Author Interview: Barbara Ridley When it's Over
JMR-Welcome to the Books
Delight, Barbara. Tell our readers where you live, what you do for fun and what
does the perfect day look like?
BR- Thank you so much for having
me! I am originally from England, but I have lived most of my adult life in
California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, which I love. My favorite things to
do include hiking, hanging out with friends and family, walking my dog, and
cooking. I have been retired for five years now, and I am so grateful to be
able to devote my time to writing. My perfect day is going for a walk in the
mountains or by the ocean, while I ponder where to go next in a piece I am
working on, returning to my desk and managing to get it down on the page. Then
cooking an exciting new recipe, having it turn out perfectly, and sharing it
with the people I love.
JMR-What’s your favorite
historical time period? Why?
BR- It has to be World War II. It
was such a watershed moment, with a huge impact all over the globe, and the
first war to truly involve so many civilians as well as those fighting on the
battlefields. Ordinary people faced extraordinary challenges and dilemmas. I am
amazed at the wealth of new stories from the era that continue to be uncovered
today, stories from some new corner or a twist on a familiar scenario
previously untold.
JMR-Who is your favorite
historical figure? Why? If you could ask them one question, what would it be?
BR- To choose just one is very
hard! But the idea of being able to ask one question prompted me to think of
Amelia Earhart. She was so courageous and such a pioneer – in the field of
aviation obviously, but also so ahead of her time in her views on marriage,
practical clothing for active women, and the role of women in general. She also
trained as nurses’ aide in order to care for the wounded during WWI and then
those affected by the 1918 flu pandemic, which resulted in her becoming very
sick herself. She contracted pneumonia and developed a chronic sinusitis which
would plague her for the rest of her life. But she overcame that, and the
impact of the financial crisis of the 1920’s that wiped out the family fortune
forcing her to fend for herself. So, much to admire. And the question, of
course, is what happened on that fateful last flight?
JMR- You are a retired nurse,
(me too) when did you first get the urge to write? When did you first call
yourself a writer?
BR- I never saw myself as a
writer until I started working on my debut novel “When It’s Over.” I’d written
professional papers that had been published in peer-reviewed academic journals,
but had never taken any creative writing classes in college and knew nothing
about how to write fiction. But I was inspired to write this novel after the
death of my mother in 2002. A friend of mine, a woman I had known for over 30
years, asked me how it was exactly that my mother had ended up living in
England, so I started to tell her—and she said: that is an amazing story! And I
realized, yes it is, and I didn’t want that story to die with her death. I had
always known the outline of what happened to my mother and her family during
World War II, but there were a lot of gaps. So I thought, well I love fiction,
I’ll make up what I don’t know, I’ll write a novel.
It was a lot harder than I
thought! I made a lot of mistakes at first, but I took classes and attended
workshops and I gradually improved. And while I was still in the editing stage,
I began to have some short stories and essays accepted for publication, which
was thrilling. I remember the first time I received an acceptance, I burst into
tears. I could call myself a writer!
JMR- In your blog, you talk
about the explosion of WWII and Holocaust books on the market. How does yours
stand out from the crowd?
BR- Many readers of “When It’s Over” have commented that they learned things about life in England during the war that they had not previously known. One of the most significant is the treatment of refugees in England, where they faced hostility and discrimination, and for some, internment as “enemy aliens” even though they had fled for their lives from Nazi-occupied territory. Another is the progressive political movement during the last two years of the war which led to the landslide defeat of Churchill’s Conservative Party in the 1945 election, held immediately after the war ended. Most people are surprised to hear about Churchill, the great war hero, being defeated. There was a massive movement for social change and a sense that new leadership was needed to rebuild in peacetime. The novel also highlights many small aspects of everyday life that are not often featured in literature or movies. I did a ton of research and discovered so many delicious details; I had to resist the temptation to squeeze them all in somehow, which would have felt like an information dump. But I believe I struck the right balance.
JMR- Barbara, tell us about
your book, When It’s Over.
BR- “When It’s Over” is based on
my mother’s story, but it is a fictionalized version. I call my protagonist
Lena. She is a young Jewish woman who flees her home in Czechoslovakia with her
boyfriend, Otto, a refugee from Nazi Germany. They travel first to Paris and
then eventually reach a small village in England where they are sponsored by
the wealthy, eccentric Lady of the Manor, but they face anti-refugee sentiment
and wartime deprivations, and their relationship becomes strained. As the war
progresses, Lena finds herself attracted to another man, and is drawn into the
progressive political movement that leads to the landslide defeat of Churchill
in the 1945 election. But she’s desperate for news from her mother and sister
left behind in Prague.
The novel deals with a lot of hard
stuff, but it highlights resilience and hope, and also contains romance and
humor, so most readers come away from it finding it uplifting, rather than depressing.
JMR- If your mother was alive
today, what do you imagine her reaction would be to your book about her? Do you
feel closer to her, having written it?
BR- My mother was very modest, so
I can see her giving a wave of dismissal and eschewing the fuss. But at the
same time, on the few occasions when she did talk about her experiences, I
think she was aware of what an amazing story it was. I’m sure she would be
proud of me for the book’s success. Writing the novel certainly made me
appreciate what she went through in a new light. She never focused on the
emotional impact, so I had to I imagine that in creating my scenes. And I
realized how young she and her friends were when they had to run for their
lives. By the time I was writing the book, I had a daughter who was in her late
teens, so the effect of having to leave home and family at that age was very
vivid for me.
JMR-What projects do you have
in the pipeline?
BR- I have recently completed a
second novel. This is very different, set in contemporary California and based
on my years of clinical experience with patients with severe disabilities. It’s
a story of a young woman, estranged from her family, who is paralyzed in a car
crash and can’t reach her girlfriend, who was also injured but is now home with
her homophobic parents who won’t allow contact. A physical therapist on the
rehab unit becomes over-involved trying to rescue her, with disastrous
consequences in her own life. Like my first novel, it’s a story about resilience
and hope.
I also have several short stories
out on submission, and I am exploring flash fiction as a new genre.
JMR- Tell our readers how to
find you on social media and the web.
BR- My website is www.barbararidley.com
I’m on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BarbaraRidleyAuthor
And Twitter https://twitter.com/barbara_ridley
JMR- What question were you
hoping I’d ask but didn’t?
BR- I always love it when people
about ask about the research I did for “When It’s Over” because I had so much
fun with that. I did all the things you would expect—read a lot of books, both
fiction and non-fiction, and spent hours on the web, where I was able to find a
ton of wonderful stuff. But there were a few things I could not find on-line.
For example, my mother had told me that she eventually reached England from
Paris, just before the Nazis invaded France, and that she flew from Paris to
London in March 1940, the first time she had ever flown in an airplane. When I
tried to find out what kind of plane this might have been, everything I found
on the web told me that there were no flights between France and England after
war broke out in September 1939. But I knew my mother could not have been
mistaken about the date. It took a visit to an obscure British Airways
historical museum and the enthusiasm of an eccentric museum curator to solve
that mystery. Flights did resume in November 1939 until the invasion of France,
and I was able to obtain not only photos of the aircraft but also the schedule
of flights, which was thrilling.
JMR- Thank you so much, Barbara, for joining us today. What a great story. Readers, I know you'll want to check out Barbara's book, so I've included a link below.
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