Book Blurb:
Before the Civil War, the lives of three siblings raised at the Lockhouse on the National Mall take dramatic turns as they rebound from the death of a baby in the canal. The oldest, Betsy, and mother of the drowned child, must accept God’s punishment for her life as a whore in Washington’s most prestigious bawdy house. Frank, non-religious, seizes the opportunity to move upriver and learn his Uncle’s businesses on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. Lilly, the youngest, is scarred for life, renounces God, and begins an education that will bring her to her life work.
As the characters transform, so does the National Mall. From 1848, when the Washington Monument is dedicated, to Emancipation Day, 1863, the Lockhouse and stench of the City Canal persist, while the Capitol grows wings and a new dome, the first botanical garden appears, and the Smithsonian “castle” opens. Only for the Mall to become home to thousands of soldiers – and then their hospital.
While the siblings struggle with whom or what they believe in, the country’s leaders do the same as a spectrum of views on slavery and its abolition create the third change in our political party system bringing us the newly formed Republican Party. Scenes of political times up to and including the Civil War read like current events.
This family saga of emerging feminist, businessman, and naturalist holds attention with its cast of characters from Senators to freemen, slaves, and contrabands, from bargemen to inventors, and from the explorers of the Megatherium Club to the child soldiers of the Civil War.
Book Buy Link: https://geni.us/nationalmalltale
Author Bio:
It was late in life I took up writing novels. I’d finished my career - so what to do with all those experiences as a lawyer, executive, professor? With all those people I met in business, government, and nonprofits? Well, it seems they’re all in me, and now they’re finding their way out in bits and pieces in my characters.
This was especially true of the Nonprofit Girl Trilogy. Now that I've moved to historical fiction with Tales of the National Mall, what I'm finding is that the constraints of history are more forceful in shaping my characters at first. Which makes it more challenging - and makes me meet and come to terms with people I’ve never known. And it’s also more fun, because I have to learn a whole lot more to write about them and give them choices.
Wherever you start with my books, I hope you enjoy them. You can always contact me with questions by writing ann@annbeltran.com. Easier yet, sign up for my newsletter on annbeltran.com where I’ll share tidbits, and extras about the novels and their characters.
Editorial Review:
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
—Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
It takes a skilled writer to transform history into art by placing humanity’s flesh and blood onto a factual skeleton. Such works make reality more interesting and accessible and the writer is thereby fulfilling a service to others. Ann Beltran gives mid-19th century America this treatment in Faith on the Mall, a novel about three siblings living on the National Mall in what was then called Washington City, now Washington, DC. This is an excellent novel whose biggest strengths are its prose and its character analysis. It will be of interest to anyone who enjoys early American history with a sentimental touch.
Elizabeth, Frank, and Lily are the three siblings. They recover from tragedy to forge their individual paths, intersecting with history in America’s capital as the nation lurches toward the Civil War. This novel is written in the first person, with each chapter rotating narrators between the siblings. This reviewer found Elizabeth’s story, moving from prostitute to aide of Senator Charles Sumner, the most interesting. Lily’s had the prettiest prose. It reads poetically at times. The book’s second paragraph, in which Lily is looking for her infant nephew, told the reviewer he was in good hands:
That lump ahead in the grass, I stoop and pick up the tattered pony he was teething, still damp. I twirl - how can I not be seeing him? I hear my heart thumping - where has he gone? My eyes circle the garden in ever-widening arcs – surely, I will see his blond curls! How could he have crawled far – I wasn’t away that long - I’d just run across the top of the locks to catch up with Tom. Had I walked too long with him?
The decision to open the story with Elizabeth’s infant son, Paulie, dying, may put off some readers. On the one hand, Beltran launching her narrative with such a dramatic and emotional episode makes sense to hook the reader. On the other hand, this reviewer questioned the move when the reader has had no chance to connect with Paulie or the family, lessening the impact the reader feels. This is a question of preference and there is not a right or wrong answer. Readers will decide for themselves.
Stories tend to prioritize their plots, their characters, or their tones. For film examples, Casablanca prioritized its plot, Lawrence of Arabia its character, and Schindler’s List tone. Faith on the Mall is a character study. Beltran focuses on the siblings’ psychologies and journeys. The following passage, for example, about Lily, demonstrates Beltran’s gift for character depth:
With Paulie’s death, I became afraid. More than any other force, fear has shaped my character. Growing up, I often felt tense, pressured to never again make a mistake. Life taught me that neglect has dire consequences. Carelessness was to be avoided. Quick or intuitive urges paused for assessment. My inner state fed on anxiety while my outer appearance became as constrained and limited as I could make it. I wished to be invisible. At times, I sensed something dark lived within me, caged.
I was determined to not let it out.
The siblings are lifelike. They are fleshed-out people who the reader comes to know and admire and root for. This is perhaps Beltran’s greatest achievement with Faith on the Mall.
A key feature of the plot is the siblings experiencing the major events and meeting the leading figures of this era in American history. We hear of Harper’s Ferry, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Elizabeth works for Senator Sumner. Lily studies reptiles at the newly established Smithsonian. Frank tracks the newly developing Washington Monument and fights at Antietam. Beltran clearly loves Walt Whitman (both the novel and every section opens with a Whitman quote as an epigraph). Elizabeth meets Whitman and the family witnesses Abraham Lincoln, raising this element to its zenith and forming part of the climax.
The siblings state their political views many times and almost always reflect the modern, socially liberal consensus. Some examples:
Elizabeth on Native Americans, as the cornerstone of the Washington Monument is laid:
Indian Chiefs stood in their exotic and intriguing garb – all those marvelous feathers! And beautiful beads glinting in the sunlight. Their faces looked a bit grim though, and for a fleeting moment I wondered what they really thought about George Washington and the formation of this country.
Lily, on the family’s grandmother chastising Frank:
His well-intentioned thanks provoked Grandmother. “Women exist for more than your needs and pleasure, Frank, and don’t you go forgetting that.”
Elizabeth asking Sumner about Whitman’s homosexuality:
“Charles, why do the critics of Mr. Whitman judge him so harshly for his affection for men? Is it not something of spirit, of individual taste for the enjoyment of a man’s company? Is it so different from me perhaps deciding at some point that I would like nothing better than to live with my sister? That shared history, and disposition, makes us more compatible to each other than any relationship we have found with a man?”
Lily working as a Civil War nurse:
We received injured Confederates. Some nurses disdained helping Rebels, but it was no difference to me.
These examples, and others such as opposing slavery, reflect the siblings’ moral purity. Beltran wants her protagonists to be good people who the reader will like. This reviewer appreciates that and believes Beltran achieves that goal. But the reviewer thinks that greater nuance between the siblings’ views, even if that meant one or more of the sibling's held views which placed them on the wrong side of history, would have been more interesting. Again, this is a question of preference. The reviewer would have liked greater conflict between the siblings at various plot points. But that was not the story Beltran wanted to tell. Their biggest disagreements regard religion, with Frank and Lily abandoning it and Elizabeth embracing it after their family tragedy.
Faith on the Mall provides a romp through 19th-century America with excellent prose, well-designed characters, and a sentimental tone. It is highly recommended for readers who want a happy and educational experience.
*****
“Faith on the Mall” by Ann Beltran receives five stars and the “Highly Recommended” award of excellence from The Historical Fiction Company
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