Connecting 1528 and 1981

When I began writing Alien Coast four years ago, some events of 1981 best suited the plot of this historical novel, which harkens back to an event nearly five centuries ago. And today, the happenings of 1981 feel more like current events. Then, as now, a new right-wing president promised a golden age and a minimalist government. Both elderly men were victims of assassination attempts. Both had/have an unshakeable belief in their power to overcome any obstacle. Then, as now, Russia and China threatened us, and the War on Drugs was a national priority, and so forth. Of course, you can always find parallels between any two historical periods. That’s partly because we humans tend to repeat our mistakes over and over, our valuable lessons often unlearned. In his Requiem for a Nun, William Faulkner famously said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Sadly, the flaws in human nature have not changed. But neither have the redeeming qualities of our nature. And that is what this story and countless others are about. The lessons are always there to be learned.

A Spanish entrada of the 1500s

Cherry picking from History

Tidal marsh at St. Marks, FL, looking south toward the Gulf of Mexico.

A novelist might wrap his/her story around some period and character in history for very personal reasons. For Alien Coast, I chose the time and person of a lesser-known and flawed Spanish conquistador. I wanted his failures to be the back story for a tale about an international conspiracy. As a teenager growing up on the bay in Panama City, FL, I stumbled on a treatise about then current knowledge of the Gulf of Mexico. The first chapter was a history of its "discovery" by Europeans in the 16th century. The first Spanish expedition to western Florida and the northern Gulf Coast, led by a mercurial guy, Pánfilo de Narváez, and part of their journey passed along the Gulf beaches near my house. I could picture those five boats full of ragged men rowing along just offshore. Over the years, I read the personal account of that expedition written by a survivor, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. It’s a simple but gripping story of discovery, danger, hardship, endurance, and ultimate disaster. And it’s a key episode in our national history that happened nearly five centuries ago in 1528. I wanted to shine some new light on it one way or another, and especially now that we’re nearing the expedition's 500th anniversary.