fuonlyknew

Dave, “Delaware Behaving Badly” covers crimes spanning centuries — from Patty Cannon’s kidnapping ring in the 1820s all the way to the Tom Capano murder in the 1990s. With that much ground to cover, how did you decide which stories made the cut and which ones didn’t?

The world of crime is enormous, of course. So in addition to the obvious geographic narrowing to Delaware, I knew I had to structure the book carefully to avoid it simply being a list of this crime or that crime. Before I sat down to write it, several people said “Oh, you should do an expose of the Biden family!” There may very well be a book to be written on that—or not—but that’s not my interest. I’m not a political activist, and I didn’t want to write a polemic on modern day political intrigue. I’m more interested in the human weaknesses that connect crimes across time. One reason Shakespeare’s stories, or the Bible’s stories, remain accessible to us centuries after they were first told is that we all recognize the universality of traits like jealousy, greed, or pride that lead to crimes in the first place.

You said you had to structure it carefully to avoid it being a list. Can you tell us a bit about the structure you landed on? When a reader picks up the book, how are they moving through these stories?

I wish I could say the structure just sprang out onto the page fully formed. For me it never works that way. I have to play with different approaches, and be willing to abandon those that are too flimsy. My first thought for this book was “Delaware Behaving Badly” to be subtitled: “The First State’s First Crimes.” The first murder, the first kidnapping, the first arson, the first embezzlement, the first train robbery, the first use of a drone in a crime, and so on to fill a book’s worth, keeping them in a time sequenced order. But when you go back to the 1630s, when this area was first being settled by Europeans, it’s very hard to pin down what was ‘the first.’ Also, when I was able to identify the first of a certain crime, often the details surrounding it were simply too sparse to be able to build out a fully developed telling.

So the “first crimes” framework fell away. What replaced it? What’s the organizing principle that actually holds these stories together in the finished book?

My editor calls it ‘the Whitman’s Sampler’ approach. I wanted to get a wide cross section of types of crime: murder, rape, kidnapping, embezzlement, etc. And I wanted to place those various crimes across a sweep of time, not just dwell in one period of time. That emphasizes the universality angle nicely: the settings were different, but we know those people. We’ve seen their types in our own time.

You’re a self-published author in a market where the local history shelf at most bookstores is dominated by one particular look and feel — the sepia-toned, nostalgic approach. “Delaware Behaving Badly” is obviously the opposite of that. Has going against that grain been a challenge, or has it actually been an advantage?

Both challenge and advantage. The challenge: going against the grain is always an uphill battle. The fact that bookstores carry so many of that genre tells you that there’s a huge market for nostalgia. But I’ve never bought into the ‘good old days’ line of reasoning. The good old days MIGHT have existed before Cain killed Abel; after that, life has always had a darker side. The advantage part of this equation is that readers who feel that same way, who are put off by the sanitized histories, are attracted to my books.

Your background is unusual for a Delaware historian. You grew up in Maryland, your father was from West Virginia, your mother was from Chicago, and you came to history through editing your father’s memoir and then building AppalachianHistory.net. How does someone with that trajectory end up writing books about Delaware crime?

First of all, I understand Delaware culture, having grown up ‘next door’ in Maryland. I learned as a young child that storytelling had the power to affect people intensely. My dad’s parents would sit in their kitchen for hours with a friend or two swapping yarns. I watched as the group listening to a given story doubled over in laughter, or wiped away a tear quietly. My mom, meanwhile, was the much younger daughter in a two sister household. She basically grew up an only child, and she surrounded herself with books at an early age. The house I grew up in had books everywhere. They were never treated as special objects to be admired on a shelf. My mom’s attitude was always ‘if you see a book you like, pick it up! read it!’ So stories, both oral and written, have always been part of my world. My wife’s family has lived in Dover for several generations now. So when I started dating her, we came back here regularly. I moved to NYC to pursue a sales career there in my 20s, but when it came time to consider retirement, we both agreed Delaware was already a natural landing spot. Non-Delawareans are always surprised at the amount of history here. After all, the place is so small. How could so much activity have happened here? Well, it’s a long stretch from 1638 to the present. A lot can happen on a small patch of land during nearly four centuries!

“Delaware Behaving Badly” is the latest in a growing series of Delaware histories. You’ve covered transportation, Christmas traditions, and now crime. Without giving too much away, what’s coming next — and is there a common thread that ties all these books together?

I’m intrigued by many different aspects of Delaware’s history. My next book will NOT be a crime book. I don’t want to be pigeonholed as a genre writer. I have a book on Delaware lighthouse keepers coming out in June, and around the first of 2027 I’ll release a book about a Delaware cavalry unit during the Civil War that almost came apart at the seams over the incompetence of its commanding officer. The common thread is that I’m interested in history told ‘from the ground up.’ What is the experience of the average person, and how is it shaped by the institutions that person is either supported by or has to contend with?