Five novels based on incredible
true stories
1) "Quiet Dell" by
Jayne Anne Phillips
Police in Dayton, Ohio took
Harry Powers' mug shot in 1920, ten years before his continued crimes were
discovered. Public domain via Wikipedia
Quiet Dell is a small town in
West Virginia with a dark legacy: In the 1920s, it was home to the serial
killer Harry Powers. Powers lured victims through personal ads placed in Lonely
Hearts Magazine.
His ads drew quite the
response. According to The Charleston Gazette, Powers received 10 to 20 letters
a day from women looking for love. Those he responded to, however, weren't in
for a happy ending.
His crimes were uncovered in
1931 and he was hanged in 1932.
Phillips' novel transforms
Powers' victims from historical footnotes into fully fleshed-out characters.
She imagines the lives that led each of them down the fateful path to Quiet
Dell.
2) "The Untouchable"
by John Banville
Anthony Blunt, art historian to
the British Queen and an admitted spy for the Soviets, sat a press conference
in 1980, soon after his activities were revealed to the public. Aubrey Hart | Getty
Images
Anthony Blunt had quite the
life. A revered art historian, he curated the British royalty family's private
art collection — Queen Elizabeth II even knighted him for his contributions to
culture. Then, in 1964, Blunt confessed to spying for the Soviets.
Blunt was a member of the
Cambridge Five, a ring of spies recruited from Cambridge University to pass
information to the Soviet Union. In exchange for the names of other spies,
British Intelligence agreed to keep Blunt's confession a secret.
His charmed life continued for
another decade, until Margaret Thatcher revealed his actions to the public in
1979. Blunt was stripped of his title and made a tearful televised confession
on the BBC.
His story captivated John
Banville, who created a fictionalized version of Blunt for his novel "The
Untouchable."
3) "Alias Grace" by
Margaret Atwood
In 1843, a wealthy farmer and
his housekeeper were murdered in Ontario, Canada; the story quickly became a
media sensation. The estate's stablehand and its 16-year-old maid, Grace Marks,
were tried and convicted for the crime.
Marks was sentenced to death
but was instead committed to an asylum; after 30 years, she was pardoned and
released. She moved to upstate New York and disappeared from history.
Atwood picks apart the pieces
of the infamous murder in her novel, which she writes from Grace's point of
view.
4) "The Man Who Walked
Away" by Maud Casey
Jean-Albert Dadas, a laborer
from Bordeaux, France, in the 1800s, had a curious habit of showing up in
foreign places with no memory of how he'd gotten there. Dadas was discovered in
Prague, Vienna and other far-flung cities, all after setting out from his home
on foot. He was known to walk up to 35 miles a day.
Philippe Tissie, a medical
student at the time, wrote his dissertation on Dadas' dromomania — his
uncontrollable urge to wander. The novelist Maud Casey takes the story from
there, following a fictionalized version of Dadas as he walks and walks and
walks...
5) "Moby-Dick" by
Herman Melville
It's a whale of a tale and it's
partly true.
Herman Melville drew heavily
from his own experience on whaling voyages when he wrote "Moby-Dick,"
but a real-life catastrophe at sea captured his imagination.
In 1820, a thousand miles from
shore, the first mate aboard the Essex whaling ship caught sight of something
large in the water. It was a sperm whale, reportedly 85 feet long, headed
straight for the Essex. The whale rammed the side of the ship and then circled
back, striking it again at the bow.
"I could distinctly see him
smite his jaws together, as if distracted with rage and fury," the first
mate later recalled of the whale.
The whale's assaults left the
Essex in splinters and taking on water. The damage was irreparable. The crew
abandoned the ship for the smaller whaling boats, but this was only the
beginning of their troubles.
The survivors drifted for 89
days at sea, eventually turning to cannibalism. Only five men survived,
including the captain, who Melville later met in Nantucket. "To the
islanders he was a nobody," Melville wrote, "To me, the most
impressive man, tho' wholly unassuming, even humble, that I ever
encountered."
