Susan Knecht is the author of the new novel The Art Collector's Wife. She is also a psychotherapist, and she's based in Amsterdam.
Q: You’ve said that your mother’s experience during the Holocaust was an inspiration for The Art Collector’s Wife--how did you create your characters Isabel and Lila?
A: Lila was the first character to emerge on the page. Hers was the voice that landed most clearly, with a strong personality and point of view, a woman who needed to take charge of the story even as she was reticent to give any details about the trauma she survived.
Bit by bit, the external pressures of having a foil in her impulsive granddaughter Isabel, Lila’s secrets were forced to the surface in much the same way that experiencing new traumas can unlock old ones.
Isabel’s was the more challenging voice to find but the messier and more daring she became on the page, the more I could hear her; she was the one questioning her nonna, daring her to give answers, and taking what she felt was hers when it wasn’t given freely.
Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: I did some research on the time period after the rough draft was completely written. I read historic accounts of that time period and especially the wartime life that preceded it.
I wanted to understand the day-to-day in the ghetto before the German occupation and afterwards, and the lengths that families went to in order to survive only to end up in the camps.
For the period of 1962 where the action takes place, I wanted more historic context for Venice in the early 1960s for a more realistic texture and tone.
I can’t say it really surprises me but it’s always startling to learn how few Jewish Europeans, those that survived the atrocities, returned to their home countries. Italy was no exception, of course.
Q: The author Peter Nichols said of the book, “Tender yet propulsive, as if Elena Ferrante had written a thriller.” What do you think of that comparison?
A: I took that as a compliment because I admire Peter Nichols’ writing very much, and I find Ferrante’s work masterful, especially how she conjures the authenticity of the women she writes about.
Each character’s voice is born out of the reality they live in, and, by the end of the story, the reader feels as if they know these women personally.
Q: Did you know how the story would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: My novel was written and rewritten seven times and by the end of the seventh iteration, the ending had changed seven times! In the rough draft, the characters’ voices, their needs and desires, dictated the story and what would happen.
As the years went on and I kept rewriting and paring down the exoskeleton of back story, I did attempt to adhere to an outline but that too was a moving target.
Once I was able to write effective set-ups for each action and each scene, the fate of my characters became clearer: it wasn’t about what served the characters, but what actually served the story structure as a whole and kept the tension taut and the stakes high.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m sketching out the rough draft of a novel about four reincarnated women and their interconnected lives across four continents: North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa. It will be a historical thriller with elements of magical realism.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I just had a successful book launch and signing event at the American Book Center in Amsterdam. I am now in the process of putting together more dates for book signing events in France and California.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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