Friday, September 04, 2009

Guest: Douglas W. Jacobson

A Funny Thing Happened on the way to Getting Published

I wrote a book.

Seriously, that’s the most amazing thing of all, to me at least. I’m a sixty year-old engineer and business owner and along the way I’ve written a lot, though none of it is anything your readers would be the least bit interested in. Not unless they wanted to know about groundwater aeration and treatment systems. Ho Hum.

But I’ve also had a life-long interest in World War Two history. Why? I’m not sure. I didn’t fight in it, and neither did my father (washed out of the army with flat feet). Perhaps it was because WW2 was one of the most significant events in human history, claimed more than fifty million lives, and changed the balance of world power. Sounds pretty heavy doesn’t it. Well, at any rate, I’ve always been interested and read everything I could about this greatest of all human conflicts.

About fifteen or twenty years ago I read Herman Wouk’s The Winds of War. And a few years later, the sequel, War and Remembrance. Now that I thought is the way to write about history. Make it real, and visceral, make it directly impact someone we care about. Make it well documented, but do it in a way that even though we know how the war turns out we can’t put down the book because we absolutely must find out what happens to Natalie.

So, the right part of my brain began to poke through and I wanted to write something. I wanted to write something about the war. But what? What could I write that hadn’t already been written by Wouk, or Leon Uris, or Alan Furst, or historians like Stephen Ambrose. Then, a funny thing happened. My daughter married a young man from Belgium and moved to Europe, setting our family on a course that has forever changed our lives.

Over time, while traveling to Europe 2-3 times a year, we became very close friends with my son-in-law’s parents. They are wonderful, caring people who are several years older than we are. They were young children during the German occupation of Belgium, young, but old enough to remember. They didn’t talk about it at first, in fact they still don’t, its over, it happened a long time ago, and they survived. End of story. But gradually, as they realized I really wanted to know, they began to tell me the stories. They told me about living in the cellar while their city was being bombed, about German snipers shooting at children in the streets, about not having anything to eat for months on end, about my son-in-law’s grandfather being dragged away from the family home by the Gestapo in 1941. . . and returning five years later when he walked home from Germany.

It inspired me. It made it real.

And I spent the next five years writing Night of Flames: A Novel of World War Two.

Since the book was published, a lot of good things have happened. It has received many excellent reviews, it received the “Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, and it has sold well, both here and in Europe. But what I find most gratifying is when someone who has read it comes up to me and says how much they loved one of the characters, like Anna, the college professor, or Jan, the cavalry officer, or Schmidt, the terrified German soldier. That makes it real. And that’s what it’s all about.


Douglas W. Jacobson is an engineer, business owner and World War Two history enthusiast. Doug has traveled extensively in Europe researching stories of the courage of common people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. His debut novel, Night of Flames: A Novel of World War Two was published in 2007 by McBooks Press, and was released in paperback in 2008. Night of Flames won the 2007 OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD from the Wisconsin Library Association. Doug has also published articles on Belgium’s WW2 escape organization, the Comete Line; Poland’s 1st Armored Division; and the liberation of Antwerp. Doug has just completed his second novel set in Europe at the end of WW2. You can visit his blog at http://www.douglaswjacobson.blogspot.com/


9 comments:

  1. Hi, Douglas. First, please let me say thank you for being my guest today. Your story is very similar to my own, I had read about this terrible conflict all my life, and the atrocities inflicted on the Jewish people, but it was never real, until one of my dearest friends introduced me to her father - a survivor of that terrible place called Auschwitz. He rarely spoke of the war, too, but when we were alone, he would talk. I think he didn't want to see his family relive that pain with him. It made the suffering and the horrors very real to me to listen to him, and see what was in his face. His courage and his strength is a testament to what is good in humanity, and he survived where so many others didn't. Your book sounds wonderful, and I am very glad it has received the recognition such works deserve.

    God Bless you and those you love,
    Always.
    Denysé

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  2. Hi Douglas

    Thank you for sharing your (and your new extended families) story with us. Its easy, looking back, not being an actual part of the history, to loose sight of the fact that it wasn't just a war, there were real people involved. I wish you much success and I will be picking this up for myself and my fiance's father, who I know will enjoy it.

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  3. Fascinating post, Denyse and Douglas, and congratulations Douglas on your wonderful achievement.

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  4. Fascinating post, Denyse and Douglas, and congratulations Douglas on your wonderful achievement.

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  5. Although what happened was horrible - and I can't begin to imagine what trauma people on all sides went through - as long as it is talked about openly, honestly and appropriately, and the lessons are learned and understood, then I trust it will NEVER happen again.

    Thank you for taking the time to show that what went on was *real*; that it happened to people not dissimilar from ourselves. And it is not just some abstract concept from the past.

    LJ xx

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  6. Thanks to all of you for your comments. Another thing that was very real for me happened after the book was published. One of the resisiatnce organizations in the story is the Comet Line, a group of primarily women in belgium who rescued more than a thousand allied aviators during the war and led them to safety. However, their task was so dangerous that an equal number of Comet Line agents were arrested and executed by the Germans. After the book was published I was contacted by an organization in Brussels that keeps alive the memory of the Comet Line and invited to address their group, which I did in December of 2008. Much to my surprise and delight I was able to meet and talk with three charming ladies, all in their 80's who were surviving agents of the Comet Line. When asked why they risked their lives for people they didn't know, all they would say was we did it for freedom. lets pass that along to our younger generation and maybe they will learn how to live without war.
    Doug jacobson,
    Author, NIGHT OF FLAMES

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  7. Wow, very interesting time in our history. I love the way there's connection to your family. I remember as a child living next door to a concentration camp survive. And not really understanding what the numbers on her arm meant frankly what it really meant to be a concentration camp survivor until I was a little older. I love the concept of your story weaving historical facts around your characters lives. This time was very real in our world history. I look forward to reading this book.

    LaVerne

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  8. Wow, very interesting time in our history. I love the way there's connection to your family. I remember as a child living next door to a concentration camp survive. And not really understanding what the numbers on her arm meant frankly what it really meant to be a concentration camp survivor until I was a little older. I love the concept of your story weaving historical facts around your characters lives. This time was very real in our world history. I look forward to reading this book.

    LaVerne

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  9. Thanks LaVerne,
    I hope you enjoy it.
    Doug jacobson

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Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts.