There is only one Catholic Memorial graduate who can lay claim to having been on the New York Times Bestseller list at least once in his 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. That is a rare feat, and one that has been accomplished in one of the most ancient of art forms, the art of storytelling. But for Bill Martin ’68, this has been your life’s work: bringing the past to modern readers.
Where did the rare treasure that is your imagination find form? It might have been in the characters you saw riding to Catholic Memorial every day from Roslindale, or in the inspiring words of your mentors at CM. It might have been formed on those bike rides in the North End, delivering Western Union telegrams to Vietnam widows under the spire of Old North Church. Or it might have been under the spires at Harvard or USC, where you studied great American novelists and filmmakers.
The characters that inhabit your novels, from Back Bay to Harvard Yard to Citizen Washington to City of Dreams, are often those in the shadows, each knowing one veritable scrap of the truth. And sitting in your company, watching your eyes dart to the far-reaches of a room, is to watch that infinite imagination at work. And your most celebrated protagonist, Peter Fallon, embodies that Vince in Bono Malum spirit, shining a light in the darkness of history to reveal anxieties or dangers of the present day.
That has been your task, too. Your friend and research guru, Peter Drummey of the Massachusetts Historical Society, sums it up best: “While Bill uses buried or ‘lost’ historical treasures as plot devices, they serve stories that often address more profound questions,” Drummey says. “A lost draft of the Constitution is an opportunity to address the emotionally and politically charged ‘right to bear arms.’ The hunt for fantastically valuable Revolutionary War currency is a mirror on Byzantine, modern-day financial practices.”
“Bill knows that, at its best, historical fiction allows him to address questions for which, because of limited historical evidence, answers must always be speculative or incomplete,” Drummey concludes.
Following Emily Dickinson’s advice, you “tell all the truth/but tell it slant.” Your slant is our reward, and you do it with remarkable discipline, producing not only nine novels but an award-winning PBS documentary, magazine articles and book reviews and one cheesy horror movie. That discipline has earned you a place on several historical boards and foundations and the recognition of institutions like the University of Massachusetts and the Boston Public Library. Most notably, you were the 2005 winner of the New England Book Award, given to “an author whose body of work stands as a significant contribution to the culture of a region.”
You credit your wife Chris and children Bill, Dan and Elizabeth with making the work easier. But the secret, you say, is “to do it every day,” adding, “And if I wasn’t doing this, I’d be in the corporate world, turning on the radio each morning and listening to traffic reports. No, this is one hell of a job.”
For a career devoted to the art of fiction, for an imagination devoted to vivifying this country’s great men, women and traditions, and for his remarkable discipline and prolific pen, we honor William Martin ’68 with the Vince in Bono Malum Award for Professional Achievement. |