I read a book description… because, let’s face it, reading book descriptions when you really, really have no intention of buying anything which is not already on the shopping list….is a bookworm’s version of going to the casino. You can keep doing it all you want, but if you keep going long enough, you’re going to wind up owning a shiny new impulse book.
I got lucky this time, because I didn’t buy a book… well, I didn’t buy two books… technically. Yet. I do not have a problem. And people should quit waving books under my nose, if they think I do!
And I wound up with this nifty blog post about my jaw getting all scraped up from dragging on the ground.
The editor described this book as “a love triangle set in the harshest period of American history.“Except… it’s set in the Great Depression.
The Great Depression is not the harshest period of American History. I mean, yeah… people waited to get married and you sent your kid back to the butcher, if he brought a roast home with the bone still in it, but… The harshest period in American History?
It’s a historical novel, so really… I admit I’m gonna place a high level of emphasis on historical accuracy. And well, that… “harshest period” is already straight up wrong. Not a matter of debate. Not a matter of opinion.
The Great Depression wasn’t even nominated.
I think I could sit here and list my top ten harshest periods of American History, and the Great Depression still wouldn’t be on it. I think I could let the non-Americans who read this blog have a go at it, and even if they don’t have any real interest in American History, they would be able to come up with harsher time periods.
No. I really don’t think you can make any kind of a defense for that statement.
If that’s the historical inaccuracy in the description… if that’s the kind of thing the editor says, I’ll pass. I don’t really want my head all full of could-be facts and sensationalism.
K E Garland