I am happy to have K. Lang-Slattery, author of Immigrant Soldier - The Story of a Ritchie Boy, stop by for a visit today.
“Are you working on a new project and, if so, what is it?”
With my first novel barely off the press, it is a nearly
impossible idea for me to contemplate. Yet, forced by the regularity with which
this question is asked of me, I began to think about it. What subject would
engage me as much as the story of Immigrant Soldier, the Story of a Ritchie
Boy? If there was another book in me, I wanted it to be about a female
character and, to simplify research, also a World War II story. I know
something of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) of World War II because
the great-aunt of a friend was a member. These women were quiet heroes and the
idea of finding a story among them appeals to me. Early research has already
revealed a treasure—a brilliant novel about a pilot in the British counterpart,
the Air Transport Auxiliary, and her best friend who becomes a spy.
In the very first line, the heroine declares herself a
coward. Yet, as she spins out her long confession to her Gestapo captors, the
reader soon realizes she is anything but. I will not tell you her real name
because that would spoil the delightful confusion and suspense of the first 50
pages of Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein.
Verity is one of the most engaging characters I have had the
pleasure of meeting in many years of reading historical fiction. English
(sorry—Scottish!) upper-crust, she is feisty, funny, loyal, self-deprecating,
feminine to the core, and brave. More brave than she will admit as she tells of
her fears, her weakness, and her failures. She is not proud (except about being
Scottish) or stoic or willing to go to her death without a fight. On scraps of
paper provided by her captors, Verity reveals every detail of her path to
becoming a spy stranded behind the lines in France. Her voice is so
distinctive, so funny, and so true that it is almost impossible to put the book
down.
Yes, I did say funny. Not since Hogan’s Heroes, the TV comedy of the mid-1960s, have I found myself
laughing out loud at a story about the Nazis. Verity somehow finds the humor in
the sadistic personality of her guard and translator, the obsessively cruel
behavior of her Gestapo officer interrogator, and her own physical and
emotional weakness in the face of unrelenting torture. She finds the strength
to taunt her captors and to discover their more human foibles. Over the course
of several weeks of writing, she lists her constantly changing fears and
recounts the bravery of her friend Maddie, a pilot in the British Air Transport
Auxiliary. All of these things she accomplishes in the complexly plotted memoir
that her guard believes to be a disclosure of secrets.
I have finally found the fictional character I most want to
meet. If she were only real and alive today (in her 90s and living in the back
parlor of her family castle now turned into a tourist attraction), I would rush
off to Scotland to listen to her stories, laugh with her about her youthful
misadventures, and down a few glasses of cognac with her. No matter if we both
felt a bit ill the next morning.
PS – The second half of the novel holds surprises—both
wonderful and tragic. I will say no
more.
PSS – Code Name Verity was originally
written as a Young Adult novel, and like The Book Thief, also written by a YA
author, it should be on your “must read” list.
Code
Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein
Paperback,
337 pages
Published in 2013 by Hyperion
For more information please visit at K. Lang-Slatter’s website and blog. You can also find her on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
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