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Professor writes historical fiction of a legendary time BOWLING GREEN, O. -- The California of 1842 was everything legend says it was-a bountiful, unspoiled gem, the perfect place
in which to imagine one's dreams coming true. Not yet part of the United States, it was also the prize coveted by many nations.
It is against this backdrop that Dr. Lawrence Coates, an assistant professor of creative writing at Bowling Green State University,
sets his new novel, "The Master of Monterey."
Published this month by University of Nevada Press, the book tells of the brief but ill-fated occupation of Monterey, then
capital of the Mexican territory of California, by U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet Commodore Thomas Jones and the crew of the National
Intention.
Having heard rumors that the United States was at war with Mexico, Jones takes over Monterey in order to forestall other imperial
powers such as France, Russia and Great Britain from claiming it and, no less importantly, to secure his place in history
as a champion of democracy. His three-day occupation ends when he finds out that there is in fact no war, and he later is
relieved of his commission. "
Though this was a real event, I used my imagination in the telling of it," Coates said. The result is an interweaving of the
stories of at least a dozen main characters-the commodore himself, the ship's captain, the people ashore, the local hacienda
owners and the native Indians.
The character of Jones follows a long literary tradition of the quixotic hero, at once comic and tragic, "full of wild and
crazy imaginings of great deeds but frustrated by everyday reality and ultimately defeated," Coates said.
Coates offers a rich fresco of life at that time. In fact, "some of the most bizarre things in the book were real," Coates
said. In researching material for the novel, he read many original manuscripts and journals from the period, written in Spanish
and French, which are now housed in the Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley. "I tried to read as
many firsthand, original accounts as possible," he said.
Born in El Cerrito, Calif., Coates sets most of his work in the West because, he says, "You write the best about where you're
from and about which you have a certain depth of knowledge."
His first book, "The Blossom Festival," won the Western States Book Award for Fiction and the Utah Book Award, and was selected
for the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Program. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship
in literature, Coates joined the faculty of BGSU in 2001 after teaching at Southern Utah University.
(Posted April 06, 2003 )
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