The Author’s Note - An Important Contract Between Writer and Reader
At History Through Fiction, we believe that one of the most important elements of any historical novel is the Author’s Note. This letter from the author to the reader establishes a relationship of trust and accountability—the author says, I will give a story if you will give me your attention. For the historical author who seeks to convey real events and people, the accountability is about more than providing a story, it’s about providing a history. The author, who has the power to captivate through 200+ pages of storytelling, must not take that power lightly. By using the Author’s Note to reveal their sources, inspiration, methods, and goals, the author gives deeper meaning to the story and a more objective understanding of the history to the reader. Furthermore, the Author’s Note gives validation to the writer and their craft. Writing a novel is a painstaking endeavor filled with uncertainty and doubt. The Author’s Note gives the author an opportunity to exhale—to share with their readers their passion for the work they’ve created, and their hope for its place in the world.
Nancy Burkhalter is a debut novelist who is more familiar with academia than fiction. But she discovered a story she wanted to tell, and through years of hard work her story has come to life in her novel, The Education of Delhomme: Chopin, Sand, & La France. Read Nancy’s Author’s Note to learn more about her journey and the history she challenged herself to recreate.
Author’s Note by Nancy Burkhalter
People are always surprised to hear that I’ve written a book about Frédéric Chopin’s piano tuner. “How did you come up with that idea?” they ask. It’s a good question and one I can’t readily answer because all my inspirations come from a place with no address, no accountability, and no way to access it on demand.
But that idea would never have surfaced without becoming a piano tuner myself. As a newly graduated linguistics and foreign language teaching major from Northwestern University, I spoke four languages and expected the world to fall over itself to hire me. It did not. I was bored and frustrated. Seeing my malaise, my friend, apropos of nothing, said, “Why don’t you become a piano tuner?”
Why not, indeed! I finally convinced Don Wilson, a tuner and rebuilder in Chicago, to take me on as his apprentice. A year later, I hung out my shingle and the rest is—yes, I’m going to say it—history.
During that year of working in the damp, cobwebby basement of Don’s shop, I was surrounded by piano actions, books, parts, tools, and a radio. I listened all day to classical music and fell in love with Chopin. Sometimes, I even wept. I decided Chopin must have had a tuner since that skill takes a long time to learn and requires stamina, something the tubercular Chopin lacked.
During my doctoral work in linguistics, I learned how to find even the most obscure book or article. That research expertise was applied to the max for this book. I leapfrogged from one source to another about France, Poland, and Russia; music; tuning; Chopin; Sand; Vidocq; Berlioz; trains; clothing; and on and on. Since pulling on one thread of history tugs on several others, the hard part was knowing when to stop reading. I also traveled to Warsaw, Paris, and Nohant to see things for myself, including Chopin’s grave. In Warsaw’s Fryderyk Chopin Museum, I saw the pièce de résistance—a piano he’d played on. This is the stuff that feeds a historical novelist’s soul.
Taking liberties with facts is a big no-no in recounting history. But for historical novelists, the rules are more elastic. I labored to plot all events, fictional or not, on their true timeline. One problem cropped up, though, with Hector Berlioz, who graduated medical school in 1824, twelve years before my fictional tuner did, yet I made them classmates. I also fashioned diary entries by George Sand. No such texts exist, but they are true to her autobiography and others’ accounts. I created them because I wanted her to have her own say since all else is told from Delhomme’s point of view. I hope the reader will forgive these liberties in the service of story.
To write is to learn. Now I understand much better the long and violent roots of the workers’ struggle for better pay and working conditions. I appreciate even more now that the world has forever been ravenous for good music, even if it means devouring the very musician who creates it. Finally, it seems that the social hierarchy favoring men over women, rich over poor, and educated over unschooled has shown great staying power. Plus ça change . . .
Here are answers to questions my tuning customers always ask: Yes, I play the piano, but tuners don’t need to, although it is pleasing to check the tuning from a musical standpoint. Next, we don’t adjust a string until it “sounds good.” We count beats, the pulse created when two sounds of different frequencies cross. Each interval on the piano has a specified number of beats. Learning to count them is but one of the challenges. Last, perfect (aka absolute) pitch is useless to a tuner. The A below Middle C must be set to exactly 440 cycles per second. Someone with perfect pitch may perceive a sound as an A even if it vibrates anywhere from 435 to 445 cps. For tuners, that measurement is too imprecise. Have tuning fork—will travel.
Sadly, I no longer tune. I miss it and all the wonderful people who trained me and were unstinting with their knowledge and support. Now, I only write about tuners and their antics. Oh, did I just say antics? I meant actions.
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