O is for ORIGINS

I’ve written before how The Afrika Reich came about (see A is for Apocalypse Now) but what were the ORIGINS of The Madagaskar Plan?

The plan itself is one of those things that seem to have been in the periphery of my knowledge forever, but I can remember the first time it focused sharply. It was in the spring of 2001 when I was doing the initial research for the first version of Afrika Reich and I was reading Michael Burleigh’s history of the Third Reich. On p.472 there is a passage about the Jews being exiled to Madagascar as an alternative to the Holocaust. The idea was fantastical, intriguing and full of dramatic potential; I knew I had to include it in the book I was working on. That was the ‘psychedelic’ version of Afrika Reich, the one that was too wacky for its own good and was ultimately rejected by all publishers. In that version there was an extensive subplot, told in flashback, about Burton the journalist (as he then was) travelling among the Jews of Madagascar trying to get a scoop. His failure to do so would lead him to the Congo and an even bigger story – i.e. Hochburg.

The finished draft of this book was huge, coming in at 240 000 words. Cuts had to be made and the Madagascar strand was a self-evident place to start, a pointed reinforced when an early reader from the publishing industry advised me that it was such a good idea it needed more space. It’s a book in its own right! she told me.

When I came back to Nazi Africa in 2007 (see Y is for...) that piece of advice stuck with me. I knew I wanted this new incarnation of The Afrika Reich to be a trilogy and Madagascar seemed the obvious setting for the middle book, with the original subplot expanded beyond all recognition into its own story. This is what would become the novel soon to be published.

As an aside, the final act of the psychedelic Afrika Reich was set in the Sahara – and is the basis for Book 3. But I’m getting ahead of myself...

In the meantime, I like the idea how a single moment on a spring day would become a significant event in my life years later. There’s something incredibly optimistic about that, something we can all draw hope from. Because what seems trivial at one point may lead to all sorts of unexpected places. Who knows, perhaps someone, somewhere is reading this blog and one day will see it as the origin of their own adventure.

W is for WELCOME BACK! (and a word of warning)

So, welcome back. After many months of idling, this blog is about to start up again at full pace with an A to Z of THE MADAGASKAR PLAN. As you can see I’ve had a little re-jig of this page, and now am raring to go...

If you read my original blog you’ll already know the state of play with The Madagaskar Plan. If not, or you want a quick recap, Madagaskar is the follow-up to The Afrika Reich and is based around the Nazis’ real plan to deport the Jews of Europe to Madagascar, a remote island off the coast of  East Africa. The book was originally due for publication in 2012 but a series of mishaps means that it’s only coming out now.

Like the original A to Z, the 25 upcoming entries will give you some background information on how The Madagaskar Plan was conceived and written, as well as insights into the characters, settings, the research trips I made for the book, the links between real and imagined history and various other ‘behind the scenes’ titbits. Think of this blog as the extras on a DVD, though the style will veer more to the picaresque than exhaustive. There may also be an occasional word about the third book in the trilogy.

There will, however, be one major difference with the original blog, which was written over several years. This time I’ve been much more efficient and done everything in advance. I intend to post new entries on a fortnightly basis between now and the publication of the UK paperback (in March 2016) which means some of you may not have read the book. So to warn you in advance, there will be spoilers... though I will always let you know beforehand.

Of course the easiest way around this problem is to get hold of a copy of the book as soon as possible. It’s available to pre-order here, and unlike its predecessor, the two versions of the text are pretty much the same: Amazon, UK   Amazon, US

The other disadvantage of writing everything in advance is that will be less opportunity for reader feedback. Plenty of the previous blogs were influenced by readers’ questions about the first book... so I’ll add a miscellaneous entry before the end to cover any unforeseen issues. In the meantime, if you want any questions answered about the book, do let me know – either here, on Facebook or by messaging me directly.

W is also for the Wall of Eyes

This will make no sense until you’ve read the book, but the inspiration for this came from a visit to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. If you’ve been there, you’ll know exactly what I mean. If you haven’t, there’s a wall inside the exhibition that is several stories high and covered entirely in photos of those murdered during the Holocaust. To stand beneath those eyes is a haunting experience. Of course, in my novel there has been no Holocaust, which begs the question: am I portraying a more benign world? I’ll leave you to read the book and decide...

E is for ENDS

Later in the year I’ll be bringing you an A-Z of THE MADAGASKAR PLAN which, like its predecessor, will give a ‘behind the scenes’ insight to the writing of the book. In the meantime I’m going to sneak in the letter E.

I never write ‘The End’ when I finish a book. I’ve always found it rather juvenile (with apologies to all those writers who do). I also think it inaccurate. A novel doesn’t end just because you finish putting the words down on the page. An author can revisit their work (and here I must admit I’m still tinkering with the text of The Afrika Reich; the definitive version of which is not the paperback but the one on my computer.) A book also develops a life of its own once it’s published and readers begin to make it theirs. If it stays around long enough, different generations of readers will interpret it in different ways. ‘The End’ sounds presumptive, and far too final.

Nevertheless, Madagaskar is at last finished. I’ve checked the proofs, made my final alterations, and from this point to publication I can no longer make any substantial changes to the text. I require something to mark the moment and tell my publisher that I’m done. 

When I worked as a foreign correspondent, I needed a similar word to signify an article had reached its final paragraph. This was especially true when I was filing from some dodgy country abroad in those days of more primitive telecommunications, when articles were sometimes cut short in transmission. The word I was advised to use was ‘ends’. There’s something about the present tense of the verb with its double connotation of conclusion and continuation that seems ideally suited for being the very last word in a manuscript. I’ve always used it for my books. It seems appropriate today.

E is also for Epic

I’ve written before how I planned [geddit?] to do something different with Madagaskar. One of the qualities I wanted was a much bigger feel than the first book. To give it a truly epic sweep. To that end it’s meatier than the original in both the physical sense - it’s almost 100 pages longer – and in terms of content which sees six interweaving narrative strands, much more world building and a story that will take you from Britain to Africa (Kongo, Sudan, Deutsch Ost Afrika, Mozambique), to Madagaskar and finally the heart of the Reich and Germania itself.

Intriguingly, if you look at this Wikipedia entry and its list of ten characteristics of the epic, Madagaskar uses all but numbers 3 (evocation of the muse), 5 (epithets) and 6 (epic catalogue):

10 characteristics of the epic

Pressing Submit...

I meant to post this last week – but the ‘Curse of Book 2’ struck again (a subject I’ll return to at a future date) and I was taken away from my desk. Today – the 6^th – is nine months to the day since my last blog and seemed an appropriate occasion to reappear.

The big news is that I’ve finally finished The Madagaskar Plan and sent it to my publishers in the UK and US! Thus far not a soul has read the book apart from a few sections I offered to my editors to prove I was actually working on something. So pressing submit is a leap into the unknown.

Now begins the waiting. Quite what my publishers will make of the book I’m not sure. I’m confident it’s good – a huge leap up from Afrika Reich – but it’s also very different in terms of tone, structure, pacing – everything! – to the original. It may not be what they were expecting. The one thing for certain is that it’s a monster. I was contracted to write 115-120 000 words, the same as the first book; the finished manuscript is 154 000 (and it’s tightly written).

While I wait for a response there’s plenty to do: I have maps to draw (see photo below); final bits of research to complete; a historical note and foreword to write. I might even do some more blogging.

In the meantime, there’s still no publication date for Madagaskar, but the latest is a summer 2015 release... though I’m not sure it will make a comforting holiday read. More details as and when I have them.

Deadline!

I love this cartoon from the New Yorker. In fact I find it so apt I had it framed and put on the wall of my office just above my monitor.

These are deadline days! 

For that reason I’m taking a break from this blog so I can concentrate on finishing The Madagaskar Plan.

I’ll be back in the (late) spring, hopefully with the book submitted, and some new entries about the research trips I made for Book 2. These have taken me to three continents – from huge, remote dams in the United States, to a decaying Nazi hotel complex in Germany, synagogues and a ferris wheel in Vienna, and of course south of the equator to Madagascar itself.

In the meantime I hope everyone has a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year... 

V is for VANILLA JEWS (Book 2, update 2)

The original title for the sequel to Afrika Reich was THE VANILLA JEWS. However, my editor didn’t think it sounded commercial enough, so I changed it. For the past couple of years this blog has been about the original book, now it’s time to start looking forward (spoiler free... ish) to the next one.

So what to tell you? When I first started on Book 2, I meant it as a direct follow-up; as the years have passed, however, it has subtly shifted. I now see it as a ‘parallel sequel’ – although it continues events of the first book, and develops the existing story and characters, certain aspects of the original have been dropped. It is significantly more ambitious with an interweaving, multi-stranded narrative and more emphasis on the characters than action (though there’s still a healthy dose of the latter).

The one thing it is not is a rehash of the first book. There’s a lot of pressure in publishing to create a series and/or repeat an initial success – but I have scant interest in this. What engages me is the possibility of doing something different, something unexpected. As I was recently advised by a wily American film producer: ‘never go for the sure thing’. It could be a maxim for Book 2.

A propaganda poster from the 1930s

At the centre of the story is the Nazis’ plan to deport the Jews of Europe to Madagascar, an island off the east coast of Africa. Prior to the Holocaust this was to be their fate. Some historians argue that Madagascar was nothing more than a fantasy or smokescreen to cover up the real killing. However, my research shows detailed preparations were made by the Nazis and that the subject was discussed and approved at the highest level. When Hitler was shown the plan in the summer of 1940 he responded that it was ‘very good’. 

Perhaps more disturbingly, as early as 1938 the British were also in discussions to exile the Jews to Africa. We can never know the truth path of a speculative history but the thought of a Jewish Madagascar is not improbable. As an aside, Madagascar is the world’s largest producer of vanilla – hence the original title; vanilla remains of leitmotif throughout the text.

The odious Globus

With this as the background, other elements in the new book include a deepening of Burton’s back story; the fallout of Hochburg’s invasion of Northern Rhodesia; visiting new realms of German Africa such as the ‘pleasure city’ of Roscherhafen (again based on real plans); glimpsing WBU, the Nazis’ military zone in Siberia; as well as a slew of projected Nazi hardware and several new characters. Among these is Odilo ‘Globus’ Globocnik, a real historical character and the villain of Fatherland – though my depiction of him is very different (and dare I say, more accurate) than Robert Harris’s. Did you know, for instance, that Globocnik was a master horseman, drunkard and singer of Austrian folksongs?

Without wanting to be a hostage to the future the new book will be published in time for Christmas 2014. And the title? When my editor said The Vanilla Jews didn’t work I had an instant alternative (no pun intended). It has already been registered and ISBNed. You heard it here first:

THE

MADAGASKAR PLAN

Reflections & V is also for...

When I first began this A-Z of Afrika Reich I meant to publish an entry a week with the last, ‘V is for...’, going live as the UK paperback was published. As with the writing of Book 2, this schedule now seems rather optimistic. But as the A-Z draws to an end I thought it was a good opportunity to reflect on it.

In the two and a half years I’ve been writing this blog, more than 32 500 people have visited it; I hope some of them have read it and been intrigued and entertained by the contents. It has certainly been a revealing process for myself. I’ve learnt as much about the book dissecting it here as I did while writing, perhaps more. At the same time, trying to get a handle on it has been like sculpting steam: for every assertion I make, I’m immediately aware of several contradictions. I like to think, however, that I’ve shown that Afrika Reich is more than just Fatherland or SS-GB in the tropics.

The comparison with those books has been both a boon and a curse. The great advantage was that it created an association with existing bestsellers. Against that, I never saw Afrika Reich as being of the same ilk. A naturalism has crept into novels imagining a victorious Nazi Germany, something borne through SS-GB and Fatherland and continuing to this day with the recent Dominion. I wanted to move away from that, though the demands of marketing departments meant I often had to play to the gallery and define myself in terms of Deighton, Harris et al (not that they’re bad company to keep!).

Why the naturalism? It may partly reflect a general movement in fiction. I think it also comes from a sense that if an author captures certain details then he is accurately portraying what the world would have been like if Hitler had won. I remain unconvinced. The whole point of an alternative history is that we can never know what it would have been like. A more fantastical approach served earlier examples of the genre well, such as Swastika Night, The City on the Edge of Forever (for all the Star Trek fans I know who read this blog) and The Man in the High Castle. By tendency, I’m more comfortable in this camp.

This blog has allowed me to convey a sense of that and speak my mind more openly than the marketeers probably want me to. If you’ve read this far you’re in a better place to understand my intentions (yes, that word again); it’s something I plan to continue more explicitly in Book 2 – the subject of my next entry and the last in the series. While I leave you to speculate what the V can stand for, here’s the addendum in advance...

V is also for Violence

Along with the literal brigade (see ‘L is also for...’) the reaction that most surprised me about the book was how violent people found it. Obviously given its setting and subject it was never going to be a fluffy, rose-perfumed narrative, despite that I never felt the violence was as bad as some people protested. I’ve had grown men tell me they had to stop reading because they found it excessive. What this says about me I don’t know – though others have speculated (see here, for example).

All I can say is: 1) I didn’t want to shy away from the violence that was the reality of the Third Reich and continues to this day in central Africa; nevertheless I always perceived mine as a stylised, almost comic violence, not to be taken entirely seriously 2) before submitting the book for publication I made a conscious decision to tone things down. If you think the version that ended up in the shops is bad, you should see the earlier drafts!

Afrika Reich: the audio book

Not every novel is recorded as an audio book, so I was thrilled when I learnt the audio rights to Afrika Reich had been sold. A year later that excitement turned to curiosity and trepidation when the finished package arrived. What if I didn’t like the reader? What if his interpretation of the book was at odds with mine? Thirteen CDs and over sixteen hours later any concerns I might have had were assuaged.

Richard Burnip’s reading of The Afrika Reich is brilliant. Thoughtful and textured, it captures a tone that is by turns brutal, wry and moving. His pacing is impeccable. Perhaps most exciting of all are the dramatic array of voices he uses. During my first listen through I keenly anticipated the arrival of each character to hear what new accent he had chosen. If you enjoyed the novel, I recommend you listen to a copy [it’s published by Oakhill and should be available at your library].

In the meantime, here’s brief interview I did with Richard about the recording of the book:

GS: How did you first become involved with the audio version of The Afrika Reich?

RB: Douglas Kean, the producer, brought me in as I’ve read other audio books set in world war two. I’ve also spent time in Germany so was familiar with the language.

GS: How much preparation did you do?

RB: I treated the book the same way I would do a script. I read it from beginning to end before going back over it more thoroughly marking up the characters and any details that helped me understand them. Next I noted anything in the text that puzzled me or I felt needed stressing. Some things that work on the printed page don’t translate when you’re reading aloud – the repetition of ‘Peace for Empire’ is an example, or flashbacks – so you need to nudge them up when you read to make sure the listener is aware of them. I also had to research the pronunciation of the African and Portuguese words.

GS: How long did it take to do the recording?

We recorded it in November 2011. It took four days, recording about four and half hours of finished material each day. I read it straight through, as if it were a live performance, stopping only if I made a mistake or if there was a noisy page turn.

GS: You use an extraordinary array of different voices for the characters; I particularly liked Hochburg and Patrick. How did you go about choosing them?

RB: As part of my preparation I drew up a table of all the characters and scoured the text for clues as to how they might talk, seizing on any description of accents. With your book I was grateful to have so many different voices. The main team alone has a British accent, American, Welsh, Rhodesian and Polish, so it was easy to make each member sound distinctive. I like to be bold with accents. With Patrick the line, ‘his voice was Boston-Irish churned with two decades of French Sahara’ gave me everything I needed. I listened to recordings of Massachusetts accents and that gave me the basis to which I added a rough, gravelly quality to capture the dryness of the desert.

The Hochburg influence: Christopher Lee in Ill met by Moonlight

GS: To my ear Hochburg sounds like a young Christopher Lee, was that intentional?

RB: You heard correctly, though I didn’t want to do a direct impression: he was more of an influence. While I was preparing for the book I saw the film Ill Met by Moonlight [1957]. There’s a scene near the beginning where Christopher Lee plays a German officer and it put his voice in my head. Hochburg is such a weighty character, not a brute or a stereotypical villain, and I felt that matched the powerful intellect of Christopher Lee’s performances. They both take their time to talk, are always so in control.

GS: Did you have a particular listener in mind when you were recording?

RB: My main aim, and I suspect this is true of most actors recording a book, is to serve the writer’s intentions, so you’re recording for the author. Clarity is the most important element. Beyond that, it’s important not to superimpose anything that’s not in the text. The book should tell you everything you need to know.

*

Richard Burnip has appeared with many theatres companies in Britain, Germany and the Middle East. His audio work ranges from computer games and synthetic speech to recordings for historic sites in Old and Middle English.  He has provided voices for characters as diverse as Napoleon and Gustav Mahler, and has narrated many documentaries.  He has recorded more than 80 audio books covering many genres from children’s stories and detective fiction to major political texts.

K is for the ‘K’ in Afrika

My original title for the book was The Afrika Reich with a K. However, when I came to submit it to publishers, and experience teaching me they are a conservative bunch, I decided to change to the anglicised spelling – Africa Reich – for fear of putting them off at the very first page.

I’ve written elsewhere about the travails of finding a publisher for the book. You can read a fuller account here (complete with dodgy photo!), but to summarise: My agent submitted the book on a wave of enthusiasm; he felt sure we would find a publisher quickly. However, no sooner had it been submitted than the rejections started coming in. The general gist was that although editors liked the book, they didn’t think it would have much commercial appeal. The marketing departments scratched their heads at how they would sell it. The fact that Fatherland had sold several million copies failed to persuade them.

In total fifteen publishers rejected Afrika Reich, leaving me waiting on the last two. I could see no reason why their response would be different, so I resigned myself to the fact that the book would not get commissioned.

Then, within forty-eight hours, those final two publishers said yes and the book went to auction! Hodder & Stoughton eventually won and after the contracts had been signed, one of the first things my editor asked was whether we could change the title. I assumed he’d opt for something like SS-Africa, but actually all he wanted was a minor tweak. Would I consider changing the C to a K?

I knew I had found the right publisher.

K is also for Kepplar

Several readers have pointed out that in Chapter 37, when Hochburg’s helicopter takes off, there’s no sign of Kepplar’s pyre or body. They wonder if it’s a mistake. Some people have framed it with a question: is Kepplar actually dead? That’s perceptive, though you’ll have to wait till Book 2 to find out...

D is for DIVERGENCE POINT (part 2)

By coincidence, in the past week two readers* have emailed me questioning whether Britain’s defeat at Dunkirk really is the DIVERGENCE POINT of the book. (As a quick reminder the divergence point in a work of alternative history is the moment where events take a different path to our own version of reality.) Those two emails were actually very astute, and follow on from similar messages I’ve had over the years. So although I planned not to reveal this until a later date (if ever), today I’ve decided to confess all.

Robert Frost would approve...

Dunkirk is not the true divergence point of the book. It is a symptom of an earlier cause. It is the place where geopolitical history changes but the real shift – a minuscule fissure in the past – predates it. If, thus far, I have promoted a slight falsehood it is because I have been playing to an audience; fulfilling the marketing needs of the book (though in my defence all the clues as to what’s really going on are in the text). As regular readers of this blog will know by now, nothing is ever quite what it appears with Afrika Reich!

So what is the true divergence point?

I’m not going to tell you for two reasons: 1) better you work it out yourself 2) rather unfairly, it’s more fully explored in Book 2. However, I believe world events are not decided at the macro level but micro. History is determined not when Caesar crosses the Rubicon – but earlier, in the accretion of childhood experiences that motivate the crossing in the first place.

Whilst you’re puzzling all this out (or heading back to Facebook, which is probably more entertaining anyway) I’ll leave you with a clue:

*One in Iowa, America; one in Venezuela – hello/hola if you’re reading!