Nicola Pierce
About Author
Tallaght-born Nicola Pierce lives in Drogheda, Ireland. Following many successful ghostwritten books for adults, Nicola published her first book for children, Spirit of the Titanic, in 2013. The book received rave reviews, and ran to five editions within the first 12 months of publication. City of Fate is Nicola's second book.
Interview
CITY OF FATE
THE O'BRIEN PRESS
FEBRUARY 2014
Nicola Pierce has followed her acclaimed debut children's book, Spirit of the Titanic, with City of Fate, a novel about the battle for Stalingrad during the second World War. The story focuses on a group of schoolboys who are sent into Stalingrad as 'canon fodder', but who survive to tell their tale, and two children, Yuri and Peter, who already live in Stanlingrad when the fighting begins. She talked to us about her latest novel, below.
REVIEW:
Set in the battle for Stalingrad, the story follows the struggle for survival of Yuri a young teenage boy and the 5 year old Peter who he found in the rubble of their city. Snipers, Nazi shelling, lack of food and not knowing who to trust are some of the perils they encounter. The narrative switches between their story and that of a group of sixteen year old Russian conscripts who have to defend Stalingrad against the German invasion at all costs. It clearly illustrates the nature of war and questions the concepts of bravery and patriotism, unsentimentally explaining Stalin's 'Not one step back' order and the perils associated with being seen to help soldiers on either side, even under duress. It has a very satisfactory conclusion, though the loss of important characters may upset younger children unless they get to discuss it. The style is simple and direct and the book should appeal to a wide age range from year 7 through to sixth form. City of Fate will be a welcome addition to my library and our history department shelves, especially as the horrendous story of the Russia in the Second World War is not so well known among youngsters as that of Western Europe as there are fewer fictional accounts and films relating to this.
Reviewed by: Melanie Chadwick, librarian
Q&A:
Nicola Pierce answers our questions about the writing of City of Fate:
Q: Why do you enjoy writing fiction based on real historical events?
A: I would never have considered writing historical fiction had not The O'Brien Press rang me to ask if I could try a book on the Titanic for them. So I have them to thank for where I am now. And it is silly to admit this because the truth is I love history. Along with English it was always my favourite subject at school.
I read a lot of history books and watch documentaries by the dozen on the history channel. A couple of years ago I visited the battlefields in Belgium and France, along with the many grave yards that are strewn about here and there. I don't think I will ever forget the beauty and the peacefulness that I experienced on the Somme.
Q: What is it about particular events that draws you as an author, what are you looking for to follow through into a story?
A: This is a brilliant question but I'm not sure if I can do justice to it. With the Titanic I could not stop thinking about the families on deck. The women had to leave their husbands, fathers and brothers behind, with no idea what was going to happen to them. Quite a few of them refused to leave, preferring to die beside the men they loved. Also I was struck by the fact that over a thousand people stood side by side, with virtually nothing to do except to wait to die.
Regarding 'City of Fate', I don't know. I think I was hoping to show the difficulty of doing one's duty. Also I wanted to explore what makes a hero. To think of all those men having to leave their families and ordinary living (Germans and Russians) to endure something horrible for months on end, not knowing when it would be over, or if what they were doing was worthwhile, or if they were going to be killed.
The Battle of Stalingrad was ultimately a battle between two crazy egotists, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Because of them, thousands upon thousands died on both sides.
Q: The battle for Stalingrad isn't one that many people know much about - why did you feel you wanted to write about it?
A: Once Spirit of the Titanic was out there, in 2011, I was asked what I wanted to write about next. A good friend told me about the battle for Stalingrad. I had known practically nothing about it but here it was: the most important battle of World War II because it was the first time that a German army was wiped out.
I read how the Germans 'carpet-bombed' the city for two weeks solid. By this stage most of the buildings were on fire and then the soldiers moved in with guns and tanks.
Unbelievably, 10,000 civilians eked out some kind of existence during the nine months of fighting, often getting tangled up with both armies. Of those 10,000 civilians over 900 were children, living in fox holes, the sewers or in the ruins of buildings. Children were forced to help out and the penalty for helping out either army was death. The more I read, the more I was sure that this was the story for me.
Q: The story of the Titanic, which you wrote about before, was very well known; did that make it harder or easier to write the story?
A: It would have been hard but for the fact that I knew about Samuel Joseph Scott. Michael, my publisher, rang me to ask if I would consider doing a childrens novel about the Titanic. I immediately told him that the very first death was a child, that is, a fifteen year old who worked in Harland & Wolf. It just took me a while to work out how I could use him to tell a story that didn't happen until two years after his death.
I felt I had a great clue in the dates. Samuel fell to his death on 20 April 1910 while Titanic fell to her death on 15 April 1912 - almost the same anniversary. Once I decided that Samuel's ghost would narrate the story, the whole book just about fell into place.
Q: How much research did you need to do into the background of the Stalingrad battle before starting to write this?
A: I won't lie, I needed to do quite a bit. I bought a lot of books, like Anthony Beevoir's Stalingrad and William Craig's Enemy at the Gates. I watched all the documentaries I could find and I looked at hundreds of photographs. As a writer I find photographs to be a wonderful way to bring a past event to life.
Q: How do you get the balance between writing a fictional account and keeping to the historical facts?
A: This is where Susan, my editor, comes into play because I do find it a struggle and tend to laden a chapter with too much research and not enough story. It was the same with the first draft of the Titanic novel. I suppose I'm still learning.
Q: Is it hard to write about a place / culture you've not visited? (or have you been to Stalingrad - now called Volgograd?)
A: Now this is where I rely on photographs - and, no, I haven't yet visited Volgograd. If I stare at a photograph long enough I can almost smell the air, hear all sorts of sounds around the photographer, and read a story in the expression of anybody present. For me, photographs can invoke an entire situation, time and place.
Apart from that I tend to concentrate more on the characters. I have this theory that no matter what the year is, what the name of the country is and what is going on, people are basically the same. I believe we should be able to relate to a character/fellow human being no matter what the story is about.
Q: What stood out for you about the battle that you wanted to bring over to today's readers?
A: Hmm - another good question. I suppose the reason I wanted to write about the battle was because children were so much involved in it. Their homes were destroyed and I would imagine that once those two weeks of constant bombing was over they hardly recognised the place they grew up in. It must have resembled a strange planet with smashed up buildings, miles of barbed wire and goodness only knows how many dead bodies of animals and people.
When you think about World War 1, there was an actual battlefield and men had to leave home to go and fight there. Stalingrad was a thriving city with universities, cinemas and opera houses which were all destroyed because the city itself became the battlefield. War was all around the civilians, affecting their families, friends and neighbours.
Q: You follow the story through a group of school boys sent in to Stalingrad. Why did you decide to handle it this way?
A: I wanted the two sides on display: the civilian experience of the battle as well as the military one. I was fascinated at the idea of those sixteen years old studying history one day with their teacher and then being marched off to take part in a historic battle with little preparation and training. It must have been exhilarating but also terrifying.
I also wanted to find out what would motivate them to keep fighting when they might not have been properly patriotic or political minded.
Q: The relationship between two boys, teenaged Yuri and five year old Peter, becomes central to the story - was that always going to be the case or did it emerge as you wrote?
From the very beginning I had these two in mind and I always knew they were going to be important. Some of my friends, who read the different drafts, immediately latched on to five year old Peter. I don't think I expected him to figure so largely on the pages.
Q: There are some very dark moments in the story; What was the hardest thing to write about, especially as this is a novel for children?
A: Now this is a difficult question to answer as I don't want to give anything away. There was a moment when I was barely half-way through the first draft that I just 'knew' who would not survive. For me, personally, that was upsetting.
The only other problem I had was when Susan asked me to tone down a gory fighting scene. I stubbornly held out until I had some teacher -friends read it and their reaction was unanimous - Good God you can't put that in a children's novel. I gave in - after a while.
Q: What kind of things did you decide to leave out of the story?
A: I suppose goriness and unpleasant descriptions that neither added to the story nor to the development of the characters. I made the typical mistake of not wanting to part with the fight scene, that I mentioned above, because - I felt - it was well-written. I had been unsure if I could describe a fight as I had never written one before. In the end sense won out against my ego.
Q: When you have such a bleak backdrop to a story, how do you end a story with hope?
A: A personal motto for me is that everything works out in the end. When embarking on the Titanic story I knew that I didn't want to end the book bluntly with the deaths of 1,500 people. Once I had Samuel's ghost as my narrator, I knew what my ending was going to be.
Regarding 'City of Fate' it was more complicated. When the Battle of Stalingrad was well and truly won by the Russians, it led to worse things; for instance the behaviour of the avenging Red Army on reaching Berlin and then, after the war, Joseph Stalin went berserk, putting his brave and triumphant population through years of utter Hell.
I had to know where to end my story. One day I read about the Russian violinist, Misha Goldstein, playing Beethoven, the German composer, on the banks of the River Volga. When he stopped, the German soldiers shouted out that they would cease firing if he'd play more Beethoven. That was as good an ending as any, as far as I was concerned.
Q: What are you writing next?
A: At the moment I am over 70,000 into the first draft of my third children's novel. It's about the Siege of Derry, 1688-89 and requires lots of research as I know, or knew, almost nothing about it.
City of Fate
