Kaye & Joan for the First Time at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris
The Reclamation
A chapter excerpt from The Reclamation won an Honorable Mention in the 2009 Writer’s Digest Writing Competition.
I am currently seeking representation for this novel inspired by my own experiences at West Point and the amazing Joan of Arc, kick-ass woman and spiritual warrior.
Query:
In Joan of Arc’s time, a myopic view of the world held no room for a young woman capable of leading men into battle. When Jane Archer matriculates at West Point in the late 1990’s, not much has changed. Rape is still used globally as a means of strategically controlling one’s enemy, while within a fighting force such as the U.S. Army, rapes are rarely prosecuted successfully. As Jane Archer rises to the position of Battalion Commander, she is forced to choose between her future career as a Judge Advocate General and speaking for those who have been muted by power. Jane’s decision is perhaps best expressed by one of Jehanne’s angels: “Your fear is only an indicator of places within you that have not yet grown.”
My novel, The Reclamation, is a work of historical fiction told in the two alternating voices of Jehanne, more commonly known as Joan of Arc, and Jane Archer. Each voice occurs eleven times or “Days.” In Jehanne’s case these “days” correlate to her final days in prison before her martyrdom, where the harsh conditions of her imprisonment inspire her to recall her life’s mission. Still able to communicate with her angelic voices — the same spiritual ability that caused Jehanne’s greatest rift with the church — Jehanne sends her memories forward to the modern-day where they are received by a skeptical Jane. In Jane’s case each eleven “days” correspond to a movement in the unfolding plot of her story, which covers her four years at West Point. Originally a hard-headed Rhode Islander, Jane eventually begins using guidance from Jehanne as she completes and reclaims the power lost by Jehanne to the systems of her time.
In 1980 I entered West Point two weeks after the first woman in history received her diploma from this previously all-male institution. A chapter of The Reclamation won Honorable Mention in the Inspirational category of the 78th Writer’s Digest Writing Competition. My work has been published work in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms (Chicken Soup for the Soul, 2009). I am a member of Grub Street in Boston, MA, the Historical Novel Society, and the International Women’s Writing Guild. I am currently the Director and Co-Founder of the Franklin Yoga and Wellness Center. The Reclamation is my first novel, and is complete at 115,000 words. I would be honored to have you review it; a synopsis of the novel is also available upon request.
from The Reclamation…
Day One
Rouen, France, Monday, May 21, 1431
Joan of Arc Statue in Paris
The day I entered Rouen was in direct contrast to the day I left. As I pulled my tattered golden cape, an extravagant gift from my King at a time when I held his favor, around my shoulders, I watched snow fall gently but thickly from a silver sky. Tiny snowflakes swirled on the wind, seeming like they would never land, cloaking the town in a white shroud, and blowing into the carriage in drifts. Nature often delivered the biggest snowstorms with the tiniest flakes. Each lacy flake, fragile, yet when massed with others of its kind could halt armies and kill without reservation.
I witnessed this snowfall from the deceptive protection of a covered carriage as it transported me to an English prison. I was at the mercy of an element more powerful and frightening – human fear.
By the time we rumbled across the drawbridge and pulled into the courtyard of Bouvreuil, the Earl of Warwick’s castle in Rouen, a layer of snow covered the roads, the roofs, and the top of every exposed surface, including the heads and shoulders of the guards who rode beside my carriage. An eerie feeling shivered up my already cold spine. This snowfall reminded me of the ash-covered ground in my hometown of Domremy, after the Burgundians burned our church.
The Bishop’s dry voice pulled me from the padded seat of the cold carriage back to the hardwood chair in the courtroom. “Jehanne d’Arc,” Bishop Cauchon’s voice boomed and echoed off the vaulted ceiling. “I command you to swear oath and relate the truth of all subjects asked of you.”
Heat rushed to my face. Frustration simmered through my veins. If I had only jumped from the carriage that day I could be free now. I let my gaze rake around the castle’s main chamber. Priests, monks, and learned clergy from the University of Paris, fifty or so of them, sat on platforms placed in a U-formation. Most were draped in the scarlet robes of the church, while a few wore humble brown garments of the monks. This wall of clergy appeared as daunting to me as the entire English army. Quill-armed scribes held their feathers aloft waiting to record my words. I wondered if the Bishop would allow my every word to be recorded, or if he, out of fear, instructed the scribes to strike those truths which directly opposed those of the superstitious and power-hungry clergy. It was more likely that they rewrote each word so that I would appear to be confessing to the church’s manufactured claims, heresy being their main argument. I stood in the middle of the U-shaped sea of red, shackled at my wrists and ankles, guards to my left, right, and behind, and fully understood the enormity of this injustice. I attempted to keep feeling from my voice and answered, “I will say again, as far as my revelations are concerned, I will tell you nothing.”
