Interview with William Dietrich

As a French major in college, I spent numerous hours trying to master the nuances of the language; however, my fondest memories bring me back to my French history classes. Often I daydreamed about what it would have been like to have lived in a certain time period such as the Renaissance. I would conjure up stories using real life events and add my creative “what if?” spin. Perhaps I should have realized then that writing would become a part of my future!

This month’s Jen’s Jewels New York Times bestselling author William Dietrich has recreated some of his own favorite moments in history in his latest release BLOOD OF THE REICH. It is a dual story combining modern day with the Hitler Germany era into a suspenseful journey to the fabled East. With unforgettable characters based on real historical events, Dietrich has proven once again his prowess as one of the best suspense writers in the business.

As part of this interview, Harper Collins has generously donated five copies for you, my favorite readers, to try to win. So, don’t forget to look for the trivia question at the end. And, thanks for making Jen’s Jewels a part of your 4th of July holiday celebration!

Jen: A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, your stellar career has been a fascinating journey in itself. So that my readers may catch a glimpse into the life of the man behind the words, please share with us a brief overview of your educational and professional background.

William: I’m a working class kid who attended a state university and decided a writing career would be cleaner than being a painting contractor, like my father and grandfather. A degree in journalism got me my first jobs (25 cents a column inch!) and my newspaper career eventually led to a yearlong fellowship at Harvard and briefer stints at scientific institutions like Woods Hole. My writing has been a long, slow development by a guy with modest expectations who earned exciting opportunities. I’m an example of the effectiveness of plugging away. Over time, it works.

Jen: Please describe for us the “Aha” moment when you consciously decided to pursue a career in publishing.

William: I was always an avid reader and dreamed of writing books, but that was something other, very exotic people did. So first came the college journalism revelation that you might be paid to go to interesting places, if you wrote about it. Unbelievable! What a scam! Second was an offer from Simon & Schuster to propose a non-fiction book on a subject I was covering for the Seattle Times, the battle over timber and the spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest. So vague book dream became concrete book assignment. That first book is like a first child, astonishing to hold! And third was a mid-life crisis (I found myself at the South Pole two months after treatment for cancer, a weird juxtaposition of experiences) that reminded me that life is short. It prompted an eventual stab at fiction with a World War II thriller called Ice Reich. When the novel unexpectedly sold, there was an instantaneous, “This is what I want to do next.”

Jen: Your penchant for history has been the launching pad for your success as a New York Times bestselling author. In your latest release BLOOD OF THE REICH, you once again dare to explore a volatile time in history. How did you arrive at the premise?

William: I’m always looking for new ideas. I read about a 1938 Nazi expedition to Tibet, reminiscent of a Nazi expedition to Antarctica that inspired my first novel. I was also fascinated by the wacky theories and mythology Nazis brought with them when they took over: Imagine the Tea Party seizing power and making every American conspiracy theory a standard part of public instruction, and you have an idea of what happened in Germany. The Nazi fascination with race and eugenics, or social Darwinism, was part of their appeal and motivation: people liked being told they were the master race, and that others were not. The Nazis also were searching for odd powers in distant places, like “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” So it began to fall together: what if they were still looking, and modern physics provided new opportunities? What if the obsession with purity of blood led to an American woman with the key in her veins?

Jen: In terms of research, how much was needed in order for the storyline to ring true with your readers?

William: I had to create two worlds: Germany and Tibet in 1938, and then a contemporary world that would take my heroine from Washington State to Tibet to the CERN supercollider near Geneva. As a result I combined travel to Tibet (which was fascinating) with scenes from my own stomping grounds in Washington, and then book research on Europe. For example, Himmler’s SS headquarters in Berlin is long-gone, so I had to read to reconstruct it. I couldn’t get down in the supercollider because of radiation, so a physicist helped me with a mountain of information, photographs, and advice. My research ranged from Buddhism to the Third Reich, from what a woman might carry in her purse (my daughter helped) to making the physics simple and somewhat plausible. The highest I got in Tibet was more than 16,000 feet at the Chinese side of the base of Mount Everest, or almost a half-mile higher than the summit of Mount Rainier. I moved slowly.

Jen: Tacking onto that last question, what was the most fascinating bit of information you discovered along the way?

William: It’s stunning that physicists and astronomers theorize we don’t know, and can’t even detect, what 96 percent of the matter and energy in the Universe even IS. That gives a novelist a lot of speculative latitude. It shocked me that the price of a trans-Pacific airplane ticket in 1938 could have bought two new cars at that time. I also tried Tibetan butter tea, which is hot water with liquefied yak butter. It’s not as bad as it sounds.

Jen: The structure of the novel combines two time periods within one overall plot. How did you go about constructing the story? And, what was the most challenging part of writing both in the present and past simultaneously?

William: The multiple narrative threads make this the most complex novel I’ve constructed. The Nazis are going to Tibet. An American is recruited to pursue them on a separate path across China. A contemporary young Seattle woman is fleeing from a car bombing and rediscovering her own past. So I constructed an outline specifying how these threads would come together into a climax and then followed it closely. I also consciously tried to create narrative parallels between past and present, so there were these weird echoes of time as the story unfolds.

Jen: As for the characters, let’s start in the past in March 1938. What makes Kurt Raeder the quintessential scientist to undertake the secret mission ordered by Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler?

William: He’s a poster boy Nazi: handsome, a climber, a crack shot, a zoologist, an SS member. As such, he’s modeled on the leader of the real 1938 expedition. But he’s also a sadist toward women, haunted, and destructively ambitious, a man with no moral core. I wanted this villain to embody both the energy and the corruption of the Nazi regime.

Jen: Wealthy zoologist Benjamin Hood is intrigued by this secretive mission and willingly chooses to partake in it on behalf of the United States. What is the driving force behind his desire to beat Raeder at his own game?

William: Hood is a zoologist like Raeder and the two have been to Tibet together before, to hunt animal specimens for museums. They have also been involved with the same beautiful Tibetan widow, and had a falling out that’s never been resolved. Hood is persuaded to pursue Raeder to finish the showdown he fled from, and to bring meaning to his own life. His alliance with tomboy pilot Beth Calloway, and reunion with Tibetan Keyuri Lin, adds layers of romantic complication to the story.

Jen: Now let’s talk about present day. Software publicist Rominy Pickett is literally thrown into the mix by the mysterious journalist Jake Borrow. When he reveals the horrid details of her parents’ demise as well as her true heritage, what makes her willing to trust him?

William: Rominy is the novel’s innocent, the singleton plucked out of obscurity who must ultimately choose courage and help save the world. She was a real balancing act to write: smart enough to be appealing, and yet baffled enough so that the reader has the same reaction to her decisions as when the heroine turns the knob in a horror movie: “Don’t go into the basement!” She wants to trust handsome, charismatic Jake Barrow: any woman would be intrigued at being “saved” by stud muffin reporter. So some of the tension in the story comes from hope against caution, and safe security versus the excitement of breaking from routine. I think readers can identify with her boil of emotions.

Jen: Let’s switch gears now and talk about your promotional plans. In terms of social media, are you on FaceBook? Twitter? Do you blog regularly on your site or others?

William: I’m on Facebook and blog on my website when I find time. Twitter is a reach for a guy used to writing things 100,000 words long: uh, why? I guess that shows my age. I love how the Internet has brought people together – I’ve heard from people I haven’t seen for decades – but am baffled at the idea of sharing every movement and thought. I don’t know about you, but I’m boring. We all still need to edit ourselves.

Jen: Please take us on a tour of your website highlighting points of interest.

William: It’s www.williamdietrich.com. There you can find a description of all my books (just click on the covers), sample chapters, review excerpts, and brief Q&A. “Readings” lists my schedule on the West Coast, and a biography and TV interview tell more about me than most people want to know. I can be contacted via email through “Contact.”

Jen: Are you currently at work on your next novel? If so, what can you share with us?

William: I’ve just completed a draft of the fifth Ethan Gage adventure. This is a series featuring a rogue American hero during the Napoleonic wars, and “The Treasure of Montezuma” takes Ethan and his new family in 1803 from the French Alps to the Caribbean during the slave revolt in Haiti, the first such successful revolt in history. Funny, fast-paced, and tragic.

Jen: Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to stop by and chat with my readers. It was a pleasure for me to step out of my comfort zone in terms of genres. I am officially now a William Dietrich fan! Looking forward to your next release! I hope you have a relaxing summer.

William: Thank you! It won’t be relaxing – I’ve got a good deal of book publicity and am looking ahead to future projects – but I feel very blessed for my career as a writer and the opportunity to communicate with people this way. Readers, please try my books!

I hope you have enjoyed my interview with William. Please stop by your favorite book store or local library branch and pick up a copy today. Better yet, how would you like to win one instead? Okay, be one of five readers to answer the following trivia question correctly and you could win.

What is the name of the wealthy zoologist in BLOOD OF THE REICH?

Later this month, I will be bringing to you my interview with New York Times bestselling author Meg Cabot! You won’t want to miss it.

Until next time…

Jen