After many years as a lawyer, David O. Stewart became a bestselling writer of history and historical fiction. The Wall Street Journal called his George Washington: The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father “an outstanding biography,” with writing that “is clear, often superlative,” providing “a narrative drive such a life deserves.” Other histories have explored the writing of the Constitution, the gifts of James Madison, Aaron Burr’s western expedition and treason trial, and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. He won the Washington Writing Award for best book, the History Prize of the Society of the Cincinnati (twice), the George Washington Memorial Award, and the Prescott Award of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America. David’s first novel, The Lincoln Deception, about the John Wilkes Booth Conspiracy, was called the best historical novel of 2013 by Bloomberg View. Sequels are The Paris Deception (the Paris Peace Conference in 1919) and The Babe Ruth Deception (Babe’s early years with the Yankees). David's fictional trilogy, The Overstreet Saga, begins with The New Land, set on Maine’s bloody and unforgiving coast in the 1750s.
[Photo by Patrice Gilbert.]
45 entries by David O. Stewart
Three Kings: Race, Class, and the Barrier-Breaking Rivals Who Launched the Modern Olympic Age
By Todd Balf
Long before Ledecky, a trio of swimmers made a splash in Paris.
American Midnight
By Adam Hochschild
Can our country’s dark past teach us anything about its dark present?
One of the Independent’s most cherished contributors is gone.
Epistolary novels aren’t dead yet.
Perusing a fellow Staten Islander’s Satchel of Dreams.
American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis
By Adam Hochschild
Can our country’s dark past teach us anything about its dark present?
Silverview
By John le Carré
The late spymaster’s world is still cold.
The biographer talks Tony Hillerman, cultural appropriation, and the allure of the Southwest.
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Remembering Phil Harvey.
High Tension
By John A. Riggs
The electrifying tale of Roosevelt’s effort to light the land.
Silverview: A Novel
By John le Carré
The late spymaster’s world is still cold.
It’s time to put the “non” back in nonfiction.
In his new book, the historian lays out the attributes that made our premier Founding Father so formidable.
High Tension: FDR’s Battle to Power America
By John A. Riggs
The electrifying tale of Roosevelt’s effort to light the land.
The novelist talks storytelling, strong women, and thinking in one language but writing in another.
Historical fiction seeks to fill in the silences.
What happens to books released during a pandemic?
Lampedusa: A Novel
By Steven Price
The life and creative process of a seminal Sicilian author is imagined in this ambitious, multilayered story.
Courting Mr. Lincoln: A Novel
By Louis Bayard
A wildly clever imagining of Honest Abe's complicated personal life.
We Have Not a Government
By George William Van Cleve
Recalling a time when Washington, DC, was somehow more inept.
A look at some of the DC area’s best (and mostly indie) shops
We Have Not a Government: The Articles of Confederation and the Road to the Constitution
By George William Van Cleve
Recalling a time when Washington, DC, was somehow more inept.
An idiosyncratic look at the future first president's genius in holding his army together.
Exciting things are happening at the Independent!
It's all in the words
House of the Rising Sun
By James Lee Burke
An ignorant protagonist and absurd plot derail this novel by an otherwise excellent author.
…And why it’s old news for writers.
The publishing industry turns its eye toward travelers
Spy stories and Somerset Maugham
How many types of stories are there?
Ed Tufte is a genius at self-publishing. The rest of us aren’t.
Who Freed The Slaves? The Fight Over the Thirteenth Amendment
By Leonard L. Richards
A misunderstood part of the Constitution finally gets its due.
Not every great book makes a great movie.
The downs and downs of touting your own tales.
Recalling half a dozen stunners from the year just ended.
Some thoughts on the battle between Amazon and Hachette
This holiday tradition is more fraught than you think.
Must a sub-par novel — and novelist — perpetually be revered?
Historical fiction is flourishing, and its advantages are many. For readers, it combines the familiar with the unknown, as novelists imagine the motivations and thoughts of historical figures. For writers, it provides grounding. Certain characters are already known and even defined. Better yet, the real world produces the most improbable characters. What fiction writer would dare create a character so complex and powerful as Abraham Lincoln? Yet historical fiction comes in many flavors. Here, for starters, are eight:
The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme
By Joe Sacco and Adam Hochschild
This may have a cover and pages inside, it isn’t really a book.
From a terrific schedule to a chance to pitch your work to agents, our upcoming conference is a great event for readers and writers.
A Delicate Truth
John le Carré
A simmering outrage against injustice fuels this high-wire tale of a suspect mission in the murky war on terror.
Staten Island Noir
Edited by Patricia Smith
WIRoB President David O. Stewart reviews this collection of short stories that exposes the gritty side of Staten Island.