No. 4,124,251 . . . and counting!I cannot get a good estimate on the number of books printed since Gutenberg’s days, but for my own ego I am going to assume it is somewhere in the many millions . . . which makes it quite okay that my historical novel,
Moses Rose (1996), ranks at 4,124,251 on Amazon.com (wait a sec – it probably just went to 4,124,252 as I type).
But authors (wannabe or obscure), do not be discouraged. Ten years after my novel appeared from Dan River Press, I still get about 10 or so messages a year from people who have come across a reference or heard about it in some way, and want it. Literature – or at least in my case, sustained typing – does live on. Yes, I am at no. 4-million-and-something, and proud of it.
And yes, I admit, too, this is partly a shameless bit of hawking for dear ol’
Moses Rose. It is still available (not “in print,” but there are copies available) from Dan River Press. This novel is, as the book jacket explains, “a fiction based on a legend,” about a 50-year-old veteran of Napoleon’s army who – according to the Texas legend – was the only Alamo defender to leave the night before the final assault . . . a deserter to some, a survivor to others. My novel does not purport to tell the “real” story, since no one really knows what it is.
For a copy, contact Bob Olmstead at cal@americanletters.org. Costs: $15.95 plus $3.95 shipping/handling, total of $19.90. Enjoy. And remember: it is just a story I made up. (Oscar Wilde: "Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of art.")
(If you are interested in more discussion on that last point, check out the other essayists and materials for a “virtual conference” on historical fiction I participated in a few years ago at the University at Albany. It is at:
www.albany.edu/history, then click on
History and Media and scroll down to find
Writing History, Writing Fiction.)
