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The Blue Suitcase
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Marianne Wheelaghan and The Blue Suitcase
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Thanks. It was such a shock to discover what happened in my Mum's early life I was determined to tell her story. So far the interest in the book has been quite overwhelming, which sort of suggests people want to hear it. I hope so.
Hi Marianne, nice to see you over here as well :) The book sounds intense :)
Thanks, Mhairi. Nice to hear from you! i'm still totally confused by the different forums but getting an email notification really helps!Talk soon :)
1) I'm from Edinburgh, Scotland. I left home when I was seventeen, travelled extensively, then returned to live in Edinburgh with my family. Before becoming a writer I was a croupier, a marketing manger for a company that sold warm air hand dryers, a chambermaid in Germany and a cashier in a pizza restaurant, but mostly I was a teacher: I taught English and Drama to school students of all ages in Spain, the Republic of Kiribati and Papua New Guinea.
2) I write historic and crime fiction and have recently been interested in exploring themes to do with ‘home’ and ‘identity’ in my writing.
3) Apart from writing, I run my own successful online writing school: http://www.writingclasses.co.uk/
4) The Blue Suitcase is my debut novel. It was launched at the end of 2010 and the interest people have shown in it has been overwhelming. It looks at Holocaust from the perspective of a German Christian Holocaust victim, and explores themes to do with refugees and displaced people, bullying and intimidation, identity, ww2, family relationships and coming of age. I am preparing to write a sequel to The Blue Suitcase, which will be set in Edinburgh in the 1940s and 50s.
The Blue Suitcase is book I never imagined writing. My guilty pleasure is crime. I was in the middle of writing my debut detective novel when my mother, who was German, very sadly died. A few months after her death, I was helping my father sort out her personal things. We came across a collection of letters, diary extracts, old postcards and faded documents, all in German. They dated back to before Mum came to Scotland (after the end of the WW2). Dad, who was Scottish from Leith, Edinburgh, was very keen I translate these documents and letters (I'd studied German and had lived in Germany so not as mad as it sounds). You see, Mum's early life was a bit of a mystery to the family: all we knew about that time was that she was from Silesia, which doesn't exist in Germany any more, and that she never saw her parents again after she left Germany. To be honest, I was uncomfortable with the idea of reading my mum's things, she'd been a very private person (and it was going to be hard work, I'd not practised or read any German for years). However, Dad finally persuaded me. I temporarily put the writing of my crime novel to one side, and the rest is, as they say, history.
5) The Blue Suitcase was listed as a BESTSELLER by Blackwell's online book shop in the UK throughout the festive season 2010/2011 and again April/May 2011.
It is 1932, Silesia, Germany, and the eve of Antonia's 12th birthday. Hitler's Brownshirts and Red Front Marxists are fighting each other in the streets. Antonia doesn't care about the political unrest but it's all her family argue about. Then Hitler is made Chancellor and order is restored across the country, but not in Antonia's family. The longer the National Socialists stay in power, the more divided the family becomes with devastating consequences. Unpleasant truths are revealed and terrible lies uncovered. Antonia thinks life can't get much worse - and then it does. Partly based on a true-life story, Antonia's gripping diary takes the reader inside the head of an ordinary teenage girl growing up. Her journey into adulthood, however, is anything but ordinary.
"We think by now that there can be no more untold stories from the 1930s and the Second World War. Then a book like this comes along and we are once again astonished by the capacity of some humans to do unspeakably cruel things, and of others to survive them. The simple, almost mundane tone of Antonia's diary makes The Blue Suitcase all the more shocking. It's hard to read, but harder to stop." James Roberston
"... The reader is drawn into a world not often portrayed in fiction—that of the German civilian during Hitler’s reign. Antonia tells her story through her diary. At twelve she’s self‑absorbed and unaware of the political upheaval. By the end of her journey she’s an adult who has somehow survived the most harrowing of experiences and emerged a strong and resourceful woman.
Antonia shows how the German population gradually came to understand what a monster Hitler was but was helpless in the face of the Gestapo and SS. The devastation the British bombings caused to the civilian population is graphically depicted. Having survived the Nazis and the war, Antonia then has to face the barbarity of the Russian troops. When Silesia becomes part of Poland, Antonia and the remainder of her family are displaced.
This is not an easy read but it is a compelling one. The simple narrative style of a diary is exactly right. The most appalling deprivations and gruesome events are related in a matter‑of‑fact way that makes them even more horrific.
This superb book is based on the life of Marianne Wheelaghan’s mother, and she has seamlessly supplemented the facts with impeccable research. I found this story uncomfortable to read but couldn’t put it down. It’s a story that will stay with you for ever. This is a must‑read book for 2011."
Fenella Miller, The Historical Novels Review*
6) My first crime thriller novel, the working title of which is Murder on Tarawa, is due out in 2012. DS Townsend, the protagonist, is a young, mixed race Scottish-Gilbertese woman charged with solving a murder on Tarawa, the capital of the Republic of Kiribati (a small country in the middle of the Pacific), a world where traditional and western cultures merge and the line between right and wrong is very blurry.
Why crime? When I was growing up our house was crammed with crime novels. They all came from second hand shops and were bought by Mum. I loved all authors from Agatha Christie to Margery Allingham, to PD James to Ngaio Marsh and on and on. I don't know how many times I stayed up late reading into the wee hours, unable to put a book down until it was finished. I hate injustice and love reading about baddies getting their come-up-ins. I also love having my preconceptions turned on their head and. A good crime novel can do all these things, and tell us as much about the dark side of society as any "literary novel".
Why set my novels in Pacific Island countries? Well, I lived in the Pacific area for almost ten years (over a period of twenty years) and found it so interesting. It is full of colour and as diverse and unique an area as can be. I want to share my passion for crime fiction, and telling a good story, with my passion for the Pacific area, through my DS Louisa Townsend novels - and if global warming predictions are correct and the sea level does rise, I could be writing about places and peoples that may cease to exist, which is a chilling thought.
7) I have recently being doing a lot of readings at libraries and book festivals.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Blue-Suit...
www.writngclasses.co.uk
www.mariannewheelaghan.co.uk
Marianne WheelaghanThe Blue Suitcase