Inspiration behind my latest work

I have been a writer since practically the moment I could put pencil to paper. Even as a young child, I could feel the magic in the pages of my favorite books, and I wanted to create the same magic for others. To this day, I still keep everything that I've ever written, from short stories, to songs, poetry, and even novels. While most of it is not worthy of publishing in it's current form, many creations have evolved and matured over time to become something that I might consider publishing today.

Why BEFORE PARADISE ?

BEFORE PARADISE is a work of historical fiction. It all began, completely by accident, really. I stumbled across a little known story of a Nazi Raid during World War II, that happened to be on the very city in which my grandparents lived at the time. I was fortunate enough that my grandmother was still alive when I first came across this story, and I was able to ask her what she remembered about the bombing, which wasn't much. But that lead to a conversation about what life was like during WWII. It wasn't as if I didn't know, or hadn't heard similar stories from my grandfather. I just hadn't heard this particular story before.

And so began the research.

If you are interested in writing historical fiction, be prepared to spend far more time on research than you will ever spend on writing. The major events that take place in BEFORE PARADISE took years of research. Initially, I had no intention of writing a book, I just found what I uncovered to be incredibly fascinating, especially since it had a direct impact on my own life. The more I uncovered, however, the more I was surprised that these events were so obscure.

There are no shortage of WWII stories, and for good reason. The war touched every life around the globe, and had far reaching consequences well in to the future. BEFORE PARADISE is about one single event. A small raid, mostly lost to history, on a city nobody could find on a map. The impact this raid would have on all our lives is arguably as significant than all the rest of WWII. I said it. Every single person reading this has been significantly impacted by the events in this story, and many millions even unborn today will be impacted long after we are dust.

So, how to tell it? To be honest, it wasn't easy. There were several false starts. To tell a story like this required a mechanism that I had never tried before in my past works. I built an ensemble of characters that told the story in two timelines. The reader gets to see the war through the eyes of women and children who tried to get by, every day, in a city during WWII that had resource and food controls in place by law. You will see American Soldiers in an Army Hospital trying to navigate the difficulties of being an occupying force someplace that they aren't necessarily welcome. And you will also see a modern look at how the aftermath of a cowardly raid over eighty years ago resulted in one of the most profound silver-linings in all of human history.

My hope is that this story will challenge the idea that WWII is an American story, or a European story, or an old story. By the end of this book, the reader will see, this is a story that impacts us all in ways we could never imagine. It brings me back to the words of John Donne, who wrote:

"If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." - John Donne

Now, more than ever in my lifetime, we need a reminder that we are all bound together. I sincerely hope that BEFORE PARADISE is part of the tie that binds.

AA