A little bit about how THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE came to be

[Julie]

I see a few questions about how my family's history inspired my novel, so I thought it might be helpful to speak quickly to that here:

The Invisible Bridge started with a story my Hungarian grandfather told me on the eve of my brother's college graduation. When he was a young man, he said, he had a scholarship to study architecture in Paris; he studied for two years, then lost his student visa when the war began. Upon his return to Hungary, he was drafted into a forced labor battalion of the Hungarian army. As soon as I heard that story, I knew it had the contours of a novel--probably one that would be quite long and would take years to write. I'd been a short story writer until that time, but gradually I began to consider taking on that longer project. A few years later I started researching it, and as I did I began to think about elements that would differ from my grandfather's experience. I thought my protagonist might fall in love in Paris, for one thing; to that end, I invented Klara and her daughter and their complicated history. My grandmother wasn't a dancer, and didn't have a daughter when she was fifteen; she was a dressmaker in Budapest, eight years younger than my grandfather. She did, however, survive the Siege of Budapest in an International Red Cross shelter, and many of the details of that section come from her stories about the war. The sections that take place in the Munkaszolgalat, the Hungarian Forced Labor Service, come in part from my grandfather's experiences, in part from his brothers' experiences, and in part from personal narratives written by other men who made it through that horrible time; they are also, of course, partially invented. But I do have a great uncle who was an acrobatic tap dancer, and another great uncle--named Tibor--who was a medical student before the war began, and was conscripted into forced labor like his brothers. That great uncle was sent to Bor, Yugoslavia, and died trying to save sick members of his battalion on the way home.

[Alison]

Hi Julie,

I have read much fiction about the Second World War, and I really loved how your book, The Invisible Bridge, made everything new again. It really brought to light a new experience. I was wondering, did you have to learn a foreign language in order to complete research for the novel, like French or Hungarian? Or did you already know a foreign language? It just seemed to me that there were such authentic details mixed in, that you would have had to get from original sources in Europe!

Thank you!
Alison

[RuthG]

Thanks for explaining how your family's experience lead to writing this book. For years I have had a friend who escaped from Hungary during the years following WWII. I know his father was killed early in the war and that his mother struggled to raise her two children. Although his family is Catholic and not Jewish, times were very difficult. Not only did I love your story, I learned a great deal about what life in Hungary was like at that time and what Jews faced in Paris. I have read Sarah's Key, but your book filled in some very important gaps for me. I've recommended this book to many of my friends and will continue to do so.

[Janet]

I am writing a novel based on my father in-law's memoir. It starts after his liberation from the camps when he returns to his village in Hungary to await the return of any other family members. I haven't found much research about how people returned from the camps (actual methods and length of time) and what happened when they returned home (i.e. his home was occupied by a local communist official). Based on your research can you recommend any sources for liberation and return stories? I loved Invisible Bridges and it is definitely acting as an inspiration for a first time novelist like me.