A CONVERSATION WITH
SUSAN MEISSNER
Q. This novel is quite different from your previous book, A Fall of Marigolds. What inspired you to write it?
A. I’ve long been intrigued by the evacuation of London’s children into the English countryside at the start of World War Two. Many of these kids were separated from their parents and lived with foster families for the entire five years of the war. As a mother of four, I found that cut me to the core. I can’t help but imagine how hard it must have been for those London mothers to relinquish their children even though to have them remain in the city was just as terrible an option. As I began to research the evacuation and then the Blitz that followed, and as I talked to people who were either evacuated or who had survived the bombings, I discovered how truly devastating the Blitz was, and yet how resilient Londoners were. This was a city of civilians, not of military troops, and the bombing of it was relentless. Every person that lived through this time had a story of survival. I wanted to imagine what one of those stories might have been like.
Q. This story of two sisters becoming separated during the war depends on a complex series of events—any one of which could have gone the other way, and brought the sisters back together again. In your mind, does fate or providence determine the outcome?
A. That is such a great question. If we say fate means a person can’t change what will happen by what he or she does, then I’d have to say fate doesn’t seem to be a player in this novel. Actually, I think any great story is peopled by characters who do have the power to effect change, and it’s what they do with that power—or don’t do—that keeps us turning the pages. I think that’s true for everyone’s life story. The way I see it, we play the cards we’ve been dealt—as Isabel in Secrets of a Charmed Life says—based on finite knowledge, and while being largely unaware that everyone around us is playing their own cards. Their cards mingle with ours, and the outcome of our played hand affects and is affected by their played hand. I believe we’ve been given free will to choose and that God in his providence sees all and knows all but doesn’t do all. When Emmy ponders so many years later the owl that hoots outside her window and wakes her sister the night they steal away back to London, she sees it as the providential hand of God giving her an opportunity not to make a choice that would prove disastrous. God doesn’t make the decision for her; she does. That is the terrifying beauty of free moral choice. Every choice Emmy, Julia, Annie, Gwen, and Isabel make is affected by all the other choices made around them.
Q. At only fifteen, Emmy is determined to become a designer of wedding dresses. She is so focused and talented, yet life takes her in a very different direction. So many of us share her experience in that the dreams we have for our lives during our formative years never come to fruition. Yet popular culture in this country tells us again and again that we can make all our dreams come true. Was it your intention to explore this contradiction in the novel?
A. I think one of the more overly simplistic and faulty mantras of our day and age is that if you just believe in your abilities, you can achieve anything you want. Emmy has a rather idealistic view of life when the novel opens, and those pristine images of the perfect dress for the perfect day for the beginning of the perfect life are emblematic of a dream that at face value is a bit self-centered, unrealistic, and nearsighted. That’s one of the subtleties of following dreams when the life goal is solely based on you and what you want out of life. There is wisdom in the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that “Life is a journey, not a destination.” It’s easy to miss all the amazing things that come your way if you are chasing only the dream, and that’s all you see or want. I think Emmy comes to realize this by the novel’s end.
Q. I found Emmy’s relationship with her mother particularly well-done, and heartbreaking. Can you tell us a little about how that relationship took shape?
A. When the novel was first evolving, and even in the completed first draft, Emmy’s mother, Annie, was a throwaway character that I felt I didn’t need to spend much time on; I didn’t think she would advance the plot beyond the few scenes she was in, and I wrongly assumed it was more compelling to have Emmy not need or want her mother’s approval than the other way around. But the more I probed into what Emmy really wants out of life, the more I saw that her relationship with her mum is the key to unlocking Emmy’s deepest desire. I also saw that this profound need for her mother’s affirmation is more universal than just the yearning to be a successful designer. I’m hoping it will resonate with many readers.
Q. On one level, the novel explores the very long-lasting trauma inflicted on two ordinary girls as a result of the war. In your research, did you get a sense of the many ways in which the war reverberated in the lives of ordinary Britons?
A. I interviewed more than a dozen Britons about their experiences during the war, and I was struck every time by how swiftly these survivors were transported back to those years, seven decades after they’d lived through them. I could see in their faces, in their eyes, in their voices, how impactful the war had been for them as young children. It was by no means an easy time, but they all seemed to recall the same spirit of resilience that I caught onto while reading the letters and memoirs of those who had been adults during the war, and who had already passed. The call to Keep Calm and Carry On was truly the rallying cry for these ordinary Britons. When I’d ask them how they’d managed to get through such a devastating time, more than one answered, “Well, you just had to. What was the alternative? When you are called upon to survive, that is what you do.”
Q. Your historical novels always include a section set in contemporary times that often frames the past story. Has that structure naturally evolved over your writing career, or was it an early deliberate choice? What does that structure in particular allow you to achieve?
A. This kind of structure as a brand for me came about by accident. In 2008, I wrote The Shape of Mercy, not my first novel but the first to be constructed as a historical story framed by a contemporary tale. That book went on to be named one of Publishers Weekly’s top one hundred novels for 2008. I found I enjoyed having a contemporary story and a historical one collide in an interesting way so that the characters in the current day are changed by something they learn from past events. I think this is largely the reason why we, as a society, archive our history. We don’t want to forget where we’ve been and what we’ve seen. The past informs us, and can easily transform us, if we choose to let it.
Q. Despite the many novels I’ve read and films I’ve seen about England during World War Two, this book made me more keenly aware of how widespread the bombing was. Was that a surprise to you, too?
A. In the early stages of plotting Secrets of a Charmed Life, I read Kate Atkinson’s wonderful novel Life After Life, the first of many eye-opening books I read about the bombing of London. Yes, I was astonished at how little I had been aware of the extent of the attack on Britain, especially because I had lived in England in the late 1980s and early 1990s. My United States Air Force husband was stationed at an RAF base in Oxfordshire for three years and I had been to London and the Cotswolds many times, and yet I left England without having thoroughly understood the toll that the war had taken on its citizens so many years before. I think this is the danger we face whenever time passes and those who have suffered recover from what flattened them. The generation coming up behind might underestimate or miss completely all that the older generation survived.
Q. What would you especially like readers to take away from Secrets of a Charmed Life?
A. The title, which I love, is meant to cause the reader to wonder if there really are secrets to living a life that has happily-ever-after written all over it. The title seems to suggest there are hidden truths to being able to have everything you’ve always wanted. But in actuality, and what I hope readers will take away, is that a happy life is not made up of what you have dreamed of, chased after, and achieved, but rather whom you poured your life into, who poured their life into yours, and the difference you’ve made in the lives of others. Most of the dreams we pursue don’t have intrinsic worth, but people always do. It’s not a perfect world, and we can only play our own hand of cards—if you will—but if we play the hand as best we can, with love for others as the motivation, I think we can rest content.
Q. Can you tell us about your next novel?
A. My next novel is set primarily in Hollywood’s golden age, specifically in 1939 when a treasure trove of timeless movies was released. Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and Wuthering Heights are just three of them. I want to explore the idea that “the world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper,” a quote by W. B. Yeats that I love. Old Hollywood, with its beautifully contrived sets and back lots, excelled in catering to a sense of enchantment. No one knew that it was an era in its twilight years and that the advent of television would change everything. I envision two young women coming to Hollywood to seek purpose and notoriety—what they deem are the essentials of a fulfilling life. And both women gain what they seek, but in ways neither would have ever guessed. First, though, their senses must grow sharper. And when they do, the real transformation happens.