Ragtown on Kindle Vella

 If you've followed my blog or followed me on social media, you know how long I have worked on Ragtown. It is truly a labor of love and finally, I can share it with everyone. 

RAGTOWN is now available on Kindle Vella! 

And it has definitely received a lot of love! Vella became a reality in mid-July, and Ragtown has remained in the top 20 Favorite Reads the entire time, peaking at NUMBER 1. 

If you aren't familiar with Kindle Vella, it's a new platform offered by Amazon. Please read my post "What Is Kindle Vella?" for more information. 

Ragtown

The Hoover Dam is a model of American engineering and ingenuity.  But, it is also a testament to the fortitude of the common man: overcoming the burdens of the Great Depression, learning to survive and thrive in an unforgiving climate.  It was that story that I was compelled to write. 

RAGTOWN explores the different roles placed on men and women during the Great Depression, not only by society, but themselves, and what each must do to survive in the harsh climate of the Nevada desert. As both Helen and Ezra are vested in the diversion of the Colorado River from the course it has run for thousands of years, their lives parallel this monumental change. 

My inspiration to write comes from the personal histories of actual dam workers who endured this remarkable era in American history.  It is through Helen and Ezra that I tell their story.

I hope you will all check it out on Kindle Vella, where the first THREE episodes are FREE to read. 

And please, don't forget to "thumbs up" at the end of the episodes, and consider RAGTOWN for your weekly FAV. 

CHECK IT OUT NOW ON KINDLE VELLA !

The Turner Erotica: Robert Begiebing on BookTalkNation.com

 April 24, 2013 at 7:00 pm EST, author Robert Begiebing will be interviewed live on BookTalkNation.com about his latest release, The Turner Erotica: A Biographical Novel. Begiebing is one of the most fascinating speakers I have had the pleasure to listen to and his knowledge of historical fiction writing is legendary. Don't miss this opportunity to talk with him, ask a question or just listen and learn from him.  

Go to BookTalkNation.com and register for the interview and send in a question for Robert Begiebing. A wonderful opportunity to hear from an amazing artist.


I have included below an excerpt from an interview with the author conducted by John Lemon, editor and owner of Ilium Press.   

Research. Art. History. Oh, and erotica.

The story behind the story is a story in itself...

JL: J. M. W. Turner was a revolutionary 19th century artist. Explain how his work changed the landscape of art.

April, 2013 from Ilium Press

RB: This is a big question probably not adequately answerable in an interview like this without sounding like a parody of glib art criticism. But let me try to lay out some points to suggest Turner's significance. Beyond sheer genius, being the youngest member elected to the Royal Academy, one of the first things that comes to mind is his taking the art of watercolors to a whole new level of technique and competence, demonstrating that water can be as important, detailed, and powerful as oil painting. He was a real pioneer on that front, just as he brought the techniques of oil painting to a new level, including original uses of some of the new pigments available in the early 19th century.
Turner is arguably the greatest painter Britain has produced, and his paintings have become national icons. He's buried in St. Paul's Cathedral along with other great British artists and national heroes such as Lord Nelson. The National Gallery accepted his posthumous bequest in 1856, representing 60 years of dedicated artistic labor—including something like 540 oil paintings, 1,600 finished watercolors, and 19,300 sketch studies.
He's the great master of advancing painterly traditions even while forging a new visionary Western art that reaches through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. If he studied during his journeys abroad old masters such as Titian, Claude, and the Venetians—Canaletto, Titian, Tintoretto—particularly for confidence in his lengthy elucidation of light, he also studied his more local 18th-century predecessors from Blake to West to Mortimer. And he worked in all the traditional genres—history, biblical and mythological themes, landscapes, marines, and so on, avoiding only portraiture per se. Probably in part because he made a respectable living without the grind of portraiture so many lesser painters depended on for patronage. (After his famous self-portrait at age 26 or 27, he stayed away from it.) It's his land and seascapes that represent him at his most advanced and visionary—

JL: So, to be clear, it is as what you are calling a visionary artist that his influence is greatest?

Robert Begiebing

RB: Yes. As a visionary artist, reminiscent of his near contemporary Blake, Turner developed on canvas a perception of strong light eroding the solidity of the material world; he became, as one critic called him, a "painter of light, air, space." His life partakes of the character of his works: ever evolving, mysterious and puzzling to the observer who is forced to think; he avoids explanations, but was known to wink and say, "Make that out if you can." This deeper and mysterious attribute of his work seems to parallel his private life—his relations with women, his illegitimate children, and his private abodes and incognitos unknown to most of his acquaintances. He found a way to employ his whole self, including the mature and immature self, the eccentric self and the Royal Academician, a self that expresses an almost adolescent curiosity or fascination with the architecture and physiology and energy of sex (evident in the erotica), which seems, in turn, an expression of his inexhaustible appetite for observation.
His effects, traditional and visionary, lay beyond the competence of most artists at the time, including painting with his fingers, fingernails, brush ends, etc., along with the usual accoutrements. He's advancing the art at every level. And his influence is vast, not least unto the European and American Impressionists but also all the way into the mid-twentieth century abstract, non-objective painters, and no doubt beyond.

JL: Can you give a few examples?

RB: If Turner influenced the French (from Delacroix in 1825 to the Impressionists in 1870) who used his example pointing the way nearer the heart of Light more than he influenced English painters, the Americans above all developed a devotion to Turner. As early as the 1830s American artists such as Benjamin West and Washington Allston championed Turner as did William Ellery Channing in the North American Review. Thomas Cole studied Turner and met him. Fredrick Church was deeply influenced, as was Abba May Alcott, described as a "female Turner." And then there are the American Luminists, of the 1860s mostly: Fitz Hugh Lane, John Frederick Kensett, Martin Johnson Heade. Their studies of light and atmosphere were more generally serene, but they are a sort of Constable meets Turner group. All these Americans were suggesting on canvas the palpability of light; if forms are isolated structurally, they are tied together coloristically through a golden glow or blue tonality playing over them. Turner is not without influence on the Transcendentalist writers as well, in the sense that they seek the divinity of light and submergence of one's personality in Divine power. Charles Eliot Norton mounted an exhibition in America and Ralph Waldo Emerson read Modern Painters.
Thomas Moran is called "The American Turner." By late 1860s and 70s the American palettes grow even lighter and more colorful as American artists prepare for the full impact of impressionism in the 1880s-90s (studying the ways light affects color relationships as well as compositional organization): think of Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, William Merritt Chase, even John Singer Sargent. And then there is James McNeill Whistler whose gestural manner and use of color for moods, as if he were creating music and poetry, looks ahead to the abstractionist expressionists.
Is it too far a reach to suggest that in the twentieth century, to take just two examples, Rothko's bands and blocks of color and Jackson Pollock's energized brush strokes and gestural splashes and power drips of paint display a chain of influence? Look at Pollock's Sounds in the Grass: Shimmering Substance. And come to think of it, Motherwell spoke of Turner's lead in organizing "states of feeling" as "questions of light, color, weight, solidity, airiness, lyricism…." Turner valued not only cosmic energy in his paintings, he adumbrated these much later artists in his quest for emotionality, for unconscious energy, for nature's elemental forces. It's very difficult for me to look at some of these abstract expressionists without seeing the familiar visionary subjectivity in Turner's late works.

JL: There has been a significant amount of controversy around the theft and destruction of the Turner erotica sketches. Explain your research that leads you to believe this really occurred and by John Ruskin's hand.

RB: By the documentary evidence available to us, the destruction most likely did occur. If you credit the documentary evidence (it boils down to four documents, letters and diary entries) you don't end up trying to prove a negative (i.e., no holocaust) through reasonable speculations and extrapolations. Just before or just after someone's death, the burning of potentially embarrassing documents was not at all uncommon in the nineteenth century. One of the most famous instances is Isabel Burton's burning of Sir Richard Burton's manuscripts and papers after his death. She cited Ruskin's burning of the Turner erotica as one excuse for her doing so, to preserve another great man's reputation.
There is some debate, however, over how much Turner erotica was burned, or even whether any was, since Turner scholar Ian Warrell posited another way to look at the surviving erotic studies in a long academic essay on the matter. Warrell was tentative and exploratory about a possible interpretation of evidence that might at least suggest the immolation never occurred, but the press (The New York Times and The Guardian) got wind of Warrell's essay and turned the matter into a "case closed" and "we've all been fooled by this legend" news story, in the sensational, absolutist manner journalists are too often prone to feed us benighted citizens in the interests of commerce.
On the other hand, the specifics of the theft by narrator Stillman's hand are fictional though plausible, given what we know of Stillman and the rather mysterious falling out he actually had with Ruskin, his one-time mentor.

Check out all of Robert Begiebing's books at his website www.begiebing.com

Visit Ilium Press at www.iliumpress.com



Interview reproduced with author permission. 

I Am Strong

Recently, while talking about Ragtown with two friends, Jenifer Badamo and Cristy Minton, the subject of strong women came up.  Although my historical novel is set during the building of the Hoover Dam, I really tried to capture the experiences of the families involved in the project, not just the men who worked in the diversion tunnels.  Yes, my guys are, for the most part, tough guys, but my women are strong, too, each in their own way.  Since this is the beginning of what is known in my family as 'Kelly Week' (I'll explain that later), I thought it would be fun to tell you about a few of my strong Ragtown women.

 

Betsy Carter arrived in the desert eight months pregnant and gave birth to her youngest of three children on a hot desert night on the bank of the Colorado River.  Although Betsy is the motherly influence, underneath that Mother Hubbard is one tough gal.  She is a crack shot with a pistol, and not afraid to use it to protect her family.

 

As young girls, Mae and Sally had dreams of one day marrying and living happily ever after.  However, when both of their parents died, Mae, a teenager, was forced to do whatever was necessary to take care of her younger sister.  It was the 1930's and what few jobs were available were reserved for men. Mae and Sally work as prostitutes in the small cribs behind the Railroad Pass Casino.

 

Helen Carter is a sixteen year old firecracker.  Small and redheaded, she has a mind of her own.  While the other residents of Ragtown are withering under the desert heat, Helen seems to take her strength from it.  She is part of the desert and finds beauty in what others consider ugly.  If there is a rock of the novel, it is Helen.

 

So as 'Kelly Week' begins, my conversation with Jen and Cristy comes back around, because during the conversation, Cristy made the following comment, which really hit home: 

I think we are ALL strong, just most of us don't see that in ourselves...

I have friends that have overcome breast cancer, have undergone chemotherapy for Hepatitis, have lost husbands and children.  I know women who are raising kids with Autism and other disabilities, who are taking care of their parents and grandparents, and who are raising families on their own.  I have writer friends who have dug deep into their souls to share painful past experiences, others who are working on advanced degrees to improve their lives, and still others that have become successful businesswomen in a world that is still dominated by men.   These are the women I consider strong.  I certainly don't always think of myself as strong, but I am a Nurse, and a mother and I have made it to 29 (whatever).  So, in my own way, I am strong, too.  As Cristy said, 'most of us don't see that in ourselves'.  Well, it's time we do.

Now to 'Kelly Week'.  National Nurses Week is celebrated annually from May 6, also known as National Nurses Day, through May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing.  My birthday is on May 7, and I will be 29 (or something with a '9' in it).  And of course, Mothers Day is May 13, and of all of the hats I wear, that's the one I cherish most. 

 

But I'm changing 'Kelly Week' to 'Strong Women Week' (since it is a made-up week of celebration, I can do that).  Thank the Nurses you know for all they do, show your Mother how much she means to you, and by all means, raise a glass to my 29-ish years.  But also, take the time to say thank you to ALL of the women in your life for just being the amazing people they are.  And women, take a minute to see the strength in yourself.  Then say it loud: 

I AM STRONG.

Hoover Dam Stories: Four Women

With the country experiencing a Depression like never before, men from around the country made their way to the harsh Nevada desert in 1931 to find work on the Boulder Canyon Project.  They lived openly in the desert, or under makeshift shelters that consisted of canvas, stray pieces of ply board or cardboard---basically whatever they could find.  Small shanty towns populated by the homeless, “Hoovervilles,” lined the highway from the Black Canyon worksite to Las Vegas, some forty miles away. 

The men did not all come alone; some brought their families.  Although the exact numbers are unknown, some estimates run as high as forty thousand people: unemployed and homeless living in an unforgiving climate.  Temperatures often reached one hundred-twenty degrees by early in the morning and did not come down until late in the night.  Nearer the worksite, temperatures were even higher, and inside the diversion tunnels of the project, for those that were lucky enough to get a job, temperatures were often up to one hundred-forty degrees. 

But the unrelenting heat was just one of the hazards of living in the desert for the men, women and children of the Hoovervilles like Ragtown.  Food was scarce, water sources were often contaminated, and of course, they had the native 'residents' to worry about: Black Widow spiders.  Rattlesnakes.  Centipedes.  Red Ants.  Scorpions.       

On July 26, 1931, four women in Ragtown died of 'the fever', which was most likely dysentery-related, compliments of the Colorado River, where they drank, bathed, laundered and well, you know the rest.  But it was water, and the river was, most likely, what kept most of them alive.  But nothing comes without a cost, and although the river was a life source, it was also a danger, and once in a while, bad wins out over good. 

While the men who worked on the project faced many challenges, I feel it is also important to remember the struggles that the women and children faced.  Therefore, my upcoming novel, Ragtown, begins on July 26, 1931.  A day when four women died in the desert Hooverville called Ragtown.  Four women who were  just trying to survive.

Hoover Dam Stories: Double Ugly and the Glory Hole

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Hoover Dam Stories: The Jumbo Rig

My father worked his entire life in the trucking industry and I eventually did, too, working twelve years in companies that specialized in land, ocean container and air freight.  So I have been around trucks most of my life and frankly, I like trucks.  Stick with me on this one.     

Before the actual construction of the Hoover Dam could begin, the Colorado river had to be diverted around the site. This required the drilling of four tunnels, each 56 foot in diameter and approximately 3/4 of a mile long through solid rock.  Using pneumatic drills, a few dozen holes were drilled into the wall and stuffed with dynamite (a lot of dynamite. It's estimated that it took a ton of dynamite for every fourteen foot of tunnel).  After the blast, all of the rock and debris had to be shoveled out and taken upstream and the process started over.  In the beginning, it took countless men, drilling, dynamiting and shoveling to make an inch of progress.  

Using ladders to drill the holes at the highest points wasn't the greatest idea. The pneumatic drills that were used were big and bulky and weighed about forty pounds.  The vibration that was generated from one of those monsters alone was enough to knock a man off a ladder.

So how do you drill thirty holes at different heights, pack them with dynamite and move all of the valuable equipment and workers to a safe distance before a blast?  This was a question that the engineers working on the project struggled with.

Then in steps the Jumbo Rig. 

 The Jumbo Rig, or Jumbo Truck was the brainchild of Bernard "Woody" Williams.  Why not create a scaffolding system on wheels?  Why not.  Taking one of the 1916 International flatbeds that he'd seen around the site, Williams had planks of timber mounted on the truck's bed that would accommodate up to thirty drillers standing at three levels to drill simultaneously.  At first this was slow, too, as the vibration caused by all of those drills being used at once required that the wooden struts be hammered back together after every round of drilling. But the idea was sound, and steel jumbos soon followed.  These jumbos had two platforms for drillers to stand on, the third level of men working from the ground.  It also had horizontal bars at the three levels, where the pneumatic drills hung by swivels.  The process then became: Back the truck up to the solid rock wall, drill the holes, pack them with dynamite, tie them together and then pull the entire truck a safe distance away while the blowman detonated.  Then clear away the debris and do it again.  

Eventually, there were eight Jumbo rigs used in the construction of the tunnels.  Did they save time? Of course, in fact, the tunnel crews finished a year ahead of schedule.