Novelist David Liss Has a Way with the Past The Edgar Award-winning writer spins a fascinating historical thriller from the years of tumult after the American Revolution
by Melissa Fletcher Stoeltje
David Liss has a gift for bringing history alive.
In his most recent novel, the Edgar Award-winning writer spins a fascinating historical thriller from the years of tumult after the American Revolution, following the adventures of Ethan Saunders, a heroic spy for Gen. George Washington who has fallen from grace.
Liss, who grew up in Florida and lives in San Antonio, didn't start out to write a novel on the post-Revolution years.
"On a whim I picked up a biography of Washington, who is more or less the way we imagine him," he said. "But the other figures were complete lunatics. And in school we get these progressive narratives about the triumph of the Revolution, followed by the triumph of democracy. I was really drawn to how chaotic and tumultuous and paranoid that period was at so many points, to where the whole American experiment could have completely collapsed."
Liss began his research for the book in 2004. He worked harder and longer on "The Whiskey Rebels" (Random House, 525 pp., $26) than on any of his other novels, he says, including his 2000 debut "A Conspiracy of Paper," which was named a New York Times Notable Book and won the 2001 Edgar for best first novel.
"For my other books, the topics were relatively under- researched," he says.
"You can in a short period of time become an expert on Dutch commodities trading in the 17th century, because that's a pretty small fellowship of people. But when you're dealing with the Founding Fathers and the Revolution and post-Revolutionary period, there is more information than I've ever had to process for writing a novel. I needed to be extra-vigilant to get things right."
But Liss is a storyteller first, a historian second.
"I'm very careful not to lose sight that I'm writing an entertainment. But in the background I was interested in chewing over some of these issues, like the nature of patriotism and unpacking the myth of American inevitability. Even from its earliest moment, whether or not the Revolution was a triumph, as we unambiguously see it now, was really in question."
His goal, he says, is to enlighten while building a world that is true to the times.
"For me it's always satisfying to get a handle on a specific time and as best as I can try to put together how people would have understood themselves and their world."
