The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [215]
Q.E.D.
Q: What does Roger mean by his comment in Drums—“Eat your heart out, Tom Wolfe”?
A: Just me being too literarily cute for my own good. He’s referring (obliquely) to Thomas Wolfe’s (not Tom Wolfe; the earlier one) work, with its reiterated theme of “You can’t go home again.” I.e., Roger is sardonically recognizing both the truth of that statement—and the contradictory fact that the manse under Fiona’s mangement seems just as it did when it was his home.
Q: Will we see Young Ian again?
A: Given that the Mohawk did fight in the American Revolution, I’d say you can bet on it.
Q: Who is really the father of Brianna’s baby—Roger or Stephen Bonnet?
A: Boy, you think I know?37
I’m afraid that the answer to this—along with the scads of other questions I get regarding future events in the Fraser/MacKenzie axis—will have to await the proper time and place, which is in one of the forthcoming books.
For one thing, I don’t always know whether this, that, or the other will happen—I don’t plan the books out ahead of time. For another, even when I think I know what’s going to happen, it often turns out differently than I expected. So I won’t speculate in advance; even some things that get written change before their final inclusion in a book. I do think you’ll find out eventually, though.
Q: Have the Outlander books been translated into other languages? How many countries are they available in?
A: Yes, several to date. They’ve been published (or are in process of being published) in the UK (including the Commonwealth nations, Australia and New Zealand), Sweden, France, Germany, Canada (Double-day Canada distributes the U.S. editions), Spain (and Latin America), and Italy.38 Books have been sold to (but not yet published in) Holland, Russia, Poland, and Korea as well. Appendix VI gives addresses for the various foreign publishers, and a list of the foreign edition titles and ISBNs.
Q: How did Fergus and his wife get to the New World? They weren’t on the boat (that got wrecked by the hurricane) with Claire and Jamie.
A: True. We assume that Jamie sent for Fergus, as soon as they got dried off. The Frasers would have spent a few weeks at Les Perles, waiting for Claire’s broken leg to heal, before beginning their trek northward through the Carolinas, and this would allow enough time for a message to reach Fergus in Jamaica, and for him to come and join them. Marsali, of course, stays behind in Jamaica, awaiting the birth of their first child, and joins them later, after they’ve established the settlement on Fraser’s Ridge.
Q: I have a question in regard to the La Dame Blanche story that you refer to in a couple of these novels. Did you invent this story or does it have significant traces in history? The reason that I ask is that I am studying in a Chaucer class here at Bucknell University and I found a reference in one of his poems that reminded me of the “White Woman” story within your books. If this is in fact an historical legend, then I would love to research it a little to find out more about the story.
A: The “white woman” is a well-known figure in Celtic mythology; I’d found brief mentions in several different sources on Celtic folklore and mythology. See the Annotated Bibliography, and the essay “Magic, Medicine and White Ladies” [Part Two], for more details.
Q: Has it ever been revealed who hit Jamie in the head with an ax before he went to the French monastery to recover? Was it Dougal or one of his men?
A: It hasn’t yet been revealed, but we may find out, one of these days.
Q: What becomes of young Hamish MacKenzie? Will he come to America?
A: Since I haven’t yet written all of the last two books,