Season of Life follows a free Black farmer in the aftermath of the Civil War who returns home only to be drawn into military intelligence alongside a Union spy. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

I’ve always been fascinated by the American Civil War. It was such a convulsive rupture of the American Republic. At first that fascination was with the military aspects, but gradually expanded to other facets of the war such as military intelligence and espionage, which grew to almost an art on the Union side. The effects of the war on the civilian population were both terrible and fascinating — it was fought in towns and rural areas across the country, affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Many people lost everything: homes, farms, property. War is a callous and uncaring consumer of people’s lives. The military aftereffects of battle at this time astonished me. This was an age when the medical arts were still in their infancy. Germ theory was only just beginning (Louis Pasteur only published his work on microorganisms in 1861, and Joseph Lister’s experiments with carbolic acid as a disinfectant in surgery only began in 1865, after the war had ended). Also shocking was the lack of forethought given to the treatment of the inevitable wounded organizationally, in a time when weapons like the rifled musket increased casualties exponentially. Civilian volunteers became common and vital after battles. Season of Life was my attempt to try to bring all these things together…with a surreal twist.

How much of Basil Biggs’s story is based on the historical figure, and where did your imagination take over?

Historical Fiction is usually, if not always, about filling in the gaps when primary evidence is spotty, incomplete, or sometimes almost non-existent. Basil Biggs was indeed a tenant farmer on the actual battlefield, whose home and farm were devastated by the battle. He lost almost everything, including stock, trampled and burned crops, and a pillaged home. He then went on to become instrumental in the reinterment of Union dead from hastily made graves across the battlefield to the new National Cemetery, a task he did with great respect for the dead. He also inherited the land where the final terrible fight on the third day of the battle occurred, Pickett’s Charge. All of this was recorded. In that slender folio of facts, I saw a man who would not be beaten down, a man of determination and courage and resolve who would do his best for his family, and for others. It is unlikely that he met John Babcock of the Bureau of Military Intelligence and was conscripted into espionage work. But not impossible. A man of his character and resolve could have risen to dangerous work like that. It is unlikely he would have met Cornelia Hancock at the field hospital at Camp Letterman, but also not impossible, given the nature of his task at re-burying men, and his obvious quality and care for others. And of course the entity of Wesley Culp was my creation, but a useful one to bring my main characters together.

Basil is constantly aware of the realities of race while navigating Union military circles. How important was it to portray those complexities honestly?

This was an age of great racism in the United States, and not only in the South. It permeated every aspect of the country (and one could say it still does today). Books like Leon F. Litwack’s North of Slavery were instrumental in giving me the tools to deal with this respectfully and honestly. It was clear that in the Federal Army there were many men who did not fight so much for the end of slavery as for the preservation of the Union. A Black man in the North could be free, but he was not equal. The caution, resolve, and courage it took to navigate that state is testimony to their quality. Racism is a persistent sin of humanity and one that needs to be addressed.

The ending leaves readers wondering whether Wesley Culp’s story extends far beyond this novel. Is there more you hope to explore in this world?

The Wesley Culp/Entity character was my observer. His interest in the three main characters is how I drew them together, and how I wanted to highlight the quality of the historical people they are based upon, to show my eternal respect for who they were. As such, I find him very useful and intriguing, and he will appear again, but in a different context and time.

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