writing process

The Real Edith Tudor-Hart

Eve Neuhaus 5 Comments

In the part of Underground I wrote today, it’s April 4, 1937. Austria has had a Fascist government for several years, anti-Semitism is rising rapidly, and the possibility of Germany taking over Austria is becoming very real.

As they walk along a path in the Vienna Woods, Anna confides in Gisi that she recently wrote to their old acquaintance, Edith Suschitzky, now Edith Tudor-Hart. Anna is hoping that Edith can help her find an Englishman to marry, as Edith had found Alexander. For Anna it would be solely a marriage of convenience— it would get her a visa.

Edith is a secondary character in Red Vienna. She’s one of the real people scattered throughout the narrative. I have no idea if my parents, on whose story the books are based, ever knew the real Edith Suschitzky, though they may have. She was living—and taking the photographs described in the book— in Vienna at the time that I wrote her into my story. Her father did own the Social Democratic bookstore, her brother Wolf is real. It’s true that Edith married Alexander Tudor-Hart, that she was arrested, and that they moved to England.

Today, while checking the spelling of her name, I came across a documentary about Edith Tudor-Hart that hadn’t been released when I did the research for Red Vienna. It’s called Tracking Edith, and it’s available on Vimeo.

Wow. I knew I wanted to include Edith in my book the first time I read about her, and I knew much of what’s in the film, but there’s so much more. There are things I wish I’d known when I wrote about her, and things that I got wrong. And by no means have I told Edith’s whole story, just a tiny bit of what could have happened. Much of the really juicy part of her life hadn’t happened yet, or it was happening then, but there’s no way my characters could have known about it. I don’t want to spoil Red Vienna for those of you who haven’t read it, so all I’ll say here is that Edith’s story is probably the biggest of any of the characters in my books.

Do look her up, and watch the video. And read Red Vienna, too.

Red Vienna – a surprising launch into an unpredictable world

Eve Neuhaus 16 Comments

It’s the reddest day of the year—Valentine’s Day. Last night, Tom and I, together 35 years now, went out to eat at the very beautiful Au Jardin des Saveurs. It was a delightful evening in every way. When we got home, I checked my email and discovered that, though I was still patiently waiting to hear from the publisher, Red Vienna is already available through Amazon, in the US in hard or soft cover, overseas as an ebook.

An anticlimactic launch, to be sure! Nonetheless, I’m thrilled that you can buy it, in hard or soft cover in the US, or as an ebook there or overseas. And do have a look at its website.

I’ve been completely immersed in the second volume, Underground, which is more than halfway done now. It’s the end of 1936. I work on it as long as my neck and shoulders will let me type, go to sleep thinking about it and wake up the next morning thinking about it again. The characters are now back in Vienna, secretly working for the Social Democratic party in the face of continuing persecution and an unchecked rise in anti-semitism. I’m in a research phase, reviewing the history of Vienna in 1937 by rereading my parents’ copy of George Gedye’s book, Betrayal in Central Europe, and combing through the New York Times archives of that year. Next on my list is Bruno Kreisky’s The struggle for a democratic Austria. Lots of notes to take.

Now, I think I’ll have to take a break to get the word out that Red Vienna is available. Hurray!!

Two Suitcases – a window into the process of writing historical fiction

Eve Neuhaus 12 Comments

Currently, my characters Gisi and Max are traveling by train from Innsbruck to Venice over the Brenner Pass. In Venice, they’ll spend a couple nights in a youth hostel. It’s a much-needed short vacation for them, and a chance to try out Leo and Hugo’s recently forged Ausweis, or exit permit.

This is how may current writing process works. Once I’ve decided on a general framework for the next section I’m going to write, I do the research. I look at the history of the time and place in as close detail as I can—the Internet, for all its failings, is the most unbelievable library—as well as in the big picture. I fill pages and pages with cut and pasted images and text.

The archives of the New York Times are very useful, and I follow parallel stories in fiction and memoirs, and movies. I listen to music from the era. Currently, I reading Irene Wittig’s All that Lingers, which is set in the same time and place as Underground. The research for the particular section I’m writing now is taking me longer than usual because the characters are traveling to some places I’ve never been to.

When I’m feeling like I’ve done enough research, I start to imagine what my characters might do in the setting. Gisi and Max pass through Innsbruck on their way to Venice, so Gisi could see her cousin who lives there. The cousin’s husband is a Nazi; that could make for an interesting conversation. Maybe I’ll have Gisi and Max change trains in Innsbruck and give them a three hour wait, enough time to have meal with the cousins. Would Max be willing to do that?

Here’s how the piece I’ve written about that begins:

Chapter 21

Innsbruck

Vienna

September 2, 1936

When Gisi sees that other than by taking the night train, which would mean missing the views, the least expensive tickets she and Max can get to go to Venice includes a three-hour layover in Innsbruck. She suggests to Max that she write to her cousin Litzi to arrange to have lunch with her and her husband, Horst, who live there.

“I know he’s a Nazi,” she tells Max, “but I grew up with Litzi and I don’t want to lose her entirely. Surely we can steer the conversation away from hot topics.”

“You think so? Gisi, he hates me. He doesn’t even know me but he hates me. Why should I share a table with him?”

“Because you claim to be a pacifist? Because it takes two to tango?”

“I’m not sure I want to subject myself to that. I’m not sure I’m capable of it. I’m not Jesus Christ, Gisi.”

“He was perfectly well-mannered when I met him at Christmas a few years ago.”

“When he was pretending not to be a Nazi. Things have changed. He has no reason not to show his true colors now.”

“Then do it for me. If it gets ugly, we’ll stand up and leave.”

“Why don’t you and Litzi meet and I’ll spend the three hours in a bookstore or a cafe?”

“Maybe. But let me write and see what Litzi thinks. Then you can decide.”

Innsbruck

September 4, 1936

Litzi stands by the open window reading Gisi’s letter.

“Horst?” she calls into the hall. Her husband, returning from work with the daily paper tucked under his arm, hangs up his hat and comes into the sun-filled living room.

“My dear? You had a good day?”

“Yes, naturally. The boys haven’t come home yet, though, and I wanted to discuss this letter I received from Gisi today with you.” 

Horst pats his thick blond hair into place and makes himself comfortable on the divan. “Alright,” he says. “What is it?”

“First, Gisi asks me not to discuss this with you, but how can I not? You’re my husband. I have to. But if what she is suggesting does come about, I would ask you not to let her know that we talked about her proposal so soon.  You’re willing to do that?”

“Of course. What is she proposing?”

“Well, she and her friend Max will be in Innsbruck for a few hours on a stop between trains. They’re going to Venice for some reason. Since they’ll be here from eleven to two thirty, she suggests we have lunch together at a restaurant near the train station.”

“With Max? That sleazy Jew?”

“With Max. Though she says he isn’t eager to do it. He says he would rather wait at the station while she and I meet alone.”

“That sounds reasonable to me. Why not do that? I have no desire to share a table with a Jew, and a Socialist Jew at that.”

“I know he’s a Socialist Jew,” she tells Horst, “but I grew up with Gisi and I don’t want to lose her entirely. Surely we can steer the conversation away from hot topics.”

“You think so? Litzi, he hates me. He doesn’t even know me but he hates me. Why should I spend time with him?”

“Because you claim to be a Christian? Love your enemies? Blessed be the Peacemakers?”

“I’m not sure I’m capable of it. I’m not Jesus Christ, Litzi.”

“Then do it for me. If it gets ugly, we’ll stand up and leave.”

“Maybe. I’ll think about it.”

Echoes

Eve Neuhaus 3 Comments

Much of my time last week went to proofreading the newly laid-out copy of Red Vienna. It’s amazing how many missed errors you find when you reread something in a different font and format. While I was working on it, the US House of Representatives was leaderless. Here’s an excerpt from my book that covers similar events that took place in Vienna’s parliament in 1933:

Cafe Rüdigerhof, Brigittenau

March 7, 1933

Max closes the shop early to meet with the others at the coffee house. The news that Chancellor Dollfuss had eliminated the parliament hit the press earlier that week, and on the same day, it had been announced that the Wartime Economy Authority Law, an emergency law passed in 1917, would be used as a basis to rule.  It gave Dollfuss significantly broader powers than he had under the parliamentary system.

In fact, every day that week brought what seemed like earth-shattering news. Wednesday, the National Council couldn’t agree on how to settle the railway workers’ strike. When an agreement was finally reached, irregularities were found in the vote, and Karl Renner, leader of the SDAP, resigned as Chairman of the Council. 

“You’ve all heard how it came about? It was apparently one of our people. He passed his voting card on to be handed in by someone else while he went to the lavatory,” Hugo says. “And they called it a voting irregularity.”

“Renner shouldn’t have resigned. He should have fought it,” says Leo.

Hugo shakes his head. “He took the high road, though, and he’s out now.”

“If it wasn’t true, it would be unbelievable,” says Max. “That one man responding to the call of nature could cause the cascade of events that led to the downfall of democracy in Austria.”

After Renner’s resignation, Rudolf Ramek, a Christian Social, had been named Chairman. He declared the previous vote invalid and called for a new vote. Another uproar followed. Ramek then resigned, and Sepp Straffner, leader of the Pan-Germans, became Chairman, but he also stepped down immediately. The resignations of Renner, Ramek, and Straffner left the house without a speaker, so the session couldn’t be closed and the National Council was incapable of acting. Not knowing what to do next, the members of the Parliament left the chamber..

In response, Chancellor Dollfuss had declared a constitutional crisis. The parliament, he said, had “eliminated itself,” a crisis not provided for in the constitution. Dollfuss then set up an authoritarian government without a parliament. The establishment of wartime rule gave him complete authority.

So far, the president of the United States hasn’t eliminated the House of Representatives and instituted martial law, but the parallels are striking.

Maybe even more than the desire to share a story based on my parents’ experiences, it’s echoes like this one that compelled me to finish the book.

Watch for it in a few weeks or months.

Red Vienna – a novel

Eve Neuhaus 5 Comments

Heinrich Schmidt’s iconic image of Austerlitz-hof in the late 1920’s

At last.

After—how many years is it? roughly ten?—I just submitted the first volume of Two Suitcases to the publisher, WingSpan Press, the same people who published my fantasy, Journey to Mythaca, in 2006.

Red Vienna will be available in paperback or ebook format in about six weeks. I’m working on a website for it, which can be seen in its incomplete state here. At this point, nothing will happen if you push the “buy the book” button because there isn’t a book to buy yet, but if you sign up for the email list, you’ll be among the first know when it becomes available.

The trilogy, Two Suitcases, will eventually cover 1929 to 1942, from when the main characters, Gisi and Max, meet until they leave for America. The first two volumes are set in Vienna and the third in France.

When I began the book, which I thought would be one book and not three, I intended it to be a work of non-fiction, telling the story of my parents’ escape from Nazi Austria as accurately as possible. Early on, though, the characters began to claim their independence, and I made the decision to let the story unfold as it wanted. So, though most of the main characters are based on real people and some of them are historical figures, it’s not only the dialogue that I added. What could I do? The characters fell in and out of love, they developed quirks, their lives followed trajectories that might have happened, given the setting, but probably didn’t. It’s fiction.

I tried much harder to keep the setting accurate, which I think it is. Writing historical fiction is entirely different from writing fantasy. It takes years of reading and researching, probably the main reason all this has taken this long.

If you’d like a look into my writing process, much of it is explored on this blog in posts tagged “Two Suitcases.” Some of the posts are linked below.

The second volume, tentatively called Underground, is about half written and now I’m eager to get back to it. I hope it takes less than ten years to finish.

May 2019 “March 1933”

December 2018 “Two Suitcases- an update

January 2016 “Two Suitcases – in process”

January 2016 “Two Suitcases – an update and an excerpt”

January 2016 “Two Suitcases – an update and an excerpt”

August 2015 “Two Suitcases – progress and a little taste of what’s to come”

Read an excerpt from book 2, Underground

Henri IV vs. Red Vienna

Eve Neuhaus 14 Comments
Not helpful.

Recently, most of my days have been taken up with writing query letters to literary agents and tweaking Red Vienna, the first volume of Two Suitcases. I even added a short new section. Today Henri IV thought it was time to take a break from it.

Moving to the desktop worked for a short time.

But he was determined. I gave up.

And he decided to take a nap in the kitchen.

A short time later, while waking from a second nap on the kitchen counter, the idea to open his own Instagram account occurred to Henri. I reopened my laptop. He agreed to stay off the keyboard temporarily so we could choose some pictures to share to get it started.

But first he wanted to wash up.

And adjust a few things.

After that, we set up his new site, @henriquatredecordes. Naturally he wanted a simpler name, but some other Henri IVs had already claimed them. Thus, he is forced to go by most of his whole name, which is Henry IV de Cordes.

Satisfied with his day’s work, he sat on his throne to wait for dinner,

Follow him on Instagram.

Pick your favorite

Eve Neuhaus 22 Comments

Quite a few of the queries I’m sending out to literary agents ask for a one sentence pitch for the book.

Which of these do you like the best? Do you have a better idea?

1. Can young love and a passionate commitment to high ideals survive the forces of fascism, populism and propaganda in Red Vienna on the eve of World War II?

2. In Red Vienna, idealistic young lovers Gisi and Max watch their dream city fall to the forces of fascism as the second world war looms

3. In Red Vienna, young idealists Gisi and Max fall in love at the 1929 International Socialist Youth Congress and set to work creating a more caring world, but can they hold onto their vision when their beloved utopia is destroyed by racism, nationalism and civil war?

4. With shocking parallels to recent events in the United States and Europe, this book – based on a true story – tells of an idealistic young couple confronting the forces of rising fascism and civil war in Vienna on the eve of World War II.

Thanks so much for your input.

The End of Red Vienna

Eve Neuhaus 15 Comments
Viennese Social Housing Block

As those of you who follow this blog know, Two Suitcases, my book project, grew to three volumes some time ago. There was just too much material. My plan was to break the characters’ journey into their years in Vienna, their years in Paris, and their years in the south of France.

Though it’s five years since I began the project, and much of that time I was working on the project with a sense of great urgency – I even dreamed that my mother was telling me “work faster!” once – I stopped for two years when Mama Ganache needed me. And then there was the move to France which caused further delay. In retrospect, though, I think the gaps improved the book. Sorry, Mom.

Recently, as I was researching and writing about the period leading to the 1934 February Uprising (or Austrian Civil War), the parallels to what’s happening in the United States now became unmistakable. I posted an excerpt last year about how Austria became a Fascist dictatorship when Englebert Dollfuss dissolved the parliament and adopted martial law.

I continued writing until I reached 1936, all the while following the news of Trump’s America. Then that sense of urgency returned, and it pushed me to change my plans. The first volume, Red Vienna, would end after the February Uprising. The period when the characters are forced underground in Vienna, 1934-38, would be the second volume, and their period in France, 1938-1940, will be the third.

At that point, I went back and revised and rewrote the first book, which is now called Red Vienna, to prepare it for publication. I’m pleased to say that I’ve begun the process of seeking representation for it.

My real reason for this blog, though, is that I read this morning that Michael Caputo, one of Trump’s toadies, was warning people of armed uprisings, and that sense of urgency returned. I’ve posted an excerpt from Red Vienna below. It was hard to choose a piece because the events happen over a period of years, but this one is a pretty pointed parallel. It takes place immediately after the uprising.

Austrian Civil War 1934

February 18, 1934

Brigittenau, Vienna

Max’s apartment

At four in the morning on February 18, Max, stinking, hungry, and thirsty, furtively unlocked the door to his family’s apartment, slipped in, and immediately locked it behind him. He had climbed out of the sewer at Karl-Marx-Hof just two hours earlier, and managed to make his way home flattened against the walls of buildings, deep in the shadows, through the darkest alleys and streets of the city.

Leaving his mud-caked boots in the hall, he skirted past his sleeping father and went into the kitchen where he threw some bits of coal onto the embers in the stove, and drank down every drop of the boiled water left in the pot. Then he refilled the pot and set it on top of the stove again.

He shivered as he took off his clothes and put on his threadbare bathrobe. It would have been a good thing if he could have thrown those clothes away, but that was out of the question. Instead, he pulled the big galvanized tub out from under the sink and began to fill it, pot by pot, with water heated on the stove. As he waited for the water to heat up, he ate whatever he could find: some dry bread and most of a can of pickled herring. An hour later, when the tub was full enough, he stepped in, sighing deeply as the steaming water surrounded him and slowly warmed him. He washed himself thoroughly and then lay back and relaxed until the water was almost cold. Later, dry from the heat of the fire and wearing his nightshirt, he added another pot of boiling water to the washtub and dropped his filthy clothes into it.

It was after six in the morning when he lay down on the settee. He slept for the next twelve hours, barely stirring when his father came into the room and pulled a blanket over him.

*   *   *

After covering his son, Seppe left quietly to go to his cafe, where he found Dolf and Fredl sitting in a booth in the back room. 

“Quick, sit,” said Dolf. 

“It’s safe?” asked Seppe. 

“I haven’t seen anything to make me think it’s not. But who knows anymore?” said Fredl. “They’re picking up more of us every day. We’re taking a big risk being here, but being at home could be an even bigger risk. Who knows anything anymore.”

“Max is back,” Seppe told them.

“Thank god!” said Dolf. “Did he tell you where he was?”

“He’s still sleeping.”

“At least he’s home. The news is all very bad.”

“Yes, Dollfuss is telling the world the housing complexes were built as fortresses to store weapons for an armed takeover, and that they stopped it from happening just in time,” Fredl said.

“And they’re putting out that we were in league with the Soviets,” finished Dolf.  “The headline on the Fatherland Front paper says ‘Armed Insurrection Averted.’  

Fredl said, “They claim only two hundred died, but I’ve heard it’s in the thousands.”

“And they’re hanging more as we speak,” said Seppe.

Two Suitcases – an update

Eve Neuhaus 9 Comments

It’s two years since I stopped writing the book I’d been weaving from strands of my parents’ story.

But I’m still working on it.

The project is called Two Suitcases after the two suitcases my parents took each time they escaped, first from Vienna, then Paris, and finally from southwest France, before settling in Philadelphia, where I was born.

Since life pitched me back into Mama Ganache in 2016, I haven’t written more than a few words of the book.

The project has a life of its own, however. The story often arrives when I’m in the middle of something else, teasing me with its possibilities. Perhaps it will be a trilogy: Vienna, Paris, the south of France. Or, there’s surely enough material for a series: maybe Vienna 1929-34, Vienna 1934-38, Paris 1938-40, The south of France 1940-42.

Now I’m setting long term plans aside and thinking, once I am settled in Cordes again, I’ll try to write vignettes, a series of short pieces revealing a bigger story.

Here’s an excerpt from some writing I did in 2015.

Inside, except for a few who stare glassy-eyed into the lighted station, the passengers in the railcar are reading quietly or asleep, some sprawled over two seats, more cramped into one seat with extra luggage under the feet. Trude and Fritz find their own seats and squeeze the two suitcases between others on the racks above. The car is cooling down quickly as it sits in the station, but Trude is wearing almost everything she owns and, snuggled against Fritz on the worn leather seat, she is comfortable enough. People are smoking cigarettes and someone is singing softly, perhaps to a child. She closes her eyes but cannot sleep, so she thinks of their geese, Babette, and especially of Ignatz, who has only a few weeks to live before he graces the Christmas table. At least she won’t be the one who has to pluck his feathers and roast him.

When she opens her eyes, the train is pulling out of the station, the city receding. Nazi flags are displayed in many windows. “What next?” Fritz asks quietly. Trude tries to smile encouragingly at him – she knows how fortunate they are to be on that train – but her whole being is weighed down by the news Henri shared in the car: the brutal camps in the north, the bombings, and the implementation of the Final Solution, the eradication of all Jews in Europe.

Swastikas in shop windows fly by as the train gathers speed.

Minutes later, the conductor comes through the car, punching holes in the tickets of the people who’ve just boarded. Trude’s emotions are so raw that she trembles with fear as he approaches, even though he isn’t asking to see papers or even speaking to the passengers. Her ticket and Fritz’s are punched without incident. She sighs deeply but cannot stop shaking.

Hendaye is nearly five hours away. She should sleep. Fritz is already snoring beside her. How can he sleep, she wonders, when things are so uncertain? The train might be stopped by the authorities anytime. Would their documents pass muster? She can’t set her fears aside – they are too real.

Moments after she drops into a light sleep, voices wake her. The nightmare begins: an officer in uniform is making his way down the aisle, checking passports.

The whole time I haven’t been writing, though, the story has been growing. Cooking. Filling out. Getting richer. Fermenting. Incubating. Gestating.

I haven’t stopped reading the literature of the time, both other writers’ takes on the times, of which it seems there are more daily, and the books my mother would have read at the time, like The Radetsky March. Currently, I’m reading Paul Hofmann’s social history, The Viennese – Splendor, Twilight, and Exile.

There is a great deal of tantalizing research to be done: for example, our house is Cordes is a twenty minute drive from the village of Verfeil-sur-Seye, where my parents were in hiding between 1940 and 1942. We’ve only visited once so far, but we’ve been told about a very lucid 102-year old who may remember the years when the refugees showed up in the village.

My quest for dual Austrian/American citizenship has been most fruitful in adding details to the story.

Since I began the application process, I’ve been sorting through the boxes of papers stored by my mother, moved from house to house, unopened for many years. I found the very useful folder of documents she and my father collected while applying to Austria for restitution in the 1960’s: birth certificates, school and employment records, old addresses in Vienna, and identification papers. There are visas, tickets, and bills of lading. My mother’s and aunt’s passports are there – Ida’s stamped with a big red J over the Third Reich symbol – though not my father’s. Such treasures.

French identification papers for travel, 1940

Tickets for the Serpa Pinto, the ship Fritz and Trudy took from Lisbon to Philadelphia in 1942

The criteria for qualifying for dual citizenship includes proving that my father never was a citizen of any country but Austria, and that he never fought in the army of another country. That opened whole new vistas in the story.

As part of the process of proving that Fritz didn’t volunteer to fight in the French army, I researched the French internment camp, Meslay du Maine, where he was held from September 1939 to June 1940. Eye-opening!

In order to explain why he was never naturalized in the US, I had the transcription of the 1953 court hearing in which he was denied American citizenship translated into German.

Stories upon stories.

But perhaps the greatest gift is the video of an interview one of our daughters did with my mother in 1996 as part of a school assignment about the war years. How extraordinary to see my mother alive, in her own kitchen, recalling the very years I’ve been thinking about so much!

So, stay tuned. This baby is going to be born.


Two Suitcases and One Pallet

Eve Neuhaus 2 Comments

IMG_2322

The current state of the pallet.

We’re experimenting with what to take and what to leave behind, and piling up various configurations of it on the driveway. Pretty soon we’ll have a good enough idea of how and what will fit and the pile will move indoors.

Since my project is called Two Suitcases, I took the idea of moving to France with two suitcases pretty seriously. Well, with two suitcases apiece. Eventually it came to me that, though it would offer me to opportunity to partially replicate my parents’ arrival in the same part of the world in 1940, it was a thoroughly romantic – and therefore impractical – notion. We shifted our thinking to shipping one pallet of boxes.

Right now the boxes making the cut contain: the library I’ve collected to use as background material for Two Suitcases, a few boxes of my papers and other books, some of Tom’s papers and books, framed photos of the family, art, kitchen things, winter clothes, and some items to make our new home feel like our old one. Carpets, my computer, Tom’s keyboard, and more art will be shipped separately.

IMG_2314

Most of my days are filled with sorting and packing. This box has our favorite mugs at the bottom, some delicate pieces of art and glass in the middle, and at the top, some of the birds that lived in our houseplants or flew around the ceilings in our home here.

At its center, packed very carefully, is the crystal bell my father bought my mother with his first paycheck in 1943, less than a year after they arrived in Philadelphia. He always said he bought it to remind her of what is important.

IMG_2316

A thoroughly romantic notion.