The Other Me (40 page)

READING GROUP DISCUSSION POINTS

AUTHOR Q&A

Q. Can you tell us a little about what inspired you to write
The Other Me
?
 

I was in my forties by the time I discovered who my real father was. Unfortunately, he died before I could meet him; but I will always remember the moment that I found out that he had been Dutch and Jewish, and that members of his family living in Amsterdam were murdered in the Holocaust. This newfound knowledge about my father and the family I never knew made me feel differently about my sense of identity, and later it sparked an idea for a novel. I wanted to write about how our identity is shaped through heritage and parentage. And I wanted to combine that with writing about the Second World War.

Q.
The Other Me
is a very different story to your first two – different setting, different themes, etc. Was this deliberate?
 

Each book is a fresh start. It begins with an idea that excites or intrigues me; then the characters and setting follow. I didn’t set out to be different with this novel, although I knew the story itself dictated a new backdrop – pre-war Germany – and that I’d need an urban environment for the modern strand. But despite the fact that
The Other Me
isn’t based in Suffolk and includes a historical strand, it still shares themes with
The Twins
and
Without You,
in particular those of identity, family, love and loss.

Q. Did the characters appear in your head fully formed or did they change as the story evolved?
 

A little of both. The characters are there in my head before I begin to write – but as the story develops, they take on extra detail and colour, literally growing with the story. I often go back to the beginning and weave in new information I’ve ‘discovered’ about them.

Q. You have always set novels in the recent past, but never have you introduced a historical strand as far back as 1931. Did you enjoy writing this historical backstory?
 

I enjoyed it very much. I’d like to explore another historical strand one day for a different book.

Q. Did you have to do a lot of research into the Second World War and Nazi Germany?
 

I hadn’t studied that period of history before, so detailed research was necessary before I could start writing. I found the combat memoirs of German soldiers on the Eastern Front harrowing and moving. Hearing stories from people who’d been in Hitler Youth was enlightening; I learnt how thoroughly Hitler had targeted German youth with his propaganda. I felt that Klaudia could easily be unfamiliar with the details of Hitler Youth, the Eastern Front and the differences between Hitler’s SS and the regular armed forces or
Wehrmacht
, all of which would make it impossible for her to guess the truth about Otto’s past.

Q.
The Other Me
takes the reader on an emotional journey through many characters’ lives. Did it take you on an emotional journey through writing it?
 

I always feel very close to my characters. But my own experience of not knowing who my real father was, and the context of WW2 itself, definitely made writing this book more emotional.

Q. Do you have a favourite character and/or strand of the novel?
 

If you’d asked me at the beginning, I would have guessed that I’d prefer Klaudia, as her character and story are closer to my own. But as soon as I began to write Ernst, I fell in love with him.

Q. If you were asked to sum this story up, what would you say it is about?
 

It’s about a search for identity.

Q. Were there any big challenges in writing this novel, especially after two big successes?
 

Each new novel has its own challenges, and because of that every time I sit down to write a book, it almost feels like the first time. The story is inside my head – but I never know if I’ll be able to make it live on the page. It’s nerve-wracking and exciting to face that blank screen.

Q. What are you working on now?
 

I’m working on a new book that blends thriller with love story. When a stranger appears in an idyllic English village, everyone is suspicious, except one woman. Her trust will put her life in danger, because nothing is as it seems; not her dead husband, her would-be lover, or the stranger to whom she’s opened her home and her heart.

AUTHOR NOTE

It wasn’t until I was in my forties that I discovered who my real father was. He’d died by the time I tracked him down. But I had facts about him for the first time. He was Dutch. And he was Jewish. He’d been brought up in Friesland; then as a teenager he’d run away to Paris. He spent the rest of his life in France. His rabbi grandfather had lived in Amsterdam, where it was likely that he and other family members were killed in the Holocaust. This extraordinary and unexpected information had an immediate effect on me: not only did I wonder about the lives of all these relatives I’d never met, but the fact of them fed into my idea of myself – it changed my sense of identity. There was no obvious outer alteration. I didn’t feel an urge convert to Judaism. But the story of me had grown, had become more complicated and poignant in light of my heritage, richer for having a link with another culture. I gained a new perspective on history. My knowledge of World War Two and the Holocaust at once became more personal.

This made me think – what if I’d made a different discovery about that side of my family? What if my father had been the child of a German Nazi instead of a Dutch Jew? What if his father had been involved in atrocities? How then would my idea of myself have changed? What would I feel about my identity? Would I feel a sense of inherited guilt?

These were the questions I started with when I began to write
The Other Me
. I found the experience of writing this book a fascinating one. It was deeply personal and at times an emotional, difficult exploration of themes close to my own heart and life.

After finishing the novel, I was put in contact with someone who could help me delve further into my Jewish relatives. But immediately it became clear that the information I’d been given ten years ago was suspect, possibly even false. Suddenly, another rug was pulled from under my feet. There was no record of a Rabbi going by the name I’d been given. The family name was not Jewish. It had possible German/Austrian roots. I was unable to find a trace of the Jewish connections that I’d been told about.

In trying to find out more about my new identity, I’d instead slipped further away from knowledge. I had a vivid sense of disorientation. Had someone made a mistake? Had someone lied, and if so, why?

This sudden turn of events made me understand even more clearly the need for family stories – ones handed down through generations that help to explain the story of us. When those stories are absent, or full of ambiguity, it undermines our sense of identity.

I am still searching for my ancestors, still hoping to find clarity. But whoever my father was and whatever his family were – Jews or not – I hope he would have approved of this book.

WITHOUT YOU

READ ON FOR THE PROLOGUE TO SASKIA SARGINSON’S INCREDIBLE NOVEL
 

PROLOGUE
 

It was April when I drowned, a month after my seventeenth birthday. We were out at sea when the sky darkened to black and a storm blew up out of nowhere. We worked fast to get the sails down and start the engine. At the tiller, Dad tried to hold the boat steady. The engine strained against huge waves, as we wallowed and rolled. There was a creak of fibreglass, and water washing over the deck. We’d never been out in anything as big.

I should have been afraid. Except I didn’t believe that I was going to die. It wasn’t just that I had faith in Dad’s sailing; I was angry with him, and my rage made me feel superhuman.

When the wave hit sideways I saw it from the corner of my eye: a wall of water towering over us. As it crashed down, the boom must have swung around and caught the back of my head, because I felt a blow against my skull, and I was falling, slipping across the tilting deck and over the side. I saw Dad reaching out, his hand opening in slow motion. Water closed over my head and there was nothing except darkness and cold.

It’s odd, because I have no memory of waking, just of existing at a distance, hovering far above the ground. Moonlight spun around me. The universe was rich in stars, a great sweep of planets, and I floated with them. Below me I could see the white spume of breakers rolling onto a shore, a helicopter circling out at sea, and the lights of the village shining through the dark. I noticed a form lying on the pebbly beach: something thrown up by the waves. I couldn’t make out what it was: a coiled wet rug perhaps, or a large fish. Looking again, I made out the curve of a hip, an arm thrown back, hair spread like seaweed. A girl, curled on her side, motionless.

An upright figure toiled into view: a solid shadow moving towards the dead girl, his feet rolling and crunching over the uneven camber. He jerked to a stop when he saw her, then lurched into a run, dropping to crouch beside her. I watched all this without any real interest. I felt detached and calm, with a lovely floaty sensation in my stomach, like the flicker of butterfly wings.

The man moved the girl’s head and her neck fell back limply so that I saw her face and I was staring into my own features, darkened and smudged by the night, but definitely belonging to me. A distant voice in my head wondered at how strange it was to be up here and yet, at the same time, able to observe the details of my gaping mouth, teeth showing between slack lips, and my wet pointed eyelashes. I had a bruise on my cheek. I thought I looked peaceful. Empty.

I watched as the man hunkered over my body. He threw his head back and shouted something into the sky. He looked ridiculous, desperate. Then he put his hand on my chin, tilting it up and his fingers slipped into my mouth, stretching it wider. I wanted to leave the two humans there: the dead one and the live one. But it was as if I’d become heavier. I’d dropped down through layers of night sky, closer to the man. I noticed the curly depths of his greasy hair, an unravelling elbow in the wool of his jumper.

Underneath the man’s bent shoulders, I saw the girl’s chest shudder, the rise and fall of her ribcage. My ribcage. He pulled me back with his breath. It hurt. With a shock I became aware of the clumsy alignment of bone and cartilage under my skin, the density of flesh. I was disappearing out of lightness, sucked back into myself, squashed into the crushing weight of my body.

I woke with him above me, his mouth covering my own. Rough, hot lips. My lungs burning inside my chest. His heat inside me. I struggled to gasp fresh air, raising myself onto my elbow; then I was retching and gagging. He sat back to let me be sick on the pebbles, salt in my throat, as an ocean flooded out of me. I was so cold. His hands were on my shoulders, fingers clenched tight against my wet jumper. He leant close, and I smelt musty clothes, unwashed skin. He whispered in my ear, ‘Thank God I found you.’ I struggled to understand. I was shivering so much I could hardly hear for the chattering of my teeth, but I thought he said, ‘She sent you. You’re mine.’

LOOK OUT FOR SASKIA SARGINSON’S SENSATIONAL NEW NOVEL,
THE STRANGER
, COMING 2016