‘True to the spirit of the times’: Plum native set to release 3rd historical novel

If it ever comes up during Trivia Night, the 58th doge of Venice died on July 18, 1365.

OK. So, what’s a doge? And who cares?

The first answer is the ceremonial leader of the canal-laden city-state in what now is Italy.

The second is Kevin Butler.

For his soon-to-be-published third historical novel, the Plum native chose to focus on what may or may not have happened to Doge Lorenzo Celsi.

“No one knows the circumstances of his death,” Butler explained, as the only extant mention comes from the Venetian Senate’s Consiglio dei Dieci, the powerful Council of 10. “They published an edict that said, ‘We hereby exonerate all charges against Lorenzo Celsi and order the destruction of all evidence.’ That’s all we know.

“You’ve got to write a story about that. How can you not? It’s begging to be told.”

The result is “House Aretoli” by K.M. Butler, the name he uses for his novels, with the book scheduled for release in October. Although two others preceded it, the tale of Venetian intrigue actually is the first he prepared for publication.

“I was working on this one on lunch breaks in the Subway down by Braddock,” he said.

Now living in suburban Philadelphia — “It’s tough to be a Penguins fan and surrounded by Flyers fans, but I’m holding true” — Butler is employed as a business writer. He is able to tap simultaneously into another aspect of his talents, one that combines historical fact with credible fiction, the product of persistent research.

“For me, history is really about currents: peoples moving back and forth, languages moving back and forth, ideologies all blending together, changing the reality from any given moment,” Butler said. “And so I really love those moments where two forces or two ideas or two cultures crash together.”

Previous works

An example is the theme of his first book, which was published in 2021.

“ ‘The Raven and the Dove’ explores that very moment when the Norse, whom we call the Vikings, stopped raiding people and started settling down next to them,” he said. “In the case of Northern France, they became the Normans. And the Normans changed the world. They were responsible for England being the power that it ended up being.”

You may recall that William of Normandy, the Conqueror, crossed the English Channel in 1066 to found the dynasty that still rules the United Kingdom. Among his successors as king was Henry Tudor, who serves as the subject for Butler’s novel published last year, “The Welsh Dragon.”

Tudor, if you’ll recall from history class and/or William Shakespeare, took the throne after leading an army that killed predecessor Richard III in battle. But Henry VII’s rise to becoming monarch against the backdrop of England’s interfamily Wars of the Roses was anything but inevitable.

“He had a drop of bastard blood, and that was it,” Butler said, referencing Henry’s tenuous claim to royal lineage. “In Vegas, he wouldn’t have even been on the board for taking odds. It wasn’t even viable. But he ended up being the lightning rod for everyone who was disaffected by all the different coalitions, all the splinter factions.”

“The Welsh Dragon” tells of Henry growing up as a sort-of noble amid constantly warring sort-of relatives.

“What would that do to a person?” Butler asked. “You’re living hand to mouth from someone else’s generosity. You have nothing. Yet you have this title and this blood claim that makes it so that you can’t just disappear. No one’s going to let you.”

Latest book

For “House Aretoli,” Butler switches from creative biography to conspiratorial drama involving Venetian nobility and members of the titular family.

“This one is much more adventure,” he said. “Pirates, prostitutes, dark-alley maneuvering, spies: It’s all sorts of fun stuff.”

It takes place in a comparatively little-known period of the Republic of Venice, which existed for more than a millennium, through 1797.

“The historical record is certainly not complete,” Butler said. “The question comes down to, is the story that you’re reading consistent with the people and the times and the forces that are at play? If you’ve told a good story, you’ve stayed true to the spirit of the times.”

His own history as an author started when he was a freshman at Plum Senior High School.

“I was bored in study hall, and I wrote a page. And I turned that into a 30,000-word novella,” he said, admitting: “It was just awful. But I finished it.”

Helping the process these days is his wife, Shelby, whom he calls a “born editor.”

“She’s capable of pinpointing the challenges, such as, ‘I don’t like this character, and this is why.’ She’s wonderful at being able to diagnose those specific things that can be adjusted,” Butler said. “So we really make a great pair from that perspective.”

Despite delving into the distant past, he finds commonality with the present.

“I truly believe people really haven’t changed, in that we all still want the same things. We want to be content. We want to have a satisfying life. We want to feel as if we matter,” he said. “All of these things that we feel today, they felt, too.”