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Bar News - July 4, 2003 Telling Tales of the Sea By: Larissa Mulkern Portsmouth attorney James Fender enjoys a second career as author of historically based nautical fiction.
By day, besides tending to the shipyard’s legal matters, he tends to the on-site museum. He’s played a large part in growing the collection of naval artifacts, exhibits, documents and books. By night, he researches and writes books based on the life of a Revolutionary War-era mariner. From 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. every night, he is author J.E. Fender. So when he tells the tale of his hero, a continuing account of Geoffrey Frost, Mariner, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, it is with authority. It’s as if he were there. He’s written two books on Frost, the first being "The Private Revolution of Geoffrey Frost," an account of the life and times of a Portsmouth mariner, "as faithfully translated from the Ming Tsun Chronicles and diligently compared with other contemporary histories." The second book, "Audacity, Privateer Out of Portsmouth," continues the saga of the mariner as he captures British supply ships and commands a captured enemy sloop o’ war. The accounts, both published by University Press of New England, are based on the translated diaries of Frost’s Mandarin servant Ming Tsun. Fender discovered the chronicles by accident. "I found the diaries in an old sea chest I bought at a used furniture store," he said. The chest’s lock was frozen with age; Fender used a can of WD-40 to loosen the grip and unearthed the historic treasures inside. "It was just chock-a-block with newspaper articles, yellowed letters and fragments of writing in Portuguese from Ming Tsun," he said. "Ming Tsun was Mandarin Chinese, and his family had given shelter to some Jesuits. They had been persecuted by the emperor and went into hiding," Fender explained. Ming Tsun was caught and tortured and had his tongue cut out. He broke loose and threw himself into the Pearl River just as Geoffrey Frost, a smuggler at the time, was raising anchor on his very first voyage back from China. Tsun became Frost’s loyal servant. These compelling accounts of the life and times of the adventurous mariner inspired Fender to write a series of books based on Frost’s life. And so began the Frost saga. The twist is, it’s not true. Frost is not a product of history, but rather of imagination. Fender created the character as the American Revolution’s answer to C.S. Forester’s fictional British Royal Navy officer Horatio Hornblower. "I had the idea when I came here to Pease Airbase in the bicentennial year 1976," Fender said. "I grew up with C.S. Forester’s novels on Horatio Hornblower. Then, in 1976, I discovered writer Patrick O’Brian. [O’Brian was the author of historical novels about the British Royal Navy, including "Master and Commander," "The Hundred Days," and "Post Captain."] He published 21 books, very beautiful books of great literary accomplishment. When I discovered O’Brian I said, ‘Gee whiz, we have two nautical series, but the characters are Royal Navy officers at the time of the Napoleanic Wars,’" he went on. "So what we really should have, as Americans, is our own nautical hero. What better era than the American Revolutionary War era? I decided to go for a trader who could become a reluctant privateer rather than a Continental Navy officer because what I was trying to do was write literature, not just fiction," he said. Asked to differentiate between popular fiction and literature, Fender indicated that only time would separate fleeting success from a lasting legacy. "I can’t define it, but I think 50 years from now, if people are still reading Geoffrey Frost it will be literature. I don’t think 50 years from now people will be reading Tom Clancy." Fender’s Geoffrey Frost character is almost Forrest Gump-like in the way he pops up at major historic events. "Frost had the unique ability to be at almost every major naval and land engagement of any consequence. In book three, we’ll find Frost taking gunpowder and flour to George Washington so he can fight the Battle of Trenton," he said. His character’s ubiquity is something Fender acknowledges would translate well to the big screen, although Fender has not yet been approached by Hollywood. Fender agrees that the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard provides a perfect backdrop and inspiration for his character. His intent is to reconnect Americans with their own history. "What I’m hoping to do with the Geoffrey Frost saga is to reacquaint Americans with the founding of our nation. I dedicate every book to those who have fought for liberties," he said. Upcoming books will look forward and backward into the mariner’s life. Fender will publish a book a year and already has plot lines well into the future. The third in the Frost saga, titled, "Our Lives, Our Fortune," is undergoing final editing at the publishers. Book four will explore New England’s role in the slave trade, he said. Fender has loved reading and writing since he was a young boy growing up in the South. "I’ve been a story teller since 1958," he said. "I sold my first short story in 1961 to Boy’s Life magazine and have been writing since I was in high school." Fender was the first member of his family to graduate from college, earning a bachelor’s degree in English in 1963 from the University of Alabama on an R.O.T.C. scholarship. In college, an English professor made an impact on the young writer; Professor Hudson Strode took Fender under his wing. "I was living on $27 a month. Dr. Strode was able to get me a scholarship, but the provision was that I had to switch my major to English," he said. Professor Strode was one of the first to teach creative writing in an American university, but had deep roots in historic writing as the best-known biographer of Jefferson Davis. "I’d sit there on the professor’s veranda editing the letters of Jefferson Davis. That had a profound effect on me," Fender said. Obligated to military service after earning his English degree, Fender served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War. He met his wife, Ruth, in the Air Force and finally retired from military service in 1977. "I left the Air Force in ’77 and the Veteran’s Administration said, ‘We’re going to rehabilitate you. What would you like to be?’" "I wanted to be a doctor, and they laughed… The V.A. said, ‘You’re too old and your chemistry, physics and hard sciences – it’s been well over five years since you took them and you’d have to go back and take them again.’" Given a slim choice between a medical career and law, Fender chose law, and the V.A. paid his way. He graduated from Suffolk University Law School in August of 1981. As a writer, while Fender appears to spin the tale of his hero effortlessly, as if he had lived the life himself, the work is not that easy. Between the law profession and writing, being an author is the more challenging, he said. "It’s the hardest work I do," he said, although he pointed out that the skills involved in both fields complement each other. "Both require discipline," he said. "Writing requires critical thinking and development and creative expression. So does delivering a convincing opening argument before a judge or jury. You’ve got to be eloquent – that’s good training in the crafting of fiction," Fender concluded For more information on the novels of J.E. Fender, access the Web site www.geoffreyfrost.com. His latest novel, "Audacity, Privateer Out of Portsmouth," is available in hardcover from University Press of New England. "The Private Revolution of Geoffrey Frost" is available in paperback.
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