 "Photo: Courtesy Photo")
There are passions pursued outside the scope of peoples’ careers or majors. For Joel Williamsen, his passion is telling stories.
His recently self-published novel, “Barrelhouse Boys,” the story of a train wreck in Lincoln in 1894 and a young man who got caught up in the middle, is taking Williamsen from his job at the Pentagon back to Nebraska to promote his labor of love.
The Daily Nebraskan caught up with Williamsen en route to his upcoming book signing at the Nebraska Bookstore, happening this Friday.
Daily Nebraskan : You are a writer, Joel, but you work for the Pentagon. How do the two relate?
Joel Williamsen : We all have a hobby in our lives, and it balances what we do in the rest of our lives. The Pentagon is a very demanding kind of technical work. And working on historical fiction was a bit like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. I’m a test engineer for the Pentagon, and when we do those tests and get the results, we have to put those pieces back together again. It was a little bit like that, looking back 115 years ago in history.
DN : Your novel, “Barrelhouse Boys,” is a self-described mix of fact and fiction set in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1894. Where do the facts end and the fiction begin?
JW : The facts sort of begin and end with newspaper articles. I was working at the Library of Congress on some research for the Pentagon, and I was killing a little time waiting for some research materials to arrive. Turns out, they had the newspapers from Lincoln, Nebraska, from that time period, and they had some wonderful coverage of, not only the trial, but the person they accused of doing these wreckings of the train. I was so intrigued by the facts of the case that I built the rest of the story around it. I guess I was looking for a good piece of history to hang the story on. I wanted to write a story about this young man and his crazy relatives and the things that happen to him.
DN : What were you specifically focused on portraying accurately?
JW : I wanted to make sure that all the facts of where people lived, what they did, what they said and all the people mentioned were historically accurate. Getting to know Willa Cather and John J. Pershing and a fella I had never heard about by the name of Mr. (Charles G.) Dawes – who was a Nobel Prize Laureate – those were people who happened to know one another, and the history books talked about them knowing one another, but I didn’t know about it. Trying to put those pieces together was the most intriguing and interesting part of the writing process.
DN : How much research went into making this novel historically accurate?
JW : This was a four-year process. The first year was all research. Reading the newspapers, reading the biographies of these real, historical characters and putting down the bones of what this story would be like. It was just two hard years of writing which ended in January of 2009. With hard times, it was kind of hard to find a publisher. So, I decided to self-publish with a lot of encouragement from my friends.
DN : You cite Larry McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove” and James Michener’s “Texas” in your synopsis for your novel. Did these writers play a major part in establishing your style?
JW : Yes. I read these as a big fan my whole life. I’m pretty sure I’m not quite as long-winded in the story as these two writers are. But, they describe flawed men, a flawed people, who are trying to do their best to function around one another. I admired that and tried to emulate that in my life.
DN : How do you see readers who don’t know much about Nebraska’s history relating to this book?
JW : I’m hoping that they’ll come at it from a couple of different angles. There’ll be the people who just love the period and love the railroad history, the history of the train wrecks. These large companies that would fight each other and perhaps be behind the actual wrecking rather than this young man that they accused of doing it. I think people will see that Nebraska, even back then, 115 years ago, was an amazing patchwork of different cultures: black, white, Czech, immigrant, non-immigrant. They kind of flowed together into a real interesting stew.
DN : What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
JW : First of all, pick a passion and write about it. People write because they have to write, because there’s a story inside them. We practice to make the best writers. I wrote for 25 years before I started the novel. You learn how words are put together one way or another. Learn your craft by doing your craft, but also understand that there are lots of avenues to a novel, and you’ll find yours when you’ve got your story.
noahballard@dailynebraskan.com
If You Go
Joel Williamsen Book Signing
Where: Nebraska Bookstore, 1300 Q St.
When: Friday, Nov. 27, 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.
How Much: Free
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