Q&A with Bryn Turnbull

 

 

 

Bryn Turnbull is the author of the new novel The Berlin Apartment. Her other novels include The Paris Deception. She lives in Toronto.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Berlin Apartment, and how did you create your characters Uli and Lise?

 

A: I did a lot of research about children living under the Third Reich for my last novel, The Paris Deception, and I found those kids stuck with me after I'd finished writing Sophie's story. 

 

So much of what's written about German history ends in 1945, but Cold War Germany is fascinating, not least because it was a society trying to crawl out of a wreckage of their own making. How did the war shape those who'd been too young during the war to truly understand it?

 

When I started my research for The Berlin Apartment, I found stories of Free University students who'd dug beneath the Berlin Wall to rescue friends and family members trapped behind the Iron Curtain, and it wasn't a surprise to learn that there were so many young people who fought injustice in their own backyard.

 

One such tunnel -- Tunnel 29 -- became the basis for Uli's tunnel in The Berlin Apartment. Unbelievably, NBC caught wind of the tunnel and agreed to finance it, in exchange for permission to film the escape when it finally happened. I was entranced by the image of such a tunnel, and when I saw it in my mind, I saw Lise at one end and Uli, digging at the other. 

 

Q: The writer Christine Wells called the book a “poignant story of love and hope in a world that has been cruelly divided, and where danger lurks at every turn.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I think it's apt. Cold War Berlin was an undeniably paranoid place, given its uncomfortable position straddling both sides of the Iron Curtain.

 

You have to bear in mind that Berlin was split into four zones of influence by the Allies at the end of the Second World War, and though the city itself fell within Soviet -- later East German -- territory, Berlin itself was split by the Allied powers (Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union) into capitalist and communist halves.

 

As such, West Berlin was an island of capitalist influence 100 kilometres into East German territory, and the ideological divide was deep: East and West were engaged in a constant struggle of one-upmanship, each side trying to prove to the other that their way of life was the superior one. 

 

In many ways, Berlin was the stage on which the broader Cold War played out at its most intimate level. 

 

Q: Can you say more about your research for the novel? What did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: Because this novel stretches all the way to 1989, the way I researched this book was quite different from, say, my Romanov novel, where most of the primary sources I consulted were diaries and memoirs.

 

Here, I was able to access video memoirs, many from people who are still alive, who recounted their vivid, personal experiences living in divided Berlin.

 

It really changed the tenor of my writing to have that immediacy, and I think that's one of the reasons this book is so musical - I reference songs and artists throughout, which is something I didn't really do in my other novels. 

 

I knew, of course, that East Germany was a surveillance state, and that the Stasi would feature heavily in the novel; but something that surprised me was how colorful and cultural East Germany was.

 

We in the West tend to think of East Germany as a drab, grey place -- and by the end, it was -- but many East Germans considered themselves cutting edge, especially in the context of their ideological war against the West.

 

They were whizzes when it came to plastics manufacturing - not least because it was a cheaper material - and a lot of cultural artefacts you encounter from East Germany reflect a sort of mod, space-age mentality: they saw themselves as the future, while capitalism was the past. 

 

I know this sounds like a silly thing, but one thing that really surprised me was how outdoorsy a culture it was. I'm Canadian, and cottaging is a big part of my identity: I wasn't aware that East Germans had their own version of the cottage, known as datsches, located in the lake districts outside Berlin. 

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

 

A: One thing I keep finding as an author of historical fiction is how the past is never really past. Time and time again, I learn lessons from history, and have really begun to appreciate that while history might not repeat, it certainly rhymes.

 

We still live in a world where walls, physical and ideological, divide us, and while we might not appreciate it in the moment, we're living through the kind of history that future authors and readers will find just as fascinating as we find Cold War Berlin today.

 

It's important for us to remain mindful of the legacy that we are building in the here and now, and we have a responsibility to shape our history for the better. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I'm writing two novels at the moment -- a contemporary rom com, and a historical novel set in the '50s. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I hope you enjoy the book! 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Bryn Turnbull.