L is for LETTER

In the final stages of writing The Madagaskar Plan several issues became evident. The first was that I was running out of time. The book had originally been scheduled for a February 2012 publication date. This soon became 2013. Eventually I committed to summer 2015 even as I was struggling to finish it. (This meant delivering the manuscript by October 2014.) The second problem was word length. I was contracted to write a book between 110-120 000 words. It soon obvious that Madagaskar would be longer. I was asked not to exceed 150 000, the point at which production costs escalate sharply. By the summer of 2014 I had broken the 170 000 mark!

Issue number three came when my UK editor read the manuscript for the first time. He was concerned it wasn’t sufficiently stand-alone. He felt it referred back to The Afrika Reich too much and that this would deter new readers. Given the gap between Books 1 and 2, he was also concerned that readers of the original wouldn’t remember what had happened. As he said, ‘it’s fine if [readers] finish the first book and immediately start the second... but you can’t assume that will be the case.’ After pondering this advice I thought it made good commercial sense, so I removed many of the references to Afrika Reich e.g. mentions of Dolan and Ackerman.

All of which leads to the most substantial cut I made from Madagaskar.

There are two versions of The Madagaskar Plan. The one that was published, which you hopefully bought and read; and what I call the ‘trilogy edition’.

The major strand I cut was intended to link all three books of the trilogy. It begins in Chapter 6, when Burton’s aunt gives him a bundle of letters. They are from Eleanor, Burton’s mother. Although she never actually appears in the books, she is one of its most significant presences and I wanted her to have an opportunity to speak in her own voice – like Ma Bundren does in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. In the LETTER there is a mind-blowing revelation about Hochburg, something now completely cut from the published version of the book (though I wrote his character with it in mind). This revelation was to have resonance in Madagaskar but much more significance in Book 3, leading to yet another shock... so I’m going to have to find an ingenious way to shoe it into the third book.

In a final ironic twist, Burton never actually reads the letters. Instead their contents are read by Kepplar. This happens approximately half way through Madagaskar, which means halfway through the entire trilogy and in many ways is the scene upon which the trilogy pivots, so it was a shame to cut it. I won’t reveal the contents of the letter but here is the original, deleted passage that leads up to it. [Spoiler alert.] It comes as Kepplar is searching Burton’s room in Roscherhafen:

"In the bedside cabinet [Kepplar] discovered an American passport and a bundle of letters liver-spotted with age. He flicked through them. They were the tawdry outpourings of an unknown female, the type of nonsense his wife would have indulged in if he hadn’t forbidden her; they offered no clue as to where Cole might go next. He was about to discard them when a word caught his eye.

Walter.

He read more closely and saw it appear again, then with increasing frequency.

Kepplar returned to the top letter and worked methodically through them. He had finished a dozen pages before he came across the first reference to Walter Hochburg, son of a missionary family. He knew nothing about his former master’s past: the revelation caused his stomach to flutter, Hochburg despised the church. Yet a man was not his parents. Kepplar’s father had died of septicaemia during the Great War, he barely remembered him; his mother had called him a traitor to everything decent for joining the Party. A paragraph later there was a description of Hochburg with his ‘cascade of raven-black locks’. That made Kepplar simper; soon his lips were narrow. He read till it grew too dark, flicked on the overhead light, paced the narrow room undecided whether he could bear to know more. His skin felt dank, like he wanted to shed it.

Eventually, he sat and continued until the final letter. It was dated [month], 1930, Lomé, in what had been British Togoland. When he finished, he twisted the lobe of his missing ear until it stung. He read the letter a second time and wished there were some matches in his pocket.

Kepplar pushed back his seat, the sound scraping through him, and walked to the balcony: he needed to taste air. Floodlights cast the beach in a harsh monochrome, a few couples walked along the sand. He stood watching the breakers until far across the ocean the clouds flared for an instant. Kepplar counted the seconds that followed, the way he used to as a boy, waiting for the thunder.

Silence was his only reply."

The next chapter was to be the letter itself. Three thousand words of ‘confession’ from Eleanor. Having read it, Kepplar’s attitude towards Hochburg shifts. Later Hochburg takes possession of the letters. The reader would know what was written in them but the person they most affect – Burton – would remain ignorant of their contents.

All the sections surrounding the letter were written up to the fifth draft (of six) of the book. I had a good working version of the letter itself... but never finished it to a level I was pleased with. But by now time was against me. Add the standalone issue and the need to trim the word count and it seemed the most obvious strand to remove from the book. In a single chop, it reduced the length by 15 000 words. The only trace of the letter that remains is the epigraph to Part I.

Of course now I have two different versions of the book on different trajectories. The overall arc of the trilogy remains the same, but without Eleanor’s letter, the journey there will be different. The published version of Madagaskar is 157 000 words, the ‘trilogy edition’ 172 000. Whether it will ever see the light of day, I don’t know. Because of the licensing agreements with my publishers I can’t publish it separately, so it may have to wait like some ‘director’s cut’ to be released in the future. Or possibly the extant text will become the one everyone is so familiar with that it will no longer be necessary. We’ll have to see. And first I have to finish the trilogy and write Book 3. Which leads me on to my final blog of this A to Z...

L is also for LOST EYE

[Spoiler alert.] On the subject of Book 3, I should also say a word about Hochburg and his LOST EYE. It is a reference to Norse mythology and Wotan, leader of the Gods. Wotan sacrifices an eye to gain knowledge of the future and in doing so foresees the end of the world. Which may / may not tell you something about where Walter Hochburg is headed...

F is for FERRIS WHEEL

When I’m working on scenes I’m always looking for ways to make them more original or unexpected. Initially Burton and Tünscher’s first meeting was set in an anonymous bar in Roscherhafen. After working on it for a while I was happy enough with the dialogue but thought the background should be more interesting. This is where the research kicked in and I decided to move it to the Tiergarten (the zoo). Bizarre as they may seem, the scenes set in Roscherhafen are all based on real places the Nazis intended to build, including an ‘education and entertainment park’ – this a decade before Disney started building in California.

The memory is an odd thing. While writing these scenes I was trying to imagine what it would be like to drink steins of beer and eat sauerkraut beneath boiling skies... then in a flash it came back to me that I have actually experienced this. There used to be a German African theme park in Florida called Busch Gardens. It is long gone, but I went there in the 80s and remembered the bierkeller with the waitresses dressed in traditional Bavarian costumes and the heavy German food in the sweltering Florida climate. I’m positive there was an oompha band.

As well as originality in a scene, it’s also important for me to delay giving away too much of the plot too quickly. As the drafts of Chapter 14 were laid down I realised that the key moment was upon the reader too soon. I needed a device to withhold it that went beyond Burton and Tünscher pausing to order another round of drinks – hence the FERRIS WHEEL. I’m sure you got this as a reference to Graham Greene’s The Third Man.

The Ferris wheel in The Madagaskar Plan is described as ‘the largest in the world’. My US copyeditor picked up on this fact and said that the time it took for a complete revolution – 4 minutes, 41 seconds – was too fast. In her diligence she had checked the timings with similar sized wheels: ‘In Japan, the 115-meter Daikanransha takes 16 minutes to go around; the London Eye (135 m) takes 30 min’. That’s what I call an attention to detail! The reason I settled on 4 minutes, 41 seconds is because that’s how the long the Ferris wheel sequence is in The Third Man. I admit this is an utterly obscure reference.

The other reason I referred to the Graham Greene scene is because it’s about two characters, Holly Martins and Harry Lime, who don’t trust each other. This mirrors the relationship between Burton and Tünscher. Thus far I haven’t said a great deal about the new characters in the book, something I’ll redress in the coming few blogs.

H is for the HUNGARIAN MELODY

Schubert’s HUNGARIAN MELODY appears several times in the book, a motif that links past and present. When I wrote The Afrika Reich I also wrote extensive backstories for the characters, including Burton and Madeleine’s first meeting. I decided that Madeleine should be playing the piano at that moment. But what music?

A contemporary song seemed out of keeping with her character, so it would have to be something classical. Certain clichés came to mind – such as the ‘Moonlight Sonata’ or Rachmaninoff – but I wanted something more unusual. I toyed with the second movement of Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto, though this presented all sorts of alternative history problems because the piece wasn’t composed until 1957, more than a decade after the USSR had been defeated by the Nazis in my world. Which begs the question, what would have happened to Dmitri in this new world order? I can’t say, though even if he had survived I doubt there would have been much time for music in what was left of Russia. I often get asked arcane questions like this by readers: what would have happened to so-and-so, how would such-and-such event have played out? Mostly I have to wing it or admit I don’t know. Although I’ve constructed the immediate alternative history of my world, I don’t have an exhaustive store of knowledge for every person or event post-1940!

I digress.

Since the scene where Burton and Madeleine meet for the first time wasn’t in Afrika Reich, I didn’t need any more detail than ‘Madeleine is playing the piano’, so I put the question to one side. When I started the first draft of The Madagaskar Plan I happened to be listening to Woman’s Hour [a daily radio programme on the BBC for foreigner readers of the blog] where Imogen Cooper was being interviewed about her latest CD: a collection of Schubert’s piano works. She played ‘The Hungarian Melody’. I heard it only once – but it was an instant earworm and I couldn’t get the tune out of my head for days.

There’s no deeper significance to it appearing in the book than that. As much as I like to build layers of references sometimes details arrive through whimsy or happenstance – and nothing more.

If you’re not familiar with ‘The Hungarian Melody’ you must listen to it. It’s a wonderful piece, mischievous and melancholy. You can find a recording of it here:

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

D is for DIVERGENCE POINT

If you’re writing an alternative history sooner or later you have to settle on a ‘DIVERGENCE POINT’ – i.e. the moment when real, recorded history ends and a new, alternative one begins. In SS-GB it’s the successful invasion of Britain by the Nazis, in Fatherland when Hitler defeats the Soviet Union in 1943.

I settled upon Dunkirk and instead of giving the British a miraculous escape, I had them slaughtered on the beaches. Why did I choose this point?

One of the themes of the book is the myths we cling to (think of Burton and his mother) and I wanted to echo this in the larger structure of the narrative. Dunkirk is often seen as the epitome of British pluck; a defeat that has somehow morphed into a victory and is seen as one of the country’s finest hours. Indeed, newspapers still refer to the ‘Dunkirk spirit’ in a whole variety of situations – from Brits abroad coping with crises to the dreary comebacks of our national soccer team.

I was intrigued by debunking this notion and having Dunkirk as a disaster. Instead of being a narrow escape it was a coup de grace that led Britain to negotiate with Nazi Germany, leaving us with peace but less national pride. Of course, once I had changed this, other aspects of the alternative history fell into place as a consequence. With Britain out of the war much earlier there was less need for American involvement; having to fight on only one front meant Germany could concentrate all its forces against the USSR and win (though as a nod to Harris, I kept the same date of 1943).

In reality, the reasons behind Hitler’s decision not to annihilate the British at Dunkirk remain a mystery. Some historians think it was down to incompetence, others that it would appeal to Britain’s sense of fair play, making them more amenable to negotiation. In my world there’s a very specific reason why Hitler doesn’t attack... though you’ll have to wait till the Prologue of Book 3 to find out!

D is also for DAMBE

In action adventure stories the hero often has some skill in martial arts. I wanted to give Burton the same but felt something like kung fu or karate would be impossibly crass. So I went looking to see if there was an African equivalent. As it turns out there were several including: kokawa, musangwe, ‘nuba’. In the end I opted for dambe, a West Africa form of boxing because a) I’d already place Burton’s upbringing in that part of the continent b) it just looked vicious and chimed with the character’s more violent streak.

You can see an example of dambe on this clip from CNN.

Curiously both I and Burton seem to have out-grown dambe... so it may not be back in Book 2. What does everyone else think?

X is for XAVIER MARCH

If you’re reading this blog there’s a high chance you’re interested in alternative history. If you’re interested in alternative history then there’s an even higher chance you’re read Robert Harris’s Fatherland. In my opinion it’s the apogee of the genre and a damn fine thriller to boot.

(As a quick aside, I should say a word about alternative history. The ‘definitive’ novel of the genre is The Man in the High Castle and it’s noteworthy that this is a work of science fiction. Purists would argue that Fatherland isn’t really alternative history, only its milieu is. I tend to agree – which is why I see Afrika Reich as foremost a thriller, not alternative history.)

One of the reasons Fatherland is such a satisfying read is because of the main character: XAVIER MARCH, an investigator with Berlin’s criminal police (and a God send for author’s writing A-Zs and wondering what they’ll do with those tricky last letters of the alphabet). It was a lesson for me. If Afrika Reich was going to succeed beyond the setting and plot, the characters would have to be people readers cared for.

That said, there’s no Xavier March equivalent in my book. March is a more morally straightforward character than Burton. Although a member of the SS, he’s motivated by a desire to know the truth about the world he lives in, and uncovering corruption and murder at the heart of the Reich. In many ways he’s a crusader. Burton’s motives are entirely personal; he’s indifferent to the Nazis’ plans for Africa apart from when they intersect his individual needs. As I once said to my editor: ‘the bad guys are bad, but the good guys aren’t necessarily good’. I’ll come back to this subject in ‘E is for...’.

Returning to Fatherland, in essence it’s a crime thriller, you could even go so far as to say a whodunit. Harris’s book followed in the tradition of Len Deighton’s SS-GB which is an espionage thriller. It occurred to me that the victorious Third Reich element of these books (although intrinsic to the plot) is a backdrop to variations on thriller. Since the crime and spy sub-genre had already been done, I wanted to do something fresh with Afrika Reich – hence the reason I chose to make it an action/adventure thriller, more of which next time...

PS – just in case you’re wondering why I’ve included a picture of Rutger Hauer here dressed in black, he played Xavier March in the HBO adaptation of the novel.

B is for BURTON COLE

Names are very important to me. I can’t write a character until I have his or her name. With BURTON I wanted something monosyllabic and hard sounding, hence COLE. It was also important that I find some connection with Africa. I immediately thought of the great African explorers – Livingstone, Stanley – but considered their names too obvious. Luckily, years before I had read the biography of a more obscure figure: Sir Richard Burton, amongst other things: a linguist, spy and discoverer of the source of the Nile.

One of the questions I get asked most often is whether Burton is based on me. Of course it’s impossible to distance yourself entirely from your creations but in essence there is no connection between us. He’s certainly not an autobiographical character. So where did he come from?

Good question. And I’m not entirely sure of the answer. Apart from the name, he’s very different in temperament and background to the character in the original, unpublishable Africa Reich. The person he is now simply emerged as I was planning and researching the new version. As a hero he’s also an amalgamation of my influences, so there’s a sprinkling of the heroes from Greek mythology, Japanese chanbara tales, the spaghetti western, John Buchan, Graham Greene and maybe a certain Dr Jones. This is not an exhaustive list.

As for everything else, writing is a combination of inspiration and logic. So although the idea of him liking mango juice, for instance, came on a whim, other things – such as the character being a mercenary – were the consequence of logical deduction. I didn’t want Burton to be a German soldier and if he was identifiably a British officer this would cause problems for the plot, so this presented me with an obvious choice... which in turn made me think where he was trained. I wanted him to be part of an elite fighting force, and again I wanted an African connection, but all of this had to be in the context of him being an outsider. It wasn’t long after this that I reached for a copy of Beau Geste (a famous novel about the French Foreign Legion). That he is a Major is a little reference/in-joke – which you may or may not get.

The quality I admire most about Burton is his single-mindedness. He’s not interested in the trivia that seems to overwhelm our lives. I certainly can’t imagine him indulging in small talk at a party (here there is definitely an autobiographical element!). All he wants to do is survive. Survive, get back to Madeleine and be a quince farmer. I can understand that...

B is also for BK44

In preparation for the conquest of Africa, the Nazis began to develop an assault rifle that could function in the humidity of the tropics. However, as the war turned against them, and it was clear they weren’t heading towards the equator, the designs for this rifle morphed into the StG44 (pictured). Later these were appropriated by one Comrade Kalashnikov. My fictitiously named weapon – die Bananen Kanone – draws on all these elements. The ‘B’ refers to the banana shaped magazine; the K is a nod to the AK47; and the 44 refers not only to the StG but also the year Congo is invaded in my alternative history.