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Derek B. Miller discusses The Curse of Pietro Houdini. Please note that this interview contains spoilers.
The author's note (the protagonist's), states "I am now certain ... that we are a part of something larger; something mystical and beyond the realm of human understanding that impinges on our stories and our lives." As the author of this text, having construed this story from a blend of history, research, and imagination, what does this mean to you?
I think we're all wondering if there's More, with a capital M. And I think we're wondering it because in some very fundamental way, this life is not believable. To be this aware, this conscious, this beautiful, this intelligent, this empathetic and connected to everything around us and then ... it just stops? That is the essence of the anxiety of being human.
When we wonder if there's More, I act generally carries within it a sense of possibility that is optimistic. If there is More, it will give us meaning and clarity. Questions will be answered, and everything worthy will somehow continue even if in ways we can't imagine.
And yet.
The quote from above goes on and the thought is not complete without it. "But I also know that being part of something larger does not mean we are part of something good; something just, fair, or virtuous. I cannot reconcile these truths. What it means to me—what it means for me—is there is no bottom when we fall into tragedy."
What if we are part of something larger, something mystical, something that can explain ourselves to ourselves and make us believe this unbelievable life but the something is not good? Is not optimistic? I wonder this because like Jung I see the coincidence and feel the synchronicity that is almost tangible and beyond the statistical range of possible, and yet I see too the horror. Like the narrator, I cannot reconcile it. But I also won't ignore it.
Language plays an important role in this story—Pietro describes English as "flat and listless," French as making "claims to beauty," and German as "a language of time." Why was it important to you to make language so prominent, almost like a character in itself?
Thought and language are as intertwined as time and gravity, and like time and gravity according to Einstein, thought and language may not even be separable because they may not be two distinct things. Attention to the form and substance of language is to give honor and due to ideas themselves. A story—any story well told—has care for the telling. Aristotle wrote Rhetoric because he knew this, and we've learned it since and continue to relearn it. Language is the means by which we think and draw distinctions, and reason, and wonder. Consider: When a person dies, we ask where they have gone. But when a device runs out of electricity, we say it stopped. We don't ask where it has gone. The very language we use to wonder directs what answers might be available to us. The story is about people who think differently, and so better hearing the language and songs that carry their thoughts can help us to feel their reasons more deeply. Plus, I like it and it amuses me and I'm the first and probably last reader.
You live abroad, have traveled a great deal, and have even worked in international relations. How has your own relationship with language affected your writing?
Living away from my native language and the culture that uses it—America—has alienated me from living language and it's a problem. I wonder sometimes if I write historical fiction in part to remove myself from the struggle—and likely failure—to properly convey the here and now, especially among younger people.
There were many sites in World War II where bombs destroyed precious works of art and cultural artifacts (for example, Dresden, Magdeburg, and the Kyivan Cave Monastery). What led you to choose Montecassino as a major setting in this story?
I wrote a science fiction called Radio Life. It was a post-apocalyptic story about a civilization on the rise—long after the fall. It was a story in some kind of dialogue with a 1959 science fiction book called A Canticle for Leibowitz, which won the Hugo and the Nebula. Walter Miller Jr., the author and no relation, wrote about an abbey after the "flame deluge" that was committed to the collection and preservation of knowledge long after all the libraries had been burned and the books destroyed. Miller was an airman in World War II who bombed the Abbey of Montecassino. Even after writing Radio Life I knew I wasn't done with Montecassino. And the more I probed into the history, the more I knew I needed to write a book that was set there.
You are, yourself, the descendent of immigrants. Did this effect how you wrote this story and how you portrayed Ava's character in particular?
Well ... sort of. My family is Jewish, and we came from the Pale of Settlement in the late 1800s and early 1900s with other waves of immigrants. My family settled in New England and became New Englanders. We've been Americans for some five generations, and my family is buried in its soil. The immigrant experience is not part of my life, but being in dialogue with the past is.
How did you approach the research process while writing this book?
My usual approach is to read very broadly and reconnoiter without intent for a while. I come to learn by indwelling, and I get a sense for the place, the time, the mood, the conversations, the emotions, the spirit of the thing. In that process I begin to form questions and an agenda develops. It usually as something to do with a timeline and what happened where within it. In this case it was the summer of 1943 to the summer of 1944 in the lower half of Italy and especially at the Abbey and along the German's winter line. At that point I learn the personalities and characters and central tensions of the period that can be dramatized and within which a story can be crafted. Once I know my story (because research does not produce a story), I can then learn purposefully and make sure my story has both richness and integrity. I always learn amazing stuff along the way, some of which simply has to be shoehorned into the story no matter what.
Was it difficult at all to include so much humor in a story that features so much war and destruction?
Strangely, no. Life goes on. People are who they are to the bitter end. The more absurd the world becomes, the funnier it is to certain kinds of people. And if those people are smart, and can see the absurdity and make their own lives better—and those around them better—through humor and observation and interpretation, then they will and therefore I will as their writer, or perhaps stenographer. I can't help but notice how nuts things are, and if you're coming along with me on a journey, you won't be able to avoid it either.
The switch to the first person, toward the end of the book, is powerful and unexpected. Is this something you always knew you would do, or was this added in a later draft of the story?
I started in the first person, switched the third person limited for Massimo, then to third person limited for Ava, then back to the first person for the narrator again. So there were three switches, which is some literary jujitsu because it works best if no one really notices, and it hasn't come up much in the reviews. I started in the first person because I had never written a book in the first person, and after the "author's note" I wanted to keep on like that. But eventually I found it boring and confining so I decided to switch mid-course. The Gestapo scene created a moment to do that, and I tried it and it felt smooth so I continued like that. When we introduce Ava there was a chance to both break the story—with the new character—but also maintain narrative continuity by pressing on with the third person (which was "caused" by terror, and the situation was still terrifying, so it all lined up). The choice to return to the first person was a powerful moment, but I did see it coming because I wanted to complete the story arc while respecting her growth. That seemed a perfect way to land the point.
When writing the scene in which Massimo and Ava say goodbye to the narrator, did you think at all about trauma and the effects of trauma on identity, the coping skill of creating alternate identities for survival?
That's all I was thinking about.
What inspired you to make Pietro Houdini such a witty, bold, mysterious, and comical character? Do you feel that humor was necessary in supporting/communicating this story?
I think humor is necessary to convey most stories because—like music—it goes right to our hearts. Tragedy does that too but in expected ways. If a parent loses a child, we know what to expect, we brace for it, and we encounter in ways that remind of the truths of life. Comedy, however, only functions by being expected. I don't know how to tell an unexpected story without some measure of comedy. They seem to fit together. As for Pietro, I like opinionated characters who make decisions, and if they have a mind for innovation, creativity, and irreverence than so does my story. I really liked Pietro Houdini.
Ferrari is the only animal heavily featured in the story, and he has a special relationship with the narrator. What inspired you to include a mule in Pietro and the narrator's unlikely war family?
Ferrari just showed up with Dino and Lucia. I had no idea he was coming, and when he did appear I didn't know his name until Dino introduced him, and when I heard it I loved it. Ferrari the limping mule? His personality evolved in every scene he was in. And in the end he carried young Europa away to safety instead of toward Crete and became the hero to us all. What a mule!
Unless otherwise stated, this interview was conducted at the time the book was first published, and is reproduced with permission of the publisher. This interview may not be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the copyright holder.
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