For you, what is it about World War Two that makes it so rich as a context for storytelling?
Kate Furnivall: The impact on Europe was so huge. It was really significant in the development of England, where I live, and it taught countries to work together. There were also personal hangovers for so many people – they were so poor after the war. There are still ruins in so many English towns. It took a long time for the scars to go away, and those had a strong impact on me. Also, there were the tragic aspects: separation and losing loved ones.
For me, it resonates with the Ukraine war that is happening now. Russia wants to take part of Europe as part of taking more of Europe. It is in our self-interest and the interests of humanity to help the Ukrainians.
There are not as many peri-war stories (like yours) as there are war stories. There’s a different kind of tragedy involved. Was that shift a reason to tell this story, or was the story itself the driver and the context just the details?
The story had been in the back of my mind for about five years. My mother used to speak of the Berlin Airlift and its heroism in the same way as most people talk about Dunkirk. My son lives in Berlin, so I have been there quite often. In the National History Museum, I saw a snippet of the planes landing, which triggered the idea of a woman looking for her child. So much of that was happening at that time – missing kids and children living on the street. Everything in that film also happened in the dark, which adds menace. Berlin was in the dark and divided up.
I have referenced World War Two in several of my books, but I will never write about what happened during the war. The impact of what happened afterwards is just so fascinating.
How did you research the book? Soviet East Berlin was likely not the most accurately documented place…
The Soviets destroyed many records. I went to see Templehof Airport, which is a mind-blowing, triumphalist place. Hitler wanted visitors arriving in Germany to see the grandeur for which the Nazis were responsible. It was intriguing walking around it, picturing what it would have been like.
The two American generals involved in the airlift there were incredible. The job had never been done before.
I was heavily influenced by lockdown when I was writing. I realized we were nervous about our neighbors and that the government had extra power. I felt the fear of what might happen, and that tension infiltrated the story, which took place in a similar atmosphere.
Another war story cliché is that the protagonists are men – heroic soldiers, evil generals, tragic cannon fodder, and the rest. You have, instead, two strong female leads, Anna and Ingrid, both strong but very different.
Anna had lived a privileged life in a comfortable part of town where her parents were looking after her. She was a happy young woman suddenly thrust into a completely foreign situation. It was interesting to examine how the situation changed her and made her understand what was really important – and also how her relationship with fear changed.
Ingrid was forced from early on to take risks, to the extent that she was hooked on it and well-equipped to deal with it, able to exploit any opportunity.
Do you feel that society in general needs reminding of the strength of women?
Very much so. I was brought up in a household without a father. I saw from an early age the strength of my mother, who was bringing up four kids. I saw how important it was to have a voice. Many women don’t get the chance.
The strength of women is important in all my books, in that I look at how a female character brings change to her environment. In Gone With The Wind, Scarlett carved a path for herself. I saw that film at the age of nine, and I see a bit of her in my characters. So much of what has been achieved by women goes unrecognized.
You also include motherhood as a theme – a core driving force, even when the world is upside down.
It’s a basic, animalistic part of the human psyche. I like to take people and strip away the outside to see what’s underneath. It’s important to write and think about deeper things. Without question, in any story, there needs to be action, relationships, and entertainment, but a central theme needs to bind this together.
I want readers to think about relationships and different kinds of protection. The book is about love, even with all the violence and sadness. Love can hold things together – if people let it. Moral questions are interesting – seeing what is acceptable, even in war.
Your family has its own history with Russia as an oppressor, with your grandmother fleeing the Bolsheviks in 1917. How does this shape your understanding of the potential worst of what the Soviets stood for in 1948, when this story is set, as well as your insight into the empathy they can also have?
I would never want a one-dimensional villain. My feelings for Russia are fraught. I’m a quarter Russian, which I love, but I hate what they’ve done in the past. And as I write about certain historical periods, they keep coming back into my books.
It’s such a culturally rich nation, but also capable of doing terrible things. It makes it interesting to look at all the dynamics in Europe, then and now. It’s still the case that the Russian psyche does seem to want a strong leader more than democracy.
In the book, you deal with the Cold War, lust for power, the switching of allegiances, the dressing up of ‘freedom’ as a reason for looting and more. None of this is very different from a newscast today. What are your feelings about 2024’s wars?
We’re not learning. We’re heading deeper into a terrible catastrophe, much of it manipulated by Russia. The US and the West can’t afford to pick sides all the time, so there are likely to be advances made by Russia. I guess another Cold War – with little or no bloodshed – would be preferable to the alternative…
