Suzanne Nelson is the author of the new novel The Librarians of Lisbon. Her other books include the middle grade novel A Batch Made in Heaven. She lives in Ridgefield, Connecticut.
Q: What inspired you to write The Librarians of Lisbon?
A: I don't know if I can point to any one thing in particular that served as inspiration for the entire book, but when I discovered that librarians had operated as spies in World War II, that acted as a springboard for ideas.
As a bookish person myself, I loved the idea of scholarly women stealthily entering Europe as warriors determined to rescue literary treasures and gather information for the Allies.
Also, my aunt was a librarian for over 40 years. She was such a graceful, reserved woman, and something about the idea of writing a librarian like her into a world of danger and espionage struck me as so exciting!
My character Bea Sullivan, with her quiet nature, grace, and fierce intelligence, was partly inspired by my aunt Carol's personality. (Although Bea's photographic memory and decoding skills belong entirely to her!)
Lisbon, as a setting, also held a lot of allure for me. My pop-pops served as a gunner's mate in the Navy during World War II, and his ship, the Julia Ward Howe, sunk in the Atlantic not far from Portugal. A Portuguese destroyer, the NRP Lima, picked up the survivors of the shipwreck and brought them to the Azores.
My pop-pops stayed on the Azores for a couple of months, where, according to another survivor, the surviving crew was kept as German POWs until the US government sent a ship to bring them back to the States. The idea of writing a novel set in Portugal during the war appealed to me because of that connection.
Also, Portugal was neutral during the war, which makes it a fascinating setting for a wartime story. Lisbon was an escape route for people fleeing occupied Europe, and also an Allied and Axis playground for spies. Having my characters operating in this city opened up so many possibilities for suspense (and yes, romance, too!).
Q: What did you see as the right balance between fiction and history as you worked on the book?
A: This was a tricky balancing act, and creating a chapter-by-chapter outline of the plot beforehand helped iron out what I was fictionalizing, especially regarding the characters.
I wanted Selene and Bea to have their own unique fictional identities, but I did draw loosely on the abilities and experiences of other female spies who were charged with gathering information for the Allies during World War II.
In particular, I was inspired by Adele Kibre, who was a microfiche and microfilm mastermind, and Maria Josepha Meyer, who reported on the Nazis' looting and confiscation of personal and public libraries and bookshops in occupied France.
My other main characters, Luca Caldeira and Agent Gable, were also loosely inspired by real historical figures, but I made very conscious decisions about what parts of their lives I wanted to draw from for the novel.
For instance, Luca Caldeira's backstory is based on Aristides de Sousa Mendes's extraordinary efforts to sign visas allowing refugees fleeing occupied Europe into Portugal in June of 1940. But I gave my character, Luca Caldeira, a different fate than the one Mendes suffered later in his life.
My Agent Gable, too, was based on the famous Agent Garbo, who to this day remains one of the most influential spies in World War II history.
While I gave Agent Gable some of the same talents that Agent Garbo had, and a similar network of fictitious spies that he used to accomplish his missions, I fictionalized his romance with Bea, his personality, and his wolfram mission in the novel.
I took care to be as accurate as possible with significant dates pertaining to the war, including Operation Overlord and D-Day, and the timing and implementations of Dictator Salazar's wartime policies regarding wolfram and trade embargoes.
Ultimately, as a writer, I weighed what elements of the story would work the best to maintain its momentum, and made some of my decisions based on that, too.
Q: The writer Eliza Knight said of the book, “Nelson expertly weaves an edge-of-your-seat novel that depicts the dangers of espionage with the elegance of high-society reconnaissance, while tugging at the heartstrings.” What do you think of that description?
A: I love it! I'm so grateful to Eliza for these words, because she highlights everything in this novel that I truly want readers to experience as they read it.
There was this surreal aspect of glamour that existed in Lisbon and the other nearby coastal resort towns during the war. Exiled royalty was living in palaces in Sintra, and many of Europe's most influential people were gambling at the elegant casino in Estoril, and dining and staying at some of the most beautiful hotels in Lisbon.
But there was a much darker side to the city as well. Allied and Axis spies both operated freely in Portugal, since it was a neutral country during the war. Walking the hilly streets of the town, no one knew who was friend or foe.
There was also a deep sense of loss, loneliness, and desperation among the people who escaped to Lisbon from occupied Europe. Many refugees waited in Lisbon for months, and sometimes even years, for proper visas or sponsors to leave for America, Canada, Brazil, or elsewhere.
Lisbon was a fascinating, dangerous, and even sometimes tragic place to be during the war. I hope I captured some of that atmosphere in the novel.
Q: How did you research the novel, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: I read many nonfiction books on Lisbon during the war, and on espionage and World War II spies, specifically. I must give a shout-out to three of them, because they're all fantastic should you want to go down a rabbit hole of World War II espionage history and Lisbon.
They are:
Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939-1945 by Neill Lochery
Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe by Kathy Peiss
Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II by Elyse Graham
I also tracked down some fun vintage sources, like a 1930s travel guide to Lisbon, which had some wonderful photographs of the city and a great fold-out map, and also some amazing Life and Time magazines from the war years with articles that featured Lisbon.
Best of all, I travelled to Lisbon and visited almost all of the locations where I set scenes in the book (sadly, some of the grand old hotels were demolished in the years following the war).
I had already written a draft of the novel when I visited, but seeing the city and experiencing its flavors, scents, and sounds helped me make sure that I'd conveyed all of that in the novel, too.
I was forewarned that Lisbon was hilly before I arrived there, but I was still surprised by how many hills there were, and how steep some of them were! My husband and I walked an average of six to eight miles each day, and it felt more like hiking than walking!
There were so many other surprises in my research along the way, which is why research is one of my favorite parts of writing.
Learning more about Dictator Salazar and some of the cruel, inhuman aspects of his dictatorship was eye-opening, especially when we visited the Aljube Museum of Resistance and Freedom during our time in Lisbon.
I was also surprised to learn about the impact that Portugal had on the wolfram trade during the war, and how important wolfram was to both the Allied and Axis Powers.
Wolfram is a mineral that contains the metal tungsten, and during the war, Portugal held the largest cache of wolfram mines in the world. The Allies and the Axis Powers battled to gain the upper hand in securing wolfram from Portugal, because the wolfram was used in the manufacture of artillery and weaponry by both sides.
I didn't know anything about wolfram until I started researching Portugal during the 1940s, but it played an enormous role in trade and manufacturing during the war years.
Salazar placed an embargo on the wolfram trade shortly before D-Day, but I shudder to think what might have happened if he hadn't done so, or if the Axis powers had gotten their hands on a much larger share of the mineral than they did. It potentially could have influenced the outcome of the entire war on the European front.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am currently working on three new books, all of which I'm very excited about! I have another historical fiction novel percolating, but it's in the very early stages of development, so I can't say much about that one (as my spy characters would say: It's top secret!).
I'm also working on a semi-autobiographical middle-grade novel about a blended family's disastrous three-week trip to Yellowstone National Park. This one has been so much fun to write, since it's based on a trip I took with my family when I was 12.
And I'm also working on a young adult choose-your-own-romance novel. It's unlike anything I've written before in structure, but I love challenging myself with new writing projects, and this one promises to stretch my plotting and organizational skills to the max!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: If you're in a book club and read The Librarians of Lisbon, I'm offering online book chats with book clubs, as my time allows. Any club interested in having me "visit" should fill out this form: https://suzannenelsonbooks.com/book-clubs/
You can also find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok @suzannenelsonbooks. Thank you, and I hope you'll check out The Librarians of Lisbon.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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