THE BACKDROP OF OUR LIVES

I set my stories against the years just before the Civil War because that time speaks to me—and, I believe, to us today. Back then, the telegraph was brand new, sending urgent news to citizens across the country. Ordinary families, like the Armstrongs in Lincoln Moon, learned about the Dred Scott decision from their newspapers, and it changed the way they saw the world. That news, carried by wires and ink, was what pulled them into the dangerous work of the Underground Railroad.

Today, we live in a world saturated with media, but the role it plays is much the same. It shapes how we see ourselves and our freedoms. The questions are different now—no longer about slavery—but still about where the power of government ends and the rights of citizens begin.

The years before the Civil War were full of firsts. John Brown’s trial, the first true “national” trial, gripped the country and set the stage for events that followed. It also forms the backdrop for my next book, The Stars Are Fire.

But more than history, what matters to me is the reminder it carries: people then, like people now, looked to the Supreme Court for answers, but the Supreme Court was never the final word. In the end, it has always been the people—ordinary men and women—who shape the course of our nation.

-mpn