Laura Hillenbrand speaks

The New York Times has posted an interesting interview with Laura Hillenbrand, the author of Seabiscuit: “Ten Questions for Laura Hillenbrand.”
It’s all good, but I was particularly interested in the question asking what works served as her models. She answers: “My goal as an historian is to make nonfiction read as smoothly as fiction while adhering very strictly to fact. I read a lot of nonfiction, and have certainly been influenced by such superb historians as Bruce Catton and David McCullough, but the writers who have had the greatest impact on me have been novelists. Michael Shaara’s masterpiece ‘The Killer Angels,’ an historic novel about Gettysburg, has had a tremendous influence on my writing. Tolstoy has also been a wonderful teacher, namely ‘War and Peace’ and ‘Anna Karenina.’ Other writers I read over and over again, and try to emulate, include Austen, Wharton, Fitzgerald and Hemingway.”

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