Fiction Recommendations from the Hallock Classroom, Part One

A year ago, I posted a list of non-fiction recommendations from my high school courses on American imperialism.

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Particularly relevant for those interested in US empire, in the Philippines and beyond, is How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr. It is my go-to recommendation for every American, high school age and up.

It’s taken me a year to put something together on fiction, and the brief has shifted a bit in the process because I stumbled onto three different Philippine-set audiobooks narrated by the same Filipino American voice artist, Ramón de Ocampo. My de-Ocampo-fan-girling was not intentional, but he narrates so many books published in the US by Filipino and Filipino diaspora authors that it was unavoidable. I wish UK and US publishers built a larger stable of voice actors from the Philippines itself, but Ocampo is fantastic. He is particularly good at giving characters unique inflections, pacing, and tone. You hardly need dialogue tags because the different speakers are so clear.

Ramón's bio from his website
Ramón de Ocampo’s bio from his website.

Despite these three books being voiced by the same person, each story is unique. You do not need to listen to the audiobook version to appreciate the novels, but de Ocampo does add value. I listened to all the audiobooks for free, either courtesy of my local library on the LibbyApp (Bone TalkPatron Saints of Nothing, and Smaller and Smaller Circles) or a free trial from Scribd (Bone Talk and Smaller and Smaller Circles only). All three are on Audible too (Bone TalkPatron Saints of Nothing, and Smaller and Smaller Circles).

three-philippine-audiobook-covers

This post, part one, will only discuss only the first book, Bone Talk, because I have a lot to say about this deceptively complex and widely underrated “children’s book” on the Philippine-American War. Part Two will discuss Patron Saints of Nothing and Smaller and Smaller Circles, both of which have more contemporary settings.

Bone talk by candy gourlay

Blurb by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center’s Book Dragon: “A Filipino boy on the verge of manhood in 1899 must face mortal enemies, colonial brutality, and his own headstrong, immature self to help save his remote village from annihilation.”

US cover of Bone Talk

Bone Talk is a sophisticated book that brings little-known history and marginalized cultures to the fore. Sophisticated, but isn’t it juvenile fiction? Award-winning juvenile fiction, you say, but still a children’s book? Yes, the publisher markets Bone Talk for grade 6 to 9, but it is really for everyone. (And in the Philippines, they know itHere too.) As with To Kill a Mockingbird or Huckleberry Finn, there’s no reason that a nine-year-old or thirteen-year-old protagonist should limit a book’s theme. Better than TKAM and Huck Finn, though, Bone Talk does not view the Cordillera people of 1899 through a white gaze. Instead, our guide is Samkad, a Bontok boy. (Bone Talk is a play on words: about the Bontoc municipality and the Bontok people.)

Samkad’s voice gives the story a directness and vision that matches author Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. As literary scholar Emmanuel Obiechina wrote about the Nigerian novel: “There is no loitering along the wayside for little irrelevant chit-chat, no pseudo-philosophizing, no awkward asides, no finger-pointing and no instant homilies which, though interesting in themselves, succeed only in detaining the reader and slowing down the tempo of the narrative.” The same is true for Bone Talk. I do not think a book written for ten-year-old boys can survive with “irrelevant chit-chat” or “instant homilies.” Boring books will not be read by children with smart phones and Netflix.

Praise for Bone Talk from Candy Gourlay's website

Like Things Fall Apart, a significant part of Bone Talk begins without any outside involvement. The village stands on its own. Expectations, ethics, and behavior are traditional and autonomous.

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1901 photograph of an Ibaloi house in Benguet province, Cordillera Mountains, near modern-day Baguio. Photo from the Philippine Photographs Digital Archive.

The reader is absorbed into this world through Samkad’s personal journey. More than anything he wants to be like his father and the other village warriors. He anticipates the day that the elders (“the ancients”) will deem him ready for the rite of passage required to become a man: the Cut (circumcision, tuli in Filipino). What does it even mean to “be a man”? Does Samkad understand those expectations, or does he just crave status? Remember, he’s ten, so he’s not the most reliable of narrators. And what are the expectations of dress and duty for women? Luki, his best friend, she wants to be a warrior too—partly because she is quite brave, and partly because she knows that adulthood will create a gendered rift in their childhood friendship. The ending of the book nudges tradition forward a little, and yet it feels authentic, which I think was Gourlay’s intention. There is a lot to unpack here for a modern audience—or a family reading the book together, maybe?

gathering of Cordillera people of all ages
Gathering of Cordillera people, including boys and girls Samkad’s and Luki’s ages. Photo from the Philippine Photographs Digital Archive.

It is worth pointing out that Philippine-born Gourlay is not from the Cordillera Mountains herself. (Originally from Davao City, Ateneo de Manila graduate Gourlay was a journalist and associate editor of the weekly 1980s opposition tabloid Mr & Ms Special Edition, according to Wikipedia.) As a “lowlander,” Gourlay would be almost as much of an outsider as the Spanish and Americans. She admits her limitations: “I do not hail from the Cordillera and I beg the forgiveness of its many and diverse peoples for any misreadings of their culture. As a storyteller I can only spin a pale imitation of any reality.” She certainly did her research, including extended visits in Maligcong and conversations with members of the community, as detailed in her acknowledgments.

Maligcong rice terraces in Bontoc.
The Maligcong rice terraces in the modern-day sub-province of Bontoc, near where Samkad would have lived. Shared by Tyrel Fang-asan Faniswa on Wikimedia Commons.

As Gourlay wrote, this is a book about first contact, with the additional complexity of Samkad’s soul being tied to a young orphaned Bontok boy who was raised down the mountains among Tagalog-speakers. There are concentric circles of identity at play here, and that is a very appropriate conversation for adults and children alike today. In the end, what best defines identity: birth, upbringing, or beliefs? Maybe all of the above.

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This 1901 photograph supposedly shows a “typical” Cordillera house “of better class.” Specifically, it is an Ibaloi house in Benguet, near Baguio. Photo courtesy of the Philippine Photographs Digital Archive.

Adding to the layers of identity are layers of enemies, including a fictionalized Cordillera people, the Mangili. As in Chinua Achebe’s novel, the distraction of outsiders weakens a society, making it more vulnerable to attacks by insiders.

Why the Philippine-American War matters now.
The good, bad, and ugly of your great-great-great grandparents’ Vietnam War: the Philippine-American War. Also, why it matters to you now more than ever. Find out more.

The outsiders of concern are the Americans. The ancients of Samkad’s village knew that the Philippine-American War was raging, but its irrelevance to their daily life shows how distinct their society was from that of the lowlands.

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This May 3, 1900, issue of Life Magazine, courtesy of MIT’s Visualizing Cultures website, shows that the scorched earth method of “civilizing” was in fact questioned at the time but with little effect. Read more about American destruction in the name of pacification.

Samkad had no idea about any of what was happening down the mountain, which is probably a good starting point for most American readers. Gourlay is careful not to downplay imperialism and violence, but the book is not unnecessarily traumatizing for younger readers—though each family and reader needs to make that decision on their own. I am not an expert on the middle school age group, but others have deemed it age-appropriate, and it is published in the US by Scholastic. The text includes death of animals, torture (pulling a man behind a horse to injure but not kill him), corpses and dismembered bodies, and death. There is no sexual violence.

Not all Americans are bad in the book, but the only true heroes are Bontok. There is a teacher figure, Mister William, roughly based on Albert E. Jenks, I think, since the author referenced the letters and memoir of his wife, Maud. (I should say, it’s optimistic and generous portrayal of Jenks, if it is him.) William is too ineffectual to be a hero because he is unable to protect Samkad’s people from the dangers of his countrymen. And his English-language education carries with it the cultural imperialism of his fellow Thomasites. He is not a callous or cruel man, though.

More satire from Life Magazine.
“Red Letter Day,” an illustration by Frederick Thompson Richards in the October 18, 1900, issue of Life Magazine. The man in the top hat asks, “How long have you been civilized?” The Filipino says, “Ever since my home was burned to the ground and my wife and children shot.” The MIT Visualizing Cultures website points out that the “dignity of the bereaved Filipino in this cartoon is a stark contrast to the usual demeaning stereotypes.” The outcome, unfortunately, is the same.

Beware soldiers bearing “gifts” of guns and candy, but you already knew that. The two soldiers who arrive treat the Cordillera people and culture as curiosities, and by this point the reader has been so well assimilated into village culture that the outrage is authentic and personal. That is important because the history of American science—and pseudo-science—in the Philippines is shocking. As Daniel Immerwahr revealed in How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States, the overseas territories “functioned as laboratories, spaces for bold experimentation where ideas could be tried with practically no resistance, oversight, or consequences.”

This material will form the background of my upcoming historical fiction novel, so I do not want to dive too deep into the subject here. A relevant example for this novel would be Worcester’s photographs of the Cordillera peoples as printed in National Geographic. Photographs were new to the magazine then, believe it or not, and Worcester’s images shaped the future of Nat Geo as well as the political disenfranchisement of the Filipino people. He used his racist “anthropological gaze” to measure the highlanders—using his own taller-than-American-average body as the yardstick and choosing the shortest people to stand next to him. The results were rigged. Gourlay hints at the role of cameras in the exploitation of the Cordillera peoples, allusions worth exploring in more detail with the help of the MIT Visualizing Cultures website on the topic.

“Yardstick photos” that were published in the United States under the othering “anthropological gaze” of American colonial officials. The source website, MIT’s Visualizing Cultures, writes that: “Photographs of Dean Worcester and, in the bottom two photos, Governor William F. Pack of Benguet Province, posed next to Filipinos as an ad-hoc yardstick measure meant, as his notes indicated, ‘to show relative size.’ The images compared Pack and Worcester, relatively tall men, with Filipinos of the Negrito tribe—among the shorter people in the Philippines—making for a sharp contrast.”

Worcester presented the Cordillera people as “primitive” and incapable of self-government, which then allowed him as Secretary of the Interior to assume legal control of all people, land, and resources in the area. Worcester was a one-man British East India Company. He was not even an anthropologist by training, though he claimed the title. He had a bachelor’s degree in zoology, specializing in ornithology—and the fact that he believed the two overlapped is telling, especially considering what happened next.

Image of a Philippine soldier in American uniform on the left and a Cordillera Mountain in habitant in traditional headgear on the right.
Advertisement, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, for the Philippine Exposition of the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904.

Entire villages of Cordillera peoples were transported to the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, known as the St. Louis World’s Fair. There, they and other Filipinos were subject to humiliating, fetishizing, and dehumanizing displays. For example, crowds were repulsed-yet-attracted to the rare ceremonial practice of dog-eating. The Cordillera peoples were required to butcher a canine each and every day for visitors, a cultural insult. (I lay this atrociously inhumane treatment of animals on the Americans who demanded the practice as “entertainment.”) For readers or teachers eager to know more, the Asian American Education Project has put together materials for further exploration.

If you would rather not know too much, this is the beauty of Bone Talk. It gives only a visceral snapshot of this history without going too deep in any one topic. As one reviewer said about the book, Gourlay “never overwhelms the reader with information or makes it feel artificial” but she has “clearly done her research.”

The Maligcong rice terraces in the modern-day sub-province of Bontoc, near where Samkad would have lived. Shared under CC by 2.0 from Justin Jovellanos on Flickr.

Gourlay also approached the issue of headhunting with care. She admitted that the Cordillera people she met “gave me the impression that they wanted to put headhunting firmly into the distant past.” It makes sense they would want to do so since headhunting was used by Worcester to justify his oppressive and self-interested administrative apparatus. However, as Gourlay found in her research, headhunting is not unheard of in white culture:

Britain, the book [Severed by Frances Larson], reminded me, has had a long tradition of severing heads. One famous head, Oliver Cromwell’s, became an attraction at small freak shows. It deteriorated down the centuries, losing an ear here and the tip of its nose there, before ending up in private hands. It wasn’t until 1960 that it occurred to someone to give Cromwell’s head a break. It was buried in Cambridge….Turns out, unshoed corners of the world do not have a monopoly on head chopping.

Talking about what are acceptable boundaries in war and law is a regular conversation in my classroom of mostly eighteen-year-olds. We see enough images of victims of napalm, white phosphorus, Agent Orange, nuclear bombs, nuclear testing, drone strikes, and enhanced interrogation that my students learn to question what form of killing is “civilized.”

Bone Talk is not an authoritative history of the Philippine-American War, nor should it be. It is a novel, a story set within this world but not encompassing all of it. After reading this book, though, I think every reader will want to learn more. I have lots of history here on this site, and Gourlay has put together a great set of resources appropriate for the age of her readers. More is needed, though. Americans need to know this history.

history of Sugar Sun series by Jennifer Hallock

Fortunately, there is now more than a paragraph in high school textbooks on the invasion and seizure of the Philippines. Still, though, teachers do know enough about this history because they were not taught it; and students do not know enough to ask for more. If every student in the US read Bone Talk by the time they were in 9th grade, they might demand that more attention be given to American imperialism in the Pacific, especially the Philippines. A good book could be the most organic and effective way to combat imperial amnesia and American exceptionalism.

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I met some students in New Hampshire who became interested through a local artifact, and their story shows you what motivated young people are capable of.

 

Nonfiction Recommendations from the Hallock Classroom

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I am lucky. I get to teach important stuff that few survey classes touch. By the time US history teachers get to the Spanish-American War, they have one eye on the Great War and everything it sets in motion, and the other eye on the AP test coming up likely in a matter of weeks. Most students I talk to bemoan the fact that they barely cover Vietnam, and their teachers are likely a lot more familiar with Vietnam than the Philippine-American War. If they cannot cover My Lai, Woodstock, and Agent Orange, how can they find time for Balangiga, the Lodge Commission, and the water cure? (Well, some students do, and in the eighth and ninth grade no less!)

I teach trimester electives to mostly high school seniors about American empire and war in the Philippines (and China, Hawaii, Japan, and Pacific islands), in Vietnam (and Cambodia and Laos), and in Iraq (along with Iran, Afghanistan, and more). I try to add value with my own synthesis and analysis, but simply assigning the right readings is the first step to knowledge. I thought I might share some recommendations, not all of which are pictured above. Note that I make no money off the sales of these books, nor have I received any free copies or compensation for endorsing them.

Colorized photograph of the Luneta provided as Sugar Sun series location by author Jennifer Hallock
Park with gazebos and benches in Manila, Philippines (1901). To the right is the Luneta Beach. The Ermita Beach went on south behind the tree. Roxas Blvd. of today goes along where the water line and beach is in this picture. Luneta Park area was filled in where the Manila Hotel, Elks Club, Army & Navy Club, and US Embassy are today. Original at the Library of Congress, provided by John Tewell.
How to hide an empire

This book by Daniel Immerwahr is, in his own words, not really new information—but considering how deftly he weaves together the many threads, you might think it is. How to Hide an Empire is a sweeping history of US expansion since independence, when what we call a republic was actually as much undefined territory as it was incorporated state. It’s eye-opening in a red-pill Matrix way, yet it manages to be entertaining and even funny. How did American Pacific empire between with bird shit? True story. How did overseas US bases inspire the Beatles and Sony? And what does the base system look like now, and why don’t Americans hear about it more in the news?

I would recommend this book to everyone from young adults on up, but I think it is especially important for US citizens. Though I use it as “homework,” it does not feel like it to my students. Many of them choose to read the portions we have not assigned in class because it is that good.

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The Malecon Drive ran parallel to the Manila Bay, opening at its southern end to the Luneta, early twentieth century. Photo courtesy of the White House Historical Association.
overthrow

While How to Hide an Empire paints the forest vividly, with the occasional tree, Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer is a neat row of evergreens at a Christmas tree farm. And just like that row planted by some agri-corp eager to make a profit off idealistic, family-farm nostalgia, Kinzer lays out difficult truths of big business behind seemingly altruistic goals. Each chapter takes the reader through the spy-thriller-esque story (but darker) of every time the US has overthrown a foreign government.

Sometimes the role was at least in part unofficial—a cabal of American-born landowners overthrew the queen of Hawaii, but they probably would not have succeeded had the US envoy not landed the Marines on shore in support. But sometimes the role was very much official, such as when the CIA overthrew the popularly-elected prime minister of Iran in 1953. Kinzer has individual titles that dig more deeply into individual cases, such as his books on the debate over the seizure of the Philippines, the coups in Iran and Guatemala, and the unbelievable Cold War origins when the leaders of US covert and overt foreign policy were brothers! And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

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Vintage postcard of Samar with a view of the wooden causeway connecting town to the port. Scanned image of the early 20th century card by Leo D. Cloma.
The 9/11 report: a Graphic Adaptation

The authors of the first published 9/11 Report intended to make the text readable because they wanted to reach the widest range of Americans possible, to answer the “Why?” questions better than the television networks were doing. But it was a big book, with, you know, lots of words. In my class I use this visual adaptation, and it is often the first time that my students have a teacher using a graphic novel as an instructional tool. They find that disconcerting because my students—wonderful as they are, and they are wonderful—like order and predictability. Shaking up the strict left-to-right line-by-line structure does put them off their game at first, but they get the hang of it. And they love the massive amounts of information this graphic novel version gives them in just a few days of assignments.

The vietnam reader

I teach a high school course, not university, on America in Vietnam, so I do not have the time to dig deep into the masterworks of nonfiction or fiction on the war in one trimester. This collection includes excerpts in a single volume, including: memoirs like If I Die in a Combat Zone (Tim O’Brien), Born on the Fourth of July (Ron Kovic), A Rumor of War (Philip Caputo); reporting and oral histories like Dispatches (Michael Herr), Nam (Mark Baker), and Bloods (Wallace Terry); and fiction like The Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien), Going After Cacciato (also Tim O’Brien), and more. The collection also includes essays on the major films of the war, along with relevant song lyrics. If you want the flavor of a little bit of everything, like a buffet on the American experience of the war, this single volume will do it. I have used it for so long that my book has literally broken into two halves. (No, I am not careful with my spines, don’t @ me, bibliophiles.)

There are many great works on the war not in this volume, probably because an excerpt would not do them justice. I highly recommend A Bright Shining Lie (Neil Sheehan) for understanding how “body count” and “search and destroy” were the exact opposite of what counterinsurgency strategy should be, as told through an engaging biography of a deeply flawed veteran and intelligence officer named John Paul Vann. For the Vietnamese perspective, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places (Le Ly Hayslip), puts you in the shoes of a woman in Central Vietnam who simply wants to stay out of the line of fire. There are more books written by other Vietnamese authors recently, which is terrific, but I still go back to this one because it is such a simple premise and yet so universal.

An American Requiem

I borrowed this memoir by James Carroll, one of several he has written, from my local library. Yours probably has it too. Its full title is An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us. As you can tell from the subtitle, this book is also partly a biography of his father, the founder of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon. Carroll grew up an Air Force brat tooling around East and West Berlin in fast cars, then went to seminary and became a Catholic priest. (Not surprisingly, that is why I initially picked this up. Carroll took off his collar and was eventually granted a dispensation, and his more recent works, like The Truth at the Heart of the Lie, deal with the issues he sees with the priesthood as currently constituted. I recommend those too, as well as his latest fiction, The Cloister.)

Carroll became an anti-war activist, and though he was not quite as important to the resistance as the Berrigan brothers, Daniel and Philip, his bravery was not in doubt. He had a lot at stake in challenging his own family’s privilege, yet he did it. At his first Mass at an Air Force chapel on base, he made a statement against the use of napalm and Agent Orange—the bread and butter of the USAF during the war. I cringed as I read through this scene, and not because I don’t agree with Carroll. It was really uncomfortable, yet bold.

What I also love about this memoir of the early period of the war is how clearly Carroll shows the complicity of the American Catholic Church, especially Archbishop Francis Cardinal Spellman, in the war. Spellman helped handpick President Diem, and even after Diem’s removal and assassination, he and his subordinates continued to support the war effort unquestioningly. One of Carroll’s first novels, The Prince of Peace, carries this Cold War loyalty as a big theme.

That’s the list…for now

I also teach about America’s involvement in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, including especially Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. Other than the Overthrow volume, though, I tend to use a lot of chapters from other works, not a single volume. As I find other relevant works, I will add them here. I should also point out that this reading list is not sufficient for understanding the full story of American history. The focus of my teaching is about US imperialism and neocolonialism, helping people understand the American footprint abroad. There are many, many more important books for understanding domestic history. To start this journey, I recommend Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (Ibram X. Kendi) and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West (Dee Brown).

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Sugar Moon acknowledgments

Sugar Moon is a work of fiction, but the attack in Balangiga, the American counterattack on Samar, and the Pulahan War were all true events that happened between the years of 1901 and 1907. I relied heavily upon the outstanding scholarship of Rolando O. Borrinaga, George Emmanuel R. Borrinaga, Bob Couttie, Brian McAllister Linn, and Daniel C. Talde. I am also grateful to Scott Slaten and the whole Philippine-American War Facebook Group for their photographs, stories, and shared knowledge about this period.

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Two outstanding scholars on the Balangiga Incident, Rolando O. Borrinaga and Bob Couttie. Bottom right is my photo of the monument to the attackers in Balangiga town.

Some characters in this novel are based on real people but they have been renamed, conflated, and woven into a simplified account that serves my story. Ben Potter is loosely based upon Sergeant Frank Betron. This American soldier studied arnis from the real police chief in Balangiga, Valeriano Abanador. He also may have had a brief romance with the church caretaker, Casiana Nacionales. Betron remained in the Philippines after his escape from Balangiga, possibly to look for Casiana. He failed to find her, married a woman from Cebu, and settled elsewhere in the islands. Casiana, also known as Geronima or Susana, is one half of the model for Valentina. Accounts place her in Balangiga during the attack, but it is not known whether she stayed to cover the departure of the other women or to help coordinate the ambush by sneaking weapons into the church. The other model for Valentina is a real Pulahan priestess, resistance fighter, and healer, Bruna Fabrigar.

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It is no accident that my hero, Ben Potter, is drawn to smart, passionate women—but only Allegra wins this soldier’s heart. Actually, this phrase is doubly appropriate: “soldier’s heart” was the contemporary term for combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder. Ben’s struggle is inspired by first-hand accounts from three of my best friends: two U.S. Army veterans of the Vietnam War, Jim (MACV-SOG, I Corps) and Rudy (11th Armored Cavalry, III Corps); as well as Rich, a Marine survivor of the 1984 terror attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. I have taken Ben’s story in directions that none of these men would have imagined, but I could not have imagined any of it without their help.

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Allegra Alazas was a scene-stealer in Under the Sugar Sun, and I always knew the next novel would be hers. Her iconoclastic character was sparked by the sly half-smile of a Filipino woman in a lantern slide taken by E. W. Goodrich, Tremont Temple, Boston, and housed at the University of Michigan Philippine Photographs Digital Archive. Allegra is not based on any single person—she has always had a voice of her own, right from the beginning—but she would be honored by any resemblance shown to the brilliant Regina Abuyuan. Gina was a writer, editor, school founder, teacher, pub owner, mother, wife, advocate, and friend. We love and miss you, Gina.

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Gina and I with friends Ben, Paul, Derek, and Regine at the Fred’s Revolución in Escolta.

Allegra’s attitudes toward colonial education policy came from the many questions that arose during my research, especially about the thoroughly inappropriate children’s readers imported from the United States. In 1907 the first Philippine primers were published by the World Book Company—though unlike Allegra’s series, these were written entirely by Americans. Sometimes history needs a shove in the right direction. See scholars Roland Sintos Coloma, Kimberly A. Alidio, and A. J. Angulo to learn more.

Also essential to creating Sugar Moon were my language gurus: Liana Smith Bautista (Cebuano); Stephen Fernandez and Adriana Sanchez (Spanish); Scott Giampetruzzi and Andres Reyes (Latin); and Suzette de Borja (Waray). I cannot thank my beta readers enough: Teresa Noelle Roberts; Priscilla and Jim Lockney; and the members of the Weare Area Writers Guild. Also, a big thanks to the authors at NECRWA and #romanceclass for being mentors and friends.

This book would not have been possible without the editing, advice, design, technical expertise, and support of my husband, Stephen. He is the hero who makes my dreams possible—at the cost of many hundreds of hours he would have otherwise set aside to play guitar. If he does not become the next Richard Thompson, you have just read why.

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Essential History for Sugar Moon

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I began writing Sugar Moon in 2013. I began writing this blog in 2016. In both cases, that’s a long time ago. It includes years of writing about the Philippine-American War, and in particular the Balangiga incident—a central event shaping the character of my redemption-seeking, whistleblower character, Ben Potter.

Let’s say you know nothing about what happened in Balangiga—or even nothing about the Philippine-American War. Don’t worry, you won’t need to in order to read Sugar Moon. But let’s say you’re a history geek like me? Well, I’ve written a lot of content just for you!

I have tried to organize this by the most logical questions. Read the captions, and if you want to know more just click on the link below the image. Geek out!

Question 1: Where is this book set?
Philippines-Sugar-Sun-series-locations-map
Most of the Sugar Sun series takes place in the Visayan Islands in the central and southern Philippines.
Question 2: Why were Americans in the Philippines?
Question 3: What happened in Samar?
Question 4: WHAT WAS THE US ARMY LIKE IN 1901?
Question 5: What else should I know about the world of Ben Potter?
Question 6: What should I know about the world of Allegra Alazas?

And you can find out more about Allegra, her home, her family, and her background by reading through these annotated glossary posts:

Question 7: Where can I find the book?

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Question 8: What are people saying about Sugar Moon?

On Frolic, Joanna Shupe called it one of the best historical romances with sports! Reviews on Amazon and Goodreads help new readers find my books, and I appreciate the time it takes to write them.

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I hope you enjoy the book too! I wish you a great history-ever-after!

Pizza, puppy, parol, and phunk

Mr. Hallock and I have a tradition we created our first year of marriage: pizza for Christmas. We spent the 1998 holiday in West Beirut, then our home. Since our neighborhood was predominantly Muslim, everything was open! (Also, the Lebanese knew that Santa can sell anything. For example, our local manousheh joint, Faysal’s, dressed an employee in a perfect jolly red suit and handed out chocolates.) Stephen and I were not big chefs or bakers yet (well, I’m still not), so we were hardly going to make a big dinner for two. We did the obvious thing: we ordered a pizza. Not obvious to you? As we sat and scarfed down a great New York-style pepperoni and mushroom pie, we decided we would always have pizza (or something styled after pizza) for Christmas. We have not broken that tradition in 20 years. There is dough resting on the kitchen table as I type…

1960s vintage tinikling postcard Christmas Philippines
A 1960s Christmas postcard from the Philippines, courtesy of the fabulous Pinoy Kollektor website.

The holidays have also been about our nuclear family, i.e. our dog(s). We sadly said goodbye to seventeen-year-old Jaya two years ago, and before that to fifteen-year-old Grover. This is our first Christmas with a little pipsqueak called Wile E. Dog. Her auntie and uncle brought her pigs’ ears, so she’s been just fine with the madness of the holidays.Wile-E-dog-pig-ear

And, yes, we have a parol—adjusted to 110v by our amazing Ate Edith! We give passing traffic seizures, but, hey, it’s festive.

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Finally, one of my favorite holiday traditions: good funky Christmas music. My favorite funk? Bootsy Collin’s Christmas is 4 Ever.

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One thing you will have to do without this season is Sugar Moon. It is still coming soon, but rewrites are thorough and ongoing. We are hoping for early 2019, certainly in the first half of the year. [Updated to add: We actually managed this deadline, and Sugar Moon hit ebook shelves in April 2019. Read more about the history behind this book and what readers thought.] If you want something Christmas-y, also please check out the epilogue of my latest novella, Tempting Hymn, or the Noche Buena scene of Under the Sugar Sun. Merry, merry.

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