Objects that Inspire -- #1

Writing The Vanishing Sky was in some ways an act of time travel. One way I found my way back to Etta, Max and Georg’s world was often tied to physical objects that I came across as I was working. These objects helped me see my characters more clearly and some of them even changed the course of the story.

The object that probably inspired me most was the Walking Liberty Half Dollar. I kept one of these coins on my desk for many days as I wrote. There is something timeless about its design — the female figure draped in the flag and holding her branches of laurel and oak.

The younger Huber son, Georg, uses these coins for his magic tricks and carries them in his pocket after he runs away from his post on the Western front. For someone like Georg who has an eye for beautiful things, how irresistible these Ami coins must have been, especially when compared with the German coins of the era, with their eagles and jowly portraits of von Hindenburg.

But to him the coin is more than a pretty object. People are vanishing all around him, and Georg longs for the chance to vanish, too -- from the Reich and the dangers it poses. He wants to be palmed away the way he palms his coins. The coin on my desk was a reminder of the dangers he faced on his journey and how much he wanted only to come home.