Pubspeaks

Storytelling in Three Modes: Writing about Travel, History, and Science with author David Taylor, Ginseng, the Divine Root

By Solveig Eggerz, WIW Member
 
When David Taylor began to research his book, Ginseng, the Divine Root, he was aware of the two tracks of ginseng, often called the “root of life.” Conceptually, he moved back and forth between ginseng’s North American origins and ginseng’s 1,000 year history in Asia.

American ginseng and Asian ginseng are both perceived to have enormous medicinal properties. But the proportion of active compounds differs to the point where Asian ginseng is known as a “warming” herb that boosts energy while American ginseng is a “cooling” herb that reduces stress.

Setting out to explore the ginseng trail in China, Taylor already had a strong background in ginseng’s role in North America. He knew that Daniel Boone dug up ginseng and sent it to Philadelphia for export and that the plant’s discovery in Minnesota in the 1860s caused a boom much like the gold rush. That tension exists between skeptics and herbalists: ginseng is featured online as quack medicine at the same time as it is heralded as the “king of herbal medicine.”

Taylor explored China’s forests, where the search for ginseng is “really a spiritual quest.” To be worthy, searchers must abstain for several months from worldly pleasures, in a sort of cleansing. In China, legends abound featuring ginseng taking on human or animal form. This may be akin to the Cherokee belief that ginseng is a sentient being.

In his April WIW pubspeak, Taylor described combining categories, such as history, travel, and science, in writing this book. “History and travel have the most obvious built-in structures. Start with a chronology of what happened.” Then look for choice details. “If they’re fresh to the traveler, they’ll be fresh to the reader,” he said.

Science, he noted, is less obvious for narrative possibilities. Nevertheless, “disagreements within science can be helpful, in terms of drive for a book,” said Taylor, as in the tension between skeptics and herbalists. New findings “can give you an immediacy.” And to bring science to life: “Find and interview a person who lives with that science topic every day of his or her life.” 

He also advocated using the methods of fiction—scene, character, setting, detail. This means recording everything as it is happening and sorting it out later. “You don’t know at the time which detail you’ll be using. Walk in the woods and note the light and the sounds without at first focusing on the structure.”
A magazine article can be a stepping stone to selling a publisher on an idea for a book. Taylor wrote on ginseng for Smithsonian. He also published an article in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review in thesummer of 2006, “Fearsome Roots in a Quiet Forest,” which tracks the ginseng plant from Chinese forests to the Smoky Mountains.

Ginseng, the Divine Root was published by Algonquin in 2006. Described as “an adventurous social history,” it won awards from the North American Travel Journalists Association and Peace Corps Writers.

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