James Friedlander

I could tell you all the boring stuff about where I grew up and went to school but let it suffice to say that I should have been born a hundred years earlier. I've been fighting modernity most of my life, enjoying reading about the past and collecting antique vehicles and boats. It all leads to more work than buying new but it's work I enjoy because it's hands on. As for my enjoyment of history, I knew nothing about human history, especially American history, until I had teachers in college willing to tell the truth about the the reasons we got to where we are today. Our past is more interesting and complex than the common notions, which are tainted by false patriotism. And that, in a nutshell, is why I love to write novels that deal with the past. I don't like to call it historical fiction because much of that genre romanticizes the past, simply using it as nostalgic background. The past is more than that, it shapes us. Just as the attitudes of our parents affect us and we affect our children's, it is a continuum which has no beginning and will only end when the last person comes to his or her end. The events in yesterday's newspaper may seem like the past but just because they aren't today's news doesn't mean they are done. SOUL PASSAGE was my first novel. Since then, I have written a short satire about Trump's wall called THE WALL and another political thriller, THE CASTLE. My latest, SHOOTING JESSE JAMES is set before and after the Civil War. It's the story of a pair of photographers who set out to make Jesse James a hero for the defeated South.