On The Rails by Rosemary & Larry Mild Book Tour, Guest Post & Giveaway! {Ends 9/22/23}

Review By LAWonder10:

This was an exciting read for me because it was well-written having much detail. It also brought to mind interesting stories from my own father’s time as a hobo riding the railways.

The story is about an athletic, tall young woman who graduated from college during the Great Depression. returning to a very undesirable home life that hadn’t changed her only escape was the railways. She had heard about a young man finding temporary work in this manner while getting to see the other parts of this great country of the U.S.A.

She meets interesting, and some frightening characters, and discovers the dangers and often unpleasantness this way of life can be.

My father suffered many similar situations, although he never went into much detail. After being denied to serve his country because he was too young in World War 1, then being denied the same opportunity in World War ll because he was the sole provider for his parents and his brother and family, he rebelled by hopping the rails and traveling to see the country. He got as far as New York City before returning to his home in Utah. He was a hobo for a few years.

He suffered the crudeness of mankind, the compassion of other mankind, and severe starvation that caused him to swallow his pride and dig through garbage and eat despicable things in order to survive. He shared the various jobs he was able to attain which were broad and very interesting but always with a consequence.

We lived near the train tracks and although we were instructed not to give the ‘tramp” money or invite them into the house, he insisted we never send them away without feeding them. We could also invite them to sleep on our enclosed porch if we felt okay about it.

The only downside to this work of fiction is the occasional profanity and other foul language used between 10 -15 times. It may be reality, yet easily replaced with non-offensive words.

I still offer a Five Stars literary rating.

This book was gifted me with no pressure to post a positive review. This is my honest review.

How Larry and Rosemary Mild Research Their Fiction
LARRY:
I have my own unique way of approaching literary research. I won’t attempt to write about a setting, technology, or historic period unless I feel comfortable with it beforehand. I don’t have to possess any expertise in that area, but I do make sure I have enough “juice,” or prior knowledge on the subject of my story to push a plot from beginning to climactic end—and to create convincing characters who fulfill their roles in the story.

As I plow into the writing, I usually hit a stumbling block where I’m missing a specific place, a word, a bit of know-how, or a date. That’s when I turn to the Internet, a reference book,or other source expert on the subject.

In my early days writing fiction, I dug into research beforehand. I became overly fascinated with my subject, reading way beyond the point needed for my story. I ended up with a plethora of research material that either never made it into the writing or wound up bloating the writing. Yes, bloating. Sometimes I so enjoyed tucking in my scholarly “finds” that I was actually showing off my newfound knowledge—departing from the focus and pacing of the story. My guide today is to research as needed and when needed. A good way to approach research is to think of it as the means to authenticate a scene or a character or the plot itself.

In our newest novel, On the Rails, The Adventures of Boxcar Bertie. Bertie is living in 1936 in the midst of the Great Depression. She’s twenty-four, just out of college, trained to become a grammar school teacher. But she’s unable to find a job in her hometown of New Haven, Connecticut. She needs to ride the rails in boxcars because she can’t afford train fare as she seeks employment elsewhere.

In September 2023 I will be ninety-one years old. The idea for Boxcar Bertie sprang out of my own memories. I lived through the Great Depression and experienced both the best and worst of it—or at least heard about each of the wrenching situations in which Bertie finds herself. All I had to do was imbue her with my knowledge, my experience, and my feelings. She led me through the plot. In the following excerpt from the book, you can see some of the scenes from my past that Bertie experienced.

She heard Meyer the fishmonger tooting his conical tin horn with a full-breath’s
blast, announcing his arrival to his customers. He stopped his two-wheeled
wooden pushcart on the blacktop street. Two compartments held freshly caught
fish packed in chopped ice. His pull-down scale hung from a hooked bar. After he weighed the fish, the pan remained swinging for several seconds. Meyer, an
elderly man with a full gray beard and peaked cap, spied Bertie standing on the
curb and waved his hello. She fondly remembered other men with their pushcarts.

Luigi, the vegetable man; Theo, the seltzer bottle man; Jesse, the rag man who
collected old clothes and metals; and Dave, who sharpened knives and scissors
and repaired umbrellas.

I remember my father bargaining with these men, especially the ragman. Dad would give me whatever pitiful change the transaction yielded. I also remember the price of a movie: ten cents for the Saturday matinee! For our dime, we got a double feature, newsreel, cartoons, and sometimes even free dishes. A haircut, if you could afford one, was a quarter. When I was a pre-teen, my friends and I played in an abandoned Ice House on DeWitt Street in New Haven. A nearby bridge overlooked the railroad tracks. I gazed down to watch the workers and felt and heard the power of the freight trains.

Did I have to do research for Bertie? Absolutely. I had to look up photographs, maps, and descriptions. I learned about the Civilian Conservation Corps park in north-central Massachusetts. I have the hoboes sitting around their campfire singing “You Are My Sunshine” and “Workin’ on the Railroad.” I had to verify that those songs were actually current in 1936. An ice cream soda in Providence, Rhode Island, was called a cabinet.

ROSEMARY:
Here are a few more pungent details on how we handle our research.

We sold a copy of Locks and Cream Cheese, our first Paco & Molly Mystery, to the Hawaii State Library. The acquisitions librarian called us. “Where did you get your research?” she asked me. I told her, “Larry conjured up the plot. He got the historical details out of his head, based on all the historical novels he’d ever read.”

Our most popular novel is Cry Ohana, Adventure and Suspense in Hawaii. The novel vibrates with authentic local scenes based on our own experience: in Chinatown on Chinese New Year, wading through spent firecracker paper; on the Big Island, steam rising from the volcanic Halemaumau crater. We also depended on the Honolulu Advertiser and Star-Bulletin, plus books on Hawaiian history. I called the Honolulu Police Department for how they deal with spouse abuse.

In Death Goes Postal, our first Dan & Rivka Sherman Mystery, we created the Olde Victorian Bookstore in Historic Annapolis, eight miles from our house.
In our short story “The Snake Lady,” Auntie Momi visits her fortune teller, but finds her dead—murdered—and her gentle pet python missing. But snakes are illegal in the Aloha State! I called the Department of Agriculture and learned that the penalty is up to three years in prison and a $200,000 fine. But there’s an amnesty plan: Turn it in, no penalties. Our research was satisfying, but our plot was at a standstill. It was missing an irrefutable piece of evidence that would nail the killer. A happy personal coincidence solved our problem—and the case. A cousin of ours, a jewelry designer, had just posted her newest creation on Facebook: an exotic snake ring! With her delighted permission, we incorporated the ring into our plot.
©Rosemary and Larry Mild