Meet the Author: Suzanne Leal
By Mia Macrossan
Suzanne Leal is the author of novels The Watchful Wife, The Teacher’s Secret and The Deceptions, winner of the Nib People’s Choice Prize. Her novel for middle-grade readers, Running with Ivan, is on the Children’s Book Council of Australia Notables List for Younger Readers and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s History Awards and the ARA Historical Novel Prize. An experienced facilitator and interviewer, Suzanne is the founder of Thursday Book Club, a relaxed book club connecting readers online. The Year We Escaped is one of the three titles shortlisted for the Book Links Award for Children’s Historical fiction.
Judges’ comments on The Year We Escaped: Sensitive writing details the devastating changes brought about by war. Informed by thorough research the characters are brought vividly to life, perfect advocates for peace, tolerance and acceptance, themes that resonate today as much as ever.
Suzanne was kind enough to take time to answer a few questions about the book and her writing process. It always adds an extra enjoyment to reading the book when you have an insight into the author’s mind while the book was being written.
Why do you write for young people? Some years ago, I had an idea for a novel – a teenager who travels back in time to 1930s Europe, where war is looming. I didn’t make a specific decision to write for young people. Instead, it seemed that the story itself chose its audience. The story became Running with Ivan, my debut novel for middle-grade readers.
I really enjoyed working with my publisher Lisa Berryman and found myself looking forward to writing another story for younger people, that became The Year We Escaped. I love getting feedback from my younger readers and enjoy engaging them in author events at schools and libraries. There is an honesty and freshness and enthusiasm from my younger readers that really warms my heart.
Why do you write historical fiction? It’s really a question of what story comes to me and how it needs to be told. Running with Ivan is about how a modern teenager adapts to his father’s marriage and the new -mostly unwanted – family that comes with it. The time travel aspects of the book were to examine how such a teenager can find courage and resilience in a dangerous war-threatened Europe. I was fascinated by the experiences of young people in the Jewish ghetto of Theresienstadt just outside Prague and how they managed to find friendship and hope despite the awful conditions.
The Year We Escaped lent itself to a straight historical narrative. This was because I wanted to explore a lesser-known part of France’s wartime history, namely the Gurs Internment Camp where the younger detainees were also able to find adventure and companionship despite the appalling living conditions.
I find the Second World War fascinating and am always keen to explore new aspects of it, particularly those I feel would be of interest to younger readers.
Writing historical fiction requires a lot of research. Is this a pleasure or a burden? Can you tell us a bit about your process? It’s both a pleasure and a burden. It’s a pleasure to learn and to discover hidden stories; a burden when it becomes a struggle to discover facts I need to ensure the novel’s historical accuracy. For example, when researching The Year We Escaped, I spent hours trying to discover the type of mop and wringing mechanism that would or could have been used in Germany in the 1930s.
When I’m working on historical fiction, I begin with a general research sweep and only once I’m confident I have a sufficient foundation do I start to write. At this stage, my drafts are very rough and I keep writing until I can’t go any further without more information. Then I return to researching until I have what I need to continue writing.
You contrast the experiences of internment through two children, a boy and a girl, from different backgrounds. Was this a conscious choice? Why a boy and a girl? I wanted my readers to identify with my characters. In my experience, girls tend to identify more readily with girls, and boys with boys, particularly at the start of a new story. In The Year We Escaped, I wanted to explore friendships and sibling relationships and Lucien and Paul and Klara and Rachel were good vehicles for this.
The children were from different backgrounds to reflect the wartime experience in Gurs Internment Camp, where people from different backgrounds were all detained together.
Were you ever tempted to write just about either Klara or Lucien? What do you think the reader gains (and loses) with this double approach to writing about a subject? In Running with Ivan, I felt the story was predominantly Leo’s, so it made sense to write the book through his eyes. By contrast, The Year We Escaped is, for me, very much the story of both Klara and Lucien. I think this provided an added tension, namely for the reader to anticipate when the two would meet. Having both perspectives lets the reader know more than either of the characters by themselves and gives the reader a real sense of involvement in the story.
Is it difficult to find something new to say about a familiar subject? Why do you think so many writers return to WW2 for their setting? I don’t think the Second World War ever loses its fascination. It was such a momentous and appalling disaster that required so many people to make decisions as to how to behave in the face of cruelty and coercion. This is a question I continue to ask myself: who would I have been and how would I have behaved? Furthermore, the consequences of the Second World War continue to resonate. Indeed, if we are to understand the current state of the world, we need to know how the situation developed. This, I feel, is also important for younger readers to know.
In my review I said ‘this timely story is full of incident, memorable characters, and humour that lightens the grim realities faced by the protagonists.’ What choices did you make about what to put in, leave out, where to place emphasis, what to leave unsaid? In other words what was in your mind as you were shaping the story? Above all, I wanted The Year We Escaped to be an adventure story about hope, friendship, courage and kindness. The world is a difficult place and, as a writer for younger readers, I don’t want to make it worse for them. To the contrary, I want to help them escape into a different world and to immerse themselves into a new place, surrounded by new people. I like to use humour to lighten my stories, so that I can explore serious subjects while keeping the writing accessible and having hope at the centre of the story.
Jewishness is much in the news today and many people are divided in their views. What do you hope people take away with them after reading The Year We Escaped? I just want to tell a story that resonates with younger readers everywhere, that sparks a sense of adventure and perhaps makes them ask the same question I keep asking myself: what would I have done in Lucien’s position? What would I have done in Klara’s place?
What is your next project? I’m working on a time-slip novel for middle-grade readers.
Tell us about your own reading: Your earliest reading memory – Adventures of the Wishing Chair by Enid Blyton; The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton;Your favourite book/author growing up – LM Montgomery; Is there a book that changed you? The Good Women of China by Xinran; The book you are reading now: Cul-de-Sac by Eleanor Limprecht.
Thank you Suzanne, for talking to StoryLinks and do let us know about the time-slip novel when it is published.
