[Guest Post]: 10 Things You Didn’t Know about “Newark Minutemen by Leslie K. Barry, the author of “Newark Minutemen”
A couple of days ago, I featured this amazing author and her historical fiction “Newark Minutemen” on my blog. Today, Leslie is talking about her new release and ten things readers didn’t know about it.
10 Things You Didn’t Know about “Newark Minutemen”
by Leslie K. Barry
The cadence of Chapter 1 in Newark Minutemen is modelled after the greatest opening of all movies, “Inglorious Bastards.” Young Yael lies hiding in his father’s boat with nail-biting suspense as German American Nazis threaten.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M86ow9Me5iU&feature=emb_logo
2. The hero Yael Newman is based on newsman John Metcalfe and his FBI brother Jim. The details of the American-German Nazi Bund were adapted from John’s real life diaries. The brothers went undercover in 1937 for the Chicago Daily Times for six months, went through Storm Trooper initiation, brushed shoulders with the inner circle and then published a 14 day series for the paper that cost them machine gun attacks on their lives.
3. Ancestry.com was an invaluable resource for building the timeline and character details of several characters.
4. The boxing fight scene between Joe Lewis vs Max Schmeling at Yankee Stadium, NY, was a symbolic fight of the times. While Schmeling was Hitler’s pride, Joe represented the fight against discrimination. Joe’s victory is symbolic for the Newark Minutemen.
5. The use of Yiddish, German and 1930 idioms add authenticity to maximize the connections to characters and transport the reader back in time.
6. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, the balance of powers in the country were polarized and opened up many questions about democracy. You were either a Fascist or a Communist. The Newark Minutemen served as resistance group against the extreme right.
WATCH i23news interview: https://youtu.be/eFp9FDxv-yE
7. During the timing of Newark Minutemen, the FBI in the 1930s was just beginning to formalize. J. Edgar Hoover was at the helm and had begun a fingerprinting program. But their power was still being defined. Some government officials tapped the mafia for help in stopping extremist activities. READ NJ.com
8. Heroine Krista Brecht is based on real life Nineteen-year old Helen Vooros who testified in front of the House Committee Investigating Un-American Activities that the Bund Youth movement and the Nazi camps in America used intensive efforts to convert young German-Americans and were raping young girls.
9. Crusaders Radio-personality Walter Winchell and newswomen Dorothy Thompson are featured in Newark Minutemen to add media perspective to the story.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/583332/dorothy-thompson-journalist-who-warned-world-hitler
10. The 1939 movie “Confessions of a Nazi Spy” was the first anti-Nazi film. It features the same backdrop and some characters of Newark Minutemen and shows how much America knew about the intentions of Nazi Germany.
[image error]
About the Book
[image error]
Genre: Historical Fiction
Date Published: 6th October 2020
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
Based on a true story about fighting fascism in 1930s New Jersey, Newark Minutemen tells an unforgettable tale about forbidden love, intrigue and a courageous man’s search for avenge….
During the Great Depression, Jewish boxer Yael Newman meets Krista Brecht, daughter of the German-American Nazi high command. When his affections turn real, his friends warn him against crossing the line. When Krista leaves for American Nazi summer camp in Long Island, New York, he swears to rescue her. But his mission becomes much more when he’s recruited into the Newark Minutemen by the Jewish mob and FBI to go undercover and fight the American Nazis who are taking over America.
Newark Minutemen Optioned first film
https://variety.com/2020/film/news/newark-minutemen-james-corden-1234755361/
[image error]
About the Author
[image error]Amazon best-selling author, Leslie K. Barry is most recently a screenwriter, author, and executive producer. Her previous professional work includes executive positions with major entertainment companies including Turner Broadcasting, Hasbro/Parker Brothers, Mattel, and Mindscape Video Games. Other areas of business include executive for the first e-shopping platform called eShop and marketing for Lotus Development, the US Post Office, and AOL. She was an Alpha Sigma Tau at JMU (James Madison University) in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley and attended a grad program at Harvard. She has spent the last twenty-five years with her husband, Doug Barry, in Tiburon, CA raising their four kids, Zachary, Brittany, Shaya, and Jackson, and their dog, Kona. On the side, she’s devoted to genealogy where she has uncovered many ideas for developing untold stories that help us appreciate the context of history, preserve lessons of the past, and honor memories through family storybooks. For fun, she likes to travel, ski in Sun Valley, Idaho, play tennis, and visit her family in Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, where she most enjoys Maryland hard crabs and hush puppies, Ledo’s pizza, and chocolate horns.
Contact Links
Website: Newarkminutemen.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Newarkminutemen/?view_public_for=105088431047063
Twitter: @NMinutemen
Blog: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20201224.Leslie_K_Barry
Purchase Links
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/163195072X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=
B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/newark-minutemen-leslie-k-barry/1136792434?ean=9781631950728
L. Salt's Blog
- L. Salt's profile
- 139 followers
