Authors unite to tell Civil War-era tale

‘Whispered family secret’ inspired novel

By Rebecca Rule, “Bookmarks”
(This review appeared June 11, 2006, in the “Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph,” the “Concord (N.H.) Monitor” and the “Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald.”)

A few years ago, Ann Thompson Carter of Durham reached into the world of cyberchat and found a friend — a man from Missouri who, among other things, could spell. Carter and Paul Daniel became faithful correspondents. The art of letter writing is not dead; it has transformed into e-mail. A couple of years later, when Daniel decided to turn a family story into a novel, he thought of Carter — her well-written e-mails, her woman’s perspective — and invited her to co-write.

The result of this creative partnership is “Anna’s Wish,” a big novel that begins with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake but flashes back to the core story, which takes place during the Civil War. Emma and William, middle-aged sister and brother, uprooted by the earthquake, flee San Francisco for their childhood home in Missouri — the home having been preserved for them through the decades by stalwart family friend Estill Northington. Their return frames their mother Anna’s story, told through letters and journal entries that morph into full-fledged scenes of her short, tragic life. The true kernel for the fiction was “a whispered family secret,” told to Daniel by his grandfather. The real-life Anna married an evil doctor, whose evil actions (the specifics of which must be saved for readers of the book) led to tragedy. Daniel was further inspired by the ruins of the family homestead and by family photographs. The photograph of “Anna” on the cover shows a solemn, beautiful young woman, sad in the eyes.

That cover, by the way, won the 2005 ADDY award for excellence in design in media. Daniel and his wife Nancy, experienced designers, created it. They designed the whole book. The publishing house, Bear Cave Press, is their creation as well. These are people who put their money where their art and hearts are.

A second inspiring photograph shows Anna’s headstone, overgrown and neglected. Daniel describes “one of the many strange occurrences that followed us through the writing of ‘Anna's Wish.’

“As I scanned (the photo of Anna’s headstone) and e-mailed it to Ann, I noticed the image of a young woman upon the surface of the headstone.

“I enlarged the photo and the figure remained clear and I began to notice other images, particularly one of an elderly woman reclining with a young woman sitting before her.

“Ten minutes after I e-mailed the photo, the phone rang and it was Ann. She and her daughter were looking at the photo and seeing the images as well.

“It was a very eerie moment.”

That moment of eerie discovery translated into this scene in the novel as Emma and William visit their mother’s grave:

“Look!” he cried, pointing to the stone. “Look! Don't you see! My God! Oh my God!!!” He released her and fell to his knees before the headstone, his mouth open in total astonishment.

“What? What?” Emma shouted…

“It's Mother,” William announced with tears in his eyes. “It's Mother, look, it's her — here.”

Emma slowly knelt beside her brother and in an instant she clearly saw what he was pointing to….

During all those years the headstone had faced the west, exposed to approaching weather fronts, enduring four decades of wind, rain, snow, ice and dust. Over time, moss and lichens grew on the weathered stone, attaching to the small pits in the rock. What astounded William and Emma were the incredible images formed by the growth…, clear distinct depictions of Anna as she appeared during her last year on earth…. As they stared…more images came to their attention.

Anna’s life and death unfolds for her children though the old journals and letters, with guidance from Estill, who loved Anna all along. It unfolded for Daniel and Carter as they wrote e-mails, in character, back and forth to one another. Daniel mostly wrote the male characters — the strong, humble Estill; dastardly Dr. Joshua; the heroic soldier, Reed. Carter mostly wrote the women: Anna and, my favorite, Sweet River Pearl — a lusty outrageous, outspoken prostitute (Joshua’s other woman) with a lot of heart. Carter says: “Writing fiction together came from great communication, and a close relationship to the story…. The origin of the story obviously came from (Paul), but I loved the idea. We both knew where Anna’s Wish was going from the beginning. The story of Anna’s tragic outcome was so powerful it was a guide for our writing the rest of the book. It was a barometer that kept the emotional waves high.”

“Anna’s Wish” cross-sections the culture of the 1860s, from our wealthy, refined heroine to our villain: greedy, seedy and cruel. The scenes of Anna’s girlhood and first love are sweet and sentimental. The scenes of Joshua’s depravation are hard to read, deeply disturbing, and there are a lot of them. Equally disturbing are the graphic scenes from his primary source of income (besides Anna), backroom abortions. He was a bad man, and a bad doctor, too. In contrast, Anna remains noble through all her trials, and finds a kindred soul in Reed, whom Joshua paid to take his place in the army.

If Anna’s wish was that her story be told with passion, compassion, and a good deal of historical research, Paul Daniel and Ann Thompson Carter have fulfilled it.

Last month the book won honorable mention for regional fiction from the Independent Publishers Association, a.k.a. the IPPY awards. With an IPPY and an ADDY to its credit, “Anna’s Wish” is available at independent bookstores or online at bearcavepress.com.

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