The debut novel “The Wretched and Undone” is not your usual “summer beach read,” says author J.E. Weiner.
Set against the shadowed backdrop of the Civil War, this Southern tale follows the Anderwald family as they endure generations of trials and tribulations—haunted all the while by the lingering presence of Pvt. Augustus Brewer.
“I wanted to show how people were able to overcome that and rise from the ashes, how family came together and were able to move forward. That’s really the story of hope that I wanted to share here,” Weiner said.
On the afternoon of June 12 at the Frontier Times Museum, Weiner held a meet and greet event with the community of Bandera for her historical-fiction novel.
The event was more of a coming together for the people of Bandera. The Wretched and Undone is based on real local events and individuals; therefore, many in attendance spoke about the historical locations and the familiar family names used within the novel.
This Gothic is a mix of Weiner’s personal upbringing in Texas and her experience with the paranormal, with a spin of Western times and language showing Weiner’s historian side.
Weiner’s passion for history and her writing stems from her studies that led her to become a historian. Her experience with writing grants and proposals at the university level also plays into it.
Weiner said she’s always loved to write, and how some of it originates from her being a “chronic and inappropriate eavesdropper.”
These snippets and unique phrases she catches onto influence her writing in her novel.
Weiner said she also drew from oral histories and older interviews when crafting dialogue for The Wretched and Undone. In addition, she pulled vocabulary from archived issues of the Frontier Times and Bandera Bulletin, as well as cowboy terminology from various websites.
“There’s this thing, believe it or not ... It’s online called The Dictionary of Cowboy Slang, and I just read that. It’s about 50 pages long. I just circled my favorite ones and I tried to work them in,” Weiner said.
“Some of them are catchy, and some of them are sort of cliche now, like chickabiddy. Like, ‘c’mon, chickabiddys, let’s go.’” Weiner’s process for creating authentic word usage was developed mostly during the COVID-19 pandemic year of 2020. Weiner’s method was to hear herself say the words aloud, almost like having a conversation with herself.
She used a function in Microsoft Word that reads dialogue aloud, often closing her eyes to immerse herself in the moment and fully embrace the scene.
With so many characters introduced in the novel spanning across different generations with a relentless curse, Liza Anderwald was one of Weiner’s favorite characters in the novel.
“I love young Liza, and the inspiration for young Liza is my daughter Naomi. There are things from young Liza like her dialogue that reminds me of how she says things,” Weiner said.
Liza deals with much struggle and grief from her loss of her first unborn child while still being an emotional anchor for her husband Zacharias Anderwald amidst his battles, staying resilient against vengeance.
The themes of grief and vengeance persist throughout the novel and across generations of the Anderwald family—an intentional focus Weiner said she wanted to convey as part of the story’s larger message.
“It is a little bit about grief and how one handles grief because I do think there are seven cycles of grief with the last one being acceptance. We do forget that there’s an eighth cycle of grief and that’s revenge,” Weiner said.
“You have to really combat that urge to just seek vengeance for vengeance sake.”
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