Five by Five — Author’s historical series looks at the “why”

By Max Bowen

“Five By Five” is the name for our series of written Q&A interviews with writers and musicians. The name actually refers to audio signals, which ties in with our regular podcast. Five By Five is another way to say “good signal strength” or “loud and clear,” but can also mean “exceptional quality,” which certainly lines up with the artists we speak with.

J. Boyce Gleason has long been fascinated by French history, so it’s only natural that his trilogy, “The Carolingian Chronicles,” would be focused on this topic. His first novel, “Anvil of God,” comes from a history class that Gleason took in college on Charlemagne.

In this interview, Gleason goes into why he wanted to write about the children of Charles Martel as they vie for power, the different story arcs he follows and his desire to explore why people make their choices.

What would you say inspired you to write in the first place?
I’ve always been drawn to storytelling and thought that maybe one day I’d have a book in me. When I got a chance (through a sabbatical) to try my hand, I found that I couldn’t stop once I started. As to why this story? In college, I studied the epic poem "The Song of Roland” and thought it was underrated and deserved a broader audience. I promised myself that if I ever sat down to write a novel, that would be my subject.

Your trilogy focused on Charles Martel. Who is he, and how did he and his family become the subject of your series?
Charles Martel is often remembered as a king (even on Jeopardy!) but he served as "Mayor of the Palace" to the last of the Merovingian Kings. He was a fierce warlord who conquered much of the European continent but is most remembered for stopping the invasion of the Muslim armies that had swept across most of Africa and into Spain. He fought them at the Battle of Poitiers in 732 and defeated an army of a much greater size. Many historians have credited him with saving Christianity. His victory earned him the title of Charles the Hammer.

Your books follow the lives of Martel’s children. What are some of the story arcs that the series follows?
Much of the story centers around the conflict of religions. Christianity (supported by the Merovingians and the descendants of Martel) was determined to replace paganism throughout the continent. The sons of Martel had a civil war following his death to preclude their younger stepbrother from inheriting power. As the boy’s mother came from Bavaria and the easter duchies were still pagan at the time (if unofficially), I chose to make the civil war about religion.

The second and perhaps more important storyline is that of Charles’s daughter, Hiltrude, who flees Martel’s court in the dead of the night to escape an arranged marriage for the love of one of his enemies. Historians have called it "the scandal of the eighth century." I was so taken with her tale that it became the centerpiece of the novel.

I read that you’re fascinated with why people make their choices. How is this explored in your books?
Many people look at history as a series of events—one thing follows another in an endless series of dates we have to remember. I look at it as a history of choices people make. We know what happened in history; I write historical fiction to discover why.

The people who make history are human beings just like you and me. Circumstances or perhaps their ambition put them in a place of power, but they—as people—still have to choose a course of action.

As a result, I refused to make any of the characters in my novel “good” or “evil,” as I don’t think most people are built that way. Their beliefs and circumstances push them to choose a course of action. The cumulative choices people make drive what we know as history.

For example, at the start of the first book, I knew that one of the characters was destined to do something terrible in the third book. I had to figure out what would drive him to make such a decision. What would lead him to choose to turn against his humanity? If I couldn’t figure that out, the story wouldn’t make sense to me.

Will there be more books on French history?

I hope so. I’ve taken a break to write about a different time period and just finished a new novel on a young Ben Franklin. But, my original intent was to write about “The Song of Roland,” which tells the ill-fated story of Charlemagne’s greatest knight. By the third book of my trilogy, Charlemagne is still only three years old. I can see Roland on the horizon, but still have a ways to go.