April 13, 2001
Accuracy: a Novel Notion in Historical Novels?
We don't call certain works of fiction "historical novels" because they take "novel" detours from historical fact.
But, it seems, we might.
In Larry McMurtry's classic western, Lonesome Dove (1985), a long 1870's cattle drive from Texas to Montana fails to cross any of the three transcontinental railroads built in its path during the previous decade. In Gary Jennings's Aztec (1980), Aztec scribes write long messages in Nahuatl (the Aztec language), a practice archaeologist
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