This week, I've published two essays about the historical background to Lonely Are the Brave, my novel about a Great War veteran set in rural Washington in 1919.
The first essay, in Historical Novels Review, connects historical fact to my conception of the story and characters, including topics as various as fear of Bolshevism, the laws that required a woman to obtain a man's cosignature to open a bank account, and theories of childrearing that would astonish most people today.
The second essay, a guest appearance on the blog "History Imagined," traces the myth that the nation went to war to protect American womanhood, and the link between that idea and the sinking of the Lusitania.