“I was just so taken by it and the idea that it was a kind of a feel-good story, a story where the outcome was not violence, was not a lynching, it was a baseball game. But over the course of writing it, I had to realize that I needed to include realistically the kind of racism that was inevitably a part of this process and not turn it into some kind of Gone with the Wind patronizing exercise in rewriting history,” explains Jon Volkmer, author of the historical novel Brave in Season. 

Brave in Season is a historical novel, inspired by real events, that tells of a time in 1950 in Nebraska when an all-African American railroad repair crew was placed in a small all-white town. Tensions and difficulties arose at the time, but author Jon Volkmer says, “what happened in the end, optimistically, was a baseball game and a picnic, and when I heard that story as part of my family lore, I thought this would make a great sort of uplifting story rather than the stories that always end in tragedy.” Volkmer spent about 10 years researching and interviewing people back in Nebraska who might have remembered this incident in history, and he says, “[I] came to the conclusion eventually that there were too many gaps, that there were too many contradictory ideas and remembrances, so that I had to write a novel rather than an actual nonfiction account of it. So, this is a novel, but many parts of it are based on anecdotes and memories from some of the hundred people I interviewed during the course of my making the book, and they’re an important part of it as well.”

Volkmer’s novel Brave in Season was the 2024 Best Indie Book Award Historical Fiction Winner, which is a well-deserved award for his dedication to preserving realism and history in his “Novel of Race, Railroads, and Baseball.”

Early drafts of Brave in Season were much more of a feel-good story, but the more Volkmer wrote, the more he realized that “that would be a betrayal of the reality of the situation” because “even though the outcome is good, there were also racist occurrences and bigotry certainly in Nebraska at that time,” and Volkmer knew he needed to represent both sides.

An important theme that runs through the book is what Volkmer calls “Otoe County exceptionalism.” According to Volkmer, this is “an idea that some places are better than others and the idea that in Nebraska at this time they didn’t have a lot of experience with black people and they kind of knew they were supposed to be racist but they weren’t very good at it because of the natural tradition of openness and hospitality to strangers that was reflected in the kindness they showed to the Hobos and the Okies in the Great Depression and going all the way back to a time when some of the people were part of the Underground Railroad, smuggling running bondaged people to get north.” Amidst the optimistic outcome of the Baseball game, Volkmer asserts that “the novel toys with the idea of are they actually, could they have been better, but it also undercuts it with evidences of racism and bigotry.”

Included in the book as reconstructions from his interview notes, “the Field Notes are one of the essential vehicles for the realism in the story and the realism of the racism in the story,” says Volkmer. The first field note confronts the question of whether or not Volkmer, a white writer, has the right to write from the point of view of black people. Very early on in the research for this book, an African American worker for the railroad confronted Volkmer on this question. Volkmer says, “He was a very smart man, and he made good points, and I didn’t have very good answers. But, in the end, I had to fall back on the idea that the artistic enterprise and creative enterprise is based on empathy and empathy for people and characters and situations which are not your own. And I’m doing my best to try to represent those and I didn’t think there was anybody else that was going to do it if I didn’t. This story could’ve just been left to lie and nobody would’ve uncovered it. So, I did my best.”

In a review of Brave in Season, Rand Richards Cooper, author of The Last to Go, says, “Is it possible for a writer to be heartfelt, funny and warm while also providing a stark portrayal of American racism? That’s the magic trick Jon Volkmer has pulled off with Brave in Season.” 

Volkmer provides the audience with an opportunity to confront the harsh realities of racism and oppression while also creating space for the appreciation of human connection. Choosing to represent the complexities of histories and human interactions, Volkmer’s dedication to preserving the story of this Nebraska baseball game demonstrates the importances of remembrance and representation that are characteristic of truly great historical fiction.