M: Welcome to this week's episode of Book Talk. With me today is Heidi Brown, a historian who has written five critically acclaimed books about military history.
W: Thanks for having me, John. I'm so excited to talk about my latest book, which was published last month.
M: So this book is a novel, your first attempt at that genre. I thought it was a bit of a departure for you.
W: I'd say it's a major departure as it's not just a work of fiction. It's set 200 years in the future.
M: Right. So how did that happen? You spent three decades writing about the past and focusing on the 18th and 19th centuries. And now you're speculating about the future.
W: Well, after years of researching soldiers and chronicling their lives during battle, I just started wondering about other facets of their lives, especially their personal lives.
M: I can see that. Your novel is about soldiers and it focuses on their relationships, especially the bond between sons and mothers and men and their wives.
W: Yes. That focus came about when I still intended to write another book of history. I started by researching soldiers' actual personal lives, studying their letters home.
M: So how did that history book become a novel?
W: Well, I realized that the historical record was incomplete. So I'd either have to leave a lot of gaps or make a lot more assumptions than a historian should.
M: But why write a novel set in the future when your credentials are perfect for a historical novel? As a historian, any historical novel you write would have a lot of credibility.
W: I felt too constrained working with the past, like what I wrote needed to be fact as opposed to fiction, but writing about the future gave me more freedom to imagine, to invent.
M: Well, having read your book, I'm glad you made that choice to move into fiction.