The historical novel of our day, despite the great talent of its best exponents, still suffers in many respects from the remnants of the harmful and still not entirely vanquished legacy of bourgeois decadence.”

I had rather hoped my first novel would be sopping with unvanquished, bourgeois decadence (see defintion of the Historical Romance novel). But, and here’s a contradiction that will confound, I just could not reconcile the emotional truth of the Civil War in Springfield and the Ozarks with a love story, or even a saucy story of heroes and lust. From just July 1861 until Christmas Day that year, five different armies occupied Springfield, and a sixth was on its way. Not long after that Christmas Missouri was, in the words of superb historian William Garrett Piston, plunged “into a savagery with few parallels in American history.” So, despite a literary novel requiring no obeisance to historical accuracy (see definitions), I just couldn’t bring on lots of steamy bed scenes, though there is one after bed scene.

To spite Lukács, I promise the sequel will be roaring with Love, O Careless Love.