made it to the concert. I also was able to find the playlist for the Moody Blues Concert and the name of the opening band for the Jethro Tull Concert. Yes, I had been to those concerts when I was a teenager living in St. Louis, but those details I found on the Internet helped recreate the era. I’m a big believer in specificity.
The change over from AM radio to FM was also something I didn’t really understand until I did some research. In the book my protagonist’s father goes from being a “Howling Wolf” sort of AM DJ to a mellow FM DJ. This worked well with my plot because being a DJ at an FM radio station meant he could answer the hotline at night and this would be a good way to communicate with fugitives. FM radio station hotlines would not have been tapped and often did help people learn about where protests would be held. He could also have his own slant on the news of the day unlike at an AM station where they were instructed to read the news straight off the wire and not offer any commentary. Of course, the music was better on the FM stations.
Finally I needed to learn about what was going on socially and politically. Even though I remembered the riots from that era, I was stunned to discover that one had taken place in Augusta, Georgia, in which six Black men were killed by law enforcement. I used this as a moment of awakening for my protagonist, Eli Burnes. She has grown up in the South with the belief that everything was fine between the races — only to witness the result of years of oppression explode. This led to Eli’s learning about the Black Panthers and their work, serving breakfast to children as well as the ambush and murder of activist Freddy Hampton.
Here’s the blurb
Winner of the Gold Medal in YA Fiction from The Historical Fiction Company!
When her beloved step-grandmother, a semi-retired opera singer, dies of cancer in 1970, 15-year-old Eli Burnes runs away with a draft-dodger, thinking she’s on the road to adventure and romance. What she finds instead is a world of underground Weathermen, Black Power revolutionaries, snitches and shoot-first police.
Eventually Eli is rescued by her father, who turns out both more responsible and more revolutionary than she’d imagined. But when he gets in trouble with the law, she finds herself on the road again, searching for the allies who will help her learn how to save herself.
“The book is a fantastic read: fast-moving, full of smoothly woven historical detail and rich characterizations, all told in Eli’s appealing voice.” — Sarah Johnson, Reading the Past
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Meet the Author
Trish MacEnulty is the author of a historical novel series, literary novels, memoirs, a short story collection, children’s plays, and most recently, the historical coming-of-age novel, Cinnamon Girl (Livingston Press, Sept. 2023). She has a Ph.D. in English from the Florida State University and graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Florida. She currently writes book reviews and features for the Historical Novel Society.
She lives in Florida with her husband Joe and her two tubby critters, Franco and Tumbleweed. More info at her website: trishmacenulty.com.
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