Newark Minutemen Author Interview
WHERE DID THE IDEA COME FROM?
Newark Minutemen is based on a family story I’ve heard all my life about my Mom’s older brother. At her 90th birthday , I became inspired to unravel the tale of an FBI and mafia agreement to turn a group of Jewish boxers into the Newark Minutemen militia.
WAS THE PLOT CLEAR TO YOU FROM THE START?
I imagined the beginning as a flashback that would reoccur at the end. And I knew the inciting action would be a young Batman-like boy witnessing his parents brutal death at the hands of the enemy and then avenging. From there, I worked along a historical timeline. I had three challenges. One was to make sure the reader forgot they were reading a historical novel. Two, choosing among the piles of content I had. Three, creating different voices for the four narrators and making the reader empathize with all of them. Also, because I had written and sold the screenplay before I wrote the book, I had to add a lot of detail and character thought. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.
HOW MUCH OF THE STORY IS TRUE?
I would say about 80%. This is NOT another WWII Nazi story, nor a dystopian story where Hitler wins. This is a real-life forgotten fictionalized American story about waking up to the enemy sitting on our doorstep. Wherever possible, I have included factual information based on historical first hand sources including FBI and Senate hearing documents, interviews, testimonies, archives, diaries, timelines, newsreels, radio announcements and news articles. However, because of the death of so many characters by the time the story was captured, the overshadowing of the horrors of the second World War and the secretive nature between the mob and the FBI, I have constructed scenes and dialogue where missing pieces arise or where it makes sense to combine characters. I have compressed events to best work for a novel and have dramatized events that were abridged accounts.
Führer Fritz Kuhn was the real American Führer, the self-professed American Hitler. He managed and unified tens of thousands of American-Nazi Bund members into hundreds of cells and managed 25 Nazi youth camps across the US. These camps indoctrinated youth with Nazi ideology, culture and military training. Kuhn’s six-company corporation generated millions. He exploited US resources like the NRA and National guard to equip his army with guns and training. The FBI tracked millions of dollars in leading banks to Germany that proved ties between the American Bund and German Nazis.
The protagonist Yael embodies John C. Metcalfe, Chicago Times undercover reporter who became a Nazi Stormtrooper to uncover the threat of Nazism in America, testified for the Senate hearings and FBI and consulted on Confessions of a Nazi Spy movie. I had the pleasure of speaking with his son and reading John’s undercover diaries. The heroine, Krista, embodies Helen Vooros, who testified for the Senate hearings and FBI that she was raped in American Hitler Youth camps. In America, Jews were bullied, even hung with swastikas carved into their chests.
WHAT RESEARCH DID YOU DO FOR THE STORY?
I spent months asking my Mom to describe details of life during the 1930s Depression, her family, where they bought food, even how they took out the trash. I transported myself back in time. She talked about her brothers running numbers for Longie in his hideout behind the candy store, how Longie was adored like a Robin Hood and how she wrote up the power of attorney for his trial. She explained that during the Depression, the mob took care of the neighborhood when the government couldn’t. I started to unpuzzle the role of the mob, their relationship with the FBI and the unorthodox systems of rules and power propping up America during this teetering decade. We visited her family who corroborated the stories about how my Uncle was part of the FBI-mob militia that went out and infiltrated the rising Party that was being ignored by others.
I discovered a lot of first and second hand sources. Howard Metcalfe, the son of undercover writer John Metcalfe, helped me understand the life of working undercover in the American-Nazi Bund, shared his personal files and family book and granted permission to use his father’s diaries from the Hoover Institute. The FBI archives and reams of documents from the Investigation of un-American propaganda activities in the United States: Hearings before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives provided voices and testimonies and contained priceless Bund documents, initiation rites, home-movies, names, financials, photographs, songs, and more. The March of Times: Inside Nazi Germany directed by Jack Glenn in 1938, video images from the 1939 President’s day Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden as well as reprinted speeches in the Free America Pamphlet distributed that day helped to bring authenticity to the story. The Oviatt Library at CSUN provided unique resources and speakers. Warren Grover in his book Nazis in Newark reinforces stories about the Newark Minutemen and the Jewish mob. Chilling resources such as Ice Creatures: The Nazi Educational System by Dr. Tamar Ketko, and the expertly researched book Wunderlich’s Salute by Marvin D. Miller leave no doubt to the ties between Nazi Germany and the German American-Nazi Bund.
FULWELL73 PRODUCTIONS HAS THE MOVIE RIGHTS. WHAT ROLE WILL YOU HAVE IN BRINGING THAT TO SCREEN?
To date, I’ve provided expertise to and consulting with the producers and screenplay writers, providing support and answering questions. They’ve been very collaborative and will be an Executive Producer. But I am excited to discover how other top creators will see and tell the story. Honestly, at first, I did this story for my Mom. But then it turned into much more. It’s a story of how complacency can become our biggest enemy. I’m hoping that message will transpire.
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/163195...
Newark Minutemen is based on a family story I’ve heard all my life about my Mom’s older brother. At her 90th birthday , I became inspired to unravel the tale of an FBI and mafia agreement to turn a group of Jewish boxers into the Newark Minutemen militia.
WAS THE PLOT CLEAR TO YOU FROM THE START?
I imagined the beginning as a flashback that would reoccur at the end. And I knew the inciting action would be a young Batman-like boy witnessing his parents brutal death at the hands of the enemy and then avenging. From there, I worked along a historical timeline. I had three challenges. One was to make sure the reader forgot they were reading a historical novel. Two, choosing among the piles of content I had. Three, creating different voices for the four narrators and making the reader empathize with all of them. Also, because I had written and sold the screenplay before I wrote the book, I had to add a lot of detail and character thought. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.
HOW MUCH OF THE STORY IS TRUE?
I would say about 80%. This is NOT another WWII Nazi story, nor a dystopian story where Hitler wins. This is a real-life forgotten fictionalized American story about waking up to the enemy sitting on our doorstep. Wherever possible, I have included factual information based on historical first hand sources including FBI and Senate hearing documents, interviews, testimonies, archives, diaries, timelines, newsreels, radio announcements and news articles. However, because of the death of so many characters by the time the story was captured, the overshadowing of the horrors of the second World War and the secretive nature between the mob and the FBI, I have constructed scenes and dialogue where missing pieces arise or where it makes sense to combine characters. I have compressed events to best work for a novel and have dramatized events that were abridged accounts.
Führer Fritz Kuhn was the real American Führer, the self-professed American Hitler. He managed and unified tens of thousands of American-Nazi Bund members into hundreds of cells and managed 25 Nazi youth camps across the US. These camps indoctrinated youth with Nazi ideology, culture and military training. Kuhn’s six-company corporation generated millions. He exploited US resources like the NRA and National guard to equip his army with guns and training. The FBI tracked millions of dollars in leading banks to Germany that proved ties between the American Bund and German Nazis.
The protagonist Yael embodies John C. Metcalfe, Chicago Times undercover reporter who became a Nazi Stormtrooper to uncover the threat of Nazism in America, testified for the Senate hearings and FBI and consulted on Confessions of a Nazi Spy movie. I had the pleasure of speaking with his son and reading John’s undercover diaries. The heroine, Krista, embodies Helen Vooros, who testified for the Senate hearings and FBI that she was raped in American Hitler Youth camps. In America, Jews were bullied, even hung with swastikas carved into their chests.
WHAT RESEARCH DID YOU DO FOR THE STORY?
I spent months asking my Mom to describe details of life during the 1930s Depression, her family, where they bought food, even how they took out the trash. I transported myself back in time. She talked about her brothers running numbers for Longie in his hideout behind the candy store, how Longie was adored like a Robin Hood and how she wrote up the power of attorney for his trial. She explained that during the Depression, the mob took care of the neighborhood when the government couldn’t. I started to unpuzzle the role of the mob, their relationship with the FBI and the unorthodox systems of rules and power propping up America during this teetering decade. We visited her family who corroborated the stories about how my Uncle was part of the FBI-mob militia that went out and infiltrated the rising Party that was being ignored by others.
I discovered a lot of first and second hand sources. Howard Metcalfe, the son of undercover writer John Metcalfe, helped me understand the life of working undercover in the American-Nazi Bund, shared his personal files and family book and granted permission to use his father’s diaries from the Hoover Institute. The FBI archives and reams of documents from the Investigation of un-American propaganda activities in the United States: Hearings before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives provided voices and testimonies and contained priceless Bund documents, initiation rites, home-movies, names, financials, photographs, songs, and more. The March of Times: Inside Nazi Germany directed by Jack Glenn in 1938, video images from the 1939 President’s day Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden as well as reprinted speeches in the Free America Pamphlet distributed that day helped to bring authenticity to the story. The Oviatt Library at CSUN provided unique resources and speakers. Warren Grover in his book Nazis in Newark reinforces stories about the Newark Minutemen and the Jewish mob. Chilling resources such as Ice Creatures: The Nazi Educational System by Dr. Tamar Ketko, and the expertly researched book Wunderlich’s Salute by Marvin D. Miller leave no doubt to the ties between Nazi Germany and the German American-Nazi Bund.
FULWELL73 PRODUCTIONS HAS THE MOVIE RIGHTS. WHAT ROLE WILL YOU HAVE IN BRINGING THAT TO SCREEN?
To date, I’ve provided expertise to and consulting with the producers and screenplay writers, providing support and answering questions. They’ve been very collaborative and will be an Executive Producer. But I am excited to discover how other top creators will see and tell the story. Honestly, at first, I did this story for my Mom. But then it turned into much more. It’s a story of how complacency can become our biggest enemy. I’m hoping that message will transpire.
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/163195...
No comments have been added yet.
