In On Her Way Home, six years have passed since Frieda first moved to the Arizona-Sonora border. Now the mother of three, Frieda finds herself confronted by a new nightmare. Fourteen-year-old Ida Levie, Frieda’s darling youngest sister, has disappeared along with murderer Jed Pearson. Her relationship with Benny already strained, Frieda leaves her family and follows Ida’s trail, first to the Mexican border, then to Prescott, where Ida will stand trial for collaboration with her kidnapper. Frontier justice has little mercy for the defenseless, but frontier justice has never encountered the iron will of Frieda Goldson.

Best known for her social history Pioneer Jews: A New Life in the Far West, Harriet Rochlin has incorporated her meticulous research into this wonderful series of novels. Torn between family and freedom, tradition and individualism, Frieda Levie Goldson draws us into her tumultuous world. The lively characters that inhabit Frieda’s world keep us guessing as to what trouble they will tumble into next. Painted against the backdrop of old San Francisco and sun-bleached Dos Cacahuates with such precise detail, a reader could easily feel caught up in the history that built the American West.

View full details of this book and review on the HNS website

Rochlin’s Desert Dwellers Trilogy begins with The Reformer’s Apprentice. Seventeen-year-old Frieda Levie has lived a charmed life north of Market Street. She dreams of attending Girl’s High and enthusiastically supports the Sisters of Service, a woman’s rightist group lead by the indomitable Miss O’Hara. All her dreams, however, crash along with the Bank of California in 1875. Forced to move with her family south of Market Street, Frieda now slaves eighteen hours a day to support her family’s kosher boarding house, while outwitting the less then desirable residents. She finds joy only in the occasional meetings with the Sisters of Service and the solace offered by Miss O’Hara. Like Cinderella before her, Frieda does find love unexpectedly in the form of Benny Goldson, a free-wheeling, red-haired pioneer from the Arizona Territory (and Jewish to boot!). Together they dream of making the world a better place.

Best known for her social history Pioneer Jews: A New Life in the Far West, Harriet Rochlin has incorporated her meticulous research into this wonderful series of novels. Torn between family and freedom, tradition and individualism, Frieda Levie Goldson draws us into her tumultuous world. The lively characters that inhabit Frieda’s world keep us guessing as to what trouble they will tumble into next. Painted against the backdrop of old San Francisco and sun-bleached Dos Cacahuates with such precise detail, a reader could easily feel caught up in the history that built the American West.

View full details of this book and review on the HNS website

This year’s shortlist is interestingly different from last year’s. There are three female authors, three male. Three of the books are sequels, or continuations (Bring Up the Bodies, Merivel and Toby’s Room). The authors as a group are more garlanded than last time: between them they must hold every literary accolade, including four Booker Prizes. Several of their books have been made into films – most successfully Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s Ark, filmed by Stephen Spielberg as Schindler’s List.

The varied settings of these novels give their authors different opportunities with language. Thomas Cromwell’s witty precision in Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies; Sir Robert’s poetic grit in Rose Tremain’s Merivel; the raw, personal informality of Thomas Keneally’s The Daughters of Mars; the poise of Anthony Quinn’s The Streets; the lyrical grace of Tan Twan Eng’s The Garden of Evening Mists; the unflinching candour of Pat Barker’s Toby’s Room.

The Historical Novel Society will be looking at each of the novels in turn, assessing these approaches – so please mark these dates in your diaries. Following on from this series the authors will describe in their own words the choices they make.

Monday May 20th: Kate Braithwaite on Toby’s Room by Pat Barker

Wednesday May 22nd: Helen Boyd on Daughters of Mars by Thomas Keneally

Friday May 24th: Kate Braithwaite on The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

Monday May 27th: Helen Boyd on The Streets by Anthony Quinn

Wednesday May 29th: Kate Braithwaite on Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Friday May 31st: Helen Boyd on Merivel by Rose Tremain

Friday June 14th: Prize winner announced at the Borders Book Festival.

Click the image to follow the Borders Book Festival on Facebook

AF: Congrats on the release of your third novel, Call Me Zelda. Like Hemingway’s Girl, Call Me Zelda is getting rave reviews from critics and readers alike. Now that it’s out, how do you feel?

ER: Thank you! This book release has been more emotional for me than the others, so it’s a relief to have it in the world. I think that the combination of how intensely personal this novel felt, writing in the first person point of view for the first time, and the amount of Fitzgerald interest in film and in fiction made me anxious. Now that Call Me Zelda is in the world, I can let her go and hope my version of the events finds the right readers.

AF: Your last two novels, and your work in progress, are biographical in nature. What about biographical fiction most appeals to you as a writer?

ER: I’m fascinated by the lives of writers, particularly those from the Lost Generation, but I’m no biographer. The biographies of Zelda, in particular, are so well done that rather than approach the subject that way, I wanted to do so through a fictional character’s eyes. This appeals to me because it gives the reader a reliable narrator to tell the story of those who might or might not be reliable. I wanted to explore the psychology of the time in the Fitzgeralds’ lives, after the elegance and excitement of the twenties.

AF: Your novels tell stories of famed historical figures through figures from decidedly different social and economic classes (in Hemingway’s Girl, a maid, and in Call Me Zelda, a nurse). Why?

ER: The social hierarchy of culture appeals to me, particularly when those of stature interact with every day people. I think it provides a ripe environment for revealing character, and also allows the reader to connect emotionally with a trustworthy person. Biographies are peopled by shadowy every day figures — maids, nurses, secretaries, seamstresses—people with intimate knowledge of their employers but who rarely get recognized. It is these people on the edge of the photograph that interest me every bit as much as those the camera meant to capture.

AF: You’ve focused on novelists for your two most recent novels; is that a coincidence? As a novelist yourself, are you inspired by the writings of these authors?

ER: It’s no coincidence, and I’m beginning to notice a troubling pattern in the emotional lives of creative types the more I study. I hope I’m immune! In all seriousness, I have to love the work of my subject to write about him or her. I am obsessed by the idea of art as a means to connect people through time and space. When I look at a painting, I share a moment with the artist and subject, whether they are dead or alive. When I read a work of fiction, I share mental space with the writer to get a glimpse of his or her world view to expand my own. I find this endlessly fascinating, and I’ll continue to write about it.

AF: Call Me Zelda begins in 1932, when Zelda Fitzgerald is 32 years old and has been married for 12 years. Some of her wildest years have passed. Did you always intend this novel to begin so late in Zelda Fitzgerald’s life, and if so, why?

Erika Robuck

ER: I chose this time and place for three main reasons. First, I live just outside of Baltimore, where most of the story is set, so I’m connected to the area. It is important to my process to be able to walk the streets of my subjects and visit their haunts to animate the setting. Second, I have known many nurses, and their loyalty to their patients beyond the call of duty inspires me. Finally, I’m sympathetic to those who suffer mental illness, and wanted to explore the psychology of life lived after… I want to disprove Scott Fitzgerald’s notion that “there are no second acts in American lives.”

AF: Why did you choose to write in first person for this novel?

ER: Because the novel is about the intimate relationship of a nurse and patient, I needed to get as close to the subject matter as possible. First person point of view was the only way for me to do so.

AF: As you were writing Call Me Zelda, was there a particular scene or character that surprised you?

ER: There is a scene in Bermuda when the Fitzgeralds take an ill-fated trip in search of rest and relaxation, and to reconnect in their marriage. I was surprised that a scene there became pivotal to my fictional nurse’s understanding of Zelda’s state of mind when my nurse nearly drowns. I didn’t realize how like drowning mental illness was until I wrote the scene.

AF: Your next novel will focus on Edna St. Vincent Millay. Why her?

ER: Two of Fitzgerald’s Princeton friends brought me to Millay. Edmund Wilson and John Bishop were obsessed with her, and I wanted to know why, especially since I had always admired her poetry. What I found was quite shocking…

AF: How much time do you take between writing novels? Do you have other writing projects or creative endeavors you’re working on?

ER: Now that I’m on deadline, I write and edit continuously. My publisher would like a book a year if possible so I am always researching one novel, writing another, and promoting what has most recently been released. It is wonderfully exhausting.

I do have another project in the works: a short story set in Grand Central Terminal in 1945, after the war has ended, for an anthology with nine other historical fiction writers. That collection will come out in 2014.

AF: Read any good books recently?

ER: Always. My most recent favorites: The Secret Lives of People in Love: Stories, by Simon Van Booy, Jillian Cantor’s forthcoming novel fictionalizing what might have happened if Anne Frank’s sister had survived, called Margot, and Superzelda, a graphic biographical novel about Scott and Zelda, by Tiziana Lo Porto and Daniele Marotta.

But Is This Tomorrow wasn’t conceived as a historical novel per se. “It was actually a surprise to me to find myself writing a historical novel,” says Leavitt. “I just thought it was a story about a family and a lot of it had to do with my own upbringing which was in the 1960’s. And then the more the story came out the more I thought it could be better served in the 1950s which was a much more oppressive time. It just took off from there.”

Leavitt enlisted the help of interns and a professional researcher but talks most enthusiastically about her use of social media.

“I would go on facebook and twitter,” she says, “and just put out a call for people. I’d say I need to talk to somebody who was a cop in the 1950’s or I need to talk to someone who was a male nurse. At least five or six people would come forward for each thing and their stories were just incredible.

“The guy who was a male nurse told me about how doctors would always smoke in the rooms when they were seeing patients and they would encourage the patients to smoke as well because it was relaxing. I spoke to a woman who was a pastry maker in the 50’s and she told me that she used to always put her hands in the refrigerator before making a pie because cold hands make the best crust.

“It is details like that, that you can’t always find in books, and these great personal stories that I used. I have a folder full of conversations with people that helped to make the book alive.”

In Is This Tomorrow, Ava Lark, an attractive Jewish divorcee bringing up her son in the conservative suburbs of Waltham, finds herself even more of an outcast when her son Lewis’ friend, twelve year old Jimmy, disappears. The isolation experienced by Ava and Lewis is something Leavitt lived with first hand, growing up in a Jewish family in Waltham. One of her characters, Bob Gallagher, who expresses many of the paranoid and extreme views of the period, was based on a neighbor Leavitt remembers well, as a twelve-year-old girl.

“I was a writer even then,” she says. “I carried notebooks with pictures of movie stars and this neighbour stopped me and pointed at one of them saying, “That guys’ pink. Why are you carrying that notebook?” At other times it was children asking questions like, “Why did you kill Christ?” She was even asked where “her horns” were.

The only family Leavitt remembers having an even tougher time than her own were the family of a divorced woman and her two kids. “The men would look at that mother and speculate, while their wives found her threatening. Children were told not to play at their house because they were dirty.” From these memories, Leavitt has created Ava, a woman ahead of her time, an entrepreneur, someone who wants to belong but finds it incredibly difficult because of the times in which she lives.

“It was a highly political time,” says Leavitt. “There was so much fear about the Russians and who was a communist. They had a list of how you could tell if someone was a communist. A lot of it had to do with if they smiled inappropriately or they didn’t salute the flag right away then that person was a communist and that was something to be really afraid of. There was a whole mythology that if the communists came to America then our society would be decimated and we would be slaves. It would be a joyless, dark society – like 1984. People did say things like if the Russians got there first we wouldn’t be able to see the moon. People were very paranoid and I think when you are paranoid, you do and think really stupid things.”

Leavitt’s careful research into her period shines through. She tells me: “I also looked at a lot of vintage materials and old movies and educational film clips, especially in terms of the fear of communism. The title actually comes from an old vintage pamphlet called Is This Tomorrow and the cover are all these big scary looking Russians with the communist insignia on them running after a nice American white family who are screaming. Today, it’s hysterical.

“And I looked at a lot of pamphlets about how to surviving a nuclear attack. That was something people were very much afraid of. They actually believed that you could survive. They said if you were in a nuclear attack and there was a lot of radiation, all you had to do was wipe your feet off before you went into the house so you wouldn’t take the radiation inside.”

Leavitt laughs as she tells me this. We are both laughing. And alongside the seriousness of the novel’s social commentary, there is a rich vein of humour. Leavitt has immense affection for her characters and for the times she is writing about. This comes out most clearly when we talk about cooking – an important part of any 50’s woman’s life, and especially Ava’s.

“I also looked at a lot of vintage cookbooks,” she recalls. “Those were pretty hilarious. “Meals Men Love” is a real cookbook. The cover shows all these men’s faces and they were all smoking something – cigars or pipes. The whole message of that cookbook was that men don’t cook. They can grill and they can toss a salad but they cannot cut up the salad and they cannot make the salad dressing. When you read through that book, the message is always – he’s had a hard day at work. You want to make meal a presentation, you want to make it special and you want to make him smile. One of the recipes I remember was called a meatloaf train. Instead of shaping your meat into a loaf, you were supposed to shape it into something like a train. And then you cut up carrot circles and those you embed in the meat loaf so it looks like the wheels and you cut up very thin slices of celery to make the windows and the final thing is to take very hard green peas and cut them in half to make the heads of the passengers in the windows. It’s just a hilarious culture. In the same books they would say things like you can’t have Russian dressing because it’s subversive. It’s the same thing as calling French Fries “Freedom Fries” if you don’t like the French.”

I’m happy to hear that Leavitt is currently at work on another historical novel. She tells me she’s moving from the sixties towards the early seventies and “ugly times” of the Manson murders. So far it’s about hippies and the back-to-the-land-movement. It will be fascinating to see how it turns out.

Kate Braithwaite is a member of Nine Mile Writers and blogs about language as The Transatlantic Translator.

26 October 2013, 2-4 pm
The Studios, M Shed, Princes Wharf, Wapping Road, Bristol BS1 4RN
Free entry

Historical novelist Julian Stockwin, Bristol author Lucienne Boyce, historian Adrian Tinniswood and Dr Steve Poole, University of the West of England offer advice on researching Bristol’s maritime past. This open discussion will be of interest to writers and readers of historical fiction, and anyone with a passion for Bristol’s maritime past.

Julian Stockwin is the author of the exciting Kydd novels, set in the Great Age of Fighting Sail. Local writer Lucienne Boyce’s novel, To The Fair Land, centres on a voyage from Bristol to the South Seas. Adrian Tinniswood is a historian who has recently published Pirates of Barbary, Corsairs, Conquests and Captivity in the 17th-Century Mediterranean. Dr Steve Poole is Associate Professor of Social and Cultural History at the University of the West of England, and editor of and contributor to A City Built Upon the Water: Maritime Bristol 1750-1900.

The event, organised in partnership with Bristol’s M Shed, is part of the Historical Novel Society’s exciting new initiative “Meet the Historians” which aims to bring together members of the public and experts such as historians, archaeologists, genealogists, librarians, archivists and fiction and non-fiction writers.

This is a free event but please book your place by emailing gerardboyce@blueyonder.co.uk

Rosie Goodwin

Rosie Goodwin has been billed as ‘the new Catherine Cookson’. Her latest book Home Front Girls is just out. Deborah Swift took the chance to talk to Rosie about her newest book and about what it felt like to step into the shoes of such a giant.

DS: There is a huge interest in WWII at the moment, what it do you think it is about this period that is so appealing to you as a writer?

RG: I suppose it’s because it’s something I heard my parents talk about. My dad was in the navy and as a child I loved to hear the stories he would tell about his time in Israel. My dad loved writing too, perhaps that’s where I get it from, and while he was there he used to write love poems for the other sailors to send home to their sweethearts. I find it really fascinating when I research that era, there were so many terrible things happening and yet communities seemed to stick together much more then. For instance, if someone lost their home in a bombing raid it was quite normal for a neighbour to take them in and share what they had with them until they could find somewhere else to go.

DS: Shopping in the 1930′s and 40′s must have been a far cry from today’s internet shopping. Owen Owen department store must have been fascinating to research. Can you tell us a little about this process?

RG: Yes, it seems that working in a department store back then was very different to how today’s large stores operate. Again, it appears that was a great sense of sticking together, the employees in each department were like a little family unit and it was quite usual for them to be taken out on day trips to the seaside and places of interest courtesy of their employer on high days and holidays. There would be small competitions for the best kept department and they were all proud of their work.

DS: Your books are renowned for their depiction of family relationships, but in ‘Home Front Girls’, the relationships you focus on are those of three different girls from different social backgrounds. Perhaps you could give us an insight into where the inspiration for these women came from?

RG: Truthfully, my ideas seem to come from nowhere, but this time I suppose I wanted to put across how the war affected people from all walks of life from the very privileged to the poor. I loved creating Annabelle, Lucy and Dotty and it was wonderful to be able to weave a story around each one of them, almost as if I as writing three separate books.

We had Annabelle, who had led a very privileged life, the only daughter of a wealthy business man. She wasn’t too happy at all when her father left to go to war and she was suddenly forced to work for a living. Then there is Lucy, who lived with her older brother and little sister. She was left to care for the little one when her brother joined up and forced to take a job to make ends meet. And finally poor Dotty who had grown up in an orphanage and who longed to know about her parentage. Finally living in her own little flat she soon found that life could be lonely outside the confines of an institution. The three girls came together in Owen Owen and an unlikely friendship that would last a lifetime was forged as they each did their little bit for the war effort. And of course there were huge secrets in each of their pasts that once they came to light changed their lives and the way they viewed themselves forever.

DS: You have written sequels to three of Catherine Cookson’s trilogies, the Hamilton trilogy, The Mallen Trilogy and the Tilly Trotter series. What do you think makes Catherine Cookson books so enduring and how do you use these ingredients in your own books?

RG: Being asked to follow Catherine Cookson was one of the proudest days of my life although I was fearful that I wouldn’t do her justice. I have always been a great fan of hers and think the magic comes from her books being so easy to read. They seem to just flow along effortlessly and she had the gift of bringing her characters to life so that her readers could really believe in them.

DS: But it must have been quite daunting to step into the shoes of such a popular writer. How did you go about finding her voice yet keeping your own? Was there a difference in style between the three Cookson series, and which did you find suited your own way of writing the most?

RG: I think I enjoyed writing Tilly Trotter’s Legacy the most although I I loved writing all of them. They were three very different stories, particularly the sequel to the Hamilton trilogy as that was slightly more modern day and written in first person which I hadn’t attempted before. I admit that once I had agreed to do them I had a terrible panic attack; after all, how does anyone follow the great lady? But I needn’t have worried, it was quite bizarre because once I sat at my computer and typed in the title it was as if she was sitting on my shoulder and they flew along.

I really love writing in that era, the gentry led such pampered glamorous lives, waited on hand and foot, whilst the staff below stairs worked from early morning until late at night. Following the trilogies was quite a challenge as obviously the characters had already been created and I had to stay true to them. Also when writing a trilogy the author tends to tie everything up in the last book so I had to find a way of moving the stories on yet again. I wanted my sequels to flow on from Catherine’s but retain my own style which I hope I achieved. I hope she would have thought I did her trilogies justice.

DS: Like Catherine Cookson, you are a prolific writer. How do you structure your workload, and have you any tips for aspiring writers of historical and contemporary sagas?

RG: I suppose I am rather prolific, if I go more than a few days without writing I tend to get very irritable and once a book is started I hate to leave it. The characters that I create in the books become like a second family to me. But saying that, I don’t work set hours. I lead a very busy life as a foster mum, I also look after my little grandson three days a week and have a fairly large house to run and three dogs to care for. I suppose that’s why I love to write in the evening when all the jobs are done and the house is lovely and quiet.

If I was going to give a tip to someone who was starting a historical or a contemporary saga I would tell them to thoroughly research the era they are going to write about first. It’s so important to get facts right and then weave them into the novel sensitively so that you make it believable but don’t detract from the actual story.

DS: Your books are some of the most borrowed in libraries, which must be lovely. Can you tell us what libaries have meant to you as a reader and as a writer, and what you would pick out of the library shelves for your bedside table?

RG: I’ve always loved libraries so it’s been wonderful to have the opportunity to visit so many. I also love reading although I tend not to stick to one particular genre. I love anything with a good story that is well written and on average I read about two books a week but I suppose an all-time favourite of mine would have to be The Old Curiosity Shop. Some of the classics can be read time and time again. More modern day authors I enjoy are Jodi Picoult, Stephen King, Danielle Steel and many more.

Many thanks to Rosie for taking the time to answer my questions. Home Front Girls is out now, and you can follow Rosie on her website or blog
www.rosiegoodwin.co.uk

Deborah Swift is the author of ‘The Lady’s Slipper’, ‘The Gilded Lily’ and ‘A Divided Inheritance’ (Oct 2013) www.deborahswift.co.uk

RL: Why the Crimean War? In my mind it is associated with Florence Nightingale (therefore, the wounded), with the grainy photos of Roger Fenton, and with several tomes by Alexander Kinglake that I have never got round to reading. So none of the elan that generally goes with Wellington…

PC: It is certainly a less well-known campaign, but that seems to be changing with a few works of historical fiction now set in the Crimea.

For me, there were two reasons to choose the Crimean War as the backdrop for The Scarlet Thief. Firstly, it was something I knew so little about. I had learnt so much about the Peninsular War by reading Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels that I was intrigued to find out more about the campaign and battles fought just forty years after Waterloo. The Battle of the Alma was a classic, set piece, battle, where British redcoats still fought in the grand old style, so it was a perfect setting for my character Jack Lark’s first battle.

The second reason was a little more pragmatic. Few areas in historical fiction are not already very well populated with seriously good writers. When I started on The Scarlet Thief, I felt there would be room for me in that period and I would have a better chance of getting agents and publishers interested in my work if I travelled a less well-trodden path.

Luckily, for me, Jack is destined to go here, there and everywhere, so I knew when I started out that I would never be tied to one war, one single campaign or one series of battles. That made the choice a little easier as I didn’t need to make sure I picked one that would give me the scope to write a whole series. The Crimean War is just the first stepping-stone on Jack’s adventures.

RL: Tell us a little about Lark… he sounds quite Sharpe-ish in outline.

David Headley

PC: My agent, Dave Headley, once described Jack Lark as a cross between Sharpe and the Talented Mr Ripley and I think that is a succinct outline.

Like Sharpe, my hero, Jack Lark, comes from the lower rungs of society. He is certainly a bit of a rogue but he is driven to better himself, something that is not easy in the Victorian period. This ambition sustains him when he seeks to force himself into the world of officers.

Jack is also no shrinking violet and when the fighting starts, he discovers a talent for battle. The pair share an ability to lead men in battle, setting the example that inspires their men to follow them, even when it means marching directly into the enemy fire.

I would say Jack lacks some of Sharpe’s hard edge. He is tough but not as experienced or as battle-hardened. He is learning his bitter trade and his experiences change him and mould his character. He is by no means a finished example and I hope to show how the fighting and the experience of war impacts on his character as the series develops.

RL: Do you have a plan for where the series will lead?

I certainly do! I love my lead character, Jack Lark. He has a wonderful ability to crop up anywhere so I can set each instalment in a new setting.

Book 2, The Maharajah’s General, is scheduled for its launch in November and will see Jack in India where the East India Company is at the height of its powers. From there I plan to take Jack to Persia and then perhaps the Devil’s wind of the Indian mutiny will sweep Jack up and cast him into the violent struggle between the British and their native troops. From there, I can see Jack travelling all over the world, from America to Australia and on to the Orient. There really are so many possibilities that I am confident I can write as many books as Headline ask for!

RL: I see that your agent is the estimable David Headley. Obviously a good choice, but how did you secure his services?

PC: I am fortunate to have Dave on my side. I do not think there are many agents out there who are also top booksellers and this gives him a unique position and insight into developing a new author. Not only can he advise me and guide me but also he can actually sell my books. That is a potent combination.

Launch Day for The Scarlet Thief at Goldsboro Books. Click on the image to see the full double window splendour!

Like most wannabe writers, I went through the dreadfully nerve-shredding process of submitting my first three chapters and a synopsis to agents. I tried hard to find agents who showed an interest in historical fiction and I came across Dave on Twitter. I suspect my covering letter was a little suspect (Dave kindly describes it as being “confident”) but happily for me he saw enough to ask to read the full manuscript and offered to represent me shortly after.

RL: You describe your writing as ‘just going for it’. What is the working day?

PC: I have been writing on my daily commute for the last few years and so my day starts with the 6.20 train from Canterbury to London. I get a good hour’s writing done every day on the way to work and it certainly makes the daily drag go quickly. I then spend the next ten or eleven hours or so at my desk in the City before I can escape back to my writing on the train home in the evening.

My first attempt at writing was started on the train when I quite simply opened my laptop and started writing. It shouldn’t be much of a surprise to discover that my first effort was rejected by the dozen or so agents I tried but at least it started me off on my ambition to become a writer. My second attempt was planned and researched in much greater detail and that is the book that went on to become The Scarlet Thief.

RL: I liked your description of a seventies childhood – Commando comics, toy soldiers and war films – very similar to mine! Do you think the recent spate of soldier fiction owes something to the gap between the dreams of our childhoods and the – more protected? – world of today? (That said, my own children have a commando subscription, watch war films past and present… and play video games about soldiers).

Paul Fraser Collard

PC: I am not sure I agree that the world of today is more protected. If anything, my fourteen-year-old son’s world is dominated by war and conflict in a way mine never was. The growth of graphic computer games like Call of Duty and the more realistic portrayals of battle seen in TV series like Band of Brothers or films such as Saving Private Ryan, have given today’s teenagers a very different insight into combat. My son certainly understands the brutality and sheer horror of war much better than I did. Looking back, I am not sure I ever thought about war in quite the same way as he does and to my mind that has to be a good thing. Perhaps the next generation of historical fiction writers will be very different to those writing now, with their renditions of battle developing in a different way to those of us influenced by films like Zulu (still the best film ever in my opinion!)

However, no matter how graphic these modern games and films have become, my son still enjoys learning the history of the campaigns and battles in our past and we spend a lot of time talking and discovering the past together. My two daughters are also fascinated by history so as a family we often visit museums or historical sights just as I did with my family when I was young (and yes they sometimes moan about being dragged around some ancient roman ruin when on holiday just as I am sure I did!). My son even enjoys playing with my treasured collection of World War II soldiers and I see him recreating the same scenarios that I enjoyed so much when I was younger. So perhaps things have not really changed much at all.

RL: To finish on a business question… when we post this interview I will let our society members know about it, and I’ll post to groups on Goodreads – and the response (I know) will be: when can we get this book in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand et al. How have overseas rights sold? Presumably the digital editions are available everywhere?

PC: I am fortunate that my contract with Headline was for worldwide rights. Trade paperback editions came out on the same day as the hardback here in the UK ((9th May) and I am told that it is already available across the British Commonwealth including Canada and Australia/New Zealand.

Edward Rutherfurd

Paris. City of love. City of dreams. City of splendor. City of saints and scholars. City of gaiety. Sink of iniquity. In two thousand years, Paris had seen it all.

The opening lines of Edward Rutherfurd’s latest novel, Paris, cast a spell that rarely let me go throughout its more than eight hundred pages. Edward Rutherfurd in person casts an equally compelling spell from the warm clasp of his welcoming handshake to the laughs we shared and the care with which he signed my copy.

Preparing for the interview, two questions circled round and round: who is this man who writes such sweeping stories and how on earth does he write them? Anyone who has read Edward Rutherfurd knows the depth of his research, the intricacies of plot, the multiple family lines he traces, and the grand unfolding of history that occurs.

UK Edition (releases 20th June 2013)

We met in the Toronto offices of Random House, the room overlooking St. James park, full of pink and white blossoming trees mixed with an unfolding canopy of green. Edward wore a blue shirt. Draped on the chair beside him were a red sweater and black beret. He has a light beard, rimless glasses and bushy grey eyebrows that lift and wrinkle expressively as we talked. At times his conversation was lively, at other times more deliberate. At all times, it was clear that he has a prodigious intellect and a ready recall of historical fact.

With the last five novels being Paris, London, New York and two set primarily in Dublin, I asked him why he focuses on cities and to my surprise he said that he regards his novels as family sagas and that these cities, along with those in Russka and Sarum, are mainly happenstance. He never set out to write about cities per se, but that is “what he does and he doesn’t know how he does it”. As he writes these sagas, he tries to capture an atmosphere of place and culture and “some sort of osmosis takes place”. With a smile, Rutherfurd went on to say that this kind of story has become his trademark; his readers and publishers expect it.

US Edition – out now

Are the cities characters in their own right? Not exactly, Edward said but they are a presence and the “intention of something”. He sets out examples: Sarum is about mankind’s passion and search for eternity which people expressed in stone; London is the river of life and New York, the search for freedom.

And Paris? At first, Edward Rutherfurd said that he’s not quite sure. The city’s coat of arms features a ship on wavy water. The city’s motto “Fluctuat nec mergitur” translates as ‘she is tossed by the waves but does not sink’. He said Paris is a city that has suffered and yet goes on “with stately dignity”. Rutherfurd proceeded to talk about Paris as a meeting of the Mediterranean and the north, a city that prizes order, clarity, reason, centralism and classicism. At one point he considered “love is not eternal” as the novel’s leitmotif.

How did he choose the dramatic arc of historical events to include in Paris? “History is untidy,” Edward said. He studies the history and finds that patterns emerge and then he

weaves those patterns into plotlines. A significant pattern in the history of Paris is the struggle between the city and outside powers.

Instead of straight chronology — an approach used in his other novels—Rutherfurd chose to concentrate on the Belle Epoque and the early half of the twentieth century infused with occasional flashbacks to times like 1261, 1307, 1462 and others to “thicken the plot with all sorts of secrets” and lies. He described these flashbacks as a way to tell the story without it being too long.

Sarum (this version, the Australian First Edition) was an international sensation in 1987

Edward Rutherfurd’s novels always include a host of characters from five or six families, parents and offspring down through the ages. Does he have any favorite characters in Paris? He mentioned Father Xavier Parle-Doux, a man he invented to convey the sense of the real monarchist priest and the old intense “Royalist belief that monarchs are sacred in some way”. Then he admitted to a preference for “slightly feisty women” and we both agreed that Marie Blanchard fit that description. Ultimately he told me that writers have to love their characters — all of them — in order to discover the insights that make them come alive for readers.

When I commented that Paris seems different from his other novels with more intensity to the characters and story and less focus on historical detail, he chuckled and talked about continuing to evolve his skills. He’s trying to get more “plot-driven, structured and operatic” than in the past. “The stage was my first love,” he said then mentioned that he wrote plays originally where everything has to be structured and fit within particular constraints. As he continues to write he hopes to create “more dramatic, organic wholeness” to his stories and get the architecture right.

I asked a question that I’ve asked many other writers of historical fiction: what ingredients do you think attract readers to historical fiction? This question prompted a long pause, with Edward pulling on his chin while looking off into the distance. He responded slowly, “I suppose they enjoy entering a world which is in some sense complete … a contained world”. He went on to say that readers want to discover family and cultural roots and that family sagas, the genre he writes, go back to the ancient roots of story telling that still resonate with people. The final ingredient he mentioned is the richness of history whether it is beautiful buildings, famous paintings or other wonderful artifacts.

James A Michener, whose Tales of the South Pacific won a Pulitzer Prize in 1948

Who inspired his writing style? James Michener was his speedy response. Michener invented this style of writing and Edward Rutherfurd has tried to learn from him while evolving his own style. “I have a style but don’t precisely know what it is.”

Does he have a brand? Rutherfurd smiled at this question. Since he writes for a living, he has to consider the market. He writes commercial novels which means he writes for an audience. He went on to say he believes that parameters or constraints imposed upon writers—such as those imposed on writers of commercial fiction—can drive creativity. I had the distinct impression that in Edward’s mind, this is a good thing.

Is he optimistic about historical fiction? Edward Rutherfurd mentioned the ebb and flow of historical fiction popularity, which he characterized as the “wonderful efficacy of boredom”. The public tires of one genre or style and seeks another. But, he was quick to say, the notion that publishing is a dying business is ridiculous.

Mary Tod’s first novel Unravelled is soon to be released. She writes the excellent blog A Writer of History 

PL: I have been a serious film watcher for a long time and that is bound to impact my writing. Way back when DW Griffith was figuring out how to make his first films, he went and read Dickens and learned how to construct a scene. We’ve come full circle and now writers are learning from cinema. Film teaches the writer how to get into a scene late and get out early. Perhaps, too, in no other art form has the value of storytelling been preserved so well — even among arthouse filmmakers.

I’m convinced there is an innate need for storytelling in people. The work of Nobel-prize winning cognitive psychologist Daniel Kahneman only confirms this is so. And while the modern novel and the postmodern novel abandoned at times that interest in storytelling, and atomized any idea of linear time, I am convinced the post post-modern novel — whatever that is — can learn to reincorporate old-fashioned storytelling again.

A friend of mine pointed out that he could see flavours of Paul Thomas Anderson and Terrence Malick in my writing. Robert Bresson is very much an influence — I love his dispassionate, objective, spiritual style of filmmaking — it engages us to work a little harder.

RL: I described Sebastian Barry’s ‘On Canaan’s Side’ as ‘The Historical Novel as a Paean of Loss‘. Do you think Red Sky in Morning is in the same vein?

PL: Loss is certainly a major theme of Red Sky in Morning. For me, there are two levels at work. There is the testimony of Sarah, the woman left behind, who tells of her search for meaning when there is none to be found, and her need to speak of her loss. She learns that “all you can do in this life is learn to accept loss”. Her testimony in many respects is a paean to all loss, speaking out for the voiceless lost to that abyss. There is also a wider sense of loss at work too, the sense of man’s movement through geological time and an indifferent nature, the continuing of the world after the book’s characters have passed. That our own lives are only a white-hot moment.

RL: I read a review that described your style as ‘lyrical’ and ‘sparse’ and I think I agree with that, by turns. How do you choose when to be lyrical, when to be sparse?

PL: My writing is an intuitive act and any rationalization must come after that fact. I do have a strong sense though of when to intensify and when to draw back. There has to be a tight control of the lyrical mode as it is the route into the heart. A novel cannot be all heart or it will be dead on the page. Sentimentality has to be earned, and if used, used in tincture.

Writing for me is an adventure — I sit to the screen and while I may have some schematic idea of what I need to do, I have no idea how I will get there. I slip into a word trance, follow what comes intuitively — first the ghost of an image, and then the words to describe it — the feel and texture and energy of words are my guiding light. What I look for in each sentence is an inevitability. You must pare and shape each sentence until it contains just that. A book is finished when the sentences run out of inevitability.

RL: You say you wrote the Donegal landscape from memory. How did you feed the imagining of the voyage and the American scenes?

PL: I have been back to Donegal many times but I do prefer to imagine it. When I hold it in my mind, it becomes mythic. I want for my writing to operate on that realm of historical myth rather than historical detail. Then I can go to work, search out broader human truths. I tend to do little research as I find it tedious. This is just how my mind works. Of course, there has to be some research and there were were a couple of essential sources I used for the voyage and American scenes to give me some grounding. But essentially, I made the rest of it up. I am guided by what is essentially human. Follow that and you cannot go wrong.

RL: Did you write the book linearly, knowing as you did its endpoint? The weight of that ending might have crushed the book: how did you guard against that happening?

PL: I do write linearly knowing the endpoint of a book, but you do not have to guard against it. When I write, I am so tight to the line, I am only in that space and time. For me, it is no different than how we live our own lives — there is a cognitive dissonance at work. When I did come to writing the end of Red Sky in Morning, it was a very moving experience. I wrote those last scenes in what felt like a trance, with the whole energy of the book’s lifeforce behind me. I was emotional, sad and felt like I somehow experienced it. The key event was written on a train while travelling from San Sebastian to Madrid, through broad, flat countryside marked out by giant wind turbines. They looked suspiciously to me like Don Quixote’s windmills. I kept thinking of Cervantes, the father of the novel and what I was doing.

RL: I suspect this novel is going to be widely described as in an Irish literary tradition. Would you agree, and if you do, do you ever see yourself writing outside that tradition?

PL: I could not tell you if I am writing or not within a literary tradition. Though, perhaps, I am in tune with an ancient mode — the tragic world view. And any astute reader of Red Sky in Morning will pick up its American Southern Gothic influences. I do feel that many Irish writers have often sounded like other Irish writers. I have never understood this. When I read, my taste is global. Three of the best books I have read in the past year were by Mo Yan, a Chinese writer, Mikhail Shishkin, a Russian, and László Krasznahorkai, a Hungarian. I have no interest in being perceived as an Irish writer, merely a writer. The world is now too small for such a thing. If my themes seem Irish, that is merely an interpretation. What I look for when I write is the universal.

RL: I’m interested in how the book cover changed between the proof and the published version – and how the US cover is so different from the UK edition. Are there stories behind that?

PL: Not really. Essentially, the proof cover was different, I believe, because Quercus wanted to deliver the book with maximum impact. The Quercus cover leaps at you off the shelves. So too, the US cover — though in feel it is very different. With the book coming out at a later date in the US, Little, Brown, I guess, wanted to put their stamp on it. The US cover is gothic and beautiful and more in tune it seems to me with the tradition of American literary covers. I’m privileged to have two stunning pieces of artwork for the book.

RL: I see your next book approaches emigration from a different angle. Did the idea spring from Red Sky? What different challenges does/did Kingdom pose?

PL: In Kingdom, I turn the emigration question inside out and then kick it about within a broader context. I have no idea thematically where it sprang from. The book came from some sort of liminal dream I had while writing Red Sky and I wrote it down very early one morning and forgot about it. I was working on another project that didn’t quite work out. Then Kingdom came back to me with a thump and simply demanded to be written. I had zero interest in taking on emigration issues again, or setting a book in a rustic location. I do not choose my subject material. This stuff arrives at my door and hangs about menacingly. The only way I can get it to go away is to write it out, but when I do, I do it in a way that has to please me, and that usually means smashing apart preconceived ideas.

Every book presents intense new challenges, and for me, this was compounded by what you may call my first act of professional writing. I wrote Red Sky in Morning as an amateur; Kingdom with a big book deal behind me. To be honest, that didn’t weigh on me as heavily as you might think. My own standards are the problem. They are a little ridiculous and sometimes I wish I could lighten up. When I am writing they are the cause of intense anxiety. For me, writing is like some bizarre Platonic ideal where the perfect sentence lies outside the cave and if I stare at the shadows long enough, I just might intuit what it is supposed to be.