I recently read Robert Penner’s The Dark King Swallows the World, a novel set in Cornwall during World War II. I liked it a lot, and was surprised to learn that a few (of the otherwise uniformly positive) reviews had called it out for a lack of historical accuracy.
My initial response was: who cares? Complaining about historical accuracy in a work of fiction seems, to me, like bragging about being the best at doing homework. Missing the point, a little obnoxious.
The Dark King Swallows the World by Robert Penner, published by Radiant Press.
Perhaps I’m being overly defensive here. My debut novel, Ley Lines, (Guernica Editions, 2025) takes place during the Klondike Gold Rush. It’s also full of errors and inaccuracies. And while I haven’t received a ton of feedback on book’s historical fidelity, or lack thereof, I’m sure that a significant portion of historical fiction readers would bristle at the liberties I’ve taken with time and place. (However, there’s only one way to find out: go buy it, please.)
Penner’s book is literary fantasy; Ley Lines I would describe as ‘psychedelic Canadiana,’ though magic realism works, too. Neither is historical fiction in the strictest sense of the word. So what do we, as writers of weird, playful fiction, who work in a historical milieu, owe to the historical record?
I can’t speak for Penner, but for me, the choice of the Klondike as a setting was deeply personal, and not the result of any scholarship on my part. I was inspired by Robert Service’s famous poems, “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” and “The Cremation of Sam McGee” — in particular, the illustrated 80s versions featuring Ted Harrison’s artwork.
Service was a bit of an interloper in the Klondike — he was a banker and a journalist, and he arrived in the Yukon years after the initial rush. Most of his poetry was based on twice-told tales and old prospectors’ lore. So already, we’re at a few degrees of removal from historical accuracy; Harrison, in the 1970s and 1980s, illustrating poems that were themselves based on second- or third-hand accounts of the 1890s gold rush. And me, in 2025, taking that as inspiration. Each step adding another layer of embellishment and idiosyncracy.
Of course you can’t build an entire novel off a few paintings. The weird, fantastic world I wanted to create — like Harrison’s paintings — had to have some basis in reality.
Ley Lines by Tim Welsh, published by Guernica Editons
When I did start doing actual research, I was very adamant that I look to sources offline. This, I felt, was an important strategic decision: as vast as the internet is, it seems to regurgitate the same anecdotes constantly. I would be embarrassed if someone called me out for, say, having a character use the wrong type of drill. But I’d be mortified if someone thought I drew inspiration from a viral post on Reddit.
So, Pierre Burton, to start. Burton’s Klondike: The Last Great Gold Rush, 1896-1899 is the definitive nonfiction account of the era. I knew I would have to make peace with it. I got about 1/3 of the way through, then read selectively when I felt like I needed to know more about a specific town, or topic, etc.
There were things I found myself weirdly hung up on: when did the rivers thaw in the spring of 1901? Could the Pinkertons have made it to the Klondike? Who really shot Soapy Smith?
There were also many things I chose to leave in, despite their anachronism or incongruity with the historical record. (I will leave it to the sleuths in A Writer of History’s readership to ferret these out — which, again, you can do ‘til your heart’s content, once you’ve bought the book.)
But all of these decisions — what to include, what to ignore — were secondary to the larger project of the book. Did it follow its own internal logic? Was the plot consistent with the themes I was interested in? Did the jokes land?
Ultimately, to praise a book for its level of research seems to me to be a bit of a backhanded compliment. Research, and the degree to which we use it or ignore it, is an artistic choice, alongside all the other things that make fiction great: style, plot, character, etc. No amount of research can make up for a book that lacks the other characteristics of great fiction.
That said, I get why people expect some degree of accuracy in historical fiction. One of the joys of a good book is that it takes us to new places — whether it’s Cornwall in WWII, the Yukon at the tail end of the Gold Rush, or somewhere not in the history books at all.
But those places will always exist in tension with reality. Whether or not a book successfully reconciles that tension shouldn’t be the only criteria by which we judge it.
—Tim Welsh
More about Ley Lines:
Set in the waning days of the Klondike Gold Rush, Ley Lines begins in the mythical boom town of Sawdust City, Yukon Territory. Luckless prospector Steve Ladle has accepted an unusual job offer: accompany a local con artist to the unconquered top of a nearby mountain. What he finds there briefly upends the town’s fading fortunes, attracting a crowd of gawkers and acolytes, while inadvertently setting in motion a series of events that brings about the town’s ruin.
In the aftermath, a ragtag group of characters is sent reeling across the Klondike, struggling to come to grips with a world that has been suddenly and unpredictably upturned. As they attempt to carve out a place for themselves, our protagonists reckon with the various personal, historical and supernatural forces that have brought them to this moment.
A wildly inventive, psychedelic odyssey, Ley Lines flips the frontier narrative on its ear, and heralds the arrival of an exciting new voice in Canadian fiction.
Tim Welsh
About Tim Welsh:
Tim Welsh was born in Ithaca, New York in 1980. He was raised in Ottawa, Ontario and attended Queen’s University and Carleton University, graduating with an MA in English Literature. Since then, he’s lived in New York City and Oaxaca, Mexico, played bass in a punk band, and managed a failing art gallery. Tim Welsh lives in Toronto with his wife and two children. Ley Lines is his first novel.