By Brian Kaufman
I had a favorite cartoon in the sixties — Peabody’s Improbable History. Reimagined in a 2014 film renamed Mr. Peabody And Sherman.
Mister Peabody, a dog, and his boy, Sherman, began each episode by stepping into The Wayback Machine, which transported them to critical moments in history.
The usual plot arc involved a reluctant historical figure who needed convincing to do the necessary thing to maintain the historical record.
Hector J. Peabody was the smartest being on the planet, having graduated Wagna cum laude from Harvard at the age of three.
Each episode ended with a forehead-slapping pun. For example: “Marie Antoinette could have avoided trouble by making an edict for the people to eat cake, but she could not have her cake and edict too.”
The careful historical fiction reader will note that the typical episode I’ve described featured Joseph Campbell’s reluctant hero and an anonymous behind-the-scenes character who steers history for better or worse.
This is the plot of dozens of historical novels. Mister Peabody had an advantage. He owned a time machine that allowed an infallible account of events, however improbable.
I am not alone in the desire for perfect knowledge. The Cartesian complaint is, in essence, a grumble that God has perfect knowledge.
In contrast, we mortals are stuck with just our flawed senses. This complaint is reflected in popular culture. Think of the plot format framed around the he said, she said, and here’s what actually happened structure.
Note that writers position themselves as the final word (God) when depicting actual events.
One kind of historical novel portrays a complex historical figure as a person, shedding light on the character. Think of Mimi Leder’s excellent On the Basis of Sex about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Or Ridley Scott’s woeful Napoleon, depicting the French General as a perpetual fourteen-year-old).
Another kind of historical novel—the kind I’m writing about here—depicts history’s mysteries, providing the author’s authoritative vision of actual events.
This kind of novel is a close cousin to conspiracy theories, which may account for my personal preference.
Conspiracy theories propose a secret history, often steered by a powerful but unacknowledged organization or series of events. Like Mister Peabody as he sets the record straight.
There’s a satisfaction to learning or imagining the inside story, bolstered by the certainty that, at least in our modern world, the mainstream narrative is likely a fabrication.
Most of my novels are historical. In moments of whimsy, I imagine the masterpieces I could craft if I had Mister Peabody’s Wayback machine.
To help compile this list, I consulted Reddit—the spiritual home for conspiracy theories.
- The tomb on the third day to witness the supposed resurrection
- The Zodiac Killer revealed
- The JonBenét Ramsey murder
- Jimmy Hoffa
- Lee Harvey Oswald
- Malaysian Airlines Flight 370
- Jack the Ripper (This question has been the basis for dozens of novels.)
Dyatlov Pass
- D.B. Cooper (and more importantly, where is all that money???)
- Roanoke and Croatoan
- Lizzy Borden
- Anastasia Nikolaevna
- Epstein’s suicide.
- Tunguska Event
- Atlantis
- Egyptian pyramids
- Voynich Manuscript
- The Amber Room
- William Shakespeare’s ghostwriter
- The London Hammer
- Albert Einstein’s last words
- Madeleine McCann
- The Antikythera mechanism
- The first Roman dodecahedron
- The Philadelphia Experiment
- The Man from Taured
There are hundreds more to consider.
Some, like the Roswell Incident, have already been mined for fiction. Others are ripe for novelization. I didn’t mean to send you on a Google quest though I imagine you pondered one or two as a great story idea.
That’s how my latest novel, A Persistent Echo, started. Newspapers documented over 400 UFO sightings in Texas seven years before the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk. Plenty of historical records to consider but no definitive answers except, perhaps, in my novel.
And now, armed with a spark, you might be heading to your laptop to make notes or pursue online research. If so, my work is done, and I didn’t even need the Wayback Machine.
The Writing Bug 