Local author's sixth book hits shelves

This month, Boxford author Kathleen Benner Duble shared the sentiments of "Quest," the first line of her latest book, which reads: "At last, we are off!"

The exclamation is made by the 17-year-old character John Hudson in Duble's sixth book, released on March 25.

But in writing "Quest," which tells the story of Henry Hudson's fateful last journey in 1610 to find a Northwest Passage to Asia, she embarked on a quest of her own, researching the life and times of Hudson and fleshing out characters in Hudson's life, of which very little is recorded in history.

The storyline in "Quest," which is a young adult novel geared for readers in fifth- through eighth-grades, is told in the first person through four characters involved in Henry Hudson's life, but never the ship captain himself.

"I'm always looking for different ways to look at a period in history," Duble said. "After 'The Sacrifice' (Duble's 2005 book set during the Salem witch hysteria), I sort of fell into the historical fiction thing."

Duble, who has lived in Boxford with her family for 16 years, said she did three months of research on Hudson's life and voyages before writing "Quest." She started with Web sites, read books on his life, studied maps and the routes of his ships, and researched life in the 1600s.

"Quest" is the story of Hudson's grim last voyage on a ship called the Discovery, told through the voices of Hudson's sons, Richard and John, another of the ship's crew named Seth Syms, and Isabella Digges, John's love interest who begins to spy for the British crown.

The reader's interest is kept not to find out what happens to Hudson and his crew, but to read the everyday details Duble includes in the story, from the woes of head lice and scurvy suffered onboard the Discovery to the once-a-year laundry day back in London of Hudson's wife, Katherine, and 8-year-old son, Richard.

In writing a scene where Richard has a sore tooth pulled — by the local apothecary, without anesthesia — Duble was thinking "how can I explain how hard times were back then?" she said. "This way, it really sticks in their heads."

The Discovery and crew left London in 1610 and made it all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to what is the present-day Hudson Bay area, in Canada, looking for a passage East to Asia, which didn't exist.

The Discovery became ice-bound in November 1610 and was forced to spend the winter there, living off of meager rations from the ship's food stores. By spring, they were scavenging for food, eating moss and frog's legs.

The ice thawed enough for the Discovery to begin sailing again on June 18, 1611. Hudson wanted to continue the voyage to Asia, and the crew wanted nothing but to return home. Hudson eventually yielded — the Discovery had sailed with foodstores for only eight months — and the ship was pointed toward London.

As the Discovery headed out in to the Atlantic Ocean, the crew mutinied against Henry Hudson, forcing the captain, his 17-year old son, John, and eight other crew members ill or loyal to Hudson into a life boat, and they were set adrift.

It was the fact that John Hudson was included in the numbers left behind, at the young age of 17, that inspired her to write "Quest," Duble said.

"I was thinking about being a 17-year-old boy in that situation," she said. "They deemed in the end that he (Henry Hudson) wasn't a good captain and did endanger his crew. He just didn't pay much attention to his crew, even on previous voyages. He was so intent on the quest (to find the Northwest Passage), he was obsessed with it ... but he was a great navigator, and he brought back valuable information about uncharted territory."

The Discovery did make it back to London on October 25, a year and a half after setting off for Asia. By the time they landed, the crew was reduced to eight men. Food stores had long run out, and the men, half-starved, subsisted off of seagulls, later frying the bones in candle grease to eat out of desperation.

Ironically, all the men that had led the mutiny either starved to death or were killed in an incident with natives on the journey home. The remaining eight crewmen were found innocent and spared hanging, the usual punishment of the day for mutineers.

To frame the story, Duble started with what is known about Hudson's life and family. He really did have a wife named Katherine and sons John and Richard, as well as an older, married son named Oliver, which she includes in the storyline.

Specifics of the Discovery's voyage were recorded in the ship's logs and journals of Abacuk Prickett, one of the members of the crew. Prickett died on the return voyage, but his journals made it back to London and were preserved.

From there, she fleshed out the stories — with a little creative license — of the four characters through which the story is told. Duble starts with character sketches before she starts her books, "and then a lot of it just comes," she said.

Isabella Digges, John's love interest, is a fictional character but is based on the climate of the times, which Duble explains in the author's note at the end of the book:

"There was a burning urgency on behalf of all the great European powers of that time to be the country to find the fastest way East and to map out the world in its entirety. It was believed that the country to accomplish these tasks first would be the country that would reign supreme. And so the race was on."

The race included spying on rival countries for maps and information of the New World, which Isabella's character does, sent to Holland by her father.

Duble says she sees a little bit of herself in every character she creates. John Hudson, who is a real prankster, also has a little bit of Captain Jack Sparrow (from the film "The Pirates of the Caribbean") in him as well. One of the tricks John plays on his crewmates, where the victim ends up with two mugs balanced on the back of his hands, she used to play when she worked at Howard Johnson's in her teens.

"Sometimes things (from your own personality) just crop up, and you don't even realize you're doing it," she said with a smile.

Duble majored in creative writing in college and started writing on and off about 22 years ago, she said. When her first daughter, Tobey, who is now 20 and a student at Harvard, was born, she had a vision — later found only to be a dream — of "writing while my daughter laid in a bassinet," she said with a laugh.

Duble signed her first book contract in 2000. "Quest" is her sixth book, and she now writes full-time from home and often speaks at local schools.

"I love working in my PJ's. I get up, make my tea and go to my office, it is really comfortable," she said with a smile. "I love what I do. I feel really lucky."

Duble lives in Boxford with her husband, Chris, and youngest daughter, Liza, who attends Phillips Academy. Besides writing, she loves to travel, spend time with friends and her kids, do needlepoint and is learning to play the violin and speak Italian.

She is working on two books, one on the life of Madame Tussaud, the famed French wax impressionist, and another on the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia in 1710, who later settled in New Orleans.

So, would have Duble gone with Hudson in the lifeboat or stayed with the mutineers aboard the Discovery?

"I would have gone with Hudson," she said. "That would have been hard for me, especially if he were one of my friends. Not an easy choice!"

r Boxford author Kathleen Benner Duble will sign and read from her latest book, "Quest," about the fateful last voyage of Henry Hudson

Photos

Author Kathleen Benner Duble, who writes from her home in Boxford, at her desk. She says she has the best job in the world because her pyjamas are her "work clothes." Duble's sixth book, "Quest" about the last voyage of explorer Henry Hudson, will be released on March 25. Bethany Bray/staff photo/Town Crossings Staff photo