So why does a biography of Aaron Burr bring this to mind? Well, one of the primary sources for The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr is Burr’s letters, particularly to his daughter, Theodosia. Author H.W. Brands and, in turn, readers of his sketch of Aaron Burr and his life, should be thankful that Burr not only wrote plenty of letters, he kept copies.

Although Burr is the subject of numerous biographies, Brands’ use of the letters between Burr and Theo, named after her mother, allows a somewhat different perspective. As the title may suggest, the book seems to look more at Burr the man than the other categories in which he could be placed — politician, duelist, accused traitor. While Brand concisely covers the breadth of Burr’s life, it is clear that the father-daughter relationship was an extraordinary one. Burr was decades ahead of his time when it came to Theo. Throughout his life, he was devoted to seeing that she had an education equal to any man’s. Even after she was married and a mother, Burr would suggest matters for her to study and ask that she report back her thoughts and ideas upon doing so. His view of women was such that he described Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy, as “a work of genius.”

Despite his love for his daughter, Burr’s ambitions frequently took him away for extended periods of time. Yet those ambitions never produced the greatness Burr believed was his destiny. Burr’s political status in his native New York made him one of the key figures in the struggle between Alexander Hamilton’s Federalists and Thomas Jefferson’s Republicans, a dispute Brands summarizes rather handily. This would lead him to become Jefferson’s vice president in 1800, only for Jefferson to shut him out and for Burr left off the ticket when Jefferson sought re-election.

The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr also recites the political atmosphere and style that led a longstanding enmity between Hamilton and Burr to culminate in the duel in which Hamilton was killed. While dueling was illegal, it was not uncommon. Although still vice president, Hamilton’s death stirred such a reaction that Burr had to flee to avoid criminal prosecution. Becoming essentially a political pariah, Burr ventures out to explore the U.S. west of the Allegheny Mountains, a venture that would result in Burr being tried for treason.

Brands fairly outlines the supposed scheme in which Burr engaged and its players. Essentially, he is accused of assembling an armed force — which he did — in an effort to have the western areas split from the United States, forming their own nation. In addition, he wanted to gain control of Louisiana and invade Mexico. Still, Burr was circumspect enough that the full extent of his plans and goals remain unclear. When an alleged co-conspirator sends Jefferson a coded letter supposedly written by Burr, the president proclaims Burr guilty of treason and directs federal authorities to arrest him. Burr is ultimately indicted by a grand jury for treason.

Abut a quarter of the slim volume deals with Burr’s 1807 trial. There’s good reason. As Brands note, not only does it present key issues about the only crime set out in the Constitution, the cast of characters is “illustrious.” Burr is the defendant yet actively participates in his defense. His defense counsel includes Edmund Randolph, the first Attorney General of the United States and former Secretary of State. And as this was still in the day where Supreme Court justices would “ride the circuit” to sit as trial judges, Chief Justice John Marshall presided over the trial. The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr frequently quotes from the trial transcript in presenting the factual and legal issues in a readable and understandable fashion. Burr is acquitted but his notoriety means an effort to return to the practice of law fails. As a result, he departs for Europe.

Letters continued between Burr and his daughter while he was in Europe. Yet believing their mail may be too easily read in the lengthy transit, they use false names and employ a cipher when referring to individuals. This correspondence, though, reveals that Europe may well be the nadir of Burr’s life. Far from family and friends, unable to build support for any of his plans, and then largely stranded due to the deteriorating relationship between the U.S. and Britain that would culminate in the War of 1812, Burr is essentially destitute. He then has to sneak back into the U.S. because there remains a warrant for him as a result of the Hamilton duel. Burr’s correspondence reflects his personal and political misery, although undoubtedly the situation may have been much worse than he let on to Theo.

Once back in the U.S., Burr eventually recedes from view and he yields no power, political or otherwise. Family tragedies would further affect him and Brands’ use of Burr’s letters throughout the book that established the strength and importance of those relationships helps bring home the effect of those tragedies on him. Thus, largely from beginning to end the portrait Brands creates is crafted with Burr’s own words.

The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr certainly is not an in-depth look at the enigmatic Burr. But lengthier works tend to focus on details of what led to the duel with Hamilton and what Burr did in the west that led to the accusations of treason. As such, they give us more a picture of the political Burr than the personal one. This also makes the narrative quite readable and well-paced.

We are fortunate that individuals like Burr tended to keep copies of their letters, both sent and received. While we don’t know where where technology will take us, I can’t help but wonder whether the sources will exist in the future that make works like this possible.

Aaron Burr, January 1809, quoted in
H.W. Brands, The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr

Night Sessions is set in a near future in the aftermath of what Britain and its allies call the “the Faith Wars” and others call “the Oil Wars.” 9/11 was the first in a series of events that eventually brought all-out war between Muslim and Christian nations, a war in which soldiers were aided by sentient robots and the sides engaged in tactical nuclear exchanges on the plains of Megiddo, solving the Israeli-Palestine conflict by making that part of the Middle East uninhabitable. Los Angeles is little more than a “black plain,” the victim of a 10-kiloton nuclear warhead, in the course of an internal war with fundamentalist Christians.

The savagery and effects of the Faith Wars prompted a secular backlash called the Second Enlightenment (or the Great Rejection in religious camps). Even using persecution and harassment when deemed necessary, the Second Enlightenment ultimately attained its goal of separating Church from State and removing religion entirely from politics and public life. The U.K. and other parts of Europe are secular to the point that society no longer recognizes religion, despite the fact there remain millions of believers. The official policy is one of “non-cognisance.” The United States has even adopted a constitutional amendment expressly stating the nation was not founded on Christian, or any other, religion. Some American Christian fundamentalists have taken refuge in New Zealand, where, among other things, there is a “science park” in a national park portraying a creationist view of the world, often using sentient robots to portray man living with dinosaurs.

Within this setting, the main plot line leans toward police procedural set in Edinburgh in MacLeod’s native Scotland. Detective Adam Ferguson helps head up the investigation of the death of a Catholic parish priest who opens a package containing a bomb. Through his investigation, Ferguson, aided by “Skulk,” a leki (law enforcement kinetic intelligence — a type of sentient robot) assistant, attempts to ascertain if the deaths are a form of terrorism by either atheist or religious extremists, particularly as more clerics are murdered.

Ferguson’s work with Skulk can’t help but bring to mind Isaac Asimov’s robot stories, in which a human detective partnered with a humanoid robot, R. Daneel Olivaw. Night Sessions has a far more dystopian edge than any of Asimov’s robot stories. MacLeod also joins British author Charles Stross in using a police procedural set in Edinburgh as a vehicle through which to explore near future scenarios. Other parts of the book invoke scenes one might expect to find in space opera, a genre MacLeod has previously explored.

Surprisingly, this is the first U.S. release of Night Sessions, even though The Restoration Game, published later, was released in the U.S. last year. Night Sessions deals with more overt hot button political issues than The Restoration Game. This book’s setting and what Ferguson ultimately uncovers raise interesting questions about religion, as well as fundamentalism at any point on the religious spectrum. As usual with MacLeod, the work is well-plotted and tends to build logically. Sometimes, though, plot seems to take precedence over character. Some characters seem to appear as little more than plot mechanisms. Likewise, a key but infrequently appearing character seems to relinquish his core beliefs much too quickly and does so on an issue the reader would have expected the character to have confronted long before.

These flaws aside, this is another MacLeod work that causes the reader to ponder not only key political and social issues but matters we may face in the future, such as the relationship between humanity and sentient technology. As such, it will attract those who view science fiction as more than simple genre fiction.

Ken MacLeod, Night Sessions

Author Scott Cawelti makes clear from the outset of his Brother’s Blood: A Heartland Cain and Abel that it falls into the latter camp. In fact, the book’s copyright page (as well as a later introduction to source material) begins with a disclaimer. It tells readers that although primarily nonfiction, the book includes “interludes of fictional recreation of conversations, personal thoughts and dreams.” He admits that while his fictional efforts might come close to the truth, he could not know what actually transpired in those situations. Instead, his goal was to “create a readable and engaging narrative.” If that is the test of creative nonfiction, Cawelti largely succeeds.

The book is based on the murders of Leslie Mark, his wife and two young children in their Iowa farm home on Halloween night in 1975. Mark’s older brother, Jerry, a former legal services attorney and Peace Corps volunteer, was convicted of the murders, a verdict he has challenged since it was handed down in June 1976. The story plainly has the elements of a novel.

The theory upon which Jerry was convicted is that he became jealous and resentful because, among other things, Leslie was taking over the family farming operation and moving into the “home place” near Cedar Falls, Iowa. On the morning of October 29, 1975, Jerry left his Berkeley, Calif., home on a used Honda motorcycle he bought earlier that month. He pushed himself and the bike hard enough to drive the 1,600-plus miles to arrive at the farm in the early morning hours of November 1. Along the way, he called his girlfriend in Berkeley a couple times, reporting he was hundreds of miles away from where he actually was.

After entering the house and cutting the power, Jerry entered his brother’s main floor bedroom, shooting both Leslie and his wife following a brief struggle. He then proceeded upstairs, killing the family’s five-year-old daughter and 18-month-old son with two bullets each. He immediately headed back west on the motorcycle, arriving in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., on the evening of November 2. When some of his story didn’t seem to match up and authorities began checking the length of I-80 to see if anyone saw Jerry, He was arrested the following week in Cedar Falls, where he had returned for the funerals.

In the book, published by Ice Cube Press, located less than 100 miles from Cedar Falls, Cawelti describes the travel and shootings in detail. Much of the latter is gathered from the murder investigation and trial, although Cawelti provides a narrative that is a far cry from the dry, almost clinical, flavor of any police report or trial transcript. Throughout the book and particularly on the journey across the country, Brother’s Blood seeks to take us inside Jerry’s head and even his dreams. While much of this seeks to help us understand Jerry, there doesn’t seem to be as much detail or support as might be expected for the Cain and Abel nature of the story. Much of that, though, appears to be a function of the prosecution’s case and evidence.

Brother’s Blood doesn’t just take the reader into Jerry’s thoughts. We also become privy to the emotions, thoughts and conversations of investigators and family members, particularly Jerry’s mother and girlfriend. Plainly, much of this is or borders on being made of whole cloth. Yet Cawelti, born and raised in Cedar Falls, leaves the feeling that his familiarity with the area and the roughly 30 years he’s spent studying the case provides a basis upon which to ground these passages. Regardless of one’s views of creative nonfiction and its boundaries, Cawelti uses it to not only draw the reader in but to keep the story moving apace.

There is, though, a somewhat persnickety blemish. This type of work requires trust in the author, otherwise it suggests the story is more fiction than fact. Yet on just the third page of Cawelti’s introduction he mentions a 2006 ruling in favor of Jerry by a judge of “8^th U.S. District Court.” Then, shortly before the end he calls the judge an “8^th U.S. District Circuit Court of Appeals” judge. Neither of those courts exists. Iowa, like every state, has U.S. District Courts, the trial courts in the federal system. Iowa’s U.S. District Courts are within the jurisdiction of the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, an entirely separate court which, as the name indicates, is the appellate level (and which reversed the judge’s decision). While failing to distinguish between the two happens, a reader hopes it doesn’t occur in this type of work.

Undoubtedly, this might slip by the average reader. Yet coming as early as it did, the foundation of trust started with a crack. I couldn’t help but wonder if there were errors in areas with which I was not familiar. Still, while the crack caused concern, the bulwark of the story Cawelti was building never failed. And perhaps the risk of such a failure is what justifies his extensive detailing of source material. Nearly a quarter of Brother’s Blood consists of referencing the source material for each chapter, much of which sets forth extensive excerpts from trial testimony and police interviews. While I did not compare all the excerpts to the text of the book, the fact Cawelti is willing to allow such comparison provides a level of comfort for readers.

Perhaps that experience exaggerates why I believe readers should approach literary nonfiction with a bit of circumspection. Cawelti, who taught at the University of Northern Iowa for 40 years, does a service to readers by immediately setting out the boundaries within which the work is set. Ultimately, Brother’s Blood is also a example of how and why creative nonfiction has grabbed readers over the years.

Scott Cawelti, Brother’s Blood