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Readers > The Brimstone Papers > Comments And Reviews
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Comments And Reviews
"The sights, sounds, and smells come alive in this fast and furious historical novel."
--- ForemostPress.com
The Brimstone Papers is a worthy successor (actually a prequel, in order of publication) to Gone Over, published in 2009. Taken together, the two books amount to a fictional narrative of the adult life of a real historical character of note during the American Revolution, Israel Potter. The Brimstone Papers deals with Potter's life as a young man as the Revolution lurches into motion. Gone Over opens with Potter as a captive of the British and his recruitment by them to spy on his countrymen. It is an extraordinary life, and Mssrs. Chacko and Kulcsar have rendered it in a highly readable and absorbing fashion.
Recapping the Wikipedia entry, "Israel Potter (1744-1826) was... born in Cranston, Rhode Island. He had been a veteran of the Battle of Bunker Hill, a sailor in the Revolutionary navy, a prisoner of the British, an escapee in England, a secret agent and courier in France, and a 45-year exile from his native land as a laborer, pauper, and peddler in London." Such a man is clearly a fine subject for fictional treatment, all the more so because most details of his life are largely unknown.
The two books flesh out Potter's life in most convincing and stylish manner. Perhaps their finest accomplishment is conveying the sense of the times - grand times, we think today: revolution was in the air. Great deeds were being done, by our worship-worthy forefathers. But few people would have thought that at the time. The colonists would have felt terribly overmatched against the mighty British Empire, sandwiched between British Canada and the (mostly) British Caribbean, threatened by large, well-equipped armies (including German) conquering American cities at will. Spies and loyalists were everywhere. Everything was in doubt, living was hard, and fear and anxiety would have been the order of the day. Chacko and Kulcsar convey this ambience well, much better than conventional histories—but then ambience is one of the strengths of good historical fiction, or it should be.
As The Brimstone Papers opens, Israel Potter is a young man who obtains some land at long odds and is beginning to work it and make a life for himself (after an unhappy episode as a sailor, not described in the book). Harshly raised by his grandfather and inclined to oppose British oppression by whatever means necessary (rendering him a lapsed Quaker), he is sent to report to a relative, a rich, domineering merchant opposed to independence in Providence, Rhode Island. The events which follow result in his joining the militia and seeing action at the battle of Bunker Hill, splendidly described and perhaps the most riveting section of the book.
Gaining a measure of responsibility from his experiences, Potter joins the crew of a hastily prepared warship, badly outfitted under a captain of dubious effectiveness, and sails into a complete disaster. This is the point at which the companion volume, Gone Over, opens. The venality of war profiteers, the incompetence of authority, and the turning of the coats of those of feeble loyalty make today's diplomatic snarls seem tame, however similar. Even Israel Potter was not immune. If he is a hero (I wouldn't call him one), he is a hero with an asterisk by his name.
Both The Brimstone Papers and Gone Over are first-rate, worthwhile reads. I would rate them with the Aubrey/Maturin series of historical novels by Patrick O'Brian, surely the touchstone of the genre.
Dr. Al Past is the author of the four Distant Cousin novels, a popular adventure/romance/sci-fi series, contributed the photographs for Barry Yelton's On Wings of Gentle Power, the author of a book of treble clef duets from Charles Colin, a reviewer for PODBRAM, and a member of the Independent Authors Guild. He lives on a ranch in south Texas.
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David Chacko and Alexander Kulcsar have followed up their well-received novel Gone Over with The Brimstone Papers, a second story featuring the same character. This man, Israel Potter, was also the subject of a Herman Melville novel. Surprisingly, The Brimstone Papers, a continuation and prequel, is not inferior to the authors' first effort, or to Melville's novel.
The Brimstone Papers tells the story of Potter's early years and the events that precede his arrival in England as a prisoner. In doing so, the novel focuses on the first year of the Revolutionary War and the hectic action that takes place in New England from the spring to the deep winter of 1775. That includes the furore accompanying the Lexington Alarm—particularly uproarious in Potter's native Rhode Island—and two months later, the bloody Battle of Bunker Hill.
The account of that battle by Chacko, the author of eighteen novels, and Kulcsar, an actor and director, has all the makings of a classic. Seen from every possible angle on both sides of the torrid action, including that of General William Howe, who led the British assault up the hill, the battle has the scope and intensity that match the escalating ferocity of the encounter. Seldom has eighteen century warfare been so well realized.
The stalemate that prevailed after Bunker Hill is countered in the novel by having Potter go down to Plymouth, where he helps outfit and sail a privateer against the enemy ships that must make their way into Boston. This happens, though in way that almost no reader will anticipate, as Potter becomes entangled in his own past and the pasts and present of the men around him.
The brigantine Washington, named for the general who takes command of the American forces, will become the most famous prize that the British Navy captures during the war. The Washington's men will be prizes, too, after suffering in ways for which they set the standard. On that ominous note, The Brimstone Papers concludes with the lead-in to the long historical spy novel, Gone Over.
ForemostPress.com
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"You'll be breathlessly drawn into the Revolutionary War period."
--- ForemostPress.com
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