According to my Google searches historical fiction has to be set fifty or more years in the past, demonstrate historical accuracy, incorporate credible period details, and describe historical characters.
Given the definitions above, yes, 'Stalker' does meet the criteria. But with qualifications. The key events are rooted in reality, likewise locations and time frames, and there are credible period details. But the main character is not an historical fiction character, and some of the events have been heavily distorted.
Nonetheless, intensive research informed the period detail, which in turn had to meet the additional challenge caused by the closeness of the mid 50s to the present day – older readers with their own recall of that decade will be alert to discrepencies. Memories had to be double checked, and a sharp eye kept out for infelicities that were out of time or out of place. As a result I now have a renewed respect for continuity specialists, and a renewed sympathy for all those responsible for plastic bottle howlers in costume dramas.
The research involved required a degree of alertness to presumptions and sloppy recall that I hadn’t anticipated. But once I started treating Stalker as historical fiction I was able to enter the period much more fully – another of many breakthrough moments.
The Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh
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