Wednesday, November 25, 2020

WRITING PASSAGES--LIBBY FISCHER HELLMAN

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  It's always such a treat to have broadcaster, speaker, and award-winning author Libby Fischer Hellman drop in for a visit on Jungle Red! Today she gives us a fascinating look at the stages of her writing life--and a new book A BEND IN THE RIVER. Publisher's Weekly calls it "Gripping...This passionate story of survival has staying power." William Kent Krueger says it's "...a stunning piece of historical fiction." Here's Libby to elaborate on her departure from crime fiction.

 

 

LIBBY FISCHER HELLMAN: Hi, Reds and Friends. It’s so nice to be back. Yes, I have a new book, and I’ll get to it in a bit. But first, I want to bring up another book. I think most Jungle Reds— because we are of a certain age—are familiar with Gail Sheehy’s PASSAGES. She died this year, but I will never forget her thesis: that every seven years or so, a woman passes through a new stage of her life. Some are precipitated by crises, some aren’t. I was in my late twenties when I read the book, and I identified so closely with the first two passages that I figured my life was predestined a la Sheehy. Did you as well?

My only beef was that she stopped with the ‘50s, which made me feel that any age higher than fifty-nine just wasn’t worth talking about. Harrumph. Even so,  darned if I didn’t begin to see life as a series of passages, which, might apply to almost anything I did or thought about.

Including my writing life. The years aren’t precisely seven, nor does entering one “passage” require an exit from another, but I can clearly see how I’ve passed through different stages of my writing life.

First was the early mystery stage, where I enthusiastically published four Ellie Foreman mystery novels in three years. That doesn’t count the four years I spent learning the craft of fiction well enough to get published, so figure seven years. So far, right on schedule.

Then came my “second series” Passage. Restless for a new challenge, I gave one of the characters from my first series her own thriller series. Georgia Davis is grittier, more hard-boiled, and action-oriented than Ellie. And I love her stories. They energize me in a way Ellie doesn’t. Although Ellie has the sense of humor I crave.

Three novels later (call it four years because of a year of Presidenting Sisters in Crime) presaged a new Passage: the historical thriller. As a former history major, I love the way history repeats itself, but mutating in a tiny way from what went before. I also love diving into rabbit holes and surfacing with a historical nugget or fact or story that surprises me, and hopefully, will surprise readers as well. I’m sure you Reds who write historicals can relate.

In writing historical thrillers, though, I was still tethered to the structure of crime fiction, which provides a plot template that we all follow in one form or another. I could pretend I wasn’t REALLY writing historicals. They were historical mysteries. Historical thrillers.

Another four years went by. Then I went to Vietnam. I grew up in DC and gazed for years at all the monuments to the Civil War in neighboring Virginia. This time, though, I wanted to see the country and any monuments that took 50,000 of our boys’ lives during a war which many still think was unnecessary. To be honest I didn’t know I was entering a new passage until my travel partner and I were in a Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City, art gallery staring at this painting.


 I felt like I’d been hit by lightning, and I immediately knew I was going to write a book set in Vietnam during the war. I also knew it would be about these two sisters. And I implicitly knew it was not going to be either a mystery or a thriller. It was going to be a historical novel, the story of two girls struggle to survive a war that was tearing their country apart. I bought the painting.

 


  I had started reading about Vietnam before I stepped off the plane, but my research instensified while we were there. Photos and videos speak to me, and I took hundreds of shots. I interviewed a former North Vietnamese colonel, as well as two Boat people who escaped Vietnam for the States. After I got home, research intensified even more, and I found fascinating “nuggets” and began to build possible scenes. I put together a timeline of the war and the book. Then I started to write.

 


I confess I have never enjoyed writing. I love “having written” and holding a finished book in my hands, but the process of writing has always bedeviled me. Not this time. I loved writing this book. In fact, I had to force myself to end it – there was more I could have said. For the first time, I experienced what I now see was an organic process, not dependent on tropes or plot elements. However, I will admit that intuitively knowing how to build suspense helped the story. So did an inherent sense of pacing we learn as we continue writing. But the bottom line was that I felt free to explore the setting and the characters with no constraints. It was something I had never done before.

 

A Bend In The River was clearly my Passage into a new way of writing. A new genre. I’m thrilled to be here, but I won’t abandon Ellie or Georgia. I intend to continue with all three “passages.” Which might make it pretty crowded in my brain, but Gail Sheehy should have known that’s what happens after your Fifties. We can juggle multiple passages if we want. It all depends on our story.

 

When their village is destroyed, two sisters face their futures alone. Will the uncertainties of war keep them apart forever?

In 1968 two young Vietnamese sisters flee to Saigon after their village on the Mekong River is attacked by American forces and burned to the ground. The only survivors of the massacre that killed their family, the sisters struggle to survive but become estranged, separated by sharply different choices and ideologies. Mai ekes out a living as a GI bar girl, but Tam’s anger festers, and she heads into jungle terrain to fight with the Viet Cong. For nearly ten years, neither sister knows if the other is alive. Do they both survive the war? And if they do, can they mend their fractured relationship? Or are the wounds from their journeys too deep to heal? In a stunning departure from her crime thrillers, Hellmann delves into a universal story about survival, family, and the consequences of war. A Bend in the River is a remarkable historical fiction standalone novel. If you enjoy a saga of survival against all odds with unforgettable female characters, you’ll love Libby Fischer Hellmann’s sweeping epic. 

 READERS, did you read PASSAGES? Do you see your life in stages, too?

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31 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your newest book, Libby. The story certainly sounds intriguing and I’m looking forward to reading it and finding out what happened to Mai and Tam.

    It’s been years since I read “Passages” [perhaps a re-read is called for]; I guess I do see stages in my life, although I cannot begin to make them “fit” into the seven year pattern. Nevertheless, it’s interesting how we move from one stage to the next without necessarily realizing it at the time . . . .

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    1. Exacytly. It's mostly in retrospect that I realized I was going through them. And that I wasn't the only one. Kind of a blow to one's self-image as a unique personality, huh...

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  2. You have exercised your writing talent well, exploring the different kinds of mystery/crime writing and now this novel of the heart. Anyone I’ve heard talk about visiting Viet Nam has fallen in love with the country, and with our country’s volatile history with Viet Nam, it’s a place I’m eager to read more about. That A Bend in the River is fictional allows me to learn my favorite way, through great stories. I love that the painting had such an impact on you and led you to telling a story that stirred great passion in you. We could talk quite a while about art that speaks to us and where it has led us. I’m just glad you were led to write this book. I look forward to reading about the different paths the sisters take and if reconnecting is possible for them.

    I didn’t read Passages, but I do think my life has had different stages. I don’t know that any of my stages have been seven years, but they have all been interesting and helped me to grow into the person I am today.

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    1. Thanks for the kind words, Kathy. The Central Highlands of Vietnam are absolutely beautiful. Almost fairy tale-ish in the early morning with mist curling around the mountains, and fresh water lakes.

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  3. Congratulations on making that spark of interest turn into a book, Libby. It sounds fascinating.

    I've never read Passages. My life has changed direction several times, with a half dozen careers. I should look back and see if there were seven-year stages. What I really like is that all of them involved writing of one kind or another.

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  4. I haven't thought of Passages in decades, but I read it when it first came out, and a lot of what Sheehy wrote made sense at the time. I wonder how it would hold up now? Sheehy wrote a memoir of her own passages a few years ago, called Daring, but I have not read it. I do think we go through many changes in our lives, especially if we are in long romantic relationships. My husband and I have discussed this, how our relationship and marriage has shape-shifted through the last 40 years.

    That a single image affected you so strongly, Libby, that it inspired a whole book shows the power of art. Vietnam certainly has a mystique of its own, too. I haven't read much about that country, either.

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  5. What a wonderful painting. Not surprising that it served as a muse. As Karen said, it shows the power of art. Congratulations on the book.

    I read Passages and New Passages when they were released. I'm not sure that my life has followed the seven year sequence, but looking back, I can see a series of doors and remakes in life choices and events.

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  6. I am eager to read A BEND IN THE RIVER, Libby. Not only does it sound intriguing, but I love the story of how one photo spoke to you enough to set you on this path.

    I feel like I probably read PASSAGES, but I don't remember it at all, so perhaps I did not. I do strongly suspect there is truth to it. On the relationship side of my life, I immediately notice that my first marriage lasted six years (so add in the courtship and we're at about seven) and my permanent husband and I were married six years before we had our son -- again, about seven years into the relationship. And our happy longevity is definitely the result of moving through various stages together since then. I'd have to dig deeper to map out the professional side, but I have certainly had four or five career lives over the 40 years since college. So the math is consistent.

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  7. Looking back I think I can see that there are different stages of the life I have led. But nothing has been as I had expected in the years before.

    I'm eager to read your book, Libby. I've been fascinated with Vietnam ever since reading Up Country by Nelson DeMille. When I was in high school one of the career paths I was thinking about was nursing. The Army was offering a pretty sweet deal but a boyfriend at the time talked me out of that. Ever since then I have wondered if maybe I would have been sent to that country. Part of me regrets that didn't happen.

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    1. So, that reminds me of a personal anecdote. I was um... on the liberal side, being an anti-war protestor during the war. I was home from college in my jeans and t-shirt when the the doorbell rang. A young man in full dress uniform (army) stood there. I gaped, not really getting it. He introduced himself to me and I realized he and I had gone to elementary school together.vHe told me that he always wanted to see me when we were "grown up" to show me what he'd done with his life. He'd enlisted and was now a staff sergeant. I think I was speechless (probably for the 1st time in my life) I mean, what do you say to that? That I thought the war should never have been thought and that anyone who enlisted was... well... I didnt say anything like that. Somehwere, somehow, I found the grace and maturity to congratulate him on his accomplishments.

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  8. Congratulations on your new release! I remember reading Tim O'Brien and Philip Caputo, but it's time for a novel about the country and inhabitants rather than American soldiers.

    I recall Passages; my life has bumped along, all over the country. And now I have the time to write about it.

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  9. Congratulations on finding a new voice and a new phase in your writing career. Here's hoping your book meets with a lot of success. I'm so glad you bought the painting.

    If I read Passages it was so long ago I've forgotten it, but my life has definitely gone through distinct stages. Actually, MY life has seen a lot of on-stage, back-stage, and up on the grid phases but that's because I work in live entertainment. All puns aside, I can see distinct phases of evolution in my personal and professional lives. I think it's lovely that we, as a generation, are charting new paths through that big blank space after the age of 59. Here be dragons!

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  10. Libby, now I'm curious about Passages, although I gave my copy away decades ago. Did Sheehy's New Passages continue after 59, I wonder? I do think we get more interesting as we age.

    This was such an inspiring essay. I love that Vietnam, and that lovely painting, spoke to you so strongly. That is such a gift for a writer.

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    1. Thanks, Debs. I didn't read New Passages, but I wouldn't be surprised. I too think we get more interesting as we age, because we're y finallnot afraid to be who we are. And yes, it is a gift. It's only happened to me once before.

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  11. Libby, Congratulations on what sounds like a wonderful book, and on being open to the next phase of your authorial life. That was a huge leap you took.

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    1. Thanks, Hallie. Scary as all get out, but it seems to have been the right decision at the time.

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  12. Jungle Reds, I finally have Internet connection for now. It has been spotty for a week!

    Libby, congratulations on your new novel. I remember flying out of my local airport several years ago when they had an exhibit about Operation Baby. It seems that there was a US military operation to rescue babies and young children from Vietnam and take them to America to be adopted by American families. Regarding PASSAGES, though I never read the book by Gail Sheehy, I recall that she adopted a daughter from China ? And I wonder why she stopped at age 59? Perhaps it is because she was 59 years old when the book was published?

    Diana

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    1. As I recall, Operation Baby was controversial. Allegedly, the Vietnamese women didn't know they were giving up their children. They got money (from whom I dont remember) but then the children were taken and all hell broke loose.

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    2. Libby, thank you. I did not know that. I thought the babies were orphaned as a result of the war.

      Diana

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  13. Libby, love this essay! I will have to consider what my passages have been--not as well defined as yours. the book sounds wonderful!

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    1. You and I have traveled through similar passages, Roberta. I remember long car trips talking about them!

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  14. I do see my life in stages. I don't always see them clearly until I've made the transition into a new one, but I definitely do see life that way.

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  15. Libby, hi. I loved reading this, Thank you. I fell quite deeply into Gail Sheehy's book when it first came out; now I feel like it might be time to revisit it. I'm excited about your new book and look forward to reading it. (Love the painting!!!)

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  16. Great post, Libby. I think I have to pick up Sheehy's book and see what passage I'm in because I'm sure "exhausted mother" should have ended by now!

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    1. I hope so. But then it's "Mother of a teenager... college student... young adult... and then they leave and we're empty nesters wondering how it all happened so quickly!

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  17. Libby, welcome to JRW and Happy Thanksgiving. I love the painting that inspired your latest book and look forward to reading it.

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  18. Yes yes yes. LOVE the passages idea. Brilliant! And oh, nothing better than to have an inspiration. Congratulations!

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  19. Such an insightful post, Libby. Loved reading about your joy at finding the inspiration for your latest book. I'm looking forward to reading it. As for Passages, it's sent me counting backwards in the meanderings of my life to find the 7-year pattern. Fascinating how it comes close to matching. In cleaning out my mother's apartment earlier this year, I found the book on her bookshelf. I'll be looking for the box I stored it in soon.

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