Vicki Olsen joins the blog this week to discuss her nonfiction book, The Duty of Memory
Author Name: Vicki Olsen
Book Title: The Duty of Memory
Book Genre: Narrative Non-fiction
Release Date: December 4, 2024
Publisher: Magnolia Books
Welcome, Vicki! What sparked the idea for this book?
It all started with this email to my sister-in-law:
Hello Mrs. Watts,
My name is Franck. I live in Paris, France. I am currently researching the WW2 story of two American airmen who were shot down over France in 1944 : Louis Watts and Joseph Houlihan. Louis Watts enlisted in the US Army Air Forces and joined the 394th bomb group on the European theater. He has lived in Little Rock, Arkansas, and passed away in 1984.
If that person is a member of your family, you might wonder why I am trying to get in touch with his family. One of my friend’s grandfather was a member of the French resistance during ww2. We have recently discovered that Louis Watts and Joseph Houlihan had been helped by a number of people in France and had managed to avoid capture by the Germans thanks to these people. Pascal’s grandfather was one of these men.
For several months, Pascal and I have been researching the evasion story of these two airmen and we are getting to a point where contacting families and sharing what we have found makes sense, if this is of any interest to the family.
I sincerely hope you will find interest in our research project.
Best regards,
Franck Signorile
After a few emails back and forth exchanging information on WWII events, we found that Pascal was aided in his search for information by a wonderful organization in France, ASAA Association des Sauveteurs d’Aviateurs Alliés. Their mission is to collect the history of the Allied airmen shot down in occupied France and of those people of the region who came to aid those aviators. Further, they seek to establish or reestablish links between the families of both the airmen and the rescuers.
Our family decided a trip to France to meet these people seemed like an excellent plan. So, in May of 2017 we packed our bags and took off to France for an experience of a lifetime.
I grew up knowing my father’s plane had been shot down over France during WWII. My brothers and I would occasionally dig through a little box where he kept, among other things, his false identity card from the time he was hidden by the French underground. He would laugh and tell us that his French name was “Pierre Petit” which means “Little Rock.” This was a joke by the resistant who made the ID card because my father was from Little Rock, Arkansas. From time to time, Daddy would mention the name of a member of the Resistance who had helped him— Mrs. Walker — Bruno —-Mr. Ropital…. We never asked questions and he never volunteered additional information. Little did I know that 2017 trip would lead to four more trips to France to gather information.
Just prior to that first trip I had published my first book, A Sparrow Falls, and was writing a sequel. After the second trip in 2019, I decided to write a book about the people who helped my father evade the Nazis for three months from May 1944 until the liberation of Paris in August 1944.
I set aside my sequel and began writing the first chapter of The Duty of Memory in France at the kitchen table of the son of Bruno Radziminski, one of men featured in the book. https://www.vickiolsen.com/new-blog/2020/1/29/the-tailor-bruno-radziminski
How long did it take for you to write the book?
Five years
Did you do any research?
Five trips to France and hours of combing through hundreds of documents from the NARA and the French Military Archives provided by my chief researcher Franck Signorile. During my 2021 visit to France, I recorded an interview with a 94-year-old former Resistant who had been in hiding with my father. And In 2022 I stayed in the home of the son of another key player in the story, Patrick Hovelacque a member of the British Intelligence MI9. https://www.vickiolsen.com/new-blog/2021/10/28/patrick-hovelacque. I was able to look at his scrapbooks and read his appointment diary from his training in London 1943.
What’s your favorite part about writing/being an author?
I have always been an avid reader, starting with my Nancy Drew days, but I didn’t start writing until I was in my 60s. I did a Beta read for a friend who was writing his first book at age 80. I found myself rewriting his book and got the bug. We decided to write a book together, but he soon lost interest and I did not like where he was taking our protagonist. He turned over the rights to me and the project became my first novel. I love spending time with my characters and with their guidance bringing them to life. They are better than imaginary friends; they become real friends.
What do you find challenging?
I am a full-time writer so for me the challenge is to stop writing long enough to clean my house and water my plants. No, seriously, in my desire to create authentic characters and situations, I find myself spending an undue amount of time doing research.
Fans of which authors might gravitate toward your book?
Erik Larson, Laura Hillenbrand, Sonia Purnell and Damien Lewis
What do you hope readers will take away from this story?
The Duty of Memory is the typical WW2 story. It isn’t about the battles or the spies. I want to leave a lasting impression of how war changes the lives of ordinary people.
Are you working on a new project? Please tell us about it.
I started working on The Duty of Memory more than five years ago. At that time I was writing the sequel to my first book, A Sparrow Falls, a novel about the power of forgiveness set in the 1960s. For five years my character, Sarah, has been tugging at me to finish her story. The setting is a Jesus Freak commune near a University in the Ozarks. It is a far cry from The Duty of Memory and will appeal to an entirely different audience. Many fans of A Sparrow Falls have been begging for a follow up to Sarah’s story. I am anxious to get back to work on her story.
What was the last book you read? What did you think of it?
Since 2016 I have joined the annual Goodreads Reading Challenge. I have read 307 books during the challenge. I try to include some classics such as The Brothers Karamazov, modern day classics such as The Sound and the Fury, bestsellers like Demon Copperhead and a few for research such as Is Paris Burning, and books by Indie Authors like When We Were Brave by Karla M. Jay. I have read 56 books this year. Most recently, I read Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. Her books are a notable example of how narrative nonfiction can be as entertaining as a novel.
Where can readers find you?
Thank you, Vicki! The Duty of Memory is out now.