“We will always live in Paris,” Rick says to Ilsa at the end of Casablanca.
We may not have each other, he is saying, but we will always have our memories.
So many memories in real life—not just in the movies—are bittersweet. The good and the bad, the gains and the losses, the tragedies and the recoveries are all woven together. Sometimes preserving them can be daunting. What do we treasure? What do we discard?
Years ago, as a museum curator for the Southern Oregon Historical Society, I conducted oral histories, researched pioneer families extensively, and planned and orchestrated exhibits about those families. Most recently, in this phase of my twenty-year novel-writing career, I’ve been researching and writing dual-time novels (sometimes called time-slips) centered around family memories and generational stories. Through both experiences, I’ve learned a few things about family stories.
First, family stories can shape subsequent generations. We do learn from the past. That said, I’m unabashedly grateful to be writing fiction, even after curating historical exhibits and being fascinated by generational history. “Facts” and “memories” can be inaccurate—ask any three “eyewitnesses” of the same event, or even three people who grew up in the same family. In writing fiction, I can imagine the facts, motivations, and responses, as long as they’re plausible. (However, as a history major, I always aim to hold true to historical facts in my fiction.) Discerning the “truth” is much easier in fiction than nonfiction.
Another thing I’ve learned is that families often have a storyteller. In my latest dual-time release, A Brighter Dawn, the storyteller is Rosene, an elderly Amish aunt, who tells the contemporary protagonist, Ivy, the story of Clare Simons, a young woman who spent two years in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s.Rosene is the link between the family in Germany, the Amish branch of the family in Lancaster County, and Ivy’s Mennonite family in present-day Oregon.
A Brighter Dawn also explores suppressed memories, twisted memories by the branch of the family who supported the Nazis, and evolving memories as characters grow and become better equipped to process the past. Like in most families, the memories include half-told stories, long-held hurts, and bittersweet secrets. But as the past unfolds, Ivy becomes inspired to find out the truth in her own family’s recent tragedy.
In addition to having a storyteller, families also often have certain members who collects visual memories. In A Brighter Dawn, seventy-five-year-old scrapbooks help tell the historical story. In the contemporary thread, Ivy makes collages to help record her memories. Most of us use social media posts to record the events of our lives—and hopefully more permanent venues too.
One last thing I’ve learned about memories from my research and writing dual-time fiction is that the best way to preserve memories is to be intentional about creating them and safeguarding them. Recently, I came across this quote by British literary genius Samuel Johnson: “The true art of memory is the art of attention.”
The adage made me think of the day I spent on an Amish farm in Indiana over ten years ago. I was hanging out in the barn without my phone or a camera (because traditionally Amish people don’t want their photos taken) with the youngest boy in the family, who was feeding a calf its bottle. At first, I wondered how I’d remember all I was witnessing, but I decided to be intentional about what I was seeing. I chose to pay attention.
I asked the little boy how old he was, and he held up his free hand, spread out his fingers, and said, “I’m a handful!” Yes, he was five. I laughed and mentally snapped a photo—which I’ve never forgotten. Every detail of that moment is still vivid in my mind. Paying attention is the best way to preserve a memory, and you don’t have to rely on photographs or other tools to save the memory for you.
Although I prefer writing fiction to writing nonfiction, I’ve learned that our imaginations are absolutely dependent on our memories. Even though I don’t write intentionally about my own life, my memories are the foundation of my imagination and therefore necessary for my fiction. Every character and event I write about originates within my own memories—from personal experiences, what I’ve learned over the years, and recent research.
When I learned through my research that the majority of Mennonites in Germany in the 1930s supported Hitler, I had to find out why. I made the answer to that question the historical thread in A Brighter Dawn and then combined it with what I’ve learned about white supremacy and racism in the United States, including in my home state of Oregon, to create a bridge between the historical and contemporary threads in the story. But the scrapbooks I mentioned earlier are identical to the ones my father created after his service in Europe during World War II and came straight from my own memories.
I’m not the storyteller in my family—that would be my own aunt. Nor am I one of the keepers of visual memories—my sisters are. But as a novelist, I treasure my family stories, my own memories, and the knowledge I’ve acquired along the way. All are the bedrock of my imagination and my dual-time stories.
Amish Memories Book #1
A Clean Romance
Ivy Zimmerman is successfully navigating her life as a young Mennonite woman, one generation removed from her parents' Old Order Amish upbringing. But when her parents are killed in a tragic accident, Ivy's way of life is upended. As she deals with her grief, her younger sisters' needs, the relationship with her boyfriend, and her Dawdi and Mammi's strict rules, Ivy finds solace in both an upcoming trip to Germany for an international Mennonite youth gathering and in her great-great-aunt's story about Clare Simons, another young woman who visited Germany in the late 1930s.
As Ivy grows suspicious that her parents' deaths weren't, in fact, an accident, she gains courage from what she learns of Clare's time in pre-World War II Germany. With the encouragement and inspiration of the women who have gone before her, Ivy seeks justice for her parents, her sisters, and herself.
Romance Contemporary | Christian [Bethany House Publishers, On Sale: March 28, 2023, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780764240249 / eISBN: 9781705084007]
Leslie Gould is the award-winning and best-selling author of over 45 novels. A varied work history, from curating a historical museum to editing a bridal magazine, preceded her fiction-writing career. Leslie received her Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Portland State University and has taught writing as an adjunct professor at Multnomah University and Warner Pacific University while writing fulltime over the past 20 years.
She and her husband, Peter, love traveling together for research trips and to author events. Leslie supported Peter through 30 years as an Army reservist, including a deployment to Afghanistan as the commander of a field hospital. Peter in return, has supported Leslie through every step of her writing career. They live in Oregon and are the parents of four adult children and one grandchild.
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