Heart of Lies (28 page)

1. In many ways Leo is a flawed person. Did this affect how you related to him? Can you think of other literary figures who were similarly “morally challenged”?
   
2. Martha and Leo both survive very tragic events early in their lives. Do you think this had an effect on their attraction to each other?
   
3. Leo denies his Jewish heritage in an attempt to protect his family. What do you think of this decision?
   
4. Were the consequences of Leo’s choices predictable?
   
5. Why do you think Leo sent Maddy off with Amelia? Did you feel that his decision was the correct one, given the information he had at the time?
   
6. Do you think you would have liked living in Shanghai during the 1920s?
   
7. Do you think Maddy was better off staying with the O’Connor family than going to a European boarding school to be closer to her father?
   
8. The author relies extensively on historical facts to help build the plot. Do you think she did so effectively?
   
9. What role does the ability to forgive play in the relationships between the main characters?
   
10. What parallels do you see between the political situation in China in the 1920s and 1930s, and some global trouble spots today? Is there anything to be learned from the experience of the European powers in Shanghai?
    

The historical context for
Heart of Lies
bridges two world wars and takes us from Hungary to France to Shanghai to America. How did you go about conducting your research?

Well, I did my research the old-fashioned way: in the library. For the most part, the information available on the internet is pretty shallow, but what the internet can do is point you in the right direction. I read a lot of out-of-print books, eyewitness accounts from the era, and hunted down old newspaper articles stored on microfiche in the bowels of several academic institutions. The public relations department at Cartier’s was also very helpful, even though I kept telling them it was a
stolen
necklace.

In addition to being historically accurate with respect to details of time and place, I wanted the turbulent history of the era to help drive the plot. All of the events in
Heart of Lies
, from the chaos after World War I, the Hungarian counterfeiting scandal in December of
1925, the manipulation of the rubber market in 1926, to the bombing of Shanghai in 1937, all actually occurred, pretty much the way I describe them. I just added a few fictional characters. And I did change the name of the police chief of Budapest, because in real life he sort of got away with the counterfeiting scheme, but in my book, he needed to die.

Where did you get the idea for
Heart of Lies?

This book was very much inspired by my husband’s family. My husband’s maternal grandfather was born in Budapest, into an affluent, highly assimilated Austrian-Hungarian Jewish family. He lived there through World War I and its horrendous aftermath: total economic meltdown, invasion by the Romanians, and the massacre of thousands of Hungarian Jews. Leo’s story reflects some of the struggles Dr. Gulton faced, although he was a successful industrialist,
not
a diamond thief.

Dr. Gulton, his wife, and their daughter (my mother-in-law) were living in Germany when Hitler became chancellor in 1933. That winter the family went on an alleged “ski vacation” to France and never went back. Although he passed away before I met my husband, I believe that one of the reasons Dr. Gulton left Germany so soon after Hitler came to power was because of the deadly anti-Semitic backlash in Hungary after World War I. He’d lived through that, and wasn’t about to stick around to see what life would be like in Germany with the Nazis in charge.

While living in France, her parents had my mother-in-law baptized and enrolled her in a Catholic school to try and protect her.
They left France in 1938, again just one step ahead of Hitler, and came to the United States. My mother-in-law had to stay with a foster family in Chicago while her parents traveled to various cities and tried to figure out how they could build a new life in America. She was nine years old and couldn’t even speak English. Although she was without her parents for only a month or so it was pretty terrifying for her, and that inspired some of what Maddy goes through in New York.

Another character that inspired the story was my mother-in-law’s aunt, Melitta Braun. In 1941 she used her skill as an artist to forge a Siamese (Thai) transit visa for herself, her husband, and their child. She figured no one would know what it was supposed to look like. On the strength of this forged document they were able to board the Trans-Siberian Express, and then escape to Shanghai. Melitta and her family were even able to evade confinement in the Jewish ghetto created by the Japanese in 1941; they lived rather luxuriously in the French Concession for the duration of the war because, like Leo, they invented new identities for themselves. In fact, it’s my understanding that Melitta’s daughter was an adult before she discovered she had Jewish heritage. And I never did find out how Melitta’s husband made his fortune in Shanghai: “import/export” was the only explanation I ever got out of him.

Eventually Melitta’s family also made it to the United States because their daughter was a piano prodigy. They were invited to come to the U.S. so that she could study music after the American ambassador in Shanghai heard her give a concert at the
Cercle Sportif Français
, when she was just eight years old.

So I’d collected all this amazing family history, but I didn’t re
ally want to write a book about World War II. The pieces all came together when my husband and I visited Shanghai on a pleasure trip. The idea that for years it was literally the only place in the civilized world where you could just show up and start over really captivated me, as did all the colorful stories of the people who made—and lost—fortunes there. It was a wild place.

I wanted to write about the heyday of Shanghai, the way it existed in the twenties and thirties, before the Japanese took over. At some point I came across a story about this notorious Shanghai gangster, Du Yue-sheng, the head of one of the Chinese Triads, which were like the mafia families, only worse. He supported Chiang Kai-shek in rather nefarious ways, and that was the genesis for another part of Leo’s story. I changed his name slightly (to Liu Tu-Sheng) only because Du did not speak English well, and his nickname was “Big Ears,” which I didn’t think was very villainous. But everything else I wrote about him is dead accurate, down to and including the description of his house.

How would you summarize the theme of
Heart of Lies?

Well, I didn’t intend to write a morality tale, I just wanted to tell a good story. But if there’s any underlying theme I guess it would be that perseverance and forgiveness are both essential to living a decent life. Life is all about getting smacked down and getting back up again. There were these toys around when my little sister was a toddler, the Weebles. They were these little wooden dolls that had a round base, and they were weighted somehow so that they just couldn’t fall over. Their slogan was, “Weebles wobble but they don’t
fall down!” That’s been like a personal mantra to me. To live means always getting back up.

As for forgiveness, I believe we’ve all done things for which we need to be forgiven, and that the ability to forgive is really love’s foundation. Not being forgiven is like carrying a large stone on your back; not being able to forgive is like carrying a small stone in your heart. Martha has to forgive Leo if they are to move forward with their lives. Leo has to forgive himself before he’s capable of loving his daughter again. But forgiveness, both giving and receiving it, can be very tough.

Did you intend for Leo to be an admirable character?

I wanted him to be a human character. Sometimes decent people do rotten things, especially when it’s a question of survival. When Leo is still relatively young, he loses the people he loves most, and he doesn’t have a lot of moral guidance. Most of what he does thereafter is really just an attempt to create a life he can control. If I’m successful as a writer, people will connect emotionally with Leo, and, at least at the end, be rooting for him.

Do you think there are any lessons to be learned from the historical events you write about?

The opportunities to learn from history are always there, we just rarely do. For example, there are very interesting parallels between what’s happening now, in the Middle East and with terrorism, and what was happening in China at the beginning of the last century.
In both cases Western countries took advantage of a power vacuum to stake out territorial claims; in China, after the collapse of the Manchu Dynasty, and in Arabia, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Those decisions triggered a tremendous amount of resentment, which created long-term consequences. We’re still paying the price today.

You’ve worked as an attorney, a journalist, and a fiction writer. Does one type of writing help or hinder the others?

Well, it’s hard to say because I’ve done all three for so long. I wrote my first short story when I was six. I’ve written stories all my life. In high school I was editor of the school newspaper, and worked briefly for the
St. Petersburg Times.
As a lawyer, I was a litigator, or trial attorney. In some ways that was similar to being a journalist, because you have to be able to marshal facts quickly, verify information, and, perhaps most importantly, learn to accept criticism of your writing. Then I started working as a freelance journalist. Both those career moves also taught me the importance of meeting a deadline. I’d say good writing is good writing, so learning how to do it better in any context helps.

Heart of Lies
seems designed to have a sequel. What will that book be about?

The sequel deals with Leo’s career as a spy, but it’s more Maddy’s story, about how she handles the challenges she faces once all of her father’s lies are revealed. It’s also about the jazz scene in New York in the fifties, Robert Kennedy’s efforts to confront the Mafia, and passion, adventure, and intrigue. All the good stuff.

To Tom and Vickie Warner, the owners of Litchfield Books in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, for serving as my literary fairy godparents and getting
Heart of Lies
into the hands of the amazing Carl Lennertz at HarperCollins; to Carl for believing in my books; to my wonderful agent, Helen Zimmerman, who held my hand every step of the way and made everything so easy; and to my editor at Harper, Wendy Lee, for her many insightful suggestions.

To my wonderful in-laws, Daniel and Marian Malcolm, to whom I eternally and joyfully owe an enormous, unpayable debt of gratitude; and to my two children, Andy and Amanda, who often put up with a busy and distracted mother as I worked to bring my “third baby” into the world.

To my mother, Lea Wolfe, who always told me I could accomplish anything I wanted to do; and most of all, to my husband John, who made me believe it.

Heartfelt thanks to all of you.

Cover design by Robin Bilardello

Cover photograph © Lucien Aigner/Corbis