Civil War Story Of Northern Secession Inspires Novel
In his debut novel “The Hidden Light of Northern Fires,” Daren Wang tells the story of Mary, who uses her New York farm as an Underground Railroad stop for escaped slaves during the Civil War. It’s a risky venture because her town has seceded from the Union.
As Wang (@darenwang) tells Here & Now‘s Jeremy Hobson, he was inspired to write the novel by his childhood home in Town Line, New York, which seceded from the Union during the Civil War and didn’t rejoin it until 1946.
- Find more great reads on the Here & Now bookshelf
- Scroll down to read an excerpt from “The Hidden Light Of Northern Fires”
Interview Highlights
On his childhood home, Town Line, New York, which seceded from the Union in 1861
“We had always heard stories about the secession. The Town Line Fire Department, their shoulder patch says, ‘Last of the Rebels: 1865 to 1946’ on it. So it’s kind of the little town, the little hamlet’s identity, really.”
On the house he grew up in, which was part of the Underground Railroad
“That part was a little bit more hidden, I think would be the term, because we’d had rumors about it being an Underground Railroad station, but we also heard ghost stories about the front house as well, and it all — you know, if you’re growing up, you’re 5 or 6 years old, it all kind of melds together. And I left that place when I was a fairly young child. It was only years later that I found an oral history of the Willis
