Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Prologue
PART ONE: Synopses
Outlander
Dragonfly in Amber
Voyager
Drums of Autumn
PART TWO: Characters
Where Characters Come From: Mushroom, Onions, and Hard Nuts
Cast of Characters
I Get Letters.…
Horoscope Reading for James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser, Horoscope Chart
Horoscope Reading for Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser, Horoscope Chart
Magic, Medicine, and White Ladies
PART THREE: Family Trees
A Genealogical Note
PART FOUR: Comprehensive Glossary and Pronunciation Guide
A Very Brief Guide to Gaelic Grammar
Comprehensive Glossary of Foreign Terms (including British slang)
PART FIVE: Research
Researching Historical Fiction: Hot Dogs and Beans
Online Research
Botanical Medicine: Don’t Try This at Home
Penicillin Online: A Writer’s Thread
PART SIX: Where Titles Come From (and Other Matters of General Interest)
Outlander vs. Cross Stitch
The Cannibal’s Art
Writing and Real Life
Book Touring for Beginners
A Brief Disquisition on the Existence of Butt Cooties
The Shape of Things
The Gabaldon Theory of Time Travel
PART SEVEN: The View from Lallybroch: Objects of Vertue, Objects of Use
Lallybroch
“Arma virumque cano”
PART EIGHT: Frequently Asked Questions
Answers
PART NINE: Controversy
Communication
Jamie and the Rule of Three
PART TEN: From Book to Screen
Introduction, or “Bring Me the Head of Ron D. Moore.”
But How on Earth Did We Get Here?
Actors and Magic
My Brief Career as a TV Actor, Part 1
My Brief Career as a TV Actor, Part 2
Film Commentary: Adaptation, Logistics, and Testicles
Interview for the Unabridged German Edition of Outlander
Is It Like You Thought It Would Be?
Annotated Bibliography
Eighteenth Century
Scotland
Colonial North America and the American Revolution
Medicine (Including All Herbals)
African Cultures, Afro-European Relations, and Slavery
Ghosts and Ghost Stories
Literature
Language Resources
Magic
Natural History Guides and Resources
North Carolina
Food and Cookery
Native American Cultures and History, Etc.
Rather Odd Books
Miscellaneous
Appendixes
I. Errata
II. Gaelic (Gaidhlig) Resources
III. Poems and Quotations
IV. Roots: A Brief Primer on Genealogical Research
V. A Brief Discography of Celtic Music
VI. Foreign Editions, Audiotapes, and Strange, Strange Covers
VII. The Methadone List
Copyright
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Epub ISBN 9781473535916
Version 1.0
Published by Century 2015
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © Diana Gabaldon 1999
This revised edition published 2015
Custom Illustrations: Running Changes, Inc
Photographs: Barbara Schnell
Diana Gabaldon has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published as Through the Stones in the UK in 1999 by Century
This edition first published by Century 2015
Century
The Random House Group Limited
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm.
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN HB: 9781780894928
TPB: 9781780894935
THE AUTHOR WOULD, as usual, like to acknowledge
… Her husband, who keeps saying, “Yes, but when are you going to finish the next real book?” (I’m working on it. Them. Whatever. Soon. Well, as soon as I can, anyway. Time is relative, isn’t it?)
… Her children, who still make witty remarks from time to time, but who are now old enough to register objections to having these quoted in public (what they said [collectively] was “You’ve been putting us in your books? MOTHER! Our friends read these books!” To which I replied in some consternation, “Well, tell your friends I think they’re all much too young to be reading these books!”)
… the Usual Suspects: the longtime and ever-changing array of electronic friends (and many passing acquaintances of kindly intent) who provide me with interesting factoids, entertaining questions, vital information, scintillating conversation, and fascinating raw material.
… the Readers, who both instigated this book and supplied me with a great deal of its content by asking questions, suggesting Things They Would Like to Know, and providing all sorts of interesting miscellanea, like the Celtic discography (music to be listened to while reading the novels). To say nothing of those who argued with me about the actions of characters in the books—as though I had anything to do with it!
This book has been somewhat different from the novels that I write, not only in its content, but in its form and substance. Normally, the only really important thing in a book is the story, and while the mechanical details such as design and copyediting are certainly not unimportant, they aren’t vital. This particular volume is much more than the sum of its words, though, and much more the product of dedication on the part of a great many talented (and long-suffering) people besides myself, including:
… Barbara Schnell, my delightful (and faithfully accurate) German translator, who provided many of the photographs of the Highlands near Lallybroch.
… Carlos and Deborah Gonzales, who used their artistic magic to transform visions into reality.
… Dr. James Brickell, who emigrated from Scotland to North Carolina in 1733, and went to the trouble of drawing pictures of the flora and fauna encountered en route.
… Kathy Pigou, the Australian astrologer who cast the horoscopes for Claire and Jamie.
… Iain MacKinnon Taylor (and his brother Hamish and his aunt Margaret), who has done his bit to prevent the extinction of the Gaidhlig tongue, by providing me with Gaelic translations, pronunciations, definitions, and grammar notes.
… Michelle LaFrance, another devoted to the perpetuation of Gaidhlig/Gaelic/whateveryouwanttocallthebeastlylanguage, who provided me with reams of useful resource material.
… the staff and habitués of the CompuServe ROOTS Forums, who helpfully provided all kinds of reference material on genealogy.
… The Scottish Trustees of the Carmina Gadelica, for permission to quote assorted Celtic blessings and invocations in their entirety.
… the anonymous editor of The Baronage Press, for his erudite and authoritative assistance in preparing the heraldry and genealogical notes that accompany the Family Trees.
… Judie Rousselle, Diane Schlichting, Fay Zachary, Tabbak, BCMaxy, Sassenak, and the others who have so kindly given Jamie and company a continuing online presence through their Web sites—and in particular, Rosana Madrid Gatti, who designed and maintains the Official Diana Gabaldon Home Page, to the delight of all who see it.
… Virginia Norey (whose name ought really to be presented here with illuminated capitals, at least), for the stunning design of this book, to say nothing of the subsidiary illustrations.
… Mark Pensavalle, the production manager, whose blood and sweat stain the pages of this volume (I would say tears, but I don’t think it’s been bad enough to make him actually cry yet).
… Johanna Tani, chief copyeditor, who has provided the ever-necessary vigilance against those hordes of errors that breed in the gutters of books, hatching out into the light of day when the covers are opened.
… Susan Schwartz, without whose herculean efforts this book would simply not exist.
… Jennifer Prior, copyeditor, one of the normally unsung heroes of book production, and
… the many other people who have contributed so much to this book: Ann Fraser, for details of the Fraser of Lovat family tree; Elaine Smith, for the ring patterns; Stephen and Anne McKenzie, and Karen Jackson, for the photographs of Castle Leod, and all the other helpful souls whose many contributions have made this book what it is (i.e., large).
Thank you all!
Diana Gabaldon
www.dianagabaldon.com
For Jackie Cantor,
My companion on this long Outlandish journey
WELL, IT WAS all an accident, is what it was. I wasn’t trying to be published; I wasn’t even going to show it to anyone. I just wanted to write a book—any kind of book.
Not actually any kind of book. Fiction. See, I’m a storyteller. I can’t take any particular credit for this—I was born that way. When my sister and I were very young and shared a bedroom, we stayed up far into the night, nearly every night, telling enormous, convoluted, continuing stories, with casts of thousands (like I said, I was born with this).
Still, even though I knew I was a storyteller from an early age, I didn’t know quite what to do about it. Writing fiction is not a clearly marked career path, after all. It’s not like law, where you do go to school for X years, pass an exam, and bing! you can charge people two hundred dollars an hour to listen to your expert opinions (my sister’s a lawyer). Writers mostly make it up as they go along, and there is no guarantee that if you do certain things, you will get published. Still less is there any guarantee that you’ll make a living at it.
Now, I come from a very conservative background (morally and financially, not politically). My parents would take my sister and me out for dinner now and then, and while waiting for the food to be served, would point out the oldest, most harried looking waitress in the place, saying sternly, “Be sure you get a good education, so you don’t have to do that when you’re fifty!”
With this sort of nudging going on at home, it’s no wonder that I didn’t announce that I was moving to London to become a novelist right after high school. Instead, I got a B.S. in zoology, an M.S. in marine biology, a Ph.D. in ecology, and a nice job as a research professor at a large university, complete with fringe benefits, pension plans, etc. The only trouble was that I still wanted to write novels.
Now, I have had rather a varied scientific career, featuring such highlights as the postdoctoral appointment where I was paid to butcher seabirds (I can reduce a full-grown gannet to its component parts in only three hours. Oddly enough, I have yet to find another job requiring this skill), or the job where I tortured box-fish and got interrogated by the FBI (they didn’t care about the civil rights of the boxfish; it was the Russian exchange scientist grinding up clams in my laboratory they were after). At the time when my desire to write novels resurfaced, though, I was working at Arizona State University, writing Fortran programs to analyze the contents of bird gizzards.
This was really an accident; I was supposed to be developing a research program dealing with nesting behavior in colonially breeding birds. However, I was the only person in my research center who had (and I quote the director) “a background in computers.” At the time, said “background” amounted to one Fortran class, which I had taken in the College of Business in order to keep my husband company. However, as the director logically pointed out, this was 100 percent more computer knowledge than anyone else in the place had. I was therefore drafted to help with the analysis of ten years’ worth of avian dietary data, using punch cards, coding sheets, and the university’s mainframe computer. (In other words, this was long before the term “Internet” became a household word.)
At the conclusion of eighteen months of labor—which resulted in a gigantic eight-hundred-page coauthored monograph on the dietary habits of the birds of the Colorado River Valley—I said to myself, You know, there are probably only five other people in the entire world who care about bird gizzards. Still, if they knew about these programs I’ve written, it would save each one of those five people eighteen months of effort. That’s about seven and a half years of wasted work. Why is there no way for me to find those five people and share these programs with them?
The net result of this rhetorical question was a scholarly journal called Science Software, which I founded, edited, and wrote most of for several years.fn1 A secondary result was that when my husband quit his job to start his own business and we needed more money, I was in a position to seek freelance writing work with the computer press.
I sent a query letter to the editors of Byte, InfoWorld, PC, and several other large computer magazines, enclosing both a recent copy of Science Software and a copy of a Walt Disney comic book I had written.fn2 The query said roughly, “As you can see from the enclosed, you’ll never find anyone better qualified to review scientific and technical software—and at the same time, capable of appealing to a wide popular audience.”
By good fortune, the microcomputer revolution had just bloomed, to the point where there actually was a fair amount of scientific and technical software on the market. And as one of perhaps a dozen “experts” in the newly invented field of scientific computation (it’s really pretty easy to be an expert, when there are only twelve people in the world who do what you do), I got immediate assignments. It was in the course of one of these that a software vendor sent me a trial membership to CompuServe, for the purpose of mentioning a support forum that the vendor maintained for the software I was reviewing.
I spent half an hour checking out the software support forum, and then—finding myself with several hours of free connect time in hand—set out to see what else might be available in this fascinating new online world. This being the mid-1980s, there was not nearly so much online as there is today (there was no World Wide Web; only the subscription services, such as CompuServe, GEnie, and Prodigy. America Online didn’t even exist yet). Still, among the resources available then (on CompuServe) was a group called the Literary Forum.
This was a fascinating group of individuals who all liked books. That was the only common denominator; the group included people of every conceivable background and profession—among them, a few published writers, a good many aspiring writers, and a great many nonwriters who simply liked to discuss books and writing. Finding this congenial gathering to be the ideal social life for a busy person with small children—something like a twenty-four-hour electronic cocktail party—I promptly signed up with CompuServe, and began logging on to the Literary Forum several times a day, to read and exchange posted messages with the kindred spirits there.
At this point in my life, I had a full-time job with the university, I was writing part-time for the computer press, and I had three children, ages six, four, and two. I’m not sure quite why I thought this was the ideal time to begin writing my long-intended novel—mania induced by sleep deprivation, perhaps—but I did.
I didn’t intend to show this putative novel to anyone. It wasn’t for publication; it was for practice. I had come to the conclusion—based on experience—that the only real way of learning to write a novel was probably to write a novel. That’s how I learned to write scientific articles, comic books, and software reviews, after all. Why should a novel be different?
If I didn’t mean to show it to anyone, it wouldn’t matter whether what I wrote was bad or not, so I needn’t feel self-conscious in the process of writing it; I could just concentrate on the writing. And, if it was just for practice, I needn’t worry too much about what kind of novel it was. I made only two rules for myself: One, I would not give up, no matter how bad I thought it was, until I had finished the complete book, and two, I would do my level best in the writing, at all times.
So … what kind of novel should this be? Well, I read everything, and lots of it, but perhaps more mysteries than anything else. Fine, I thought, I’d write a mystery.
But then I began to think. Mysteries have plots. I wasn’t sure I knew how to do plots. Perhaps I should try something easier for my practice book, then write a mystery when I felt ready for a real book.
Fine. What was the easiest possible kind of book for me to write, for practice? (I didn’t see any point in making things difficult for myself.)
After considerable thought, it seemed to me that perhaps a historical novel would be the easiest thing to try. I was a research professor, after all; I had a huge university library available, and I knew how to use it. I thought it seemed a little easier to look things up than to make them up—and if I turned out to have no imagination, I could steal things from the historical record.fn3
Okay. Fine. Where to set this historical novel? I have no formal background in history; one time or place would do as well as another.
Enter another accident. I rarely watch TV, but at the time I was in the habit of viewing weekly PBS reruns of Doctor Who (a British science-fiction serial), because it gave me just enough time to do my nails.fn4 So, while pondering the setting for my hypothetical historical novel, I happened to see one very old episode of Doctor Who featuring a “companion” of the Doctor’s—a young Scottish lad named Jamie MacCrimmon, whom the Doctor had picked up in 1745. This character wore a kilt, which I thought rather fetching, and demonstrated—in this particular episodefn5—a form of pigheaded male gallantry that I’ve always found endearing: the strong urge on the part of a man to protect a woman, even though he may realize that she’s plainly capable of looking after herself.
I was sitting in church the next day, thinking idly about this particular show (no, oddly enough, I don’t remember what the sermon was about that day), when I said suddenly to myself, Well, heck. You want to write a book, you need a historical period, and it doesn’t matter where or when. The important thing is just to start, somewhere. Okay. Fine. Scotland, eighteenth century.
So I went out to my car after Mass, dug a scrap of paper out from under the front seat, and that’s where I began to write Outlander; no outline, no plot, no characters—just a time and a place.
The next stop was plainly the Arizona State University library, where I went the next day. I began my research by typing SCOTLAND HIGHLANDS EIGHTEENTH CENTURY into the card catalog—and one thing led to another.fn6
I had not the slightest intention of telling my online acquaintances in the Literary Forum what I was up to. I didn’t want even the best-intentioned of advice; I wanted simply to figure out how to write a novel, and was convinced that I must do this on my own—I’d never asked anyone how to write a software review or a comic book script, after all, and I didn’t want anyone telling me things before I’d worked out for myself what I was doing.
So I didn’t say anything. To anybody. I just wrote, a bit every day, in between the other things I was doing, like changing diapers and writing grant proposals.
Some eight months along in this process I found myself one night having an argument with a gentleman in the Literary Forum, about what it felt like to be pregnant.fn7 He asserted that he knew what this was like; his wife had had three children.
I laughed (electronically) and replied, “Yeah, buster. I’ve had three children!”
To which his reply was, “So tell me what you think it’s like.”
Now, among the fragments of the story that I had so far was one short piece in which a woman (Jenny Murray) tells her curious brother (Jamie Fraser) what it feels like to be pregnant. Since this piece seemed to sum up the experience with more eloquence than I could manage in a brief posted message, I told my correspondent that I had a “piece” explaining the phenomenon, and that I’d put it in the Literary Forum Library.fn8
Most conversations on CompuServe forums are public; that is, posted messages are visible to everyone, unless they’ve been marked as private (in which case, they’re visible only to the participants). Anyone may enter a “thread” (a series of bulletin-board-like messages and replies on a given topic) as they like.fn9 A number of people had been following the pregnancy argument, and so when I posted my “piece” in the library, they went and read it.
Several of them came back and left messages to me, saying (in effect), “This is great! What is it?”
To which I cleverly replied, “I don’t know.”
“Well, where’s the beginning?” they asked.
“I haven’t written that yet,” I answered.
“Well … put up more of it!” they said.
So I did. Let me explain that I not only don’t write with an outline, I don’t write in a straight line. I write in bits and pieces, and glue them together, like a jigsaw puzzle. So whenever I had a “piece” that seemed to stand on its own, without too much explanation, I’d post it in the library. And gradually, people began to talk about my pieces, and to ask me about the book that was taking shape. Eventually, they said to me, “You know, this stuff is good; you should try to publish it.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “It’s just for practice, and I don’t even know what kind of book it is.” (What with the time travel and the Loch Ness Monster and a few other things, I sort of didn’t think it was a historical novel anymore, but I had no idea what it might be instead.) “On the other hand … if I wanted to publish it, what should I do?”
“Get an agent” was the prompt response from several published authors with whom I had become friendly. “An agent can get you read much faster than if you submit the manuscript yourself, and if it does sell, an agent can negotiate a much better contract than you can.”
“Fine,” I said. “How do I find an agent?”
“Well …” they said, “you’re nowhere near finished with the book, you say, so you have plenty of time. Why don’t you just ask around? Find out which agents handle what, who has a good name in the industry, who you should keep away from, and so on.”
So I did. I listened to the stories of published authors, I asked questions, and after several months of such casual research, I thought I had found an agent who was a good prospect. His name was Perry Knowlton, and he appeared to be both reputable and well-known in publishing. Still better, he appeared to have no objection either to unorthodox books or to very long books—both of which, it dawned on me, I had.
However, I had no idea how to approach this man. I had heard that he didn’t accept unsolicited queries, and he wasn’t available online. Still, I was a long way from finished with the book, so I didn’t worry about it; just kept asking questions.
I was conversing one day (via posted messages) with an author I knew casually, named John Stith, who writes science fiction/mysteries, and asked him if he could tell me about his agent, if he had one.
John replied that he did have representation—Perry Knowlton. “Would you like me to introduce you to him?” John asked. “I know you’re nearly ready to look for an agent.”
Presented with this gracious offer, I swallowed hard, and said weakly, “Er … that’d be nice, John. Thanks!”
John then sent a note to Perry, essentially saying that I might be worth looking at. I followed this with my own query, explaining that I had been selling nonfiction (and comic books) for some years, but that now I was writing fiction and I understood that I really needed a good agent. He had been recommended to me by several writers whose opinions I respected; would he be interested in reading excerpts of this rather long novel I had? (I didn’t tell him I wasn’t finished writing the thing yet; “excerpts” were all I had.)
Perry kindly called and said yes, he’d read my excerpts. I sent him the miscellaneous chunks I had, with a rough synopsis to bind them togetherfn10—and he took me on, on the basis of an unfinished first novel.fn11
At any rate, I went on writing, and six months later finally finished the book. I sent Perry the manuscript, and also mentioned that I would be in New York the next week, for a scientific conference—perhaps I could come by and meet him face-to-face?
When I went up to Perry’s office, I was rather apprehensive, since I knew that he had by this time read the manuscript—but I didn’t know what he thought about it. Perry himself turned out to be a charming gentleman who did his best to put me at my ease, taking me back to his office and chatting about various of his other clients. It was at this point that I discovered that—in addition to those electronic acquaintances from whom I’d learned of him—Perry also represented such eminent writers as Brian Moore, Ayn Rand (granted, she was dead, but still …), Tony Hillerman, Frederick Forsyth, and Robertson Davies.
If these revelations were not enough to unnerve me, he had my manuscript sitting on his desk, in the enormous orange boxes in which I’d mailed it. I was positive that at some point in the conversation he was going to cough apologetically and tell me that having now seen the whole thing, he was afraid that he really didn’t think it was salable, and give it back to me.
However, as I was sitting there listening to him (meanwhile thinking, If you have the nerve to call Robertson Davies “Robbie,” you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din), he said instead, “You know, the thing about Freddy Forsyth and Robbie Davies is that both those guys are great storytellers.” Then he laid a hand on my manuscript, smiled at me, and said, “And you’re another one.”
At this point, I really didn’t care whether we sold the book or not. I felt as though I’d been beatified. As it was, though, I gathered sufficient presence of mind to ask what he planned to do with the book.
“Oh,” he said casually, “I’m sending it to five editors today,” and proceeded to tell me about the editor who he thought was the best prospect.fn12
“Really,” I said, swallowing. “And … er … how long do you think it might take to hear back?” I had, like most aspiring writers, read all the publishing information in Writer’s Market, and knew it often took six, nine, even twelve months to hear from an editor.
“Oh,” Perry said, even more casually, “I’ve told them I want an answer in thirty days.” At this point, I decided that I had probably picked the right agent.
So I went home to wait—as patiently as possible—for thirty days. Four days later, though, I came home to find a message waiting on my answering machine. “This is Perry,” said a calm voice. “I’ve just called to update you on your manuscript.”
Uh-oh, I said to myself. One of the five took one look at the box and said, “I’m not reading a ten-pound manuscript, take it back.” So I called Perry, expecting to hear this.
Instead, he said, “Well, of the five I sent it to, so far three of them have called back with offers.”
“Oh,” I said, and paused, feeling as though I’d been hit on the head with a blunt instrument. “Ah. That’s … uh … good. Isn’t it?”
Perry assured me that it was. He then negotiated among the various editors for two weeks, emerging at that point with comparable offers from two publishers. Everything else being equal, he said, it came down to a choice of editor—and he recommended that we go with Jackie Cantor, at Delacorte Press. Knowing absolutely nothing about editors, I said, “Okay, fine.” Which turned out to be the best choice I ever made—other than choosing my husband and my agent.
I had told Perry when I gave him the book that there seemed to be more to this story, but I thought that perhaps I should stop while I could still lift the manuscript. Being a good agent, Perry emerged with a three-book contract. After that … well, after that, things got out of hand, and here we are, eight years later.
So where are we, exactly? As I said above, I don’t write with an outline—if I knew what was going to happen, it wouldn’t be any fun to write the book, now, would it? However, as I go along, merrily gluing pieces together, I do sometimes get a vague idea as to some events that may take place in the story. So, as I finished Cross Stitch (my working title for what later became Outlander),fn13 I could see that there was more to the story.
With a three-book contract in hand, I started in on the second book, Dragonfly in Amber. A little over halfway through, though, I began to get this uneasy feeling that perhaps I wouldn’t be able to cram the entire American Revolution into one more book, and there would have to be four volumes. I confided this fear to Perry, who said, “Don’t tell them that. Not until the first one is on the shelves, anyway.”
Fortunately, by the time we decided to reveal the Awful Truth, the first books had come out and sold decently, and the publisher was happy to make us an offer for the fourth (and presumably final) book in the series. Feeling that this was perhaps the only chance I might get to induce someone to pay me to write a mystery, I got bold and said they could have the fourth book if they’d also give me a contract to write a contemporary mystery. Rather to my surprise, they gave me a contract for two mysteries—and the fourth of the Outlander books.
So I set in to write. I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote, and after a year and a half of this, I said, I’ve got a quarter-million words here; why the heck am I not nearly done with this? A little thought revealed the answer; I had (once again) too much story to fit into one book.
Attending a writers’ conference at which my editor was also present, I leaned over during the awards banquet and hissed in her ear, “Guess what? There are five of them.” To which Jackie, a woman of great presence and equanimity, replied, “Why am I not surprised to hear this?”
Actually, it was worse than I thought. When I removed all the pieces that belonged in the fifth book, I finally realized that what I was looking at was a double trilogy—six books in all. The first three books—Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, and Voyager—are centered around the Jacobite Rising of 1745. The second three books are centered in a similar way around the American Revolution, which was, in a way, a greatly magnified echo of the earlier conflict that ended at Culloden.
And that leads us in turn to a consideration of just what’s going on in these books. Once I realized that I really was a writer, and that I had not one, but a series of books, I had two main intentions.
One was a desire to follow the great social changes of the eighteenth century. This was a time of huge political and social upheaval that saw the transition of the Western world from the last remnants of feudalism into the modern age, in terms of everything from politics and science to art and social custom. The tide of history was changing, flowing from the Old World to the New, borne on the waves of war, and what better way to look at this than through the eyes of a time-traveler?
Now, this is great stuff for the background of a novel, to be sure, but the fact is that good novels are about people. A book that doesn’t have an absorbing personal story in the foreground may be good history, or have good ideas—but it won’t be good fiction. So what about the personal angle of this story?
The first book was originally marketed as a historical romance because, although the book didn’t fit neatly into any genre (and at the same time was certainly not “literary fiction”), of all the markets that it might conceivably appeal to, romance was by far the biggest. However …
Other considerations aside, romance novels are courtship stories. They deal with the forming of a bond between a couple, and once that bond is formed, by marriage and sexual congress (in that order, we hope)—well, the story’s over. That was never what I had in mind.
I didn’t want to tell the story of what makes two people come together, although that’s a theme of great power and universality. I wanted to find out what it takes for two people to stay together for fifty years—or more. I wanted to tell not the story of a courtship, but the story of a marriage.
Now, to handle adequately themes like the Age of Enlightenment, the fall of monarchy, and the nature of love and marriage, one requires a certain amount of room. One also requires rather a complex story. People now and then say to me, “But aren’t you getting tired of writing about the same old characters?” I certainly would be, if these were the same old characters—but they’re not. They grow, and they change. They get older, and their lives become more complex. They develop new depths and facets. While they do—I hope—remain true to their basic personalities, I have to rediscover them with each new book.
And that leads to another question I’m often asked: What is it that people find interesting about the books? For a long time, I replied (honestly), “Beats me,” but after years of getting letters and E-mail, I now have some idea of the things readers say they like.
Many of them enjoy the sense of “being there”; the vicarious experience of another place and time. Many like the historical aspects of the books; they enjoy (they say) “learning something” while being entertained. Many like the sense of connection, of rediscovering their own heritage. A good many enjoy the curious details: the botanical medicine, the medical procedures, the how and why of daily life in another time. But by far the most common element that people enjoy in the books is simply the characters—readers care for these people, are interested in them, and want to know more about them.
So, this companion is intended for the readers: a quick reference for those who don’t necessarily want to reread a million and a half words in order to refresh their memories as to Who or What; a source of information and (maybe) insight on the characters, a companion for those with an interest in backgrounds and trivia; an auxiliary guide for those with an interest in the eighteenth century and Things Scottish, and finally—a brief glimpse into the working methods of a warped mind.
“True. I have heard the point made, though, that the novelist’s skill lies in the artful selection of detail. Do you not suppose that a volume of such length may indicate a lack of discipline in such selection, and hence a lack of skill?”
Fraser considered, sipping the ruby liquid slowly.
“I have seen books where that is the case, to be sure,” he said. “An author seeks by sheer inundation of detail to overwhelm the reader into belief. In this case, however, I think it isna so. Each character is most carefully considered, and all the incidents chosen seem necessary to the story. No, I think it is true that some stories simply require a greater space in which to be told.”
—VOYAGER, chapter 11: “The Torremolinos Gambit”
fn1 The university and I later sold this publication to John Wiley & Sons, Inc., though I continued to serve as editor. It eventually was sold again, to a small British publisher, who merged it with an existing publication called Laboratory Microcomputer. Last time I looked, I was still listed as a contributing editor, but that was some time ago.
fn2 Oh, the comic books. Well, my mother taught me to read at an early age, in part by reading me Walt Disney comics. What with one thing and another, I never stopped. At the age of twenty-eight or so, I was reading one of these, and said to myself, You know, this story is pretty bad. I bet I could do better myself!
I found out the name and address of the editor in charge, and sent him a medium-rude letter, saying in essence, “I’ve been reading your comic books for twenty-five years, and they’re getting worse and worse. I don’t know that I could do better myself, but I’d like to try.”
Fortunately the editor—Del Connell—was a gentleman with a sense of humor. He wrote back and said, “Okay. Try.” He didn’t buy my first attempt, but did something much more valuable; he told me what was wrong with it. He bought my second story—one of the Great Thrills of my life—and I wrote for him and for another Disney editor, Tom Golberg, for some three years, until their backlog obliged them to stop purchasing freelance scripts.
Between them, Del and Tom taught me most of what I know about story structure. I acknowledge the debt with great gratitude.
fn3 This is a really sound technique, by the way.
fn4 Doctor Who is unfortunately no longer on our local PBS channel, but luckily I can still do my nails on Saturday nights, while watching Mystery Science Theater 3000—which is, in fact, the only TV I do watch on a regular basis. No doubt this explains something, but I couldn’t tell you what.
fn5 It was “War Games,” for those interested in trivia.
fn6 See “Research.”
fn7 Via posted messages, left bulletin-board style; I’ve never been in a “chat room” in my life, save as an invited guest for a mass public interview.
fn8 “Libraries” are electronic spaces set aside within CompuServe forums for members to post—semipermanently—things they’d like to share: stories, poems, essays, articles, shareware files, etc.
fn9 Chat rooms and live-time interactions did not exist at the time. CompuServe messages, unlike those of AOL, exist only temporarily, with new messages essentially “pushing” old ones off into the ether.
fn10 A slightly altered version of this synopsis appears in Part Two.
fn11 Ignorant as I was at the time, I hadn’t realized that agents (and editors) normally want to see a complete manuscript before making a judgment on it—just to be sure that the writer can actually finish the book. Perry, fortunately, was willing to gamble that I could.
fn12 Who, interestingly enough, rejected the manuscript. “It’s a great story,” she said, “but it’s not really a standard romance novel, and that’s what we publish.”
fn13 See “Where Titles Come From (and Other Matters of General Interest)”. I just love footnotes, don’t you?
These synopses are provided for the benefit of those readers who send me letters saying “Who the heck is Archie Hayes?” or “I don’t remember exactly how they got from Falkirk to the Duke’s house, can you clear that up for me?” and an assortment of other questions easily answerable by anyone with the books sitting in front of them. Still, in the rush and hurry of modern life, who has time to go back and thumb leisurely through a million and a half words of print? Not me, I’ll tell you.
So, for the use of those who have lent out their books and don’t want to drive to the library to check a plot detail or a character name, or for those who merely wish to refresh their memories …
IT’S 1946,fn1 THE Scottish Highlands are in bloom, and Claire Randall, an English ex-army combat nurse, has come to Scotland on a second honeymoon with her husband, Frank, from whom she’s been separated by the war.
While she doesn’t share Frank’s passion for genealogy, she’s looking forward to starting the next branch on the family tree. Meanwhile, she occupies her spare time in exploring the countryside, pursuing an interest in botany. On one such expedition, she discovers an ancient circle of standing stones—made the more interesting by Frank’s having heard that the circle is still in use by a local group of women who celebrate the “old ways” there.
In the dawn of the ancient Feast of Beltane—May 1—Claire and Frank creep up to the circle, to see the women dancing and chanting, calling down the sun. The couple steal away unseen, but later Claire returns to the circle to get a closer look at an unusual plant she’s seen growing there.
She touches one of the standing stones and is enveloped in a sudden vortex of noise and confusion. Disoriented and half-conscious, she finds herself on the hill outside the circle, and slowly makes her way down—to find what she assumes is a film shoot in progress at the bottom; a prince-in-the-heather epic, with kilted Scotsmen being pursued by red-coated British soldiers.
Claire carefully skirts the scene, so as not to ruin the shot, and making her way through the woods stumbles into a man in the costume of an eighteenth-century English army officer. This doesn’t disturb her nearly as much as does the man’s striking resemblance to her husband, Frank.
The resemblance is quickly explained; the man is in fact Frank’s ancestor, the notorious “Black Jack” Randall, of whom Frank had often told her. While very similar in appearance, however, Jack Randall unfortunately does not share his descendant’s personality—the former-day Randall being a sadistic bisexual pervert rather than a mild-mannered history professor.
Claire is rescued from Black Jack’s clutches by one of the Scotsmen she had seen earlier, who takes her to the cottage where his fellows are hiding, waiting for darkness to escape. One of the men has been wounded, and Claire treats his wound—as best she can—meanwhile trying to come to terms with the apparent truth of where—and when—she is.
Bemused not only by Claire’s peculiar dress—or lack of it—but by the sheer impossibility of her presence—English ladies simply aren’t found in the Highlands in 1743—the Scotsmen decide to take her with them when they decamp under cover of darkness.
As Claire remarks, “The rest of the journey passed uneventfully; if you consider it uneventful to ride fifteen miles on horseback through rough country at night, frequently without benefit of roads, in company with kilted men armed to the teeth, and sharing a horse with a wounded man. At least we were not set upon by highwaymen, we encountered no wild beasts, and it didn’t rain. By the standards I was becoming used to, it was quite dull.”
Arriving at dawn at Castle Leoch, seat of clan MacKenzie, Claire meets The MacKenzie, Colum. A courtly man deformed by a hideous genetic disease, Colum is both intrigued and suspicious. He can think of no conceivable reason for an Englishwoman to have been wandering the Highlands, and makes no pretense of believing Claire’s thin story of having been beset by robbers. Not knowing who she may be, or what her purposes are, he makes it plain that he intends to keep her as his guest for the time being—willing or not.
While laying plans for her escape and return to the stone circle, Claire becomes better acquainted with the young man whose wound she had dressed, a clansman named Jamie, whom she at first takes for a groom at the castle.
She discovers her mistake; Jamie is in fact the nephew of Colum and his brother, Dougal (the clan’s war chieftain, who leads the men to battle in place of his crippled brother), though his father belonged to clan Fraser. He is also an outlaw, wanted by the English for offenses ranging from theft to unspecified “obstruction”—offenses that have left his back webbed with the scars of flogging.
Relations between uncles and nephew appear oddly strained, and the reason is explained following a clan Gathering, at which Colum demands an oath of loyalty from Jamie—and fails to get it. Colum has one son, Hamish, age eight. As Jamie explains to Claire, if Colum should die—as is likely, given the nature of his disease—before young Hamish is of an age to lead the clan, who will inherit the chieftainship?
Dougal is the obvious candidate, but there are those among the clan who feel that while he is an able warrior, he lacks the cool head and intelligence a chief should have. Hamish is plainly too young—but there is another candidate: Jamie. While Jamie himself professes no desire to usurp the chieftainship, Colum and Dougal are not so sure his protestations are sincere, and are inclined to take steps—some of them lethal—to prevent any such attempt.
Claire has so far failed twice in her attempts to escape from Leoch, so she is delighted to hear Dougal announce that he intends to take her with him on his journey to collect rents from the tacksmen of the district. His professed intention is to take her to the captain of the English garrison, who may either be able to shed light on her presence or take charge of her. Or both.
Claire is highly in favor of this, feeling sure that she can persuade the English captain to send her back to the stone circle, from which she may be able to get back to her own time. Her hopes vanish abruptly upon her discovery that the captain of the garrison is Jack Randall.
For his part, Jack Randall is delighted to see Claire again, and determined to find out who and what she is. Englishwomen simply don’t go to the Highlands; if she is here, alone, she must undoubtedly be a spy—but for whom, and why? His notions of interrogation are not gentle, and even Dougal MacKenzie is appalled. Refusing to leave her with the Captain, Dougal takes Claire away with him, and after a pause for thought, tells her that he has conceived a plan: The Captain has the right to compel the person of an English citizen, but cannot arrest a Scotswoman in her own country without legal formalities. So, Dougal announces triumphantly, he will make her a Scot; she must marry his nephew Jamie without delay.
Nearly as horrified by this notion as by the Captain’s behavior, Claire does her best to resist, but can find no alternative. Convinced at last that if she marries Jamie, she will have a better chance of escape, she consents, finding her horror tempered with bemusement at her prospective bridegroom’s inexperience:
“Does it bother you that I’m not a virgin?” He hesitated a moment before answering.
“Well, no,” he said slowly, “so long as it doesna bother you that I am.” He grinned at my drop-jawed expression, and backed toward the door.
“Reckon one of us should know what they’re doing,” he said. The door closed softly behind him; clearly the courtship was over.
However, there is no immediate chance of escape, and Claire is obliged to consummate her marriage with Jamie—under Dougal’s firm orders. Dougal, it appears, is killing two birds with one stone; while he has sufficient humanitarian instincts to wish to keep Claire away from Randall (and is still curious enough about her to want to find out for himself what she’s doing there), his principal motive is to stifle any chance of his nephew attaining the chieftainship of clan MacKenzie—for the clan will never accept Jamie as leader with an English wife.
Realizing that Jamie is as much under duress as is she, Claire accepts the inevitable—and finds herself becoming very fond of her new young husband. Much too fond; for she still means to escape and return to Frank, as soon as she can.